April 14, 2025 • 50 mins
Ready to level up your brand and tap into the future of marketing?
Natalie Micale is a dynamic founder who goes all in—whether leading her company, mentoring entrepreneurs, or redefining what it means to build a personal brand in the digital age.
A proud Latina entrepreneur, Natalie started her career as a TV anchor and reporter in the Midwest, where she honed her ability to craft compelling narratives that captivate audiences. Her transition from television to the agency world was a strategic one. While serving as Head of Business Development at Evol Empire Creative, she gained a deep understanding of the ROI companies demand from their branding and marketing efforts.
That experience laid the foundation for Oh Hello Agency, a creative powerhouse she built from the ground up. What started as a brand innovation lab quickly became a full-scale creative firm, crafting high-impact brand strategies for clients across industries. Known for her bold, cutthroat approach to brand growth and her unwavering commitment to authenticity, Natalie has helped countless businesses and entrepreneurs elevate their influence through a multimedia-first approach.
In 2025, Oh Hello Agency was acquired by The Big Smoke Media Group, an Australian agency, solidifying Natalie’s reputation as a visionary in the branding and media landscape.
Natalie discussed what’s next for creative agencies, the rise of human-centric branding, and how AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini transform content creation and marketing strategy. Whether you’re working in a creative agency or just AI-curious, listen up! She also shares real talk on imposter syndrome, entrepreneurial mindset, and how content creation (3–4 posts a week) builds trust and visibility.
If you’re all about future-forward branding, this is a must-watch for crushing the marketing trends of 2025 and beyond. Hit play and get inspired!
____________________________________________
Follow Natalie on Instagram: @nataliemicale
Connect with Natalie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliemicale/
Visit Oh Hello's website: https://oh-hello.co
____________________________________________
Ripple with me!
Instagram: http://instagram.com/rippleon
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rippleon
X: https://twitter.com/rippleon
Website: http://www.ripplecentral.com
#therippleeffect #steveharper #nataliemicale #ohhelloagency #brandingstrategy #aiinmarketing #natalieMicale #contentcreationtips #personaldevelopment #marketingtrends2025 #digitalbranding #womeninentrepreneurship #chatgptforbusiness #femaleleaders #futureofbranding
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I absolutely love when I havethe opportunity to meet amazing
(00:03):
entrepreneurs that have donegreat things, that have taken
their vision and built it, andthen someone else comes in and
says, I love what you've done. Iwant to acquire it. Our guest
today, Natalie McHale, issomeone that I first learned
about through a good friend ofmine, Maggie Thorne. She was
(00:24):
highlighting a session that sheattended that Natalie was
talking about building yourbrand. And was so positive about
this message that Nataliedelivered that it caught my
attention, even though I wasn'tat that event. She sounded like
somebody I wanted to know. Sowhen I reached out to Maggie and
I said, Would you make anintroduction? She said, she's
your kind of people. Absolutelymade the connection. She and I
(00:47):
became acquainted via email, andI'm so grateful that she agreed
to be on the ripple effectpodcast. She is a dynamic
entrepreneur. I can't wait todig into how she created her
agency. She went from being anews anchor, and, you know,
focused on the news business,and then decided to take that
(01:08):
and do it in a completelydifferent capacity for the
clients that she ended upworking with. And I just find
that fascinating. Take what yourcore skill set is, and then up
level it, and then do it foryourself, make more money, build
a business, eventually getacquired, and I'm curious to see
what's next. So with no furtherado, let's dive into this
(01:30):
interview with Natalie McHale.You
all right, guys, I am superexcited to have Natalie join us
(01:54):
today for the ripple effectpodcast. Natalie, how you doing?
Doing
wonderful. I was just working onan AI project before this and
trying to figure out how toleverage the next generation of
technology.
How's that working for you? I
mean, I think that if peoplearen't learning AI at this
point, you're going to be justswept behind in terms of people
just out performing you in theworkplace. You got to know how
(02:16):
to use it. You got to belearning it every day. It's I
agree.
Do you happen to know KevinRose? By chance is that name
you're familiar with? No, Idon't Who's that? Yeah, well, he
had a, he's, he's a techinvestor, pretty, pretty well
known in in, you know, differenttech circles. But he actually
had a program for a long timecalled dignation, and they're
bringing it back like he soldit, that company didn't do
(02:39):
anything with it. So he boughtit back, and they basically
highlight all of the trends thatgo on. And he's he's leveraged
that success into a really, Ithink, a pretty famous podcast
that he has now called the KevinRose show. And he just had Reid
Hoffman, which is the founder ofof LinkedIn, on as his guest.
And so they were talking aboutthis in and around South by
Southwest and on this episode,but then he covered it in some
(03:03):
stuff he did with South by andhe was talking about Reid
Hoffman. Suggestion was that ifyou had kids, or you yourself
want to become relevant in thenext five years, that you should
be plugged into every possiblepodcast, training, YouTube video
on AI that you can possibly get,because if you don't much like
what you just said, you aregoing to be left behind the
trains leaving the station, andyou better catch up. And
(03:25):
it's way different than theinternet. The internet was much
slower burn, but now it'slooking at hiring at our firm,
we're asking the question, whatare you using AI for? How do you
use it every day? What? How areyou leveraging it? I don't
really have any interest inhiring anyone on our team. He
doesn't know how to use AI on apretty proficient level at this
point, and is interested inexpanding their expertise. What
(03:47):
is
your yeah, we're just geekingout right off the bat. Which I
love. What are your favoritetools to use in AI?
Yeah. So I love chat, GBT. Ilove perplexity, for playing
around with some simple ways todesign stuff. I love Gemini. I
think Gemini can be reallyhelpful when you're building out
complex spreadsheets. I'm notsomebody who ever listened in
(04:09):
school to all the formulas, soit is, I'm sorry, you know, I
know that people went to schoolfor that. So it is so helpful
when I'm building out somethingwith financial models, to be
able to just go right intoGemini and have it plug in the
equations for me, so that thatspreadsheet looks great. I'm
using it also strategically tosynthesize information quickly.
(04:30):
Maybe there's a webinar that Ireally wanted to attend and they
sent me the recording. Well,honestly, I can take that
transcript, put it into chat andask me, what do I really need to
learn from this? Yeah, and thatis really a big piece of this is
it's synthesizing and breakingdown information so I can
eliminate the fluff, and then itcan analyze complex problems. So
you can have it build a proforma. You can have it build
(04:52):
your entire sales deck. If youhave three calls with a client
and it knows its goals, it canbuild that entire sales deck for
you in less than 10 minutes.Yeah. Well, those are kind of
some of the most use cases. Andthen this morning, what I was
working on is my best friendsaid, Hey, I figured out a
Google script that you can addthe chat will just draft your
emails and then respond.Essentially, it'll read your
(05:12):
inbox, draft your emails, andthen you just either hit respond
or not. And because it's readingyour inbox, it 110% has all the
context on everything. So forinstance, when you know a client
emails and says, Hey, I'm justtrying to remember what was
blah, blah, blah. It's pullingfrom the last conversation. It's
drafting response. I'm approvingit and hitting send, which is
saving me the time it would takefor me to go back and review
(05:33):
that conversation. So that'sactually what I was working on
this morning, and what I had ouraccount managers on a zoom call
for to make sure we all get thatset up right away so we can be
more efficient. So
I may need that. I'm sure youget a ton of email. I get, like,
between my two companies,probably on average, between
three to 500 emails a day. Yeah,so yeah, I we may need to talk
(05:55):
offline. For sure. I need thathack. I need that and I think
that's, you know, like you'relike you're leveraging this
technology to make yourself moreefficient, and by extension, you
know, do some of the heavylifting in the work for you, you
still get that high touch,because the AI tool understands
your voice, your approach, howyou do things of like you said,
(06:16):
it's got the context of theemail, and all it has to do is
say, hey, Is this good enough?Click Send if you're ready.
Right?
That's right. And I think whatpeople miss about AI is it's not
that I'm trying to shortcut myway out of life. It's that I
want to just get myself out ofthe minuscule tasks so I can go
be a deep focus creator andmaybe write like, a three page
(06:37):
white paper on the future ofbrand strategy, and actually
think about what that is, anduse my creative skills to put
content out that's great,instead of just AI copy. So if
you want to be a creator ratherthan a consumer, you have to
short hack your life so you havemore time to create and do deep
focus work
that I mean that that isexcellent advice, and I love
(06:59):
that. Obviously, I had no ideawe were going to head down this
path. So this is how we roll onthis podcast, which is awesome.
I'm learning stuff right off thebat, but to reset from my
listeners and the audiencethat'll see this on YouTube,
give us a little sense of whoyou are. You're a badass
entrepreneur. You come from thetelevision world where you were
(07:21):
an anchor and a reporter, andthen you pivoted, because you
saw the opportunity to take youryour core talents. Hopefully I'm
not overstepping here, but takethose core talents and actually
turn it into how you could tella more effective strategy for
the clients you serve. You builtthis amazing agency. You had it
acquired. Now you're doing allthis cool other stuff. So just
(07:43):
give our audience a sense of howwe how we get to know you as the
badass entrepreneur you aretoday. Well,
thank you. It's always awkwardto hear yourself talked about
like that, because you're like,because, you know, an hour
before this call, I'm like, I'vegot this proposal open. How do I
want to close it like you. Theimposter syndrome creeps in with
(08:03):
everybody. Does for everybody.You're right, yeah. And I think
what I've learned from thepeople that I look up to in
business, and even the personwho acquired me, because it's a
female founder, who acquired myfirm, is just keep moving. Three
words that I keep in my head,just keep moving. Take action
now. So what I would say I'velearned in the last decade is
(08:25):
that you don't have to have allthe answers. You don't have to
have everything figured out. Youdon't even need all the right
information, unless it's a bigdecision that impacts every
element of your life, likegetting married, right? But you
really do have to move quickly,and you have to make decisions,
and you have to test and fail.So I come from a background of
musical theater, and Iessentially, from the time I was
(08:46):
eight to 21 was doing musicaltheater, improv acting. And in
improv, there's a rule, which isalways say yes and go with it,
and you stand right for the mostpart. Yes, no, no's here because
you can't lose the joke. Youcan't lose the momentum. Yeah.
So all that to say, you know, Igot a full ride from musical
theater to Nebraska WesleyanUniversity two years in I
(09:06):
changed my major to politicalcommunications, and I went and
worked in DC for a year at Cspan in a local news station,
and I decided I wanted to be avery serious journalist. So I
came back and I worked inNebraska, anchoring and
reporting all over the state atall the different stations for
about four years, and that was areally great experience in just
say yes, because when somethinghappens and your story gets
(09:28):
dropped from the a block becauseanother guy got murdered, and
you're gonna go cover thatinstead, you don't have time to
throw a fit about it. You justhave to do it and figure it
work. Yeah, gotta do the work.So that really built my
entrepreneurial I thinkresilience would be the word.
And then I went from there intothe marketing world, like you
said, and I only interviewedwith one firm. I went and worked
with a guy who called me and waslike, I hear you're tired of
(09:50):
waking up at three in themorning, and I need a head of
sales. And I just started thismarketing agency, and we do
people's social media. And thiswas, like 10 years ago. It was
still fairly new, the idea of.Would hire someone to do your
social media. He's like, we dopeople's social media, and I
think you should come on over.And I'm like, okay, truly, I
just said yes. Did not apply toother jobs, did not look at
other places. I just my energywas like, You know what this
(10:13):
sounds like, a greatopportunity, best thing I ever
did. We built that business intoa few million dollars a year in
revenue. And he actually soldthat company, and I was on the
leadership team with a chiefmarketing officer and him, and
we were leading that company. Hesold it to fire spring. I
watched how he did it, I watchedwhat he did, and I went, huh? I
think I want to start my own.And the reason I went there is
(10:35):
because I felt like so manypeople were spending money on
digital advertisements, but theydidn't actually have a brand.
