February 9, 2025 • 31 mins
In this episode of The D2Z Podcast, host Brandon Amoroso speaks with Nikki Lindgren, founder of Pennock, about her journey in the digital marketing space, particularly in the beauty industry. They discuss the challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of finding a niche, and the effectiveness of TikTok as a sales channel. Nikki shares insights on leveraging AI in marketing, the significance of creating a positive remote work culture, and the ongoing need for sales and business development in agency growth.
What You'll Learn:
❗Nikki's entrepreneurial journey began with a passion for lifestyle branding and e-commerce.
❗The COVID-19 pandemic posed significant challenges but also opened new opportunities in the beauty industry.
❗Finding a niche can be unintentional but beneficial for agency growth.
❗TikTok has proven to be a highly effective sales channel for beauty products.
❗Channel diversification is crucial for mitigating risks in marketing strategies.
❗AI is transforming marketing practices, making processes more efficient.
❗Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are essential for scaling an agency effectively.
❗Creating a positive remote work culture fosters collaboration and team spirit.
❗Sales and business development remain critical functions for agency leaders.
❗Emerging brands can benefit from co-funding opportunities in paid media.
Timestamps:
- 00:00 Introduction to D2Z and Guest Background
- 03:06 Nikki's Journey to Entrepreneurship
- 06:11 Navigating Challenges During COVID-19
- 08:57 Finding a Niche in the Beauty Industry
- 12:01 Leveraging TikTok for Sales
- 14:49 Exploring New Sales Channels
- 17:59 The Role of AI in Marketing
- 21:07 Scaling the Agency and Delegation Challenges
- 23:58 Creating a Positive Remote Work Culture
- 27:05 Sales and Business Development Insights
- 30:04 Conclusion and Future Opportunities
Nikki Lindgren:
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkilindgren/
Pennock - https://www.pennock.co/
Brandon Amoroso:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonamoroso/
Web - https://brandonamoroso.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bamoroso11/
X - https://twitter.com/AmorosoBrandon
Scalis.ai - https://scalis.ai/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everyone, Thanks for tuning into D2Z, a podcast
about using the Gen Z mindset togrow your business.
I'm Gen Z entrepreneur BrandonAmoroso, the former founder of
Electric and now the co-founderof Scaless, and today I'm
talking with Nikki Lindgren,who's the founder and managing
partner at Pinnock, which is apaid media and SEO agency for
beauty and lifestyle brands thatare growing their D2Z
businesses.
(00:21):
Thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I'm really excited to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
So before we dive into things, can you give
everybody just a quickbackground on yourself and sort
of your journey?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, well, I was coming out of college here in
the San Francisco Bay Area inthe early 2000s and I really
wanted to work in both lifestylebranding as well as e-commerce,
and so I was lucky enough towork with Cost Plus World Market
now known as World Market andhelp launch their e-commerce
store for the very first time,and that's where I really got
(00:55):
excited and jazzed about thewhole industry of digital
marketing and helping e-commercebrands, and so I really stayed
in the industry since then,working both agency side and
in-house side, before forming myown agency, panoc, in 2020.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
What would you say was sort of the impetus for
wanting to start your own agency.
Why 2020?
You were like this is it.
This is the time I'm going tomake the entrepreneurial leap.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, well, I'm from a really small town in Minnesota
, so I feel like I kind of grewup sheltered, but my dad was an
entrepreneur, so I was reallyexcited about the idea of just
being my own boss.
I thought I had what it took.
You know, I was younger, I waskind of full of myself, and so,
as I was also pregnant with mythird child and getting laid off
(01:45):
from my last full timemarketing role, I was just like,
well, now's the moment to justget on, you know, upwork and all
the freelancing platforms, tostart showing what I've got to
give 2018 rather to 2020.
(02:07):
So for two years, I just had aconsultancy and I cobbled
together a couple freelancerswho would help me with any
projects I was able to secure.
And after I had enoughcontracts that I felt
comfortable with, coveringfull-time staff and payroll, we
started rolling in team members,and that just happened to be
about two weeks before the wholeworld locked down for COVID.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
And what was that initial period?
Like you know, makingadjustments and changing during
a period of pretty extremeuncertainty that lasted for
quite a bit of time.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, so we definitely had a rocky early
part of 2020 where I wasn't sureI could even continue
sustaining full time employees.
So we were able to, you know,get enough leads who were quick
acting to really continuerunning our business.
But at that point we probablyhad one client that was
(02:58):
attributing to 40 or 50% oftotal revenue coming in.
So it was pretty risky times.
For sure, we were able to keepthat client happy.
I think they stayed with us forlike two and a half years, so
it ended up being a really goodsituation.
But that was kind of the risk wetook at the beginning was not
knowing what was about to happen.
Then, when it happened, we hada few clients who decided to end
(03:22):
our relationship immediatelyand also not pay us for the
previous outstanding invoices.
So it could have ended a littlebit differently.
But, you know, I just kind ofput my head down and looked for
any opportunity that I couldfind at that point and
fortunately people were veryinterested in beauty and you
know just their aesthetic duringthat time.
(03:45):
So it ended up being a greattime to get into the beauty
industry pretty heavily.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
How did you end up sort of aligning on that
particular vertical as the nichethat you were going to go into?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, that's a good question and it wasn't actually
intentional, and I don't know ifthat's good to admit or not.
My interest was home decor.
That's where I had spent adecent amount of my time.
I had been at subscriptionboxes for kids.
I had been at wearabletechnology companies.
So beauty was a little bit ofan outlier for me.
But the relationships I wasbuilding with other agencies
(04:21):
that complemented ours hadreally deep tentacles in beauty.
So it just felt natural tostart working in that space.
And now my team's still verysmall, but the team all-female
staff they really like workingin beauty, so we have no reason
to pivot at this point.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah, I mean we also fell into it.
You know we used to do it bothfrom a vertical standpoint but
also services that we provided.
Uh cause, in the early days Iwould do pretty much anything
for anyone to, you know, to getrevenue and to be able to hire
more clients.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
And then you know, we did that too, like in 2020, we
had a couple of brands thatreally needed us to do email,
they needed us to do creativeand a lot of things within
marketing, and my staff was justtoo small and we were really
just skilled at paid mediamanagement and SEO.
So we just kind of cut down ourservices and trim the fat to
(05:18):
what we thought we could reallydo with a small lean team on an
ongoing basis.
But yeah, I mean I assumed Iwould grow up to be a full
service anything within themarketing ecosystem my team and
I would be doing and you knowthat was just kind of a niche we
ended up going into.
It was just paid and SEO, and Imean precisely that's where my
deepest experience was as amarketer, in-house and agency
(05:42):
side, before starting the agency.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yeah, I mean I see a lot of relationships go awry
because you know an agency willtry and take on too much and
then you know, as opposed tohaving a really great
relationship providing twoservices for a brand, they're
you know having a mediocrerelationship providing four, and
then they'll end up churning.
