Latest / Glovisor Podcast / Ep. 53: Your Business Doesn’t Need More Marketing—It Needs This | Taylor Wilson - Creative Shizzle
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: In a world where business often rewards being louder, tougher,
- 0:03Speaker 1: and more aggressive, one entrepreneur is proving that putting people
- 0:07Speaker 1: first can be a powerful growth strategy. Welcome to the
- 0:14Speaker 1: Glowvisor podcast, where we explore business growth, communication, and personal
- 0:18Speaker 1: development through real conversations with people that make an impact.
- 0:22Speaker 1: Our guest walked away from a corporate life after a
- 0:25Speaker 1: health crisis and took a completely different approach to building
- 0:30Speaker 1: a company. One centered on people, purpose, and reckless kindness.
- 0:34Speaker 1: As the founder and CEO of a growing branding and
- 0:38Speaker 1: marketing company, a TEDx speaker, and the host of the
- 0:42Speaker 1: Talking Shizzle podcast, she's demonstrating that kindness isn't simply a
- 0:46Speaker 1: nice thing to do. It can be a powerful business strategy. Wilson.
- 0:53Speaker 2: Hey, Joe. How's it going? How are you?
- 0:55Speaker 1: Great, thanks. Thank you for being here today.
- 0:56Speaker 2: Yeah, it's awesome to be here. Thanks for having me.
- 0:59Speaker 1: So let's start off, Taylor. Tell us a little bit
- 1:02Speaker 1: more about what you do.
- 1:03Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm the founder and CEO of Creative Shizzle. We
- 1:06Speaker 2: are a branding, marketing, creative team for rent. I started
- 1:11Speaker 2: the company, we've been in business five years and we
- 1:14Speaker 2: have 20 people all across the globe and over 50 clients.
- 1:19Speaker 2: We work with over 300 brands in that time and
- 1:22Speaker 2: we really help fill gaps in for marketing teams, creative gaps,
- 1:27Speaker 2: marketing implementation gaps. And so we work with a variety
- 1:31Speaker 2: of businesses, startups, nonprofits. Every day is a new day.
- 1:37Speaker 1: Before we move on, how did you get to the
- 1:39Speaker 1: name Shizzle?
- 1:39Speaker 2: Shizzle, I'm a big Snoop Dogg fan. And actually, originally
- 1:44Speaker 2: the company name was Barlele. And one day I thought,
- 1:48Speaker 2: I want to develop some other like thought leadership platform
- 1:51Speaker 2: where I could just put all of my creative shizzle,
- 1:55Speaker 2: like all the stuff that's going on up here all
- 1:57Speaker 2: the time and like thoughts and stuff like that. And
- 2:00Speaker 2: so I was going to start it just literally as
- 2:01Speaker 2: like a blog or like a resource center. for marketing
- 2:04Speaker 2: and branding. And then I thought that should just be
- 2:06Speaker 2: the company name. Like that's way, way more fun. So
- 2:10Speaker 2: it just, I think it literally came to me one
- 2:12Speaker 2: day in the shower or something like that.
- 2:14Speaker 1: So now what inspired you to pursue this path?
- 2:18Speaker 2: I felt like there was a gap for small businesses
- 2:22Speaker 2: and lean teams. And I have spent probably 15 years
- 2:26Speaker 2: in marketing in the social impact sector. So I had
- 2:31Speaker 2: worked with a lot of nonprofit organizations, people doing good.
- 2:35Speaker 2: And I just felt like there was most of the
- 2:39Speaker 2: agencies were wanting to always go after chasing the whales.
- 2:44Speaker 2: And I thought there's a lot of businesses and organizations
- 2:47Speaker 2: that are like small or midsize, and they're just never
- 2:50Speaker 2: going to go higher, like a huge, you know, million
- 2:54Speaker 2: dollar a year agency. And so I really felt like
- 2:57Speaker 2: there's got to be a way to scale this and
- 3:01Speaker 2: make a business that also is profitable and healthy and
- 3:05Speaker 2: can serve these people in a different way. And so
- 3:09Speaker 2: that's originally where the idea came from. Probably also working
- 3:13Speaker 2: at some small companies myself. I worked at some small
- 3:16Speaker 2: tech startups in the nonprofit sector. And was sometimes the
- 3:20Speaker 2: marketing team of one and having to figure out how
- 3:23Speaker 2: to do a lot with a little. And so I thought,
- 3:27Speaker 2: what if I could create a system for those people?