They didn't have an audienceunderstanding. They didn't have
a brand strategy. They didn'thave messaging or positioning.
They were literally blowinghundreds of 1000s of dollars on
digital ads, not getting areturn, and asking why their
shitty website was not gettingthem the customers they
(10:55):
wanted after they spent a ton ofmoney on the website, on on top
of everything, right? Yeah. Andreally,
it was just we didn't do brandstrategy. We were a digital
marketing firm. Brand strategywas like this emerging, new idea
that you actually have toposition yourself to people. So
I thought about that, andstarted, oh, hello, as a brand
Innovation Lab and really aplace that focused on brand
(11:15):
strategy, first brandpositioning first. Let's get
that dialed in before we doanything else. And fast forward,
eight years later, I bought mypartners out. A year in, I
continued going on. I've hadpretty much every single thing
you can have happen on theentrepreneurial journey. I've,
you know, I've been through itall right. Two years ago, I met
Alex, who's the CEO of The BigSmoke. She was an Australian
(11:37):
firm, and she wanted to make herway into the US, and I was at
the point where I was ready tostart thinking about having a
family. About having a familyand really settling down into
what does it look like to get toan exit potentially and still
have, you know, a lot of fundoing what I'm doing, but maybe
not some of the day to daystresses. So after a year of due
diligence, we figured out a wayto make it work. And listen, you
(11:59):
know, I don't think a lot ofentrepreneurs talk about this.
Your first exit meant,oftentimes, is just like an
extra cash. It's not like I'mmaking millions of dollars. The
goal was get some retirementmoney, you know, right? Get debt
free, be able to move into thisnext phase of my life with at
least a small understanding ofwhat it takes to get to an exit,
(12:21):
work with another company andlearn again, because I'm now
back into the learning phase,right, of learning from other
people, collaborating with otherpeople, not just being on your
own island as an entrepreneur,and then, you know, see where
the journey takes me, and whoknows, you know, and in a couple
years, I'll probably startbuilding again. And Alex has
been a wonderful mentor to me,so that's kind of how I've
gotten to where I am, and nowI'm the head of growth, and I
(12:43):
still wear the founder role as abadge of honor and doing sales,
but also looking at, how do wetake our team and continue to
invest in them with things likeaI automation and better
processes and streamline allaround so you know,
my hat's off to you, first andforemost, for a wonderful
description of your journey andcongratulations on the success
you've had in the acquisition.As an entrepreneur, myself,
(13:06):
since I was 22 I know howchallenging and difficult that
can be, so you already checkedone of the major boxes that
entrepreneurs aspire to, rightwith the acquisition. How has it
been making that shift now backfrom being the primary decision
maker to now more of a now Igotta follow another leader kind
of role. And I love how youcategorize that. It's like I am
(13:28):
back into learning mode, which Ilove. Most entrepreneurs really
struggle with that. In fact,when my firm was acquired in
2004 I was really kind oflooking forward to sort of
having that same kind ofattitude. Let me, you know, come
in, stay in a leadership role,but let me continue to learn to
see how this organization thatwas buying my company would
grow. And then what I foundpretty quickly was everything
(13:51):
they told me in the pre saleabout, oh, we don't want to
change a thing. We love yourapproach. Customer service is
paramount to us, like it justwas complete. Bs, right? So I
didn't, I didn't. I didn't lastthere very long. Fortunately, I
got paid very well to go away.But we had different dynamics in
terms of how our visions, interms of how we grew the market,
(14:11):
how was it for you, or how is itfor you now, to be in that
taking another kind of, youknow, maybe a backseat role to
what you were accustomed to whenyou were leading it on your own.
Look, it's definitely hard. Imean, there was a project just
last night where Alex was like,I don't want to do this project
yet. And I'm like, No, we needto do it. She's like, but it's
not really a priority. I'm like,but if it is a priority. And so
(14:34):
I think Alex and I are both Imean, she always says, like, she
sees so much of me and her, andthat's good, which is a
compliment, and we're very muchlike, just say how you feel, get
it out, resolve it, and movepast it. And I think that that's
been a huge help in thetransition, because I'm not
working with anyone who'splaying political games with me
(14:55):
or talking behind my back or andwith women especially, like
that's a really you. That can besomething that women experience
so huge challenge, hugechallenge. Yeah, there's no like
drama. It's just look. We'regonna figure out a way to do
this. And you may not alwayslove my decisions. I mean, Alex
has told me that, but here's whyI think they're the right ones,
and I'm always willing to listento your advice and insights on
(15:18):
what could be a better one. Sothat process has been hard. I
mean, there's no doubt about it.I do think that I'm lucky
though, that Alex is alsoleaning on me to know the US
market really well, and I'vebeen able to kind of show her a
few things about what we couldpotentially be doing here to
build a bigger footprint. So,yeah, I would say there's
definitely obstacles. I thinkit's all about how you treat it.
(15:40):
I think if you're somebody in anacquisition where you're staying
on and you don't have arelationship with leadership,
where you can truly be honest,you're probably going to
struggle. Yeah,
I think that's, that's, that'svery, very true. I also tell a
lot of founders I work with nowthat when they're going through
the acquisition, spend your timedoing due diligence on the
people that are acquiring Ithink what I heard, even though
(16:02):
you didn't quite say it, Alexhas a very similar management
style to what you had when youwere running it right, which
helped you guys probably fall insync a lot more and a lot
quicker than it would lot oftimes. I think that there's a
always tell people that, youknow, there's the courting, then
there's the dating, and thenthere's the marriage. And the
marriage is when things really,really change, especially when
(16:23):
you're in a businesspartnership, and you really need
to do your due diligence onpeople that are acquiring, or,
you know, potentially willacquire, because your role
beyond that, you, no matter whatthey say, will change right in
the eyes of other people, day today responsibility, or just the
fact that somebody else iswriting, you know, the, you
know, the checks now, right? Andhaving a good understanding of
(16:46):
how those people have done otherdeals, or how they look at
management philosophy andstrategy. And I felt like, even
for mine, I felt like I had apretty good understanding, also
was pretty cautious about theindividual I was kind of selling
my company to but I knew Day Twowas not going to work. And when
I I did this, I walked in, like,literally, the second day after
(17:08):
we closed the deal, and I'mlike, hey. Like, I've not even
called anybody a boss since itwas, like, 20, right? So Hey,
boss, like, you know, first dayof on the job. So to speak with
you, we got a deal. I closed it.He's like, Oh, that's awesome.
How does that work? I'm like,oh, you know. And I joked it
was, like, only seven years inthe making, and he's like, what?
And I'm like, Well, yeah, I'vebeen calling on these guys for a
(17:28):
long time. Took a long time. Iactually helped them find some
other solutions along the way,but they finally came back and
agreed to move forward. Justhappened to be on the day after
we closed, right? And I thoughtthat was, like, a badge of
honor, right? I mean, I'msticking to it, and, you know,
I'm, you know, cultivating arelationship. And the guy looks
at me and he's like, that willnever work here, that I don't.
(17:50):
In fact, I don't even want thisclient, because it took him
seven years to decide to make adecision. Then they are going to
be a pain in the ass. We'llnever upgrade them. We'll never
get additional revenue fromthem. And I'm like, Whoa. How
short sighted is that view, butI knew pretty quickly, like,
we're going to be on differentpages.
Yeah, I think it's the characterof the person. Like that would
(18:13):
not be a red flag to me. I havedeals I've been working on for
five to 10 years. I have peoplethat I just call every six to
seven months to see hey, youknow, how's your marketing
going? Now, I want a clientthat's just good sales. Yeah, I
agree. And the way that, youknow they're going to be an
asshole is, by the way theyemail, by the way they talk to
you, by the way that they, youknow, communicate with you. And
(18:34):
at that point, yeah, that'sprobably difficult, but seven
year sales cycles. I mean,that's nothing. I've got people
on a 10 year sales cycle, yeah,
Z you and I would be like, we'revery simpatico in that regard. I
kind of knew it. I had one ofthose, if you were a fan of the
office, moments when, like, Itell him, and he tells me this,
and I literally look over andhe's got, like, almost in his
office, because his office wasin the same town, but just
(18:56):
different location. And I lookover on his credenza, and he's
got like this, like, half sizeMickey Mouse, and I'm looking at
it, and it was kind of like thislook. I just, like, looked at
Mickey, and Mickey looked at me,and was like, Yeah, you're
fucked, man. 110%
Mickey's like, Yeah, welcome
to the new world that you're in.It's not Disneyland anymore. So
(19:18):
anyway, that's so, yeah, I thinkI love your advice there about,
you know, sort of how you wentabout that approach, and then
ultimately, kind of how you haveI love the attitude about, I'm
just back in learning mode,right? I'm going to see where
this person can take me. I likethe fact that you sort of
recognize that they're sort of agood coach and mentor for you,
(19:38):
and what potentially comes next.
She hired a coach for me in thepre acquisition process too. Oh,
wow, yeah. And I'm in the I'msure that coach was reporting
everything I said to her, whichI understand, like you're hiring
me. But the coach put together alot of things, a development
plan for me, an understanding ofmy weaknesses, you know,
(19:59):
personality to. Tested me. Itbrought me a lot of self
awareness. It's allowed me to bea better leader. And so I think
that even when you invest inyour leadership like that,
that's a that's a great sign,you know, well,
how I first discovered youobviously, we have a friend in
common, Maggie Thorne, beingthere in Omaha, or you're in
Lincoln, right? You're inLincoln, Nebraska,
(20:20):
I'm in Omaha, and Maggie, and I,I mean, we've just continued to
become better friends. Iactually asked her if she'd read
a Bible verse at my wedding,because she has. She's just an
amazing person in my life, andalso she exemplifies everything
I want for my for my family,like I want to be fit, you know,
spiritual, um, into in touchwith reality, empathetic and all
(20:42):
the things. So I actually askedfor like, Maggie, I would love
for you to read a Bible verse inmy wedding. I see you as just
this inspirational leader of ourcommunity, and I just and she's
become a great friend. That's
awesome. Well, yeah, for thoseof you that know the name, but
don't know how to place thatMaggie was American Ninja
Warrior. She ran constructionfor the University of Nebraska.
(21:02):
She's been very involved in thetech community in Nebraska in
general, and she and I've justbecome really good friends. And
she's everything like you justsaid, She is like, a perfect
example of the kind of human youreally want to aspire to be. But
she says something similar aboutyou. So, just so you know, I
mean,
the gonna make me blush.
(21:23):
But you know, the thing that Ilove about what you do, when she
was talking about yourpresentation, and I think it was
an event that you were speakingat earlier this year, she was
really, really so impressed withyour approach to how you educate
entrepreneurs business leaders,on what that takes to build your
(21:44):
brand there. There's no day daysoff when you're building your
brand. There is a commitment anda dedication to what you are
doing, and especially in today'sworld where we are such
attention deficit challengedpeople grabbing someone's
attention and getting that brandto stick out and really mean
something for someone is reallyhard. There's a trick to that.
(22:06):
It's, you know, there's strategyand and a six, a sustained
effort that's required. How haveyou seen in the time that you've
had since you started the agencyto where you are now? How that
has that become a bigger andbigger challenge? Or are you
being able to utilize new ideasand strategies to stay top of
mind for the clients you serve.
Well, when you say top of mindfor the clients we serve, I'm
(22:27):
assuming you mean justcontinuing to be their first
choice, right? Yeah, sure. Um, Iwill tell you that what it comes
down to in this business is therelationships you build and the
service you deliver, right? Andyeah, if you can't build a great
relationship, if you can'tanticipate a client's needs
before they need it, if youcan't show them you're thinking
(22:48):
ahead of them, then you're notgoing to have clients for long.
And so that is the number onepriority, is Client Services at
our firm when it comes tohelping them stay ahead of the
curve. Yeah, we're alwaystalking through new strategies.