And so you know, long term it'sactually not you know better
off for either side.
(06:05):
But there could I mean, I haveseen pressure before from brands
Like why won't you do this forme?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
We want you to do it.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
You do such a good job with these one or two other
things that you're doing, soit's definitely a tricky
balancing act.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Well and I think it's hard too than we did even a
year ago with TikTok affiliatemanagement and TikTok just shop
management, and we were reallyintentional about how we rolled
it out, which existing clientswe tested it and piloted it with
for free, just to make sure ourSOPs and the way we were
thinking about managing theservice was something we felt
(06:38):
comfortable selling before wehad our first paying client to
manage that workflow with.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
So you mentioned TikTok shop.
You know what are you mostexcited about with that channel
for for this year?
You know assuming it's stillhere.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, I mean I think for for beauty and kind of other
uh, really low considerationproducts where people are
converting quite quickly becausethe price point is palatable,
et cetera.
It's just been a quick mover interms of, you know, increasing
volume of sales, increasing ROAS.
So for us, you know, in all ofthe A-B testing we've done on
(07:16):
the TikTok ads platform sayingshould we point people to the
e-commerce store or point peopleto TikTok shop TikTok shop has
always outperformed.
I think there's a coupleoutliers where it was either a
new technology in the industryand people didn't understand it
and needed more education.
The only other time it didn'twork is when the audience was
(07:37):
much more mature and maybewasn't used to shopping on a
platform like TikTok.
But I think the exciting thingthen for us is just like we
already have a lot of proof thatit's going to convert and drive
much more revenue than bringingpeople to the e-commerce shop.
So nothing really new thatwe're looking forward to in this
year just making sure we canget more brands live there so
(07:59):
that the ads we're running canpoint to the shop experience for
that quicker response rate fromcustomers.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Are there product categories that you would say
don't fit very well for TikTokshop?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
It's interesting because within the lifestyle
space we do help a handful oflifestyle brands, including
fashion brands, and I think whenyou think of fashion and all
the colorways and sizevariations, sometimes that gets
a little complicated to do aswell on TikTok as something like
an eye serum or something.
So we have found in fashion ithas been a little more
(08:34):
challenging and in some casesnot as helpful, but within the
space of like a single product,without the variations, without
the colorways, it's really awinning formula.
So I'd say that would beanother area that we've worked
in that doesn't work.
And then again, like thosehigher price point things is
more considered purchases arealso going to do better on e-com
(08:54):
than on TikTok shop.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Are there any other sort of sales channels that
you're interested in exploringin 2025?
I know I've been seeing a bunchof stuff about Apple Oven from
some folks in this space, but onour end we don't do acquisition
.
We were always.
Once you get to the website,then we take over from an
experience and retentionstandpoint.
(09:18):
So are there any other mediachannels or sales channels that
you're looking to tap into for25?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah, I think this year for us and a lot of our
clients even though our clientsare still pretty much emerging
and under, I would say, 15million ARR is we're looking at
just channel diversification.
I think, like with the TikTokscare that happened earlier this
year, people are a little bitnervous around how much emphasis
they put into a single channel.
So you know, even last year wewere very heavy on meta and
Google.
Obviously we don't hear anyhiccups on those channels, but
(09:53):
we want to still continue todiversify.
So we're having a lot moreconversations already early in
the year about getting ontoconnected TV and audio ads and
it just seems like there's a lotmore trackability in platforms
that had fewer options toproperly track uh earlier on.
So that's what we're reallylooking to do is just kind of
expand further.
(10:13):
We've done a handful of likereddit tests, even with beauty
brands.
Maybe we'll do more reddit adsthis year.
Maybe we'll go into spotifyharder.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Things like that are just really kind of diversifying
rather than putting all of oureggs in the meta, programmatic
and google lane yeah, and Ithink I mean it's definitely, I
would argue, even more difficultwhen you're not a giant
business, having to do thatdiversification, because you
have to be careful to not spreadyourself too thin, exactly
(10:43):
because there are benefits togoing deep, you know, with one
particular platform.
Yeah, I mean, if 70, 80% ofyour spend was on TikTok and
then disappears, that's aserious problem.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, yeah.
So that's kind of what we'rejuggling with the clients and we
like to take a look at theirtotal business e-commerce or
social commerce in general andwhat the paid lane will do when
we're talking about the paid adsmanagement we do and just make
sure that we can look at thatMER marketing efficiency ratio
to understand if we do moreawareness campaigns, how does
(11:15):
that impact their overallbusiness?
What is the lag time for thatawareness to actually convert
for the brands?
So that's kind of what we thinkabout in partnership with the
brand.
So we're not always focused onthe remarketing efforts, the
lower funnel tactic efforts, andI think that helps us get
comfortable and the brands getcomfortable going into some of
these newer platforms.
(11:36):
But again, we need to bemindful of how much each
campaign is spending per day toensure it makes sense for the
business.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, I've been seeing more and more sort of
like media mix modelingplatforms that have popped up,
one of them being Prescient, Ithink there's one or two others,
but it's pretty fascinating tosee how close and accurate
they're able to predict revenuebased off of spend and what
particular channels and thishalo effect that I think we've
(12:07):
talked about as marketers for avery long time but has been
extremely hard to actuallyquantify.
It's like oh, we're running anad on Facebook to go to the
Shopify store, but our Amazonsales are going up.
We're just in the past, youjust sort of take it as is.
Versus now you can actuallystart to look at what is the
(12:28):
true impact of that ad and youknow cross channel performance.
So I think things likeconnected TV and all this other
stuff too, it's just gettingbetter and better.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yeah, I think the person and I do think like one
of the struggles we have withthese earlier stage businesses
is how much they can spend onlike tooling and technology.
So Crescent isn't one we'veused yet but I think, like North
beam, triple whale, a lot ofthe attribution and
incrementality that can be seen.
There are things where youusually layering into to decide
(12:57):
how to make decisions.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah, that's true.
Um, that was always theconstant juggle for us is you
know how to have a tech stackthat is sort of like our
preferred one at the agency whenyou're working with businesses
who might be doing 5 million ayear, some that are doing, you
know, $75 million a year.
There's different tools as youstart to work your way up, and
then also there's just like themedia mix.
(13:20):
Modeling is far more effectivewith more data.
So if you're only doing $5million a year, it's probably
not needed yet, and I seen waytoo many shopify storefronts
with like 70 or 80 appsinstalled on them.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
so consolidation and you know this is the name of the
game, I think oh great.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Are there any any other like um apps or sort of
tools that you're leveragingthat you think are just like
totally no brainers for anybusiness in the beauty and
lifestyle space to be takingadvantage of?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah, let's see.