- 3:30Speaker 2: Because there's a lot of them out there. And I
- 3:32Speaker 2: just was like, having been one, I was really passionate
- 3:35Speaker 2: about it and solving that problem.
- 3:36Speaker 1: So can you give us an example or examples of
- 3:40Speaker 1: what a branding and marketing company actually does for a
- 3:43Speaker 1: small business?
- 3:44Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really good question because branding is... a
- 3:48Speaker 2: word that I think is very squishy. And what I
- 3:51Speaker 2: mean by that is people are like, what does that
- 3:54Speaker 2: really mean? And I think a lot of times people
- 3:57Speaker 2: just think brand is your logo or your color palette,
- 4:01Speaker 2: like the basic visual identity of a brand. When it
- 4:07Speaker 2: comes to brand and marketing for a small business and
- 4:10Speaker 2: how we think about it and how we approach it
- 4:12Speaker 2: is it's really about how do you position yourself to
- 4:17Speaker 2: your ideal customer? your ideal person, your ideal audience that
- 4:22Speaker 2: you're trying to bring into your world and interact with
- 4:25Speaker 2: you or engage with you or do business with you.
- 4:28Speaker 2: And so it's much more than... Just the logo, although
- 4:33Speaker 2: that's part of it. So a lot of times what
- 4:34Speaker 2: we do when we're first digging in with a small
- 4:36Speaker 2: business owner is we literally just have conversations. A lot
- 4:40Speaker 2: of times it's with the founder of the business, someone
- 4:43Speaker 2: like me who had an idea and thought, I think
- 4:46Speaker 2: I've got a better way for this, or someone who
- 4:49Speaker 2: already has an established business. but they've maybe never really
- 4:53Speaker 2: done any marketing or branding. And maybe the kid down
- 4:57Speaker 2: the street did the logo and like, it's not really
- 5:00Speaker 2: that good. And they're ready to level up for their
- 5:04Speaker 2: business so that they really can grow. And so we'll
- 5:06Speaker 2: start off with having conversations where I ask them questions
- 5:09Speaker 2: all about, you know, like, why do you do what
- 5:12Speaker 2: you do? Who do you serve? What's the, what's the
- 5:15Speaker 2: value of people? If your customers didn't have you, like
- 5:19Speaker 2: what would be the biggest thing that they're missing? Um,
- 5:22Speaker 2: and that really helps to drive conversation to pull, like what,
- 5:25Speaker 2: what I want to do and what our job is,
- 5:27Speaker 2: is to pull a lot of information out of the
- 5:29Speaker 2: business owner around the value prop of their business, how
- 5:33Speaker 2: they really help transform their customers lives in one way
- 5:37Speaker 2: or another. Then we apply, um, I use the story
- 5:40Speaker 2: brand framework. I'm a certified story brand coach. And so
- 5:44Speaker 2: then kind of from there, we start actually putting pen
- 5:47Speaker 2: to paper. giving people a real brand story to work from.
- 5:51Speaker 2: And then that helps to inform all of the stuff
- 5:53Speaker 2: that we put out into the world in terms of
- 5:55Speaker 2: marketing and sales materials. And then after that part, that's
- 6:00Speaker 2: when we start doing the actual design aspect. So I always,
- 6:04Speaker 2: when I'm thinking about brand, I work first and foremost
- 6:07Speaker 2: on the words and the positioning. And then we apply
- 6:12Speaker 2: design that matches the words and the positioning and what
- 6:16Speaker 2: kind of vibe you're trying to give off to people.
- 6:19Speaker 1: So now that's the branding side. Yeah. Then once you're
- 6:22Speaker 1: done with all of that, now you move into the
- 6:25Speaker 1: marketing side.
- 6:26Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 6:27Speaker 1: You give us a few examples about what you do
- 6:30Speaker 1: in the marketing segment.