You know, we're learning thingsevery quarter and then trying to
pass it along to them on theimportance. But one thing I will
say is that most brands who comethrough our doors, we build them
(23:11):
a beautiful website and a brandstrategy. We consult them. They
they really struggle to build abrand, because they don't put
110% into the brand piece of it,right? They might still convert
leads into customers throughsome of our efforts. They might
still see sales increase fromwhat we've done. But building a
brand is probably one of thehardest things you can ever do,
(23:31):
and the reason why is becauseyou have to commit to content.
You have to commit to value andentertainment for your audience
without getting anything inreturn. And a lot of people
don't want to do that process.So we try to educate people. You
know, I just had a call with aclient last night, a potential
client who wants to she's arelationship therapist and a sex
therapist, totally taboo. And,you know, she wants to build a
(23:54):
content machine where shemonetizes her content on
YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.And so I looked at her content,
and I was like, Listen, you canabsolutely do this, just going
to take a year of consistentlyputting out absolutely
incredible content. And itdoesn't mean like, highly
produced it means you'reGoogling every day what your
audience is asking, and you'redoing quick videos, and then
you're analyzing what, whatworked, what didn't, what
(24:16):
hashtags operated well, and thendoing it again the next day the
rent is due every day when youbuild a brand, you are not
willing to pay the rent. You'renot going to build a brand. And
so that's why Black rifle coffeeis valued at $3.7 billion you
look at something like that,right? For better, for worse,
you love or hate that brand. Itevokes a feeling. It's a
conservative coffee brand. Theyare not a coffee brand. They are
(24:38):
a content brand. They are acontent machine, and they have
created tremendous value fortheir customers through their
content and through their idealsand through creating a really
strong brand by being consistentin their efforts. So to get to a
three to $4 billion valuation,you either have to have a
patented product that is soincredible, everybody's using it
(24:58):
right like. You know, chat GPTmight be one of those things
that's like, yeah, that isright. That's marketing itself,
yeah, or you have to build anincredible brand in a crowded
attention market and do it sowell every single day, no matter
how you feel. And that's hard todo.
So the the type of service thatyou guys do through your agency
(25:20):
is IT strategy, or is it alsothe execution piece? Because I
think one of the biggestproblems, and we, you know, we
get pitched. I have a softwarecompany. We get pitched all the
time, people coming in to talkto us about our brand. And
you're absolutely right. I, youknow, had the pucker factor a
little bit when you said, youknow, the rent is due every day.
It's like shit. I'm way behind,right? So, but it's, it's, it's
(25:42):
a reality, right? And it doesbecome overwhelming, but you
find that a lot of times peopleare like, Hey, we're really good
at telling you what you need todo. But if, if it was so easy to
be able to execute on that plan,I think the vast majority of
companies would would try tofigure it out. They'd read the
book, they'd, you know, go tothe webinars, they'd take, you
know, the great ideas, and thenInstitute it. The reality is,
what you bring to the table, Ithink, from a brand perspective,
(26:05):
is like, we can tell you how todo it, but you really need the
people that can actually executeit. And can look at those
hashtags every day, can look atthose trends, keep those things
bubbling up to the people whocan develop the content and then
leverage that content in a waythat actually gets the
attention.
Yeah. So here's our services andour approach, right? So we have
(26:26):
a brand development side that85% of our clients come in
through right brand, whichstarts with brand strategy, our
say hello, framework, which isfour phases, discovery,
understanding your audience andyour competitors, voice and
tone, building your brand,personality, messaging, what are
the stories we tell andimplementation? How do we tell
those stories, and what's thestrategy for getting them out?
(26:47):
So brand strategy follows that.Say hello, framework. We have
brand strategy and brandpositioning, visual identity. We
can build the visual identity aspart of that framework and web
design and development on ourbrand development side, brand
strategy, visual identity, webdesign, brand development, then
when they're ready, we say, Allright, let's move you over to
brand management. And there's acouple things that we're going
to help you with, and there's acouple things that you're going
(27:09):
to do. I'm a really straightshooter when it comes to helping
mid level businesses understandwhat they should pay an agency
to do, and what they need tofreelance and what they need to
hire somebody in the Philippinesto do. Right? We are not going
to sit here and analyze, youknow, every single tick tock
video and what, what did didn'tdo well, unless you want to pay
us $20,000 a month and mosthappy to do it right. We're
(27:31):
happy to do it right, becausethat means we've got to really
make sure that we're we're onpoint with that. So the services
that we do on a brand managementside is PR, media visibility,
getting media placements thatare brand worthy and credible,
and helping you identify how todo that, and then us actually
executing. We've got a head ofmedia in New York and ahead of
media in Australia, we positionthought leaders and people,
(27:52):
because people media doesn'twant to tell stories about a
company. They want to tellstories about a person. So
that's how we help with thatsocial media strategy and some
social media management andreally filling in content gaps
and working with your team tounderstand who's on the ground
there that can run the stories,that can get more content, and
then we'll help chop it up,we'll help edit and manage it,
(28:13):
but we're working in tandem withyour team right as an external
resource, paid ads, obviously,paid ads, that's not going away
anytime soon. We have a paid adsteam, an SEO team, and then the
last piece is email marketingand funnels, so creating your
customer funnels. So these aresome things that we do really
well. Right outside of that,there are tons of different
things you can do in marketingand branding, but typically what
(28:36):
we'll do is help the clientunderstand, if we're not the
expert, here's how you bring inthe expert, and we also look at
their budget. And the truth is,is a startup that spends $30,000
with us on branding probablycan't afford to go on a 5k a
month retainer for some of theseservices, so we can help consult
them and help them figure itout. But at the end of the day,
(28:57):
what we see with founders whocreate a really great brand is
their commitment to content, thecommitment to putting content
out and not faltering on that,to continue building the brand
that you've built them in thebeginning. I love that.
So I just read an article nottoo long ago. If I can find it,
I'll send it to you. But therewas a it was an argument between
too little content and too muchcontent. What do you? What do
(29:19):
you? I mean, I'm sure there's awhole lot of different takes on
this, but what I heard you sayis that you got to be getting up
and grinding every day to dosomething right, to get that
name in front of yourperspective audience, or to
reinforce it with your existingaudience. How much is too much
and how much? How too little?How little is too little?
(29:40):
Yeah, so too little would beonce every two weeks. That's too
low. You're not remaining top ofmind. Too much would be, in my
opinion, four times a day. GaryV can do that? Gary V is not
most of us, okay. Can do that?Alex for mosey is not most of
us. Yeah, once you've built uptrust with the algorithms,
they're not pushing your contentdown because it's really good.
But. They put out content fourtimes a day, and it's freaking
(30:02):
amazing content. It's notcontent that is getting pushed
down on the algorithm. So mostpeople make the mistake of going
too hard, putting out really badcontent four times a day, and
the algorithms just bury them.They get depressed and they stop
so for most of us, for mostbrands, just start with high
quality content three to fourtimes a week. Make it high
quality, make it valuable.Understand how you're bringing
(30:25):
value to your audience. I justhad a hair salon who's a client,
and she was like, I don'tunderstand how these tiktoks and
instagram videos that go viralget butts in my seats. And I
said they get butts in yourseats, because the goal of
social media is the word ofmouth referral. They share that
video, they send it to somebody,somebody who didn't know that
your hair salon wasn't there,was there, finds out that it's
(30:46):
there. That's how they get buttsin your seats. So you've got to
create content that is eitherentertaining or serves
tremendous value to youraudience. If you're not doing
one of those two things, no onecares. No one cares about your
content and no one cares aboutyour brand. So my point is find
the middle ground of three tofour posts a week on one to two
platforms. To start, you cansome weeks I amp it up. Some
(31:07):
weeks I amp it down. You know,I'm in a content direction my
own, where I've only been doingtwo to three posts a week on my
stories and on my LinkedIn. I'vebeen feeling really burnt out on
my content. I'm trying to figureout what direction I want to go,
so I'm taking a little bit oftime to kind of just water it
down. But then there will be atime when I'm putting out tons
of content so and by tons ofcontent, I mean five or six
times a week, and really stayingtop of mind. So I think that it
(31:29):
also comes down to you as aperson and your business,
understanding what feels rightfor the business and the brand.
And I always say less is more ifit's high quality. Yeah,
I love that. What's your what'syour take on, you know, you
mentioned like, you know, you'lldo stories or reels. Are you a
(31:50):
supporter when we're talkingabout video format, short form,
long form, what, what's yourtake? Or does it depend on, you
know, I'm sure I'm answering myown question, really, but
probably depends on the, who,the you know who you are, or
what your company is. But do youhave a preference as to what
seems to be? You know, at least,as as we're looking at 2025 the
the stronger play for someonethat's considering content,
(32:12):
I think, sure, I think shortform content is really, really
important, you know, um, and Ithink so, you know, the short
the short form content, isessentially videos that are
underneath, let's say, a minuteto a minute 30 so underneath 30
seconds. And why that's thecase, and why that's so
(32:33):
important is because essentiallywhat people want is value in
quick gold nuggets and quickgolden takeaways. So if you're
inundating them with informationin a five minute video, our
brain just don't work that way.We're in an attention deficit.
So short form content is alsoeasy for you to do by talking
about one thing. So I did avideo that did so well for us
(32:55):
the other day, and it was like,Who? How do you figure out your
ideal customer profile in lessthan 90 seconds? Right? Somebody
wants to know that, somebodywants to understand a problem.
And it's a catchy title, you'regonna, you're gonna get eyes on
that, for sure.
Yes, absolutely. So that's whatI was. I
love that. What? So I caughtsomething you said earlier about
(33:19):
and I'm guessing is probably theideal client, you know, a medium
or middle sized client, right,that has the budget to bring in
a resource like your agency. Ilove the fact that you sort of
showed that and shared that,because at the end of the day,
it's also a pretty gooddistinction as to, you know your
target market. You know whereyou want to focus your time,
(33:40):
energy and effort, you're notafter necessarily the
solopreneur that's doingwhatever they're doing as a side
hustle, because they won't havethe budget or probably the
fortitude or commitment to dowhat you need them to do in
order to get the traction toshow the ROI on the investment.
But did you make thatconcentrated effort when you
started the agency, or is thatsomething evolved? Or am I
(34:04):
catching it or reading thatcompletely wrong?
You're reading it right? When westarted the company, we took
anybody who had money, anybodywho could pay us, yeah, okay. We
did 130,000 in our first year,anyone who could pay me. I was
taking when I'm taking you, yougot a pulse, cool. I'm taking
you. So as agencies evolved, wefound a couple of different
(34:24):
niches. And look, we're notcompletely niche in one
vertical, because first off,creatively, that fatigue is a
team that's trying to build agreat brand. And second off,
agencies are volatile. I mean,they are and yes, you can
specialize in one thing, but ifthat market drops out because of
the economy, which is what wesaw in COVID, you can kind of
feel like, oh, gosh, what do Ido? Right? So we have three kind
(34:47):
of audiences that I would say.One is the blue collar business
that's a 20 to 35 million and upcompany that is ready to build a
brand and ready to go outside oftheir comfort zone with what
they've done before. They don'thave an updated web. Site. They
don't have an updated brand.They have no messaging. Their
sales people don't haveprocesses. We're going to take
them and we're just going to fixthem all right up and blue
(35:08):
collar brands are a blast.That's our first really strong
ICP. The second one is, youknow, some of these direct to
consumer brands that are tryingto launch with one to five SKUs.
Want a really focused brandstrategy, a really focused brand
story and brand narrative.They're not launching with 1000s
of SKUs. They're launching witha couple of really unique
products that solve a veryspecific problem. We can help
(35:29):
them build out their brandstrategy, build out their e
commerce Store, those, you know,those brands. Five years ago, it
was the heyday of them, youknow, the white sneakers and
parachute with just one set oflinen, the perfect linen, right?
