Latest / Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say / The Real Reason Your Marketing Is Not Working with Sara Nay

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The Real Reason Your Marketing Is Not Working with Sara Nay · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

• 0:00
  Welcome to another episode of 6 Figure Secrets for Fractional
• 0:03
  Experts. My name is Bradley Jacobs.
• 0:05
  I'm your host, founder and CEO of Mylance.
• 0:09
  Today I'm joined by Sarah Nay. Sarah is the CEO of Duct Tape
• 0:13
  Marketing. She's been with the company for
• 0:15
  16 years and is the author of Unchained Breaking Free from
• 0:20
  Broken Marketing Models. Sarah, welcome to the show.
• 0:23
  Thanks for. Having me on Bradley.
• 0:25
  You're welcome. So I'm so excited for our
• 0:27
  conversation because not many people these days have been with
• 0:30
  the company for 16 years. And you rose through the ranks,
• 0:34
  right? Like you didn't come in as sea
• 0:35
  level. So I'm curious what that journey
• 0:38
  was like and especially as a female, right?
• 0:40
  There's, you know, so few female CEOs these days who are just
• 0:43
  talking about it. What was that journey like?
• 0:46
  Yeah, I mean, I didn't come in at sea level at all.
• 0:47
  I came in as an intern. So on the very bottom.
• 0:51
  So I started as an intern, I didn't have a lot of marketing
• 0:53
  honestly business experience at that point.
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  I was still kind of figuring out career path where I wanted to
• 0:59
  go, fell in love with the mission and duct tape marketing.
• 1:02
  We are all about truly empowering small business owners
• 1:05
  and making their life easier when it comes to marketing and
• 1:08
  sales and growth. So I really love the people that
• 1:10
  we support. So after the internship, I said
• 1:14
  this was for me and I moved into various roles over the years at
• 1:17
  the company. So I've been like account
• 1:19
  manager, community manager, eventually became fractional CMO
• 1:22
  to some of our clients, CEO for our business.
• 1:25
  And then it's been about a year now that I've been in the CEO
• 1:27
  seat. And So what I was thinking about
• 1:29
  in that is I have a little bit of a unique perspective as the
• 1:33
  CEO at Duct Tape Marketing because I've been in so many
• 1:36
  different roles within our company that it makes me a
• 1:40
  better leader and a better manager because I'm able to
• 1:43
  mentor the team a lot more because I'm able to say, OK, I
• 1:46
  know what it's like in the fractional CMO and I can relate
• 1:49
  and I can give them direction moving forward.
• 1:51
  So it's it's arguably made me a better leader just by gaining
• 1:54
  all of that experience over the years.
• 1:57
  What would you say in going from intern to CEO across 15 years?
• 2:01
  What was the number one most important trait that you
• 2:05
  exhibited that helped you make those jumps and jumps and jumps
• 2:09
  and jumps? Thanks.
• 2:11
  A couple of things together, like I'm very dedicated to our
• 2:13
  company, our clients, our team, like I care a lot.
• 2:17
  So that's been shown because if when you care about something a
• 2:19
  lot, you give it all of your effort.
• 2:22
  And so you know that dedication. But also the thing in marketing
• 2:26
  or just in business in general right now is you really need to
• 2:29
  have a growth mindset. You have to continuously be
• 2:31
  learning and exploring and testing and experimenting new
• 2:35
  things. And that's always been a big
• 2:37
  passion of mine. I mean, like usually listening
• 2:38
  or reading like a couple books at a time on business and, you
• 2:41
  know, attending any training and conferences and events that I
• 2:43
  can. And so it's that combination of
• 2:46
  caring a lot about what we do, but also the growth mindset of
• 2:50
  always wanting to improve and get better as well.
• 2:53
  I love that if you're focused on the title and the money and the
• 2:56
  power and all that stuff, it's like it just doesn't.
• 2:59
  It never lands well, Right? Yeah.
• 3:01
  How can I learn? How can I add value?
• 3:03
  Who can I support? How can I learn new things?
• 3:06
  You get rewarded for that. Yeah, exactly.
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  And I have done a lot of deep dives on mindset and growth over
• 3:12
  the last few years as well. And I'm a big believer in doing
• 3:15
  things that are a little bit uncomfortable for you are often
• 3:18
  opportunities for growth. And so I talk about sometimes
• 3:22
  like I used to be absolutely terrified of public speaking.
• 3:24
  Like literally this podcast, I would been like sweating and
• 3:28
  just like worked up about it or even like saying my name in
• 3:31
  front of five people in a room. Like I was that shy of an
• 3:34
  introvert. But I just kept doing it and
• 3:37
  focusing on it and putting the reps in.
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  And now I can speak on stage at a conference.