- 6:31Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. So that's when I always think about brand
- 6:35Speaker 2: is like differentiation and then marketing is amplification. So once
- 6:41Speaker 2: you've got the brand established and you know how you
- 6:43Speaker 2: want to show up into the world, then you have
- 6:45Speaker 2: to show up into the world. in a really regular
- 6:47Speaker 2: consistent way. And you can do that in a variety
- 6:50Speaker 2: of mechanisms. Um, so marketing is more like the function
- 6:55Speaker 2: of getting your brand in front of people, engaging people
- 7:01Speaker 2: with your brand, and then creating like a, a life
- 7:05Speaker 2: cycle of engagement with that audience. And so it could
- 7:09Speaker 2: be part of marketing is then setting up a website
- 7:12Speaker 2: or fixing a website. Um, creating an email marketing program. Uh,
- 7:18Speaker 2: social media is a huge aspect of what we do
- 7:22Speaker 2: and how, how we help small businesses and brands is
- 7:25Speaker 2: just consistent presence on social media. So that might be LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook,
- 7:30Speaker 2: Tik TOK. Um, there's organic social media. So that's just,
- 7:36Speaker 2: I go to my Instagram, I put up a post,
- 7:38Speaker 2: I don't pay anything. It just is showing up on
- 7:41Speaker 2: my profile and then there's paid media. So, um, meta
- 7:46Speaker 2: ads that show up on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok advertising, Google advertising.
- 7:50Speaker 2: There's a whole variety of different paid media that you
- 7:53Speaker 2: can put out there into the world. And my big
- 7:56Speaker 2: belief system is really about providing value through your content
- 8:01Speaker 2: that pulls people in. So a lot of marketing is
- 8:03Speaker 2: like giving stuff away to build trust through your marketing
- 8:09Speaker 2: and trust in your brand to pull people in to
- 8:12Speaker 2: where they eventually have seen you enough and they trust you.
- 8:15Speaker 2: And then they're self-selecting, raising their hand, saying, hey, I
- 8:19Speaker 2: think I need your help. I see what you do,
- 8:23Speaker 2: and I think I need your help. And that's a
- 8:25Speaker 2: lot like a lot of the business-to-business work that we
- 8:28Speaker 2: do is very much centered around that. It's a little
- 8:30Speaker 2: bit different when you're doing business-to-consumer, so B2C marketing, where
- 8:35Speaker 2: you're pushing a product. And again, all of them are
- 8:38Speaker 2: built on the same principles. You want to get in
- 8:40Speaker 2: front of people, build trust, loop them in. to your
- 8:44Speaker 2: brand and then, you know, value, value, value, value, and
- 8:50Speaker 2: then hook. So that's a thing that Gary Vee has
- 8:53Speaker 2: always said. I'm a big fan of Gary Vee. And
- 8:55Speaker 2: he kind of says, jab, jab, jab, hook, right? So
- 8:58Speaker 2: like you give away, you give away, you give away,
- 9:00Speaker 2: and then you make an ask.
- 9:01Speaker 1: You've been in this business for a little bit of
- 9:03Speaker 1: time here. Have you been seeing some type of shifts
- 9:07Speaker 1: within the business and in the marketing and then also the,
- 9:11Speaker 1: the customers are, are they asking for different things than
- 9:15Speaker 1: they were just a year ago?
- 9:17Speaker 2: It's definitely shifting. I think one of the biggest shifts
- 9:20Speaker 2: that I'm noticing and seeing, and this just continues people
- 9:24Speaker 2: being expected to do the same amount of work or
- 9:29Speaker 2: more work with less. Um, I think some of that
- 9:33Speaker 2: is driven by AI and people saying, well, Hey, I
- 9:36Speaker 2: can just do this, you know? Um, So there's definitely
- 9:40Speaker 2: shift in that. I would not necessarily say people are
- 9:42Speaker 2: coming to us and asking for totally different things. At
- 9:45Speaker 2: the end of the day, if you're a small business
- 9:47Speaker 2: owner or you're the head of marketing at a startup,
- 9:51Speaker 2: you want to get your name out there. You want
- 9:54Speaker 2: to drive more leads. You want to drive more conversions. Um,
- 9:57Speaker 2: so you want to drive growth and you want to
- 10:00Speaker 2: drive loyalty in your customer base. So I think like
- 10:04Speaker 2: that intrinsic need within just running a business is still
- 10:07Speaker 2: the same. I just think sometimes what's changing is like
- 10:11Speaker 2: the mechanisms of how people go about doing it or
- 10:15Speaker 2: think about going about doing it. Um, has changed a
- 10:19Speaker 2: little bit. And I think a lot of that's being
- 10:20Speaker 2: driven by AI and just the economy we're in. And it's,
- 10:24Speaker 2: you know, the people are in like sort of a
- 10:28Speaker 2: weird mental space right now, I think sometimes. So that
- 10:32Speaker 2: I think has changed a little bit in terms of
- 10:35Speaker 2: how people are thinking about marketing.