I mean, I think from a siteexperience perspective and
that's maybe a little bit morein your lane of expertise
there's just a lot of coolintegrations with the experience
someone might be seeing onsocial and primarily on social
ads.
So vermont is something, is aplatform.
I think that's doing a good jobof extending the ad experience
(14:20):
to a custom landing page in apretty slick and technology
driven way.
Who did I speak to recently?
Another team that does creativeis doing an angle like that.
So to me, I think like theseamless integration of not only
just like campaign 360 approach, but also making sure that the
campaigns across the channelsthen relate well to what happens
(14:40):
on the website, I think is areally cool feature.
I mean, anything that's goingto do personalization, too, is
going to be super, super helpful.
But I think, if we're speakingprimarily in what we do, which
is like the ads management sideof things, we work with a
company called Best Ever to dosome AI and like lifting of
(15:01):
creatives.
Should we need?
Most of our clients are makingtheir own assets because their
brand is their baby and theywant to make sure everything
looks amazing.
But should we need quick lifts?
We find best ever is great forthat.
We find motion for assetinsights and when we're going to
start to see fatigue withcreative.
We've used foreplay in the past.
(15:22):
I think motion does most ofwhat foreplay does at this point
, so motion is sort of our go-to.
And then for us, like reporting, is really important Finding
technologies that puts togethera nice quick dashboard that the
clients can make sense of andlook at at their leisure.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, you mentioned AI.
How is AI transforming the waythat you sort of work and
support your businesses?
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think you can ever be too
caught up with what's going onin AI.
I feel like almost every dayyou could find a way to make
what you're doing better.
For us with AI, like well,first, there are more machine
learning based campaigns that werun these days, right.
So on Google, we haveperformance max campaigns that
are easier for a media buyer tobe managing.
(16:06):
We have advantage plus shoppingon meta, so we're using a lot
of the now embedded AI of thecampaign builds and management.
Beyond that, for AI, I thinklike again, any kind of tool
that's going to help makecreative or ad copy easier will
leverage just sophisticated likeagents and scripts that we have
(16:28):
, brand by brand to kind ofshortcut.
Some of the creation andstrategy is what we're using too
, um.
And then for us in the ad space, we've been doing a lot of
scripting for bid rules and bidmanagement, um, throughout the
time, but I think even themanagement of scripts is
becoming more simplified, so sothat's good for newer media
(16:51):
buyers.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, I think the more that you can offload to AI
to free yourself up to thinkmore critically and
strategically, the better.
There's so many workflows thatI've been able to augment
because of it that I don't haveto spend hours, in some cases,
doing over and over again, andit's just getting better and
better every day.
It that I don't have to, youknow, spend hours in some cases
(17:14):
doing over and over again?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Um and it's just getting better and better every
day.
So well, and I think it'sinteresting because we're hiring
right now and one of thequestions now you know ask in
interview processes is like,what have you done in the
automation lane?
And like, give me examples ofthings that you've taken from
you know the manual to to aslightly better version, things
that you've taken from you knowthe manual to a slightly better
version, and I think it's just,you know, one of the things I
read just yesterday is the roleof junior employees and how much
(17:38):
of that might just be movedinto AI, and so something we're
thinking about trying to figureout ways to have our own profit
margin as an agency improve overthe years.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, something that's been interesting to see
is how a lot of entry-levelroles now require one to two
years of experience.
But they're entry-level, so howdo you get the years of
experience for an entry-levelrole?
It's going to be interesting tohow things evolve over the next
three or five years, Becausethere's definitely people who
(18:10):
think that, you know, AI agentsare just going to do absolutely
everything.
But then, you know, I've metquite a few folks, especially on
, like, the engineering side,who you know they're working
with these tools literally everyminute of the day and there
still has to be a lot ofhandholding that goes into it.
If you just sort of let it offto its own devices, it can go
(18:33):
down holes and paths that don'tmake sense in any way whatsoever
.
We'll see if it hits a wall.
I read an article where itcould hit a wall at some point,
and then there will have to beanother completely different
step up in function andeventually it'll just hit this
wall.
I don't know.
There's far smarter people whoare working on these things than
(18:54):
me.
I'm just trying to be able toleverage it as well as possible
to make my life easier and thebusiness is more successful.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Us as well.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Hopping back out to the actual, you know, agency
itself.
Um, what has it been likedelegating and sort of
offloading things to to teammembers as you've grown and
scaled?
Uh, cause, I hear that's youknow, challenging for business
owners in any type of company.
You know they, it's their baby,they're doing everything for
everything all at once, and thenthey start to grow and they
(19:32):
can't do that anymore and youhave to entrust other people to,
like, take on certain thingsand those roles.
So what has that been like foryou and how have you sort of
facilitated that, you know,effectively?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
agree that it's.
It was a huge challenge thefirst few years.
So even as a consultancy with afreelance team, we I was having
a hard time getting the productto be what I wanted it to be,
and so for me one of the controlfreak moves that I did was I
have to have full-time staff,because then I have like little
more control over ensuring thatthe product they deliver is what
(20:09):
I wanted to deliver to clients.
So that was kind of like thefirst move to get things into a
lane.
That was the way I wanted tosee things.
We did not have like SOPs oreven like a single source of
truth.
There were like a lot of likemessy spreadsheets where you're
supposed to input.
Like the last day you did somethings, and so we were kind of
(20:30):
like very cobbled together and Iunderstood what we needed to do
really well, and so by defaultI just assumed every team member
at any level should also knowand have as much knowledge as I
have.
So there were lots ofinteresting stops and starts in
the first two years of thebusiness, I would say.
And then we moved into a moreprofessional project management
(20:50):
system.
We put together real sops.
I was just writing a new soptoday.
I think we have like 300 in ourdatabase, so just trying to
like get everything a little bitmore systematized I think
really helped me feelcomfortable being less involved
in clients day-to-day.
We're, you know, small team.
We have about 22 active clientsright now, so it's not that
(21:13):
many but still too many for meto be involved in all of them in
any way, shape or form.
So it's great to be at a placewhere the team is just doing the
work now and, as we bring onnew team members, my team is
training the new team members.
So I'm more around for just thequick onboarding and the touch
bases and less about trainingthe team on all the things to do
(21:34):
.
I mean, everything kind ofslips through the cracks to some
extent at some point.
So we'll uncover that we'vestopped using something that's
been really valuable in the pastand we'll dust it off and start
implementing again.
But for the most part, havingthe SOPs and the automations and
our project management systemsreally helped us kind of
continue to perfect the productwe're delivering.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, the one thing that always scared me about the
SOPs is like turning into one ofthe companies that I had
internships with back in highschool and college where you
just had these SOPs that made nosense at all anymore because
they needed to be changed,refreshed and updated, but
either nobody wanted to ornobody had the autonomy to
(22:16):
actually make those suggestionsand to facilitate that change.