And, of course, they expand. Butthose products are really fun
for us, and we've done a lot ofthem, whether it's a hooded
towel or a type of apron, andyou can really get into a very
(35:52):
targeted ICP, and it's verystrong creatively. And the third
one is, you know, SaaScompanies, because they're
typically selling in a marketthat they've got. They're
talking about talking about alot of features, but they're not
talking about emotionalbenefits, and they're not taking
their consumer into this is whatlife looks like with my product.
They're just talking a lot abouttheir product and themselves. So
(36:12):
being able to help them story,brand framework, and create a
really, really great narrativearound what life is like with
their product is really fun forus. So those are a couple
verticals that we really rock atand that we really enjoy doing
work in. And then, of course,branding, because we do a lot,
the thought leader. Now, the
last vertical you talked aboutthe the example that would come
(36:34):
to mind would be what you see onthe evening news, right, with a
lot of the pharmaceuticals, likeI had this condition, took this
drug. Now my life is better,kind of, right? That's kind of
the that third vertical that youwere targeting, because at the
end of the day, you can say,hey, this is what it's intended
to do. But unless you actuallyhave a real life person that's
benefited from whatever theproduct or service might be,
(36:56):
it's kind of empty advertisingin a big, big way, right? But
having a real life example, orhere's where I was, here's where
I am, thanks to XYZ product orXYZ services. Pretty
significant, and it's funny thatI guess that conjures up
something for me, because I feellike over the last 10 years,
(37:16):
you've seen a difference inspecifically like pharmaceutical
marketing and brand buildingaround these drugs, where before
it was just, hey, let me justtell you the facts. You know, I
only want the facts, and here'swhat it fixes, and here's why
you need to take it. And thenyou see this shift now from
brand and output or benefit ofwhatever the product or service
(37:37):
might be to now more story mode,because it's more relatable, and
you put yourself in the sameshoes as the person you're
watching
absolutely 110%
I love that. So because you, youknow, we started this off
talking about AI and the toolsand the capabilities, and I love
the fact that you are doing whatyou can to take things off your
(38:00):
plate so that you can do thedeep work. Use that word. I love
that very much. Shout out to CalNewport, I think probably for
that. Yeah, fantastic. But thebut, how have you always been
that way? Or is this sort of by,you know, need or necessity for
survival to had to adapt yourapproach to how you go about
(38:23):
being the leader you are such
a great question. I think rightnow, we are in an epidemic of
everyone thinking they haveaccess to everybody at all the
time. And I'm trying to not berude, but I am done with that.
And so I am in a era where Iwant to really focus my energies
on creating, because when I feelmost fulfilled at work is when I
(38:46):
create. It's when I create, it'swhen I create content, it's when
I create for our clients, it'swhen I create great experiences
on the sales side, it's not inresponding. I'm not a robot,
right? I want to use it oncesomebody's time
frame, like, Hey, I just textedyou because I just sent you an
email three minutes ago. Andminutes ago and you didn't
respond yet, right? Well,thanks. That's the world we're
(39:06):
in. Yeah.
So I'm I'm practicing moreboundaries and setting
boundaries, and I want to be acreator in the next decade of my
career. I don't think that thatlet me explain I want to be an
innovator. To be an innovator,you have to be a creator, you
have to essentially be able toput out things about, excuse me,
of value to other people. Duringthe pandemic, I wrote 100 page
(39:28):
article or 100 page ebook that Imade $30,000 off of. That was
one of my best favorite times inthe world, which I know is
controversial, not because of,you know, people dying, but
because I got to be at home, andI got to focus, I made 30 grand
off of something that took meseven hours. The reason that was
possible is because of the ROIRight. People weren't coming at
(39:50):
me, right? And so for me, thenext piece of my like life phase
is more of that, and I'm stillin the process of creating this.
For myself, but I'm juststarting to implement more
tactics, phone interruptionmode, even, even the thought of,
okay, I really want to respondto this email right now, but I'm
(40:11):
doing something else. Finishthis task. The discipline to
finish a task before you move onto the next one. So I think
that's what we're going to startseeing in the next three years,
is there's going to be moreconsultants and trainers on
coming into companies on how toget people's to focus, rather
than putting us all on somedrugs and saying, We have ADHD,
it's going to be people comingin and saying, let me show you
(40:32):
the processes and systems toimplement into your life so that
you can actually achieve anoutput with all this technology.
I love that. I love that somuch. Well, you mentioned, you
know, Target, right? Beingcreative, you know, being a
creator, is that in the brandspace, or is it something else?
Yeah, so this is Alex. Wouldlove this response, and I don't
(40:54):
say that sarcastically. I mean,she truly will. So I am a brand
strategist. I mean, I've beenleading this agency and doing
brand strategy work with clientsfor eight years. I think that
I'm most effective as a head ofgrowth, which I am as a
salesperson, when I am alsoreading, creating and working
with brands. So I typically pickone to two brands per quarter
(41:15):
that are clients that I stillkind of stay on with and almost
help strategically. And thereason that I do that is because
I still want to be sharp on thebrand strategy side, and I want
to take that into my salesexperience. Because when I have
a sales call, I'm not sittinghere being like, let me style
you all website. I'm sittinghere asking questions about your
brand. I'm a very curiousperson. When I go through my
(41:37):
sales process and I takesomebody's goals of revenue and
where they want to go top line,and how they want to expand and
where their brand is currentlyat. I'm researching their
competitors. I'm looking at whattheir current messaging says.
I'm thinking about angles. I'mthinking about their thought
leaders and how they fit intothe brand, and if they've got to
have spokesperson and who'sgoing to that's the fun part,
(41:58):
and it's what differentiates mein sales. Because people come to
me on a sales call expecting meto be a typical marketing agency
selling them a website for$5,000 and instead, I walk them
through a 360 brand audit ofwhere their brand is, and I tell
them, this is where it can go,and this is the vision and the
future of your industry. That'swho I want to be, not a
salesperson. So to do that, youhave to still occasionally work
(42:21):
with clients, which I do, youhave to still be reading
research, and you still abouthuman psychology and
essentially, the differentindustries and where they're
going. And then you also have tobe creating content to be able
to do that effectively. Sothat's my goal for the next
couple years of my career. Well,
I think, like when I, you know,I've got a buddy that's in
Austin, that's got a brandagency, and he struggled in a
(42:42):
big, big way, but because theyno offense to him, he's not the
CEO that you are, right? Youknow, he does he he's like, I
got my role, and that's all I'mgoing to do, and then I hand it
off, and these, it gets piecemailed, and he's got a process,
and he has a lovely team.They're they're great people,
but there's discombobulation anddisconnection, because the right
(43:02):
hand doesn't always know whatthe left hand is doing. What I
love about you is not only areyou willing to roll up your
sleeves and do the work, butyou're also like putting
yourself in direct experience,in direct environments to gain
that experience, because thatexperience you learn today could
benefit your client tomorrow,right or or could inspire the
next great idea you bring backto that same environment, you
(43:23):
know, in two weeks. I thinkthat's phenomenal. So when
you're talking about that, eventhough you said, you know, Alex
would love that, is thatsomething you do on your own, is
that something down the roadthat you build a different kind
of agency or approach or what doyou think that?
No, I mean, Alex has given me,Yeah, Alex has given me the
(43:44):
flexibility to still work on aquarterly basis with one or two
clients. I mean, I'm notcompletely out of the client
work, but we keep me out of thebits and bobs of writing content
and UI, UX, ing, their website,and things that maybe I would
have done, you know, when I wasrunning the firm or startuping
the firm. So it's more, how am Istrategic consultant coming in
to meet with our clients? Andadvise at key junctures of their
(44:05):
process, like when they finallyget the mocks of their website,
and I've maybe seen theminternally and given some
strategic thought and we'rehaving a conversation about what
the design elements are going todo for their brand. I can come
into those calls and and workwith a client and offer my
expertise, almost like anadvisory role, and that keeps me
sharp, because I prep for thosecalls. I understand their brand,
(44:26):
and I'm looking at industryanalysis of what is happening in
their space, and I love doingthem. So that might be two or
three hours a week of my time,which isn't a lot, but it's
important to keep me connectedto what our clients want and
need, and to Account Services,or I'm going out and telling
people or shaping that thethings that we do in a way that
(44:47):
doesn't make sense for theclient.
Yeah, I love that. What I kindof almost envision that looking
or breaking into is kind oflike, you know, you've heard
that phrase entrepreneur inresidence, where you're bringing
somebody with outside X.Expertise in to look at your
business and almost reconstructit to a degree from their
entrepreneurial mindset, to say,hey, what you've done is great,
(45:08):
but where I can bring myexperience and my wisdom and
apply it, here could take us,you know, so many different
places. You're almost kind ofthat way when you're talking
about the brand of, you know,development, right? You're have
the seat at the table. You're asyou own the output. You own the
ROI for the client, but you'reright next to him, shoulder to
(45:29):
shoulder. And it's not like,Hey, we're just doing this kind
of on the fly, or, you know,it's because it's our monthly
check in, but you're doing itbecause you have a true
commitment and passion tohelping them succeed. Because
the more they succeed, the morethey rely and need you, right?
So, you know, you
see fractional, fractional CMO,that's a part of our service,
(45:49):
and we actually position us assuch. I love
that. Yeah, I love that. That'sfantastic. Where do you think
all of the technology plays thatwe have today, right? All the
tools and you know, various waysto get your name in, your brand
out there. Where do you see thatchanging or, or where do you see
(46:11):
going in the next five years?Because I know I it's obvious
just even paying attention toyou like our audience is gonna
be like. So to name to youbecause you are like, You are
freaking awesome, so intense,but I know you're looking 510,
15 years down the road. I cansee your head, see the the
wheels turning in your head aswe talk. So yeah,
(46:31):
I think in five years, youragency will be responsible for
helping you position andcultivate and decide direction.
But I do think things like paidads will be run by AI five years
from now, and we will just bemonitoring it, or you will be
monitoring it. I think thingslike building a website five
years from now, that will not besomething that you need to hire
(46:53):
an agency to do. So what willyou hire an agency to do?
Campaigns, creative, direction,focus, understanding how to
integrate technology together,workflows, automations. You'll
be hiring a team to piece thingstogether, because you don't have
the time to look at a tech stackand understand how to integrate
(47:13):
it. But brand strategy willremain even more important in
five years, because people arelosing the ability to connect
human to human. It's happeningwith Gen Z as much as we love
them. It's happening withmillennials. People are on their
phones, people aren't talking.So how do you understand humans
and where they're at? You needto hire agencies that are hard,
open, willing to do qualitativeand quantitative research to
(47:36):
understand human psychology, tobuild a brand that converts. And
that is where I believe thefuture will go, and I think that
will be even more important thanit is
now. I love that. And actually,if you think about it, forget
technology. This almost takesyou back to the madman, Mad Men,
kind of advertising model where,all right, you have whatever it
(47:56):
is, the block of soap you'redoing okay in your regional
market, but you want to gonational, and now you need
someone that's got creativevision to really take you from
where you are to where you wantto go. But they you're really,
it's more of a hands on, verycontact oriented kind of sport
at that point, which is, I thinkit's funny because, you know,
talk about going back to thefuture, right? That's where,
(48:18):
that's where I think it, youknow, if it does fall in align
with what you say, that's reallywhere you're going to be back,
right? It's very hands on, verydirect, but also more
intentional and purposeful thanwe are today. You won't be able
to spend your way out of theproblem, and you won't be able
to just AI the issue, right?It's you're going to need people
like you sitting at my tablegoing, Okay, this is what we
need to do next. And after that,here's what we're going to do
(48:41):
beyond that, in here, threeyears from now, where we'll be
because of these efforts thatwe're making today. Absolutely
agree with you, and you're goingto need people who are
integrators, who are strongexecutioners, because that is
hard to find in the job market.So that's hiring an agent.
Because, you know, you get thatabsolutely
well, Natalie, I could talk toyou for hours. I mean, I'm just
(49:02):
fascinated by your journey andthe approach here, and I
appreciate your time. I want todo a quick time check. Are you
okay for a few more minutes?