- 10:37Speaker 1: Now, can you share a client success story?
- 10:39Speaker 2: Absolutely. One of my favorite ones is Southwest Texas College.
- 10:44Speaker 2: So it was a junior two-year college down in Uvalde, Texas.
- 10:50Speaker 2: And we worked with them two and a half or
- 10:54Speaker 2: so years ago. We did this big brand redo and relaunch.
- 10:59Speaker 2: They wanted to drop junior from the name. They were like,
- 11:03Speaker 2: we really want to be seen more as an institution
- 11:06Speaker 2: that that is really preparing people for a four-year degree.
- 11:11Speaker 2: And we want to level up our brand and our
- 11:14Speaker 2: position in our community. And so that was a really
- 11:18Speaker 2: fun project because we got to do the very start
- 11:22Speaker 2: of like even talking through, well, what should the name be?
- 11:25Speaker 2: We decided to just drop junior and call it Southwest
- 11:28Speaker 2: Texas College. We did, we worked with their market research
- 11:32Speaker 2: firm along with the qualitative brand discovery research that we
- 11:36Speaker 2: do and really got to understand their community, what we
- 11:41Speaker 2: thought would like resonate with their community, not just student community,
- 11:45Speaker 2: but also being in a small town, the whole community
- 11:49Speaker 2: is like, A lot of times when you're in a
- 11:52Speaker 2: small town and there's a college, like they're kind of
- 11:54Speaker 2: at the center of the community. And so we got
- 11:57Speaker 2: to think through the name, the positioning. How do we
- 12:00Speaker 2: want to show up for this community? How can we
- 12:03Speaker 2: attract new students? And so we did a lot of
- 12:07Speaker 2: work on the brand positioning. And then we got to
- 12:09Speaker 2: do the entire cycle of creating a new logo, redeveloping
- 12:14Speaker 2: their mascot. And then when you think about a college
- 12:18Speaker 2: and they have several campuses that and several buildings and
- 12:21Speaker 2: several different schools within the college. We had to think
- 12:25Speaker 2: through like, what is everything involved where we need to
- 12:30Speaker 2: update the brand? And so it was fun because we
- 12:33Speaker 2: got to, we do a lot of digital work, but
- 12:36Speaker 2: in this project, we got to do a lot of
- 12:38Speaker 2: thinking around the entire brand. So we were doing social
- 12:43Speaker 2: media templates and things like that, that we always do
- 12:45Speaker 2: and logo design and everything. But we were also literally
- 12:48Speaker 2: designing car wraps. or campus cars. And we did a
- 12:53Speaker 2: wrap for an 18 wheeler that I guess they had
- 12:58Speaker 2: or used on campus and all of the signage. So
- 13:02Speaker 2: like the signage, when you enter the college, there's a
- 13:05Speaker 2: big sign and then there's signs all over the place.
- 13:07Speaker 2: And then there's different signs for different departments and different
- 13:10Speaker 2: schools within the college. So that was a really fun
- 13:13Speaker 2: project where we got to touch so many different aspects
- 13:16Speaker 2: of like where the brand shows up. swag for students.
- 13:20Speaker 2: And we had to think through like, what would, if
- 13:22Speaker 2: I were 18 years old, what would I want to wear? Um,
- 13:26Speaker 2: you know, so things like that was a really fun
- 13:28Speaker 2: project and we had a good time doing that one.