So I was so probably overlyannoying about reminding the
team that just because this isthe process doesn't mean that,
like you, should not be thinkingcritically about it and whether
or not it makes sense and if itcould be improved, etc.
(22:36):
Etc.
Because you know that the lastthing I would want is just to be
stuck in in our ways and witheverything that happens now,
like so quickly you mentionedyeah, layering in the ai piece,
like the soPs, can get outdatedquickly.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
And you know, a team member of mine just came to me
after her last QBR with a clientand was like the client was
just super checked out, like Idon't think that the way we're
presenting our quarterlybusiness review is landing with
this client and maybe like weshould dust it off and see if we
need to refresh it foreverybody.
And I think what we found,comparing like start year 2020
(23:14):
to now 2025, is our brandsexpect us to be doing, to be
finding problems right away,finding solutions and, you know,
optimizing to get us to abetter spot.
And so if we wait till end ofmonth or end of quarter to tell
them about some opportunitiesthat we might have slept on,
like that's not going to landwell.
So none of our clients reallywant to hear about the
(23:36):
postmortem and what happened asthe month closed.
They want to continue learningabout strategies and how we're
going to do better, and so we'rejust, you know, kind of being
as aware of what the client'slooking for as we can be, so
that we're matching them ratherthan saying like, well, this is
our qbr, so let's just keepdoing it that way, because
that's how nikki said she wantedit two years ago so here we go.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, there's definitely a give and a take
there.
We've had some clients who wantus to change our processes way
too much to try and fit into,like whatever their structure is
, and it's totally destabilizing, um.
So that was always a fun.
A fun like a song and dancethere, especially when they're
like one of the larger clientsand, and you know, learning to
(24:19):
say no, no, I mean, I still amnot good at it, but it's
definitely a skill set.
I remember firing our firstclient and our whole team was
like so fired up about it andexcited because it needed to
have happened probably threemonths earlier than that.
But we were decently sized atthat point, so I didn't have my
(24:42):
thumb on the pulse of everysingle brand that we were
working with at that time.
So I didn't have my thumb on thepulse of every single brand
that we were working with atthat time.
So we had to install a timemanagement solution that would
essentially enable me to runmonthly reports so I could see
across the 50 brands how muchtime was being spent where, so
we could get some sort ofeffective hourly rate for like.
Once we implemented that, Ithink we were at like 14 or 15
(25:04):
an hour for this particularclient because you know, with
slack and all these other likecommunication channels, you can
like really abuse a team becauseyou know you're going
one-to-one.
You're like, oh, let's do asidebar here for 30 minutes.
Oh, can you help with this, canyou help with that?
And it just can like, you know,snowball out of control.
Um, but that was my first uhwarning lesson when it came to
(25:29):
uh saying no and also moving onwhen one of the time is right,
even when I think they were ourlargest retainer at the time.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
So it was pretty, pretty painful yeah yeah, yeah,
those are hard calls to make butdefinitely, you know, can help
progress things in the right way.
And and like I'm planning myone on one later today with a
team member, it's like how, whatelse can we systematize better
and automate better?
Because we've got new clientscoming on and I don't want to
just continue to hire every timewe have X new clients.
(25:57):
We've got to find a better wayto do it.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, how do you think about, you know, creating
culture and having a goodculture at a remote organization
?
I think a lot of companies arestruggling with that, especially
when it comes to hiring youngertalent.
I personally have had amiserable time trying to hire
people right out of schoolbecause they don't want to go
work in their parents' basementand then spend their whole time
there.
It's a big social component toit as well.
You know, spend their wholetime there.
It's like a big socialcomponent to it as well.
(26:26):
So how have you, like, goneabout creating an environment
where people you know have thatdesire and will to show up to
you, know they're a part of theteam, even if you aren't
physically with one another?
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, so we have a handful of moms on on our team
and you know beyond that, justwomen who are used to working in
remote companies.
So I think you know beyond that, just women who are used to
working in remote companies.
So I think you know already, bydefault, people kind of know
what that's going to feel, looklike.
I think the other thing that wedo is because our interview
(26:56):
process is not very long, but somany team members are able to
interact with the candidatesprior to hiring them, that
everyone's kind of getting tohave a point of view on what
it's going to be like tointeract with the candidates
prior to hiring them, thateveryone's kind of getting to
have a point of view on whatit's going to be like to
interact with this person.
Is it going to be a good fitfor us?
I think those two things kindof help.
Then, beyond that, we just havelike a like leave your ego at
(27:17):
the door, roll up your sleeves,kind of mentality and, um, lots
of people who will come intohelp situations where someone
you, you know needs extra eyeson something.
So I just think it's it's it'snot an environment where people
are trying to outdo each other,it's an environment where people
are trying to, like you know,increase everyone's output and
(27:38):
increase everyone's positivityin the work they're doing and
the way they're feeling aboutwhat they're doing.
So I think that that helps alot.
We have, like Wednesdaylearnings, where a team member
is kind of training us onsomething new that they're
excited about.
So there's just like a lot ofmoments for the small group to
get together and chat, and so Ithink the respect that they have
(27:59):
for each other is just reallyreal, and when we have our first
kickoff call with clients, justthe love oozing out of everyone
as they're introducing eachother is just really, really
sweet to witness.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I think that's one of the most,if not the most, rewarding part
of having your own business isthe team.
Though sometimes it definitelydoesn't feel like that, yeah,
Especially when I think you knowyou're probably in a similar
situation I was in where you'renot large enough to have like a
full HR department.
(28:32):
So you basically are the HRdepartment.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yep Comes with a lot of lessons.
So many departments I have tohead or, you know, have someone
on the outside help me managebecause I don't want to become
so skilled in all the parts ofthe business, right?
I think I was on a showyesterday and they're like, what
surprised you the most aboutstarting an agency?
And like sales and BD, like Idon't know why, but I didn't
(28:57):
think I would have to bespending so much time in that
function and you know, stupidearly early thinking about how,
how the work would set up.
But I'm still very much in thesales and bd lane for our
business.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Yeah, that's one that I never successfully offloaded,
and actually I didn't evenreally want to, because that was
what I enjoyed more thananything.
Um, and now, if I get a newsoftware business, that's my
primary function and roleanyways.
So I think over time you figureout what it is that you want to
be doing and what you're goodat too.
(29:32):
Yes, and I'm pretty bad ateating the frog when I start my
day, so generally speaking,whatever I really do not have
passion about doing doesn't getdone in a timely manner.
That's what I rely on coffeefor.