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  And yes, I still get nervous, but I'm not anywhere near where
• 3:44
  I used to be. And so, you know, identifying
• 3:47
  opportunities like that over the years have helped me continue to
• 3:51
  evolve as well. I love, I love that you share
• 3:53
  that because just there's so few conversations I've heard really
• 3:57
  about the mindset and really what it actually takes.
• 3:59
  I think so many people are like, oh, I'm scared of public
• 4:02
  speaking and that's just how it is.
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  I'm scared of it versus I'm scared of it and I'm going to
• 4:07
  actively put myself in situations where I can work on
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  it. Yeah, exactly.
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  It's again, it often is an opportunity for incredible
• 4:13
  growth. Like there's a reason it's
• 4:15
  scaring you a little bit. So it comes down to uncovering
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  what's the why and if it's important to you.
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  And so for me, public speaking, it's important in this role
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  because I'm becoming more of the face of the brand and I'm
• 4:26
  getting out there and I'm speaking and I'm doing podcasts
• 4:28
  and I'm doing all this stuff. So like, that is something that
• 4:30
  I needed to grow into to be successful as ACEO.
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  And so because of that, I was willing to put the effort into
• 4:36
  not be as scared anymore. And so I think if something does
• 4:38
  scare you, it comes down to, is it important in your career?
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  Is it important in your role? Is it important in your growth?
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  And then if it scares you, then continue just pursue it.
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  And one thing that I've learned and all of that too is stuff
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  might feel really hard and awkward in the beginning.
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  Like I used to have my own podcast and I remember like the
• 4:54
  first intro I had to do for someone I like stumbled so hard
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  and it felt so awkward and painful, which a lot of podcast
• 5:01
  hosts can probably relate to. But again, like things that feel
• 5:05
  really hard and awkward in the beginning, like if you just keep
• 5:08
  showing up for them, they get easier every time.
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  Look, I mean, this podcast is for founders and I'd say no
• 5:14
  matter what kind of founder you are, where you're at in your
• 5:18
  business, what you've done, there's going to be elements of
• 5:21
  running your own business that are scary, uncomfortable, not
• 5:25
  familiar. You're putting yourself out
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  there in more ways than one, right?
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  It's not just a LinkedIn post. It's like, this is my product,
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  this is my team. I'm, I'm curious as you think
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  about, you're like, OK, just do it, right?
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  Like if you're scared of public speaking, just do it.
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  It's kind of easy to say that in practice.
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  It's it's really unnerving. How do you think about actually
• 5:43
  putting yourself in that uncomfortable situation or
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  pressing submit on the LinkedIn post and, I don't know,
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  navigating and feeling OK about it?
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  I think just starting small and then continuing to grow.
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  So going back to like the public speaking example, like I
• 5:57
  launched my podcast because I was like, OK, I need to get more
• 6:00
  comfortable speaking. And so I started there because
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  that's, you know, it's the kind, it feels like a conversation.
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  You're not like on the stage where people are staring at you.
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  So I started there and I got more comfortable.
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  And then after that I started guesting on more and more
• 6:11
  podcasts and same kind of thing. And then I started presenting on
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  webinars. So it was like, you know, I was
• 6:16
  still behind my comfort of my screen, but it was like in front
• 6:19
  of multiple people, not just one that I could see.
• 6:21
  And then I started, you know, getting more speaking events in
• 6:24
  person. So it's not like I went like,
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  I'm not going to not be scared of public speaking and I'm going
• 6:28
  to just like dive on in. I put like baby steps along the
• 6:30
  way to gain confidence and to get, you know, hopefully some
• 6:34
  positive feedback along the way that kept me coming back and
• 6:36
  doing it more and more. And so the same thing with like
• 6:39
  a LinkedIn post to your to your example, you know, start with
• 6:41
  something a little bit safer, but then develop your
• 6:44
  personality over time and just stick with it.
• 6:47
  And like, the thing that you always have to keep in mind is
• 6:49
  when you're putting yourself out there, like there will be
• 6:51
  probably negative people and negative feedback that come your
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  way. And as a business owner, you
• 6:56
  just have to learn to brush some of that stuff off over the
• 6:59
  years. I'm curious, have you had a
• 7:02
  business coach or a mindset coach or multiple?
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  Like how do you think about getting support outside of like
• 7:07
  Yep, baby steps just do it, but getting outside support as well?
• 7:12
  Yeah, I think absolutely getting outside support makes a lot of
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  sense. I mean for me, I am like such a
• 7:17
  self learner that I read a bunch of books and I took an 8 month
• 7:21
  course on mindset. So it was like I want to learn
• 7:24
  it all myself versus necessarily like working with a coach
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  because I wanted to just dive deep.