- 13:31Speaker 1: Sounds like a great project to work on because you
- 13:33Speaker 1: used every single element of your business. Absolutely.
- 13:35Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. It was really, really a fun project. Great
- 13:39Speaker 2: team to work with too.
- 13:40Speaker 1: Those are the bigger projects that you can handle, but
- 13:43Speaker 1: you also work with the small business owners. Mm-hmm. And
- 13:47Speaker 1: pretty much apply the same process to their business?
- 13:51Speaker 2: We do.
- 13:51Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 13:52Speaker 2: So for small business owners, something that we've developed is
- 13:56Speaker 2: a really accessible way for people to hire us. I'm
- 14:01Speaker 2: a small business owner. Like I said, I've worked at startups.
- 14:05Speaker 2: I've been literally at the beginning of my business where
- 14:07Speaker 2: I was a solopreneur. It was a team of one
- 14:11Speaker 2: and it was me and I needed to start building
- 14:14Speaker 2: the business. And so, you know, Self-funding that business is
- 14:20Speaker 2: not something where you're like, oh, I've got this huge
- 14:23Speaker 2: budget and I'm just going to go out and hire
- 14:24Speaker 2: this big agency to do this. And so we actually,
- 14:28Speaker 2: for small business owners, have created a monthly subscription offering
- 14:33Speaker 2: where we can basically... break out that kind of work
- 14:37Speaker 2: and just do it over time, over the course of,
- 14:40Speaker 2: you know, kind of on a month to month basis.
- 14:42Speaker 2: And so, for example, we just onboarded a couple of
- 14:45Speaker 2: new small businesses recently where they're like, hey, I've never
- 14:48Speaker 2: really done any marketing. I need to start doing some marketing.
- 14:52Speaker 2: I don't even know what to do. You know, like,
- 14:54Speaker 2: where do I even begin? This is not my expertise.
- 14:57Speaker 2: And so, you know, we've got a monthly subscription where,
- 15:01Speaker 2: We can go in and say, well, I'll help you
- 15:04Speaker 2: with kind of laying a foundation for your business. And
- 15:07Speaker 2: then we'll just step by step get you up and running.
- 15:11Speaker 2: So maybe first we need to fix your website and
- 15:14Speaker 2: we'll just focus.
- 15:14Speaker 1: On that first.
- 15:15Speaker 2: And then maybe we need to set up social media
- 15:18Speaker 2: profiles for you. So we'll just focus on that first.
- 15:21Speaker 2: And then once we have the social media profiles, let's
- 15:24Speaker 2: start creating content for you. So we'll do that. And
- 15:27Speaker 2: then we kind of evolve from there, you know, as
- 15:29Speaker 2: the business evolves. grows as we get marketing out into
- 15:32Speaker 2: the world for them and so we also have graphic
- 15:36Speaker 2: design plans where if you all you need is design
- 15:40Speaker 2: support from a creative team you want us to do
- 15:42Speaker 2: your design or your video editing let's say you film
- 15:46Speaker 2: your reels and then you want us to edit them
- 15:47Speaker 2: or anything like that so we've got really accessible affordable
- 15:51Speaker 2: plans purposely built for small businesses.
- 15:55Speaker 1: Now, if listeners only remember one thing from today's conversation,
- 15:58Speaker 1: what do you hope that message is?
- 16:00Speaker 2: Well, that if you've never done marketing or you feel
- 16:05Speaker 2: like your brand is just sitting out there and it's
- 16:09Speaker 2: not really doing anything for you, that's okay. It's okay
- 16:14Speaker 2: if you need to fix the foundation or build the foundation.
- 16:18Speaker 2: So I guess I would say, especially to small business
- 16:21Speaker 2: owners listening, like don't, let that stop you from starting
- 16:26Speaker 2: to make a change because you can take baby steps.