Extra caffeine can push methrough those.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
That and some good music Got to turn on the tunes.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yes, exactly.
Well, I really appreciate youcoming on and sharing all of
your insights, but before we hop, can you let everybody who's
listening know where they couldconnect with you online if they
want to learn more about theagency?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, the best place to come check us out is on our
website, pennochcoP-E-N-N-O-C-Kco.
We're also active on LinkedInand TikTok, I think are the two
we're the most active on, so youcan see a little bit about the
education and information weshare there.
The education and informationwe share there.
(30:30):
We do have offers for any DTCbrand that kind of fits certain
criteria, where we will helpfund some of their paid media
for our first quarter workingtogether.
So if that would be value addto any emerging brands, it's
something you can mention if youfill out a form on our website
and we can definitely talk aboutsome co-funding opportunities.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Awesome.
That sounds awesome.
Well, again, thank you forcoming on.
For everybody who's listening,as always, this is Brandon
Amoroso.
You can find me atbrandonamorosocom or scalistai.
Thank you for listening and wewill see you next time.
Hey everyone, Thanks for tuning into D2Z, a podcast
about using the Gen Z mindset togrow your business.
I'm Gen Z entrepreneur BrandonAmoroso, the former founder of
Electric and now the co-founderof Scaless, and today I'm
talking with Nikki Lindgren,who's the founder and managing
partner at Pinnock, which is apaid media and SEO agency for
beauty and lifestyle brands thatare growing their D2Z
businesses.
(00:21):
Thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I'm really excited to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
So before we dive into things, can you give
everybody just a quickbackground on yourself and sort
of your journey?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, well, I was coming out of college here in
the San Francisco Bay Area inthe early 2000s and I really
wanted to work in both lifestylebranding as well as e-commerce,
and so I was lucky enough towork with Cost Plus World Market
now known as World Market andhelp launch their e-commerce
store for the very first time,and that's where I really got
(00:55):
excited and jazzed about thewhole industry of digital
marketing and helping e-commercebrands, and so I really stayed
in the industry since then,working both agency side and
in-house side, before forming myown agency, panoc, in 2020.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
What would you say was sort of the impetus for
wanting to start your own agency.
Why 2020?
You were like this is it.
This is the time I'm going tomake the entrepreneurial leap.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, well, I'm from a really small town in Minnesota
, so I feel like I kind of grewup sheltered, but my dad was an
entrepreneur, so I was reallyexcited about the idea of just
being my own boss.
I thought I had what it took.
You know, I was younger, I waskind of full of myself, and so,
as I was also pregnant with mythird child and getting laid off
(01:45):
from my last full timemarketing role, I was just like,
well, now's the moment to justget on, you know, upwork and all
the freelancing platforms, tostart showing what I've got to
give 2018 rather to 2020.
(02:07):
So for two years, I just had aconsultancy and I cobbled
together a couple freelancerswho would help me with any
projects I was able to secure.
And after I had enoughcontracts that I felt
comfortable with, coveringfull-time staff and payroll, we
started rolling in team members,and that just happened to be
about two weeks before the wholeworld locked down for COVID.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
And what was that initial period?
Like you know, makingadjustments and changing during
a period of pretty extremeuncertainty that lasted for
quite a bit of time.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, so we definitely had a rocky early
part of 2020 where I wasn't sureI could even continue
sustaining full time employees.
So we were able to, you know,get enough leads who were quick
acting to really continuerunning our business.
But at that point we probablyhad one client that was
(02:58):
attributing to 40 or 50% oftotal revenue coming in.
So it was pretty risky times.
For sure, we were able to keepthat client happy.
I think they stayed with us forlike two and a half years, so
it ended up being a really goodsituation.
But that was kind of the risk wetook at the beginning was not
knowing what was about to happen.
Then, when it happened, we hada few clients who decided to end
(03:22):
our relationship immediatelyand also not pay us for the
previous outstanding invoices.
So it could have ended a littlebit differently.
But, you know, I just kind ofput my head down and looked for
any opportunity that I couldfind at that point and
fortunately people were veryinterested in beauty and you
know just their aesthetic duringthat time.
(03:45):
So it ended up being a greattime to get into the beauty
industry pretty heavily.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
How did you end up sort of aligning on that
particular vertical as the nichethat you were going to go into?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, that's a good question and it wasn't actually
intentional, and I don't know ifthat's good to admit or not.
My interest was home decor.
That's where I had spent adecent amount of my time.
I had been at subscriptionboxes for kids.
I had been at wearabletechnology companies.
So beauty was a little bit ofan outlier for me.
But the relationships I wasbuilding with other agencies
(04:21):
that complemented ours hadreally deep tentacles in beauty.
So it just felt natural tostart working in that space.
And now my team's still verysmall, but the team all-female
staff they really like workingin beauty, so we have no reason
to pivot at this point.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah, I mean we also fell into it.
You know we used to do it bothfrom a vertical standpoint but
also services that we provided.
Uh cause, in the early days Iwould do pretty much anything
for anyone to, you know, to getrevenue and to be able to hire
more clients.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
And then you know, we did that too, like in 2020, we
had a couple of brands thatreally needed us to do email,
they needed us to do creativeand a lot of things within
marketing, and my staff was justtoo small and we were really
just skilled at paid mediamanagement and SEO.
So we just kind of cut down ourservices and trim the fat to
(05:18):
what we thought we could reallydo with a small lean team on an
ongoing basis.
But yeah, I mean I assumed Iwould grow up to be a full
service anything within themarketing ecosystem my team and
I would be doing and you knowthat was just kind of a niche we
ended up going into.
It was just paid and SEO, and Imean precisely that's where my
deepest experience was as amarketer, in-house and agency
(05:42):
side, before starting the agency.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yeah, I mean I see a lot of relationships go awry
because you know an agency willtry and take on too much and
then you know, as opposed tohaving a really great
relationship providing twoservices for a brand, they're
you know having a mediocrerelationship providing four, and
then they'll end up churning.
And so you know, long term it'sactually not you know better
off for either side.
(06:05):
But there could I mean, I haveseen pressure before from brands
Like why won't you do this forme?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
We want you to do it.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
You do such a good job with these one or two other
things that you're doing, soit's definitely a tricky
balancing act.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Well and I think it's hard too than we did even a
year ago with TikTok affiliatemanagement and TikTok just shop
management, and we were reallyintentional about how we rolled
it out, which existing clientswe tested it and piloted it with
for free, just to make sure ourSOPs and the way we were
thinking about managing theservice was something we felt
(06:38):
comfortable selling before wehad our first paying client to
manage that workflow with.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
So you mentioned TikTok shop.
You know what are you mostexcited about with that channel
for for this year?
You know assuming it's stillhere.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, I mean I think for for beauty and kind of other
uh, really low considerationproducts where people are
converting quite quickly becausethe price point is palatable,
et cetera.