Yeah, I do have a noon so maybeactually not. It's 1159 Okay,
yeah. Well, yeah, we got starteda little bit late. Yeah. I
thought we agreed to do this. Iam going to end it here.
Normally, I like to do a littleripple oriented questions, but
(49:23):
there's so much I think we couldcontinue to talk. Maybe we could
schedule a sequel here in alittle while and do it and go
from there. But I just want tothank you so much for the time
today, and if there's anything Ican be doing to help support you
or the agency you know, don'thesitate to reach out to me. But
I really appreciate you being onthe ripple effect podcast. So
(49:43):
thank you,
Steve. You've been a pleasure.And yeah, if you anyone who's
listening, follow me onInstagram at Natalie Macauley,
send me a DM on LinkedIn. I loveconnecting with people about
projects and all the things, andwe would love to do a volume.
I'd love to do Volume Two withyou and go even deeper. So
Thank. Do
it. Let's do it. I appreciateit. Good luck with your call.
Thanks for the time today, andwe'll we'll be in touch soon.
(50:05):
Appreciate it. Bye, take care.Bye. Bye. You.
I absolutely love when I havethe opportunity to meet amazing
(00:03):
entrepreneurs that have donegreat things, that have taken
their vision and built it, andthen someone else comes in and
says, I love what you've done. Iwant to acquire it. Our guest
today, Natalie McHale, issomeone that I first learned
about through a good friend ofmine, Maggie Thorne. She was
(00:24):
highlighting a session that sheattended that Natalie was
talking about building yourbrand. And was so positive about
this message that Nataliedelivered that it caught my
attention, even though I wasn'tat that event. She sounded like
somebody I wanted to know. Sowhen I reached out to Maggie and
I said, Would you make anintroduction? She said, she's
your kind of people. Absolutelymade the connection. She and I
(00:47):
became acquainted via email, andI'm so grateful that she agreed
to be on the ripple effectpodcast. She is a dynamic
entrepreneur. I can't wait todig into how she created her
agency. She went from being anews anchor, and, you know,
focused on the news business,and then decided to take that
(01:08):
and do it in a completelydifferent capacity for the
clients that she ended upworking with. And I just find
that fascinating. Take what yourcore skill set is, and then up
level it, and then do it foryourself, make more money, build
a business, eventually getacquired, and I'm curious to see
what's next. So with no furtherado, let's dive into this
(01:30):
interview with Natalie McHale.You
all right, guys, I am superexcited to have Natalie join us
(01:54):
today for the ripple effectpodcast. Natalie, how you doing?
Doing
wonderful. I was just working onan AI project before this and
trying to figure out how toleverage the next generation of
technology.
How's that working for you? I
mean, I think that if peoplearen't learning AI at this
point, you're going to be justswept behind in terms of people
just out performing you in theworkplace. You got to know how
(02:16):
to use it. You got to belearning it every day. It's I
agree.
Do you happen to know KevinRose? By chance is that name
you're familiar with? No, Idon't Who's that? Yeah, well, he
had a, he's, he's a techinvestor, pretty, pretty well
known in in, you know, differenttech circles. But he actually
had a program for a long timecalled dignation, and they're
bringing it back like he soldit, that company didn't do
(02:39):
anything with it. So he boughtit back, and they basically
highlight all of the trends thatgo on. And he's he's leveraged
that success into a really, Ithink, a pretty famous podcast
that he has now called the KevinRose show. And he just had Reid
Hoffman, which is the founder ofof LinkedIn, on as his guest.
And so they were talking aboutthis in and around South by
Southwest and on this episode,but then he covered it in some
(03:03):
stuff he did with South by andhe was talking about Reid
Hoffman. Suggestion was that ifyou had kids, or you yourself
want to become relevant in thenext five years, that you should
be plugged into every possiblepodcast, training, YouTube video
on AI that you can possibly get,because if you don't much like
what you just said, you aregoing to be left behind the
trains leaving the station, andyou better catch up. And
(03:25):
it's way different than theinternet. The internet was much
slower burn, but now it'slooking at hiring at our firm,
we're asking the question, whatare you using AI for? How do you
use it every day? What? How areyou leveraging it? I don't
really have any interest inhiring anyone on our team. He
doesn't know how to use AI on apretty proficient level at this
point, and is interested inexpanding their expertise. What
(03:47):
is
your yeah, we're just geekingout right off the bat. Which I
love. What are your favoritetools to use in AI?
Yeah. So I love chat, GBT. Ilove perplexity, for playing
around with some simple ways todesign stuff. I love Gemini. I
think Gemini can be reallyhelpful when you're building out
complex spreadsheets. I'm notsomebody who ever listened in
(04:09):
school to all the formulas, soit is, I'm sorry, you know, I
know that people went to schoolfor that. So it is so helpful
when I'm building out somethingwith financial models, to be
able to just go right intoGemini and have it plug in the
equations for me, so that thatspreadsheet looks great. I'm
using it also strategically tosynthesize information quickly.
(04:30):
Maybe there's a webinar that Ireally wanted to attend and they
sent me the recording. Well,honestly, I can take that
transcript, put it into chat andask me, what do I really need to
learn from this? Yeah, and thatis really a big piece of this is
it's synthesizing and breakingdown information so I can
eliminate the fluff, and then itcan analyze complex problems. So
you can have it build a proforma. You can have it build
(04:52):
your entire sales deck. If youhave three calls with a client
and it knows its goals, it canbuild that entire sales deck for
you in less than 10 minutes.Yeah. Well, those are kind of
some of the most use cases. Andthen this morning, what I was
working on is my best friendsaid, Hey, I figured out a
Google script that you can addthe chat will just draft your
emails and then respond.Essentially, it'll read your
(05:12):
inbox, draft your emails, andthen you just either hit respond
or not. And because it's readingyour inbox, it 110% has all the
context on everything. So forinstance, when you know a client
emails and says, Hey, I'm justtrying to remember what was
blah, blah, blah. It's pullingfrom the last conversation. It's
drafting response. I'm approvingit and hitting send, which is
saving me the time it would takefor me to go back and review
(05:33):
that conversation. So that'sactually what I was working on
this morning, and what I had ouraccount managers on a zoom call
for to make sure we all get thatset up right away so we can be
more efficient. So
I may need that. I'm sure youget a ton of email. I get, like,
between my two companies,probably on average, between
three to 500 emails a day. Yeah,so yeah, I we may need to talk
(05:55):
offline. For sure. I need thathack. I need that and I think
that's, you know, like you'relike you're leveraging this
technology to make yourself moreefficient, and by extension, you
know, do some of the heavylifting in the work for you, you
still get that high touch,because the AI tool understands
your voice, your approach, howyou do things of like you said,
(06:16):
it's got the context of theemail, and all it has to do is
say, hey, Is this good enough?Click Send if you're ready.
Right?
That's right. And I think whatpeople miss about AI is it's not
that I'm trying to shortcut myway out of life. It's that I
want to just get myself out ofthe minuscule tasks so I can go
be a deep focus creator andmaybe write like, a three page
(06:37):
white paper on the future ofbrand strategy, and actually
think about what that is, anduse my creative skills to put
content out that's great,instead of just AI copy. So if
you want to be a creator ratherthan a consumer, you have to
short hack your life so you havemore time to create and do deep
focus work
that I mean that that isexcellent advice, and I love
(06:59):
that. Obviously, I had no ideawe were going to head down this
path. So this is how we roll onthis podcast, which is awesome.
I'm learning stuff right off thebat, but to reset from my
listeners and the audiencethat'll see this on YouTube,
give us a little sense of whoyou are. You're a badass
entrepreneur. You come from thetelevision world where you were
(07:21):
an anchor and a reporter, andthen you pivoted, because you
saw the opportunity to take youryour core talents. Hopefully I'm
not overstepping here, but takethose core talents and actually
turn it into how you could tella more effective strategy for
the clients you serve. You builtthis amazing agency. You had it
acquired. Now you're doing allthis cool other stuff. So just
(07:43):
give our audience a sense of howwe how we get to know you as the
badass entrepreneur you aretoday. Well,
thank you. It's always awkwardto hear yourself talked about
like that, because you're like,because, you know, an hour
before this call, I'm like, I'vegot this proposal open. How do I
want to close it like you. Theimposter syndrome creeps in with
(08:03):
everybody. Does for everybody.You're right, yeah. And I think
what I've learned from thepeople that I look up to in
business, and even the personwho acquired me, because it's a
female founder, who acquired myfirm, is just keep moving. Three
words that I keep in my head,just keep moving. Take action
now. So what I would say I'velearned in the last decade is
(08:25):
that you don't have to have allthe answers. You don't have to
have everything figured out. Youdon't even need all the right
information, unless it's a bigdecision that impacts every
element of your life, likegetting married, right? But you
really do have to move quickly,and you have to make decisions,
and you have to test and fail.So I come from a background of
musical theater, and Iessentially, from the time I was
(08:46):
eight to 21 was doing musicaltheater, improv acting. And in
improv, there's a rule, which isalways say yes and go with it,
and you stand right for the mostpart. Yes, no, no's here because
you can't lose the joke. Youcan't lose the momentum. Yeah.
So all that to say, you know, Igot a full ride from musical
theater to Nebraska WesleyanUniversity two years in I
(09:06):
changed my major to politicalcommunications, and I went and
worked in DC for a year at Cspan in a local news station,
and I decided I wanted to be avery serious journalist. So I
came back and I worked inNebraska, anchoring and
reporting all over the state atall the different stations for
about four years, and that was areally great experience in just
say yes, because when somethinghappens and your story gets
(09:28):
dropped from the a block becauseanother guy got murdered, and
you're gonna go cover thatinstead, you don't have time to
throw a fit about it. You justhave to do it and figure it
work. Yeah, gotta do the work.So that really built my
entrepreneurial I thinkresilience would be the word.
And then I went from there intothe marketing world, like you
said, and I only interviewedwith one firm. I went and worked
with a guy who called me and waslike, I hear you're tired of
(09:50):
waking up at three in themorning, and I need a head of
sales. And I just started thismarketing agency, and we do
people's social media. And thiswas, like 10 years ago. It was
still fairly new, the idea of.Would hire someone to do your
social media. He's like, we dopeople's social media, and I
think you should come on over.And I'm like, okay, truly, I
just said yes. Did not apply toother jobs, did not look at
other places. I just my energywas like, You know what this
(10:13):
sounds like, a greatopportunity, best thing I ever
did. We built that business intoa few million dollars a year in
revenue. And he actually soldthat company, and I was on the
leadership team with a chiefmarketing officer and him, and
we were leading that company. Hesold it to fire spring. I
watched how he did it, I watchedwhat he did, and I went, huh? I
think I want to start my own.And the reason I went there is
(10:35):
because I felt like so manypeople were spending money on
digital advertisements, but theydidn't actually have a brand.
They didn't have an audienceunderstanding. They didn't have
a brand strategy. They didn'thave messaging or positioning.
They were literally blowinghundreds of 1000s of dollars on
digital ads, not getting areturn, and asking why their
shitty website was not gettingthem the customers they
(10:55):
wanted after they spent a ton ofmoney on the website, on on top
of everything, right? Yeah. Andreally,
it was just we didn't do brandstrategy. We were a digital
marketing firm. Brand strategywas like this emerging, new idea
that you actually have toposition yourself to people. So
I thought about that, andstarted, oh, hello, as a brand
Innovation Lab and really aplace that focused on brand
(11:15):
strategy, first brandpositioning first. Let's get
that dialed in before we doanything else. And fast forward,
eight years later, I bought mypartners out. A year in, I
continued going on. I've hadpretty much every single thing
you can have happen on theentrepreneurial journey. I've,
you know, I've been through itall right. Two years ago, I met
Alex, who's the CEO of The BigSmoke. She was an Australian
(11:37):
firm, and she wanted to make herway into the US, and I was at
the point where I was ready tostart thinking about having a
family. About having a familyand really settling down into
what does it look like to get toan exit potentially and still
have, you know, a lot of fundoing what I'm doing, but maybe
not some of the day to daystresses. So after a year of due
diligence, we figured out a wayto make it work. And listen, you
(11:59):
know, I don't think a lot ofentrepreneurs talk about this.