- 16:29Speaker 2: Every single step that you take each day is a
- 16:33Speaker 2: step in the right direction. And so that's where, again,
- 16:38Speaker 2: I have a lot of fun working with small businesses
- 16:40Speaker 2: because like I said, a lot of times you get
- 16:42Speaker 2: the owner and the founder and they're not a market
- 16:44Speaker 2: net expert. They're an expert in something else and they
- 16:48Speaker 2: don't know what to do. And it's really fun to
- 16:50Speaker 2: be able to coach and to guide people And then
- 16:53Speaker 2: to see them light up when they start to see
- 16:56Speaker 2: results and success. And they're like, oh my gosh, I
- 17:00Speaker 2: could have never done this on my own. This is
- 17:01Speaker 2: so cool. And so I guess that would be my
- 17:05Speaker 2: message is like, don't launch just better than perfect. It's
- 17:10Speaker 2: always good to like get started and you can perfect
- 17:12Speaker 2: and you can optimize and you can iterate over time.
- 17:15Speaker 1: Now, who would you say should be calling you as
- 17:19Speaker 1: soon as possible?
- 17:20Speaker 2: If you are a solopreneur, we're a great fit for you.
- 17:25Speaker 2: Or even if you're a marketing team at a larger company,
- 17:28Speaker 2: but you are a small, lean marketing team and you
- 17:32Speaker 2: need extra creative brand or marketing implementation support, we're a
- 17:37Speaker 2: really great fit for you. You make it really easy
- 17:40Speaker 2: to start working with us. We have month-to-month subscriptions, so
- 17:45Speaker 2: it's super easy to just literally, I tell people, Try us.
- 17:49Speaker 2: Try us. If you don't like us, no hard feelings.
- 17:54Speaker 2: My goal and my team's goal is to not make
- 17:58Speaker 2: people feel like they're locked into some long term contract.
- 18:02Speaker 2: You know, a lot of agencies or like software companies,
- 18:05Speaker 2: we're used to having them lock us into like at
- 18:07Speaker 2: least a year or a two year or three year contract.
- 18:11Speaker 2: And I would rather just do great work for you.
- 18:15Speaker 2: and make it easy and make it enjoyable and bring
- 18:18Speaker 2: a little shizzle and make it fun so that you
- 18:21Speaker 2: want to keep working with our team and not be
- 18:24Speaker 2: locked in. So yeah, really like when I think about
- 18:27Speaker 2: who's a good fit for us, it's a lean marketing team.
- 18:30Speaker 2: And sometimes that lean marketing team is a founder who
- 18:33Speaker 2: has no marketing team. And sometimes it's a SaaS startup
- 18:36Speaker 2: who does have a marketing team, but it's like a
- 18:39Speaker 2: team of like two or three people and they're like,
- 18:42Speaker 2: you just can't do it all.
- 18:43Speaker 1: Just not enough bandwidth to go around.
- 18:45Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So we really do just help fill in
- 18:48Speaker 2: gaps wherever those gaps are.
- 18:49Speaker 1: So now where can our audience connect with you, learn
- 18:53Speaker 1: more about what you do and continue this conversation? Yeah.
- 18:56Speaker 2: Well, if you go to Creative Shizzle, that's C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E-S-H-I-Z-Z-L.com. That's
- 19:04Speaker 2: our website. You can email me, taylor at creativeshizzle.com. That's
- 19:10Speaker 2: a direct line to me. Um, I'm on LinkedIn a lot.
- 19:13Speaker 2: Look up Taylor Wilson, creative shizzle on LinkedIn. And I
- 19:17Speaker 2: would say, follow us on social media on Instagram. I
- 19:20Speaker 2: am go with Taylor and I post a lot of
- 19:24Speaker 2: my own kind of thoughts on branding and, and marketing there. And, um,
- 19:30Speaker 2: that's a great way to connect with me. You can
- 19:31Speaker 2: also DM me there on Instagram.
- 19:33Speaker 1: Well, Taylor, thank you so much for joining us and
- 19:35Speaker 1: we really appreciate your time. Awesome.
- 19:37Speaker 2: Thanks Joe. It was fun.
- 19:38Speaker 1: Hey, you're welcome. Thanks, everyone, for listening. If this episode
- 19:42Speaker 1: inspired you, share it with someone who needs it. And
- 19:44Speaker 1: don't forget to follow the Globalizer podcast for more conversations
- 19:47Speaker 1: that make an impact. Till the next time.