It's just been a quick mover interms of, you know, increasing
volume of sales, increasing ROAS.
So for us, you know, in all ofthe A-B testing we've done on
(07:16):
the TikTok ads platform sayingshould we point people to the
e-commerce store or point peopleto TikTok shop TikTok shop has
always outperformed.
I think there's a coupleoutliers where it was either a
new technology in the industryand people didn't understand it
and needed more education.
The only other time it didn'twork is when the audience was
(07:37):
much more mature and maybewasn't used to shopping on a
platform like TikTok.
But I think the exciting thingthen for us is just like we
already have a lot of proof thatit's going to convert and drive
much more revenue than bringingpeople to the e-commerce shop.
So nothing really new thatwe're looking forward to in this
year just making sure we canget more brands live there so
(07:59):
that the ads we're running canpoint to the shop experience for
that quicker response rate fromcustomers.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Are there product categories that you would say
don't fit very well for TikTokshop?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
It's interesting because within the lifestyle
space we do help a handful oflifestyle brands, including
fashion brands, and I think whenyou think of fashion and all
the colorways and sizevariations, sometimes that gets
a little complicated to do aswell on TikTok as something like
an eye serum or something.
So we have found in fashion ithas been a little more
(08:34):
challenging and in some casesnot as helpful, but within the
space of like a single product,without the variations, without
the colorways, it's really awinning formula.
So I'd say that would beanother area that we've worked
in that doesn't work.
And then again, like thosehigher price point things is
more considered purchases arealso going to do better on e-com
(08:54):
than on TikTok shop.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Are there any other sort of sales channels that
you're interested in exploringin 2025?
I know I've been seeing a bunchof stuff about Apple Oven from
some folks in this space, but onour end we don't do acquisition
.
We were always.
Once you get to the website,then we take over from an
experience and retentionstandpoint.
(09:18):
So are there any other mediachannels or sales channels that
you're looking to tap into for25?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah, I think this year for us and a lot of our
clients even though our clientsare still pretty much emerging
and under, I would say, 15million ARR is we're looking at
just channel diversification.
I think, like with the TikTokscare that happened earlier this
year, people are a little bitnervous around how much emphasis
they put into a single channel.
So you know, even last year wewere very heavy on meta and
Google.
Obviously we don't hear anyhiccups on those channels, but
(09:53):
we want to still continue todiversify.
So we're having a lot moreconversations already early in
the year about getting ontoconnected TV and audio ads and
it just seems like there's a lotmore trackability in platforms
that had fewer options toproperly track uh earlier on.
So that's what we're reallylooking to do is just kind of
expand further.
(10:13):
We've done a handful of likereddit tests, even with beauty
brands.
Maybe we'll do more reddit adsthis year.
Maybe we'll go into spotifyharder.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Things like that are just really kind of diversifying
rather than putting all of oureggs in the meta, programmatic
and google lane yeah, and Ithink I mean it's definitely, I
would argue, even more difficultwhen you're not a giant
business, having to do thatdiversification, because you
have to be careful to not spreadyourself too thin, exactly
(10:43):
because there are benefits togoing deep, you know, with one
particular platform.
Yeah, I mean, if 70, 80% ofyour spend was on TikTok and
then disappears, that's aserious problem.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, yeah.
So that's kind of what we'rejuggling with the clients and we
like to take a look at theirtotal business e-commerce or
social commerce in general andwhat the paid lane will do when
we're talking about the paid adsmanagement we do and just make
sure that we can look at thatMER marketing efficiency ratio
to understand if we do moreawareness campaigns, how does
(11:15):
that impact their overallbusiness?
What is the lag time for thatawareness to actually convert
for the brands?
So that's kind of what we thinkabout in partnership with the
brand.
So we're not always focused onthe remarketing efforts, the
lower funnel tactic efforts, andI think that helps us get
comfortable and the brands getcomfortable going into some of
these newer platforms.
(11:36):
But again, we need to bemindful of how much each
campaign is spending per day toensure it makes sense for the
business.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, I've been seeing more and more sort of
like media mix modelingplatforms that have popped up,
one of them being Prescient, Ithink there's one or two others,
but it's pretty fascinating tosee how close and accurate
they're able to predict revenuebased off of spend and what
particular channels and thishalo effect that I think we've
(12:07):
talked about as marketers for avery long time but has been
extremely hard to actuallyquantify.
It's like oh, we're running anad on Facebook to go to the
Shopify store, but our Amazonsales are going up.
We're just in the past, youjust sort of take it as is.
Versus now you can actuallystart to look at what is the
(12:28):
true impact of that ad and youknow cross channel performance.
So I think things likeconnected TV and all this other
stuff too, it's just gettingbetter and better.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yeah, I think the person and I do think like one
of the struggles we have withthese earlier stage businesses
is how much they can spend onlike tooling and technology.
So Crescent isn't one we'veused yet but I think, like North
beam, triple whale, a lot ofthe attribution and
incrementality that can be seen.
There are things where youusually layering into to decide
(12:57):
how to make decisions.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah, that's true.
Um, that was always theconstant juggle for us is you
know how to have a tech stackthat is sort of like our
preferred one at the agency whenyou're working with businesses
who might be doing 5 million ayear, some that are doing, you
know, $75 million a year.
There's different tools as youstart to work your way up, and
then also there's just like themedia mix.
(13:20):
Modeling is far more effectivewith more data.
So if you're only doing $5million a year, it's probably
not needed yet, and I seen waytoo many shopify storefronts
with like 70 or 80 appsinstalled on them.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
so consolidation and you know this is the name of the
game, I think oh great.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Are there any any other like um apps or sort of
tools that you're leveragingthat you think are just like
totally no brainers for anybusiness in the beauty and
lifestyle space to be takingadvantage of?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah, let's see.
I mean, I think from a siteexperience perspective and
that's maybe a little bit morein your lane of expertise
there's just a lot of coolintegrations with the experience
someone might be seeing onsocial and primarily on social
ads.
So vermont is something, is aplatform.
I think that's doing a good jobof extending the ad experience
(14:20):
to a custom landing page in apretty slick and technology
driven way.
Who did I speak to recently?
Another team that does creativeis doing an angle like that.
So to me, I think like theseamless integration of not only
just like campaign 360 approach, but also making sure that the
campaigns across the channelsthen relate well to what happens
(14:40):
on the website, I think is areally cool feature.
I mean, anything that's goingto do personalization, too, is
going to be super, super helpful.
But I think, if we're speakingprimarily in what we do, which
is like the ads management sideof things, we work with a
company called Best Ever to dosome AI and like lifting of
(15:01):
creatives.
Should we need?