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  But I do think if you're listening and you're someone
• 7:31
  that wants that accountability and that mentorship, then a
• 7:34
  coach is absolutely a great way to go.
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  Because I found, you know you when I coach some of our
• 7:38
  customers, they might be scared to post on LinkedIn.
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  And when I really just get curious for like, what are you
• 7:43
  really scared of? They uncover something that they
• 7:47
  didn't realize to be true. Oh, I'm actually scared of
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  judgment. I'm like, OK, what happens if
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  you get judged? Right.
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  And and it kind of like goes back to potential like a
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  childhood thing or it's a really old wound or whatever it is.
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  I found that to be really valuable.
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  And I'm curious if you explored that in like the why, as you
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  said, like what's underneath it? Yeah, absolutely.
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  And another thing because I work with a lot of fractional CMO's,
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  marketing agencies that are in like startup mode.
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  So they're just getting launched and they're ready to grow and
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  scale. And a lot of people that are
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  starting these businesses, they are have maybe been like a CMO
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  at a company for 15 years and now this is their first
• 8:21
  business. And so they know marketing
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  really well, but now they also have to be a salesperson and
• 8:29
  they have to go out there and put their content out there.
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  And they also have to like figure out how to package and
• 8:34
  price what they're worth when they're kind of just getting
• 8:37
  started and they need that confidence.
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  And so a lot of it does come down to taking a step back and
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  understanding like what's going on from a mindset perspective.
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  Because if you can help them gain that confidence, they're
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  going to go out there and charge what they're worth, which is
• 8:49
  going to help them be able to actually scale up their business
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  versus ending up like working really hard and not getting
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  results. And so I do think you have to, a
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  lot of people skip over that mindset stuff when they're
• 9:01
  starting a business. But if you're going to have
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  these big blockers in place, whether it's like public
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  speaking or sales or confidence in your pricing, like it's going
• 9:09
  to get in your way long term. So addressing those things early
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  on, I think it's really important and continuing to work
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  on them too. Yeah, it's like a never ending
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  journey. I want to pivot and really talk
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  about marketing. Obviously it's what you do.
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  You've been doing it for a long time, which is beautiful because
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  the landscape has changed a lot and quickly.
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  How have you seen things evolve over the last, let's just say
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  2-3, four years? I mean, obviously AI is the
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  first thing that I have to throw in there.
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  My book, Unchained Breaking Free from Broken Marketing Models, it
• 9:40
  talks a lot about how the agency model is breaking and more
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  people are starting to say this now, but it's breaking because
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  small businesses are now able to bring marketing execution in
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  house at a much more affordable rate than they ever have before.
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  And so it's a call really to agencies to shift their model,
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  but also to small businesses to think about owning their
• 10:05
  marketing versus renting it and outsourcing it completely, which
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  sounds a little crazy coming from someone that runs a
• 10:11
  marketing agency. But the moral of the story is
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  even though you can bring some execution in house, where a lot
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  of people struggle with AI as they skip over the strategy and
• 10:21
  the leadership component. And so they start bringing in
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  these tools and all of a sudden they're creating content that's
• 10:27
  generic that anyone could be creating.
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  And so I believe you still need as a small business, someone in
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  the marketing leadership seat, whether it's a fractional CMO or
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  whoever it might be that can own, OK, what's the business
• 10:40
  strategy? What's the marketing strategy
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  based on that? OK, what does this look like on
• 10:45
  a 90 day basis? What are we going to track?
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  What are we going to define as successful or not and really
• 10:50
  oversee and own the marketing component?
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  I see a lot of businesses over the years that I've worked with
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  that are more in like growth mode.
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  So they're under a million. And at that point the CEO is
• 11:01
  often the CEO and the CMO and the COO and the CFO and all of
• 11:05
  the things. And you know, oftentimes that
• 11:07
  business owner doesn't have a ton of marketing experience.
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  And so they're spread too thin and then all of their marketing
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  just becomes a massive list of tactics versus like, what does
• 11:17
  the business actually need to be doing?
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  Again, where marketing's shifting and evolving as I think
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  you could have a bit of a leaner execution team, but don't skip
• 11:26
  over that marketing leadership position.
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  And you said something interesting there about it can
• 11:31
  become that list of tactics. And if you're kind of missing
• 11:34
  this like holistic strategy. And I'm curious as let's say you
• 11:39
  know, the businesses that are under a million that are very
• 11:41
  much still figuring things out and figuring out like what are
• 11:44
  the sustainable growth strategies for us?
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  How do they come up with a sustainable growth strategy?
• 11:50
  Like what does that really look like?