Your first exit meant,oftentimes, is just like an
extra cash. It's not like I'mmaking millions of dollars. The
goal was get some retirementmoney, you know, right? Get debt
free, be able to move into thisnext phase of my life with at
least a small understanding ofwhat it takes to get to an exit,
(12:21):
work with another company andlearn again, because I'm now
back into the learning phase,right, of learning from other
people, collaborating with otherpeople, not just being on your
own island as an entrepreneur,and then, you know, see where
the journey takes me, and whoknows, you know, and in a couple
years, I'll probably startbuilding again. And Alex has
been a wonderful mentor to me,so that's kind of how I've
gotten to where I am, and nowI'm the head of growth, and I
(12:43):
still wear the founder role as abadge of honor and doing sales,
but also looking at, how do wetake our team and continue to
invest in them with things likeaI automation and better
processes and streamline allaround so you know,
my hat's off to you, first andforemost, for a wonderful
description of your journey andcongratulations on the success
you've had in the acquisition.As an entrepreneur, myself,
(13:06):
since I was 22 I know howchallenging and difficult that
can be, so you already checkedone of the major boxes that
entrepreneurs aspire to, rightwith the acquisition. How has it
been making that shift now backfrom being the primary decision
maker to now more of a now Igotta follow another leader kind
of role. And I love how youcategorize that. It's like I am
(13:28):
back into learning mode, which Ilove. Most entrepreneurs really
struggle with that. In fact,when my firm was acquired in
2004 I was really kind oflooking forward to sort of
having that same kind ofattitude. Let me, you know, come
in, stay in a leadership role,but let me continue to learn to
see how this organization thatwas buying my company would
grow. And then what I foundpretty quickly was everything
(13:51):
they told me in the pre saleabout, oh, we don't want to
change a thing. We love yourapproach. Customer service is
paramount to us, like it justwas complete. Bs, right? So I
didn't, I didn't. I didn't lastthere very long. Fortunately, I
got paid very well to go away.But we had different dynamics in
terms of how our visions, interms of how we grew the market,
(14:11):
how was it for you, or how is itfor you now, to be in that
taking another kind of, youknow, maybe a backseat role to
what you were accustomed to whenyou were leading it on your own.
Look, it's definitely hard. Imean, there was a project just
last night where Alex was like,I don't want to do this project
yet. And I'm like, No, we needto do it. She's like, but it's
not really a priority. I'm like,but if it is a priority. And so
(14:34):
I think Alex and I are both Imean, she always says, like, she
sees so much of me and her, andthat's good, which is a
compliment, and we're very muchlike, just say how you feel, get
it out, resolve it, and movepast it. And I think that that's
been a huge help in thetransition, because I'm not
working with anyone who'splaying political games with me
(14:55):
or talking behind my back or andwith women especially, like
that's a really you. That can besomething that women experience
so huge challenge, hugechallenge. Yeah, there's no like
drama. It's just look. We'regonna figure out a way to do
this. And you may not alwayslove my decisions. I mean, Alex
has told me that, but here's whyI think they're the right ones,
and I'm always willing to listento your advice and insights on
(15:18):
what could be a better one. Sothat process has been hard. I
mean, there's no doubt about it.I do think that I'm lucky
though, that Alex is alsoleaning on me to know the US
market really well, and I'vebeen able to kind of show her a
few things about what we couldpotentially be doing here to
build a bigger footprint. So,yeah, I would say there's
definitely obstacles. I thinkit's all about how you treat it.
(15:40):
I think if you're somebody in anacquisition where you're staying
on and you don't have arelationship with leadership,
where you can truly be honest,you're probably going to
struggle. Yeah,
I think that's, that's, that'svery, very true. I also tell a
lot of founders I work with nowthat when they're going through
the acquisition, spend your timedoing due diligence on the
people that are acquiring Ithink what I heard, even though
(16:02):
you didn't quite say it, Alexhas a very similar management
style to what you had when youwere running it right, which
helped you guys probably fall insync a lot more and a lot
quicker than it would lot oftimes. I think that there's a
always tell people that, youknow, there's the courting, then
there's the dating, and thenthere's the marriage. And the
marriage is when things really,really change, especially when
(16:23):
you're in a businesspartnership, and you really need
to do your due diligence onpeople that are acquiring, or,
you know, potentially willacquire, because your role
beyond that, you, no matter whatthey say, will change right in
the eyes of other people, day today responsibility, or just the
fact that somebody else iswriting, you know, the, you
know, the checks now, right? Andhaving a good understanding of
(16:46):
how those people have done otherdeals, or how they look at
management philosophy andstrategy. And I felt like, even
for mine, I felt like I had apretty good understanding, also
was pretty cautious about theindividual I was kind of selling
my company to but I knew Day Twowas not going to work. And when
I I did this, I walked in, like,literally, the second day after
(17:08):
we closed the deal, and I'mlike, hey. Like, I've not even
called anybody a boss since itwas, like, 20, right? So Hey,
boss, like, you know, first dayof on the job. So to speak with
you, we got a deal. I closed it.He's like, Oh, that's awesome.
How does that work? I'm like,oh, you know. And I joked it
was, like, only seven years inthe making, and he's like, what?
And I'm like, Well, yeah, I'vebeen calling on these guys for a
(17:28):
long time. Took a long time. Iactually helped them find some
other solutions along the way,but they finally came back and
agreed to move forward. Justhappened to be on the day after
we closed, right? And I thoughtthat was, like, a badge of
honor, right? I mean, I'msticking to it, and, you know,
I'm, you know, cultivating arelationship. And the guy looks
at me and he's like, that willnever work here, that I don't.
(17:50):
In fact, I don't even want thisclient, because it took him
seven years to decide to make adecision. Then they are going to
be a pain in the ass. We'llnever upgrade them. We'll never
get additional revenue fromthem. And I'm like, Whoa. How
short sighted is that view, butI knew pretty quickly, like,
we're going to be on differentpages.
Yeah, I think it's the characterof the person. Like that would
(18:13):
not be a red flag to me. I havedeals I've been working on for
five to 10 years. I have peoplethat I just call every six to
seven months to see hey, youknow, how's your marketing
going? Now, I want a clientthat's just good sales. Yeah, I
agree. And the way that, youknow they're going to be an
asshole is, by the way theyemail, by the way they talk to
you, by the way that they, youknow, communicate with you. And
(18:34):
at that point, yeah, that'sprobably difficult, but seven
year sales cycles. I mean,that's nothing. I've got people
on a 10 year sales cycle, yeah,
Z you and I would be like, we'revery simpatico in that regard. I
kind of knew it. I had one ofthose, if you were a fan of the
office, moments when, like, Itell him, and he tells me this,
and I literally look over andhe's got, like, almost in his
office, because his office wasin the same town, but just
(18:56):
different location. And I lookover on his credenza, and he's
got like this, like, half sizeMickey Mouse, and I'm looking at
it, and it was kind of like thislook. I just, like, looked at
Mickey, and Mickey looked at me,and was like, Yeah, you're
fucked, man. 110%
Mickey's like, Yeah, welcome
to the new world that you're in.It's not Disneyland anymore. So
(19:18):
anyway, that's so, yeah, I thinkI love your advice there about,
you know, sort of how you wentabout that approach, and then
ultimately, kind of how you haveI love the attitude about, I'm
just back in learning mode,right? I'm going to see where
this person can take me. I likethe fact that you sort of
recognize that they're sort of agood coach and mentor for you,
(19:38):
and what potentially comes next.
She hired a coach for me in thepre acquisition process too. Oh,
wow, yeah. And I'm in the I'msure that coach was reporting
everything I said to her, whichI understand, like you're hiring
me. But the coach put together alot of things, a development
plan for me, an understanding ofmy weaknesses, you know,
(19:59):
personality to. Tested me. Itbrought me a lot of self
awareness. It's allowed me to bea better leader. And so I think
that even when you invest inyour leadership like that,
that's a that's a great sign,you know, well,
how I first discovered youobviously, we have a friend in
common, Maggie Thorne, beingthere in Omaha, or you're in
Lincoln, right? You're inLincoln, Nebraska,
(20:20):
I'm in Omaha, and Maggie, and I,I mean, we've just continued to
become better friends. Iactually asked her if she'd read
a Bible verse at my wedding,because she has. She's just an
amazing person in my life, andalso she exemplifies everything
I want for my for my family,like I want to be fit, you know,
spiritual, um, into in touchwith reality, empathetic and all
(20:42):
the things. So I actually askedfor like, Maggie, I would love
for you to read a Bible verse inmy wedding. I see you as just
this inspirational leader of ourcommunity, and I just and she's
become a great friend. That's
awesome. Well, yeah, for thoseof you that know the name, but
don't know how to place thatMaggie was American Ninja
Warrior. She ran constructionfor the University of Nebraska.
(21:02):
She's been very involved in thetech community in Nebraska in
general, and she and I've justbecome really good friends. And
she's everything like you justsaid, She is like, a perfect
example of the kind of human youreally want to aspire to be. But
she says something similar aboutyou. So, just so you know, I
mean,
the gonna make me blush.
(21:23):
But you know, the thing that Ilove about what you do, when she
was talking about yourpresentation, and I think it was
an event that you were speakingat earlier this year, she was
really, really so impressed withyour approach to how you educate
entrepreneurs business leaders,on what that takes to build your
(21:44):
brand there. There's no day daysoff when you're building your
brand. There is a commitment anda dedication to what you are
doing, and especially in today'sworld where we are such
attention deficit challengedpeople grabbing someone's
attention and getting that brandto stick out and really mean
something for someone is reallyhard. There's a trick to that.
(22:06):
It's, you know, there's strategyand and a six, a sustained
effort that's required. How haveyou seen in the time that you've
had since you started the agencyto where you are now? How that
has that become a bigger andbigger challenge? Or are you
being able to utilize new ideasand strategies to stay top of
mind for the clients you serve.
Well, when you say top of mindfor the clients we serve, I'm
(22:27):
assuming you mean justcontinuing to be their first
choice, right? Yeah, sure. Um, Iwill tell you that what it comes
down to in this business is therelationships you build and the
service you deliver, right? Andyeah, if you can't build a great
relationship, if you can'tanticipate a client's needs
before they need it, if youcan't show them you're thinking
(22:48):
ahead of them, then you're notgoing to have clients for long.
And so that is the number onepriority, is Client Services at
our firm when it comes tohelping them stay ahead of the
curve. Yeah, we're alwaystalking through new strategies.
You know, we're learning thingsevery quarter and then trying to
pass it along to them on theimportance. But one thing I will
say is that most brands who comethrough our doors, we build them
(23:11):
a beautiful website and a brandstrategy. We consult them. They
they really struggle to build abrand, because they don't put
110% into the brand piece of it,right? They might still convert
leads into customers throughsome of our efforts. They might
still see sales increase fromwhat we've done. But building a
brand is probably one of thehardest things you can ever do,
(23:31):
and the reason why is becauseyou have to commit to content.