Most of our clients are makingtheir own assets because their
brand is their baby and theywant to make sure everything
looks amazing.
But should we need quick lifts?
We find best ever is great forthat.
We find motion for assetinsights and when we're going to
start to see fatigue withcreative.
We've used foreplay in the past.
(15:22):
I think motion does most ofwhat foreplay does at this point
, so motion is sort of our go-to.
And then for us, like reporting, is really important Finding
technologies that puts togethera nice quick dashboard that the
clients can make sense of andlook at at their leisure.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, you mentioned AI.
How is AI transforming the waythat you sort of work and
support your businesses?
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think you can ever be too
caught up with what's going onin AI.
I feel like almost every dayyou could find a way to make
what you're doing better.
For us with AI, like well,first, there are more machine
learning based campaigns that werun these days, right.
So on Google, we haveperformance max campaigns that
are easier for a media buyer tobe managing.
(16:06):
We have advantage plus shoppingon meta, so we're using a lot
of the now embedded AI of thecampaign builds and management.
Beyond that, for AI, I thinklike again, any kind of tool
that's going to help makecreative or ad copy easier will
leverage just sophisticated likeagents and scripts that we have
(16:28):
, brand by brand to kind ofshortcut.
Some of the creation andstrategy is what we're using too
, um.
And then for us in the ad space, we've been doing a lot of
scripting for bid rules and bidmanagement, um, throughout the
time, but I think even themanagement of scripts is
becoming more simplified, so sothat's good for newer media
(16:51):
buyers.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, I think the more that you can offload to AI
to free yourself up to thinkmore critically and
strategically, the better.
There's so many workflows thatI've been able to augment
because of it that I don't haveto spend hours, in some cases,
doing over and over again, andit's just getting better and
better every day.
It that I don't have to, youknow, spend hours in some cases
(17:14):
doing over and over again?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Um and it's just getting better and better every
day.
So well, and I think it'sinteresting because we're hiring
right now and one of thequestions now you know ask in
interview processes is like,what have you done in the
automation lane?
And like, give me examples ofthings that you've taken from
you know the manual to to aslightly better version, things
that you've taken from you knowthe manual to a slightly better
version, and I think it's just,you know, one of the things I
read just yesterday is the roleof junior employees and how much
(17:38):
of that might just be movedinto AI, and so something we're
thinking about trying to figureout ways to have our own profit
margin as an agency improve overthe years.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, something that's been interesting to see
is how a lot of entry-levelroles now require one to two
years of experience.
But they're entry-level, so howdo you get the years of
experience for an entry-levelrole?
It's going to be interesting tohow things evolve over the next
three or five years, Becausethere's definitely people who
(18:10):
think that, you know, AI agentsare just going to do absolutely
everything.
But then, you know, I've metquite a few folks, especially on
, like, the engineering side,who you know they're working
with these tools literally everyminute of the day and there
still has to be a lot ofhandholding that goes into it.
If you just sort of let it offto its own devices, it can go
(18:33):
down holes and paths that don'tmake sense in any way whatsoever
.
We'll see if it hits a wall.
I read an article where itcould hit a wall at some point,
and then there will have to beanother completely different
step up in function andeventually it'll just hit this
wall.
I don't know.
There's far smarter people whoare working on these things than
(18:54):
me.
I'm just trying to be able toleverage it as well as possible
to make my life easier and thebusiness is more successful.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Us as well.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Hopping back out to the actual, you know, agency
itself.
Um, what has it been likedelegating and sort of
offloading things to to teammembers as you've grown and
scaled?
Uh, cause, I hear that's youknow, challenging for business
owners in any type of company.
You know they, it's their baby,they're doing everything for
everything all at once, and thenthey start to grow and they
(19:32):
can't do that anymore and youhave to entrust other people to,
like, take on certain thingsand those roles.
So what has that been like foryou and how have you sort of
facilitated that, you know,effectively?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
agree that it's.
It was a huge challenge thefirst few years.
So even as a consultancy with afreelance team, we I was having
a hard time getting the productto be what I wanted it to be,
and so for me one of the controlfreak moves that I did was I
have to have full-time staff,because then I have like little
more control over ensuring thatthe product they deliver is what
(20:09):
I wanted to deliver to clients.
So that was kind of like thefirst move to get things into a
lane.
That was the way I wanted tosee things.
We did not have like SOPs oreven like a single source of
truth.
There were like a lot of likemessy spreadsheets where you're
supposed to input.
Like the last day you did somethings, and so we were kind of
(20:30):
like very cobbled together and Iunderstood what we needed to do
really well, and so by defaultI just assumed every team member
at any level should also knowand have as much knowledge as I
have.
So there were lots ofinteresting stops and starts in
the first two years of thebusiness, I would say.
And then we moved into a moreprofessional project management
(20:50):
system.
We put together real sops.
I was just writing a new soptoday.
I think we have like 300 in ourdatabase, so just trying to
like get everything a little bitmore systematized I think
really helped me feelcomfortable being less involved
in clients day-to-day.
We're, you know, small team.
We have about 22 active clientsright now, so it's not that
(21:13):
many but still too many for meto be involved in all of them in
any way, shape or form.
So it's great to be at a placewhere the team is just doing the
work now and, as we bring onnew team members, my team is
training the new team members.
So I'm more around for just thequick onboarding and the touch
bases and less about trainingthe team on all the things to do
(21:34):
.
I mean, everything kind ofslips through the cracks to some
extent at some point.
So we'll uncover that we'vestopped using something that's
been really valuable in the pastand we'll dust it off and start
implementing again.
But for the most part, havingthe SOPs and the automations and
our project management systemsreally helped us kind of
continue to perfect the productwe're delivering.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, the one thing that always scared me about the
SOPs is like turning into one ofthe companies that I had
internships with back in highschool and college where you
just had these SOPs that made nosense at all anymore because
they needed to be changed,refreshed and updated, but
either nobody wanted to ornobody had the autonomy to
(22:16):
actually make those suggestionsand to facilitate that change.
So I was so probably overlyannoying about reminding the
team that just because this isthe process doesn't mean that,
like you, should not be thinkingcritically about it and whether
or not it makes sense and if itcould be improved, etc.
(22:36):
Etc.
Because you know that the lastthing I would want is just to be
stuck in in our ways and witheverything that happens now,
like so quickly you mentionedyeah, layering in the ai piece,
like the soPs, can get outdatedquickly.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
And you know, a team member of mine just came to me
after her last QBR with a clientand was like the client was
just super checked out, like Idon't think that the way we're
presenting our quarterlybusiness review is landing with
this client and maybe like weshould dust it off and see if we
need to refresh it foreverybody.
And I think what we found,comparing like start year 2020
(23:14):
to now 2025, is our brandsexpect us to be doing, to be
finding problems right away,finding solutions and, you know,
optimizing to get us to abetter spot.