You have to commit to value andentertainment for your audience
without getting anything inreturn. And a lot of people
don't want to do that process.So we try to educate people. You
know, I just had a call with aclient last night, a potential
client who wants to she's arelationship therapist and a sex
therapist, totally taboo. And,you know, she wants to build a
(23:54):
content machine where shemonetizes her content on
YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.And so I looked at her content,
and I was like, Listen, you canabsolutely do this, just going
to take a year of consistentlyputting out absolutely
incredible content. And itdoesn't mean like, highly
produced it means you'reGoogling every day what your
audience is asking, and you'redoing quick videos, and then
you're analyzing what, whatworked, what didn't, what
(24:16):
hashtags operated well, and thendoing it again the next day the
rent is due every day when youbuild a brand, you are not
willing to pay the rent. You'renot going to build a brand. And
so that's why Black rifle coffeeis valued at $3.7 billion you
look at something like that,right? For better, for worse,
you love or hate that brand. Itevokes a feeling. It's a
conservative coffee brand. Theyare not a coffee brand. They are
(24:38):
a content brand. They are acontent machine, and they have
created tremendous value fortheir customers through their
content and through their idealsand through creating a really
strong brand by being consistentin their efforts. So to get to a
three to $4 billion valuation,you either have to have a
patented product that is soincredible, everybody's using it
(24:58):
right like. You know, chat GPTmight be one of those things
that's like, yeah, that isright. That's marketing itself,
yeah, or you have to build anincredible brand in a crowded
attention market and do it sowell every single day, no matter
how you feel. And that's hard todo.
So the the type of service thatyou guys do through your agency
(25:20):
is IT strategy, or is it alsothe execution piece? Because I
think one of the biggestproblems, and we, you know, we
get pitched. I have a softwarecompany. We get pitched all the
time, people coming in to talkto us about our brand. And
you're absolutely right. I, youknow, had the pucker factor a
little bit when you said, youknow, the rent is due every day.
It's like shit. I'm way behind,right? So, but it's, it's, it's
(25:42):
a reality, right? And it doesbecome overwhelming, but you
find that a lot of times peopleare like, Hey, we're really good
at telling you what you need todo. But if, if it was so easy to
be able to execute on that plan,I think the vast majority of
companies would would try tofigure it out. They'd read the
book, they'd, you know, go tothe webinars, they'd take, you
know, the great ideas, and thenInstitute it. The reality is,
what you bring to the table, Ithink, from a brand perspective,
(26:05):
is like, we can tell you how todo it, but you really need the
people that can actually executeit. And can look at those
hashtags every day, can look atthose trends, keep those things
bubbling up to the people whocan develop the content and then
leverage that content in a waythat actually gets the
attention.
Yeah. So here's our services andour approach, right? So we have
(26:26):
a brand development side that85% of our clients come in
through right brand, whichstarts with brand strategy, our
say hello, framework, which isfour phases, discovery,
understanding your audience andyour competitors, voice and
tone, building your brand,personality, messaging, what are
the stories we tell andimplementation? How do we tell
those stories, and what's thestrategy for getting them out?
(26:47):
So brand strategy follows that.Say hello, framework. We have
brand strategy and brandpositioning, visual identity. We
can build the visual identity aspart of that framework and web
design and development on ourbrand development side, brand
strategy, visual identity, webdesign, brand development, then
when they're ready, we say, Allright, let's move you over to
brand management. And there's acouple things that we're going
to help you with, and there's acouple things that you're going
(27:09):
to do. I'm a really straightshooter when it comes to helping
mid level businesses understandwhat they should pay an agency
to do, and what they need tofreelance and what they need to
hire somebody in the Philippinesto do. Right? We are not going
to sit here and analyze, youknow, every single tick tock
video and what, what did didn'tdo well, unless you want to pay
us $20,000 a month and mosthappy to do it right. We're
(27:31):
happy to do it right, becausethat means we've got to really
make sure that we're we're onpoint with that. So the services
that we do on a brand managementside is PR, media visibility,
getting media placements thatare brand worthy and credible,
and helping you identify how todo that, and then us actually
executing. We've got a head ofmedia in New York and ahead of
media in Australia, we positionthought leaders and people,
(27:52):
because people media doesn'twant to tell stories about a
company. They want to tellstories about a person. So
that's how we help with thatsocial media strategy and some
social media management andreally filling in content gaps
and working with your team tounderstand who's on the ground
there that can run the stories,that can get more content, and
then we'll help chop it up,we'll help edit and manage it,
(28:13):
but we're working in tandem withyour team right as an external
resource, paid ads, obviously,paid ads, that's not going away
anytime soon. We have a paid adsteam, an SEO team, and then the
last piece is email marketingand funnels, so creating your
customer funnels. So these aresome things that we do really
well. Right outside of that,there are tons of different
things you can do in marketingand branding, but typically what
(28:36):
we'll do is help the clientunderstand, if we're not the
expert, here's how you bring inthe expert, and we also look at
their budget. And the truth is,is a startup that spends $30,000
with us on branding probablycan't afford to go on a 5k a
month retainer for some of theseservices, so we can help consult
them and help them figure itout. But at the end of the day,
(28:57):
what we see with founders whocreate a really great brand is
their commitment to content, thecommitment to putting content
out and not faltering on that,to continue building the brand
that you've built them in thebeginning. I love that.
So I just read an article nottoo long ago. If I can find it,
I'll send it to you. But therewas a it was an argument between
too little content and too muchcontent. What do you? What do
(29:19):
you? I mean, I'm sure there's awhole lot of different takes on
this, but what I heard you sayis that you got to be getting up
and grinding every day to dosomething right, to get that
name in front of yourperspective audience, or to
reinforce it with your existingaudience. How much is too much
and how much? How too little?How little is too little?
(29:40):
Yeah, so too little would beonce every two weeks. That's too
low. You're not remaining top ofmind. Too much would be, in my
opinion, four times a day. GaryV can do that? Gary V is not
most of us, okay. Can do that?Alex for mosey is not most of
us. Yeah, once you've built uptrust with the algorithms,
they're not pushing your contentdown because it's really good.
But. They put out content fourtimes a day, and it's freaking
(30:02):
amazing content. It's notcontent that is getting pushed
down on the algorithm. So mostpeople make the mistake of going
too hard, putting out really badcontent four times a day, and
the algorithms just bury them.They get depressed and they stop
so for most of us, for mostbrands, just start with high
quality content three to fourtimes a week. Make it high
quality, make it valuable.Understand how you're bringing
(30:25):
value to your audience. I justhad a hair salon who's a client,
and she was like, I don'tunderstand how these tiktoks and
instagram videos that go viralget butts in my seats. And I
said they get butts in yourseats, because the goal of
social media is the word ofmouth referral. They share that
video, they send it to somebody,somebody who didn't know that
your hair salon wasn't there,was there, finds out that it's
(30:46):
there. That's how they get buttsin your seats. So you've got to
create content that is eitherentertaining or serves
tremendous value to youraudience. If you're not doing
one of those two things, no onecares. No one cares about your
content and no one cares aboutyour brand. So my point is find
the middle ground of three tofour posts a week on one to two
platforms. To start, you cansome weeks I amp it up. Some
(31:07):
weeks I amp it down. You know,I'm in a content direction my
own, where I've only been doingtwo to three posts a week on my
stories and on my LinkedIn. I'vebeen feeling really burnt out on
my content. I'm trying to figureout what direction I want to go,
so I'm taking a little bit oftime to kind of just water it
down. But then there will be atime when I'm putting out tons
of content so and by tons ofcontent, I mean five or six
times a week, and really stayingtop of mind. So I think that it
(31:29):
also comes down to you as aperson and your business,
understanding what feels rightfor the business and the brand.
And I always say less is more ifit's high quality. Yeah,
I love that. What's your what'syour take on, you know, you
mentioned like, you know, you'lldo stories or reels. Are you a
(31:50):
supporter when we're talkingabout video format, short form,
long form, what, what's yourtake? Or does it depend on, you
know, I'm sure I'm answering myown question, really, but
probably depends on the, who,the you know who you are, or
what your company is. But do youhave a preference as to what
seems to be? You know, at least,as as we're looking at 2025 the
the stronger play for someonethat's considering content,
(32:12):
I think, sure, I think shortform content is really, really
important, you know, um, and Ithink so, you know, the short
the short form content, isessentially videos that are
underneath, let's say, a minuteto a minute 30 so underneath 30
seconds. And why that's thecase, and why that's so
(32:33):
important is because essentiallywhat people want is value in
quick gold nuggets and quickgolden takeaways. So if you're
inundating them with informationin a five minute video, our
brain just don't work that way.We're in an attention deficit.
So short form content is alsoeasy for you to do by talking
about one thing. So I did avideo that did so well for us
(32:55):
the other day, and it was like,Who? How do you figure out your
ideal customer profile in lessthan 90 seconds? Right? Somebody
wants to know that, somebodywants to understand a problem.
And it's a catchy title, you'regonna, you're gonna get eyes on
that, for sure.
Yes, absolutely. So that's whatI was. I
love that. What? So I caughtsomething you said earlier about
(33:19):
and I'm guessing is probably theideal client, you know, a medium
or middle sized client, right,that has the budget to bring in
a resource like your agency. Ilove the fact that you sort of
showed that and shared that,because at the end of the day,
it's also a pretty gooddistinction as to, you know your
target market. You know whereyou want to focus your time,
(33:40):
energy and effort, you're notafter necessarily the
solopreneur that's doingwhatever they're doing as a side
hustle, because they won't havethe budget or probably the
fortitude or commitment to dowhat you need them to do in
order to get the traction toshow the ROI on the investment.
But did you make thatconcentrated effort when you
started the agency, or is thatsomething evolved? Or am I
(34:04):
catching it or reading thatcompletely wrong?
You're reading it right? When westarted the company, we took
anybody who had money, anybodywho could pay us, yeah, okay. We
did 130,000 in our first year,anyone who could pay me. I was
taking when I'm taking you, yougot a pulse, cool. I'm taking
you. So as agencies evolved, wefound a couple of different
(34:24):
niches. And look, we're notcompletely niche in one
vertical, because first off,creatively, that fatigue is a
team that's trying to build agreat brand. And second off,
agencies are volatile. I mean,they are and yes, you can
specialize in one thing, but ifthat market drops out because of
the economy, which is what wesaw in COVID, you can kind of
feel like, oh, gosh, what do Ido? Right? So we have three kind
(34:47):
of audiences that I would say.One is the blue collar business
that's a 20 to 35 million and upcompany that is ready to build a
brand and ready to go outside oftheir comfort zone with what
they've done before. They don'thave an updated web. Site. They
don't have an updated brand.They have no messaging. Their
sales people don't haveprocesses. We're going to take
them and we're just going to fixthem all right up and blue
(35:08):
collar brands are a blast.That's our first really strong
ICP. The second one is, youknow, some of these direct to
consumer brands that are tryingto launch with one to five SKUs.
Want a really focused brandstrategy, a really focused brand
story and brand narrative.They're not launching with 1000s
of SKUs. They're launching witha couple of really unique
products that solve a veryspecific problem. We can help
(35:29):
them build out their brandstrategy, build out their e
commerce Store, those, you know,those brands. Five years ago, it
was the heyday of them, youknow, the white sneakers and
parachute with just one set oflinen, the perfect linen, right?
And, of course, they expand. Butthose products are really fun
for us, and we've done a lot ofthem, whether it's a hooded
towel or a type of apron, andyou can really get into a very
(35:52):
targeted ICP, and it's verystrong creatively. And the third
one is, you know, SaaScompanies, because they're
typically selling in a marketthat they've got. They're
talking about talking about alot of features, but they're not
talking about emotionalbenefits, and they're not taking
their consumer into this is whatlife looks like with my product.
They're just talking a lot abouttheir product and themselves. So
(36:12):
being able to help them story,brand framework, and create a
really, really great narrativearound what life is like with
their product is really fun forus. So those are a couple
verticals that we really rock atand that we really enjoy doing
work in. And then, of course,branding, because we do a lot,
the thought leader. Now, the
last vertical you talked aboutthe the example that would come
(36:34):
to mind would be what you see onthe evening news, right, with a
lot of the pharmaceuticals, likeI had this condition, took this
drug. Now my life is better,kind of, right? That's kind of
the that third vertical that youwere targeting, because at the
end of the day, you can say,hey, this is what it's intended
to do. But unless you actuallyhave a real life person that's
benefited from whatever theproduct or service might be,
(36:56):
it's kind of empty advertisingin a big, big way, right? But
having a real life example, orhere's where I was, here's where
I am, thanks to XYZ product orXYZ services. Pretty
significant, and it's funny thatI guess that conjures up
something for me, because I feellike over the last 10 years,
(37:16):
you've seen a difference inspecifically like pharmaceutical
marketing and brand buildingaround these drugs, where before
it was just, hey, let me justtell you the facts. You know, I
only want the facts, and here'swhat it fixes, and here's why
you need to take it. And thenyou see this shift now from
brand and output or benefit ofwhatever the product or service
(37:37):
might be to now more story mode,because it's more relatable, and
you put yourself in the sameshoes as the person you're
watching
absolutely 110%
I love that. So because you, youknow, we started this off
talking about AI and the toolsand the capabilities, and I love
the fact that you are doing whatyou can to take things off your
(38:00):
plate so that you can do thedeep work. Use that word. I love
that very much. Shout out to CalNewport, I think probably for
that. Yeah, fantastic. But thebut, how have you always been
that way? Or is this sort of by,you know, need or necessity for
survival to had to adapt yourapproach to how you go about
(38:23):
being the leader you are such
a great question. I think rightnow, we are in an epidemic of
everyone thinking they haveaccess to everybody at all the
time. And I'm trying to not berude, but I am done with that.
And so I am in a era where Iwant to really focus my energies
on creating, because when I feelmost fulfilled at work is when I
(38:46):
create. It's when I create, it'swhen I create content, it's when
I create for our clients, it'swhen I create great experiences
on the sales side, it's not inresponding. I'm not a robot,
right? I want to use it oncesomebody's time
frame, like, Hey, I just textedyou because I just sent you an
email three minutes ago. Andminutes ago and you didn't
respond yet, right? Well,thanks. That's the world we're
(39:06):
in. Yeah.
So I'm I'm practicing moreboundaries and setting
boundaries, and I want to be acreator in the next decade of my
career. I don't think that thatlet me explain I want to be an
innovator. To be an innovator,you have to be a creator, you
have to essentially be able toput out things about, excuse me,
of value to other people. Duringthe pandemic, I wrote 100 page
(39:28):
article or 100 page ebook that Imade $30,000 off of. That was
one of my best favorite times inthe world, which I know is
controversial, not because of,you know, people dying, but
because I got to be at home, andI got to focus, I made 30 grand
off of something that took meseven hours. The reason that was
possible is because of the ROIRight. People weren't coming at
(39:50):
me, right? And so for me, thenext piece of my like life phase
is more of that, and I'm stillin the process of creating this.
For myself, but I'm juststarting to implement more
tactics, phone interruptionmode, even, even the thought of,
okay, I really want to respondto this email right now, but I'm
(40:11):
doing something else. Finishthis task. The discipline to
finish a task before you move onto the next one. So I think
that's what we're going to startseeing in the next three years,
is there's going to be moreconsultants and trainers on
coming into companies on how toget people's to focus, rather
than putting us all on somedrugs and saying, We have ADHD,
it's going to be people comingin and saying, let me show you
(40:32):
the processes and systems toimplement into your life so that
you can actually achieve anoutput with all this technology.
I love that. I love that somuch. Well, you mentioned, you
know, Target, right? Beingcreative, you know, being a
creator, is that in the brandspace, or is it something else?
Yeah, so this is Alex. Wouldlove this response, and I don't
(40:54):
say that sarcastically. I mean,she truly will. So I am a brand
strategist. I mean, I've beenleading this agency and doing
brand strategy work with clientsfor eight years. I think that
I'm most effective as a head ofgrowth, which I am as a
salesperson, when I am alsoreading, creating and working
with brands. So I typically pickone to two brands per quarter
(41:15):
that are clients that I stillkind of stay on with and almost
help strategically. And thereason that I do that is because
I still want to be sharp on thebrand strategy side, and I want
to take that into my salesexperience. Because when I have
a sales call, I'm not sittinghere being like, let me style
you all website. I'm sittinghere asking questions about your
brand. I'm a very curiousperson. When I go through my
(41:37):
sales process and I takesomebody's goals of revenue and
where they want to go top line,and how they want to expand and
where their brand is currentlyat. I'm researching their
competitors. I'm looking at whattheir current messaging says.
I'm thinking about angles. I'mthinking about their thought
leaders and how they fit intothe brand, and if they've got to
have spokesperson and who'sgoing to that's the fun part,
(41:58):
and it's what differentiates mein sales. Because people come to
me on a sales call expecting meto be a typical marketing agency
selling them a website for$5,000 and instead, I walk them
through a 360 brand audit ofwhere their brand is, and I tell
them, this is where it can go,and this is the vision and the
future of your industry. That'swho I want to be, not a
salesperson. So to do that, youhave to still occasionally work
(42:21):
with clients, which I do, youhave to still be reading
research, and you still abouthuman psychology and
essentially, the differentindustries and where they're
going. And then you also have tobe creating content to be able
to do that effectively. Sothat's my goal for the next
couple years of my career. Well,
I think, like when I, you know,I've got a buddy that's in
Austin, that's got a brandagency, and he struggled in a
(42:42):
big, big way, but because theyno offense to him, he's not the
CEO that you are, right? Youknow, he does he he's like, I
got my role, and that's all I'mgoing to do, and then I hand it
off, and these, it gets piecemailed, and he's got a process,
and he has a lovely team.They're they're great people,
but there's discombobulation anddisconnection, because the right
(43:02):
hand doesn't always know whatthe left hand is doing. What I
love about you is not only areyou willing to roll up your
sleeves and do the work, butyou're also like putting
yourself in direct experience,in direct environments to gain
that experience, because thatexperience you learn today could
benefit your client tomorrow,right or or could inspire the
next great idea you bring backto that same environment, you
(43:23):
know, in two weeks. I thinkthat's phenomenal. So when
you're talking about that, eventhough you said, you know, Alex
would love that, is thatsomething you do on your own, is
that something down the roadthat you build a different kind
of agency or approach or what doyou think that?
No, I mean, Alex has given me,Yeah, Alex has given me the
(43:44):
flexibility to still work on aquarterly basis with one or two
clients. I mean, I'm notcompletely out of the client
work, but we keep me out of thebits and bobs of writing content
and UI, UX, ing, their website,and things that maybe I would
have done, you know, when I wasrunning the firm or startuping
the firm. So it's more, how am Istrategic consultant coming in
to meet with our clients? Andadvise at key junctures of their
(44:05):
process, like when they finallyget the mocks of their website,
and I've maybe seen theminternally and given some
strategic thought and we'rehaving a conversation about what
the design elements are going todo for their brand. I can come
into those calls and and workwith a client and offer my
expertise, almost like anadvisory role, and that keeps me
sharp, because I prep for thosecalls. I understand their brand,
(44:26):
and I'm looking at industryanalysis of what is happening in
their space, and I love doingthem. So that might be two or
three hours a week of my time,which isn't a lot, but it's
important to keep me connectedto what our clients want and
need, and to Account Services,or I'm going out and telling
people or shaping that thethings that we do in a way that
(44:47):
doesn't make sense for theclient.
Yeah, I love that. What I kindof almost envision that looking
or breaking into is kind oflike, you know, you've heard
that phrase entrepreneur inresidence, where you're bringing
somebody with outside X.Expertise in to look at your
business and almost reconstructit to a degree from their
entrepreneurial mindset, to say,hey, what you've done is great,
(45:08):
but where I can bring myexperience and my wisdom and
apply it, here could take us,you know, so many different
places. You're almost kind ofthat way when you're talking
about the brand of, you know,development, right? You're have
the seat at the table. You're asyou own the output. You own the
ROI for the client, but you'reright next to him, shoulder to
(45:29):
shoulder. And it's not like,Hey, we're just doing this kind
of on the fly, or, you know,it's because it's our monthly
check in, but you're doing itbecause you have a true
commitment and passion tohelping them succeed. Because
the more they succeed, the morethey rely and need you, right?
So, you know, you
see fractional, fractional CMO,that's a part of our service,
(45:49):
and we actually position us assuch. I love
that. Yeah, I love that. That'sfantastic. Where do you think
all of the technology plays thatwe have today, right? All the
tools and you know, various waysto get your name in, your brand
out there. Where do you see thatchanging or, or where do you see
(46:11):
going in the next five years?Because I know I it's obvious
just even paying attention toyou like our audience is gonna
be like. So to name to youbecause you are like, You are
freaking awesome, so intense,but I know you're looking 510,
15 years down the road. I cansee your head, see the the
wheels turning in your head aswe talk. So yeah,
(46:31):
I think in five years, youragency will be responsible for
helping you position andcultivate and decide direction.
But I do think things like paidads will be run by AI five years
from now, and we will just bemonitoring it, or you will be
monitoring it. I think thingslike building a website five
years from now, that will not besomething that you need to hire
(46:53):
an agency to do. So what willyou hire an agency to do?
Campaigns, creative, direction,focus, understanding how to
integrate technology together,workflows, automations. You'll
be hiring a team to piece thingstogether, because you don't have
the time to look at a tech stackand understand how to integrate
(47:13):
it. But brand strategy willremain even more important in
five years, because people arelosing the ability to connect
human to human. It's happeningwith Gen Z as much as we love
them. It's happening withmillennials. People are on their
phones, people aren't talking.So how do you understand humans
and where they're at? You needto hire agencies that are hard,
open, willing to do qualitativeand quantitative research to
(47:36):
understand human psychology, tobuild a brand that converts. And
that is where I believe thefuture will go, and I think that
will be even more important thanit is
now. I love that. And actually,if you think about it, forget
technology. This almost takesyou back to the madman, Mad Men,
kind of advertising model where,all right, you have whatever it
(47:56):
is, the block of soap you'redoing okay in your regional
market, but you want to gonational, and now you need
someone that's got creativevision to really take you from
where you are to where you wantto go. But they you're really,
it's more of a hands on, verycontact oriented kind of sport
at that point, which is, I thinkit's funny because, you know,
talk about going back to thefuture, right? That's where,
(48:18):
that's where I think it, youknow, if it does fall in align
with what you say, that's reallywhere you're going to be back,
right? It's very hands on, verydirect, but also more
intentional and purposeful thanwe are today. You won't be able
to spend your way out of theproblem, and you won't be able
to just AI the issue, right?It's you're going to need people
like you sitting at my tablegoing, Okay, this is what we
need to do next. And after that,here's what we're going to do
(48:41):
beyond that, in here, threeyears from now, where we'll be
because of these efforts thatwe're making today. Absolutely
agree with you, and you're goingto need people who are
integrators, who are strongexecutioners, because that is
hard to find in the job market.So that's hiring an agent.
Because, you know, you get thatabsolutely
well, Natalie, I could talk toyou for hours. I mean, I'm just
(49:02):
fascinated by your journey andthe approach here, and I
appreciate your time. I want todo a quick time check. Are you
okay for a few more minutes?
Yeah, I do have a noon so maybeactually not. It's 1159 Okay,
yeah. Well, yeah, we got starteda little bit late. Yeah. I
thought we agreed to do this. Iam going to end it here.
Normally, I like to do a littleripple oriented questions, but
(49:23):
there's so much I think we couldcontinue to talk. Maybe we could
schedule a sequel here in alittle while and do it and go
from there. But I just want tothank you so much for the time
today, and if there's anything Ican be doing to help support you
or the agency you know, don'thesitate to reach out to me. But
I really appreciate you being onthe ripple effect podcast. So
(49:43):
thank you,
Steve. You've been a pleasure.And yeah, if you anyone who's
listening, follow me onInstagram at Natalie Macauley,
send me a DM on LinkedIn. I loveconnecting with people about
projects and all the things, andwe would love to do a volume.
I'd love to do Volume Two withyou and go even deeper. So
Thank. Do
it. Let's do it. I appreciateit. Good luck with your call.
Thanks for the time today, andwe'll we'll be in touch soon.
(50:05):
Appreciate it. Bye, take care.Bye. Bye. You.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.