And so if we wait till end ofmonth or end of quarter to tell
them about some opportunitiesthat we might have slept on,
like that's not going to landwell.
So none of our clients reallywant to hear about the
(23:36):
postmortem and what happened asthe month closed.
They want to continue learningabout strategies and how we're
going to do better, and so we'rejust, you know, kind of being
as aware of what the client'slooking for as we can be, so
that we're matching them ratherthan saying like, well, this is
our qbr, so let's just keepdoing it that way, because
that's how nikki said she wantedit two years ago so here we go.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, there's definitely a give and a take
there.
We've had some clients who wantus to change our processes way
too much to try and fit into,like whatever their structure is
, and it's totally destabilizing, um.
So that was always a fun.
A fun like a song and dancethere, especially when they're
like one of the larger clientsand, and you know, learning to
(24:19):
say no, no, I mean, I still amnot good at it, but it's
definitely a skill set.
I remember firing our firstclient and our whole team was
like so fired up about it andexcited because it needed to
have happened probably threemonths earlier than that.
But we were decently sized atthat point, so I didn't have my
(24:42):
thumb on the pulse of everysingle brand that we were
working with at that time.
So I didn't have my thumb on thepulse of every single brand
that we were working with atthat time.
So we had to install a timemanagement solution that would
essentially enable me to runmonthly reports so I could see
across the 50 brands how muchtime was being spent where, so
we could get some sort ofeffective hourly rate for like.
Once we implemented that, Ithink we were at like 14 or 15
(25:04):
an hour for this particularclient because you know, with
slack and all these other likecommunication channels, you can
like really abuse a team becauseyou know you're going
one-to-one.
You're like, oh, let's do asidebar here for 30 minutes.
Oh, can you help with this, canyou help with that?
And it just can like, you know,snowball out of control.
Um, but that was my first uhwarning lesson when it came to
(25:29):
uh saying no and also moving onwhen one of the time is right,
even when I think they were ourlargest retainer at the time.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
So it was pretty, pretty painful yeah yeah, yeah,
those are hard calls to make butdefinitely, you know, can help
progress things in the right way.
And and like I'm planning myone on one later today with a
team member, it's like how, whatelse can we systematize better
and automate better?
Because we've got new clientscoming on and I don't want to
just continue to hire every timewe have X new clients.
(25:57):
We've got to find a better wayto do it.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, how do you think about, you know, creating
culture and having a goodculture at a remote organization
?
I think a lot of companies arestruggling with that, especially
when it comes to hiring youngertalent.
I personally have had amiserable time trying to hire
people right out of schoolbecause they don't want to go
work in their parents' basementand then spend their whole time
there.
It's a big social component toit as well.
You know, spend their wholetime there.
It's like a big socialcomponent to it as well.
(26:26):
So how have you, like, goneabout creating an environment
where people you know have thatdesire and will to show up to
you, know they're a part of theteam, even if you aren't
physically with one another?
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, so we have a handful of moms on on our team
and you know beyond that, justwomen who are used to working in
remote companies.
So I think you know beyond that, just women who are used to
working in remote companies.
So I think you know already, bydefault, people kind of know
what that's going to feel, looklike.
I think the other thing that wedo is because our interview
(26:56):
process is not very long, but somany team members are able to
interact with the candidatesprior to hiring them, that
everyone's kind of getting tohave a point of view on what
it's going to be like tointeract with the candidates
prior to hiring them, thateveryone's kind of getting to
have a point of view on whatit's going to be like to
interact with this person.
Is it going to be a good fitfor us?
I think those two things kindof help.
Then, beyond that, we just havelike a like leave your ego at
(27:17):
the door, roll up your sleeves,kind of mentality and, um, lots
of people who will come intohelp situations where someone
you, you know needs extra eyeson something.
So I just think it's it's it'snot an environment where people
are trying to outdo each other,it's an environment where people
are trying to, like you know,increase everyone's output and
(27:38):
increase everyone's positivityin the work they're doing and
the way they're feeling aboutwhat they're doing.
So I think that that helps alot.
We have, like Wednesdaylearnings, where a team member
is kind of training us onsomething new that they're
excited about.
So there's just like a lot ofmoments for the small group to
get together and chat, and so Ithink the respect that they have
(27:59):
for each other is just reallyreal, and when we have our first
kickoff call with clients, justthe love oozing out of everyone
as they're introducing eachother is just really, really
sweet to witness.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I think that's one of the most,if not the most, rewarding part
of having your own business isthe team.
Though sometimes it definitelydoesn't feel like that, yeah,
Especially when I think you knowyou're probably in a similar
situation I was in where you'renot large enough to have like a
full HR department.
(28:32):
So you basically are the HRdepartment.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yep Comes with a lot of lessons.
So many departments I have tohead or, you know, have someone
on the outside help me managebecause I don't want to become
so skilled in all the parts ofthe business, right?
I think I was on a showyesterday and they're like, what
surprised you the most aboutstarting an agency?
And like sales and BD, like Idon't know why, but I didn't
(28:57):
think I would have to bespending so much time in that
function and you know, stupidearly early thinking about how,
how the work would set up.
But I'm still very much in thesales and bd lane for our
business.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Yeah, that's one that I never successfully offloaded,
and actually I didn't evenreally want to, because that was
what I enjoyed more thananything.
Um, and now, if I get a newsoftware business, that's my
primary function and roleanyways.
So I think over time you figureout what it is that you want to
be doing and what you're goodat too.
(29:32):
Yes, and I'm pretty bad ateating the frog when I start my
day, so generally speaking,whatever I really do not have
passion about doing doesn't getdone in a timely manner.
That's what I rely on coffeefor.
Extra caffeine can push methrough those.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
That and some good music Got to turn on the tunes.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yes, exactly.
Well, I really appreciate youcoming on and sharing all of
your insights, but before we hop, can you let everybody who's
listening know where they couldconnect with you online if they
want to learn more about theagency?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, the best place to come check us out is on our
website, pennochcoP-E-N-N-O-C-Kco.
We're also active on LinkedInand TikTok, I think are the two
we're the most active on, so youcan see a little bit about the
education and information weshare there.
The education and informationwe share there.
(30:30):
We do have offers for any DTCbrand that kind of fits certain
criteria, where we will helpfund some of their paid media
for our first quarter workingtogether.
So if that would be value addto any emerging brands, it's
something you can mention if youfill out a form on our website
and we can definitely talk aboutsome co-funding opportunities.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Awesome.
That sounds awesome.
Well, again, thank you forcoming on.
For everybody who's listening,as always, this is Brandon
Amoroso.
You can find me atbrandonamorosocom or scalistai.
Thank you for listening and wewill see you next time.
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