• 11:52
  So for us, like we've had a set process for strategy that we've
• 11:55
  done for years. It's evolving and getting better
• 11:58
  with AI because we're able to get more information to data
• 12:01
  that we ever had before. But with strategy, it's doing a
• 12:04
  baseline of where you're at today from a marketing and brand
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  audit perspective because you need to know kind of your
• 12:10
  foundational where you're at to make any decisions.
• 12:12
  And then from there, it's doing competitive research.
• 12:15
  It's interviewing some of your best clients to learn more about
• 12:18
  them. And then it's developing ideal
• 12:20
  client profiles and messaging that resonates to those people
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  directly. Because a couple things, I mean,
• 12:26
  that's step one and two of marketing.
• 12:28
  You need to know who you're targeting with what message in
• 12:30
  order to be successful in anything else.
• 12:33
  But that's also incredibly valuable information to train
• 12:36
  Cheji Petite or Claude or whatever tool of your choice on
• 12:39
  moving forward. So again, you're not creating
• 12:42
  generic content. You're creating content that
• 12:44
  speaks to your people that you're targeting.
• 12:46
  So that's step one and Step 2. And then after you do all that,
• 12:49
  it's thinking about, OK, what is your customer journey look like?
• 12:52
  We have our own version at Duct Tape Marketing called the
• 12:54
  Marketing Hourglass. So essentially thinking through
• 12:57
  how can people get to know like trust, try by repeat and refer
• 13:02
  you and looking at each of those stages in your customer journey
• 13:05
  and analyzing where are your gaps and where are your
• 13:08
  opportunities to do better. Because when someone moves
• 13:11
  through that whole journey successfully, they become repeat
• 13:14
  and refer clients, which is often where your business can
• 13:16
  truly actually grow versus just getting in front of more and
• 13:19
  more people. Then you should look at, OK,
• 13:22
  what content do we need to produce to guide the stages of
• 13:25
  the customer journey? And then what are our four of
• 13:27
  six biggest growth priorities to do over the next quarter?
• 13:31
  And what do we need to track in order to be successful on these
• 13:33
  things? And so that's what we work
• 13:35
  through in strategy. And so if you're listening to
• 13:37
  this, maybe that feels like overkill if you're just kind of
• 13:40
  in startup mode essentially. But just at least looking at
• 13:43
  who's our ideal client, what's our messaging, what's our
• 13:46
  customer journey look like, OK, what should we do moving
• 13:48
  forward? What should we track?
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  I think is a really important piece because if you skip
• 13:53
  through all of that, you're just doing all these things without
• 13:57
  guiding people effectively. And that's where businesses come
• 14:01
  and say marketing doesn't work. Marketing is complicated.
• 14:04
  I'm spending money, I'm not getting a return.
• 14:06
  I have no idea what's working and what's not type of stuff.
• 14:09
  I love how clearly and tangibly you broke that out of the steps.
• 14:14
  And if you don't track it, you have no idea.
• 14:19
  Yeah. That's, I would say one of the
• 14:21
  number one challenges in small business marketing.
• 14:23
  When a business is trying to handle the marketing on their
• 14:26
  own or they're working with a not great agency, they don't
• 14:30
  know what to track or they're tracking what I call vanity
• 14:33
  metrics. So you know your website
• 14:35
  traffic. It's like, yes, you want to know
• 14:37
  that you're getting traffic to your website, but that's not
• 14:39
  where the story should end. It should also be, OK, how many
• 14:41
  people filled out the form? How many people booked
• 14:44
  consultations? How many of those people turned
• 14:46
  into clients and what revenue does that look like?
• 14:49
  What's the customer lifetime value?
• 14:51
  Because if you're not tracking all of those steps, you don't
• 14:54
  know if your marketing is actually getting a return or
• 14:56
  not. And so a lot of people end up
• 14:59
  just like doing all the things. And then when I take a step back
• 15:01
  and I'm like, OK, you're sending direct mail, you're spending in
• 15:04
  paid ads, you're doing organic search, you're doing all of
• 15:07
  these things like what's working, what's not?
• 15:09
  They're like, I don't know. Then you're, you know, spending
• 15:11
  money and you have no idea why. And so that's where it's really
• 15:15
  important to take a step back and be like, OK, if we're going
• 15:18
  to do direct mail, for example, if you're like a local service
• 15:23
  based business, it might make sense.
• 15:24
  Then how are you going to determine if that's successful
• 15:26
  or not? OK, probably put AQR code and a
• 15:29
  custom phone number on the piece and send them to a dedicated
• 15:32
  landing page. And then actually track, you
• 15:34
  know, if anyone called and converted from that direct mail
• 15:37
  piece, because then you can say, yes, we generated revenue from
• 15:40
  this, Yes, we should do this again.
• 15:43
  Right. And I've seen attribution, which
• 15:45
  I think is basically what we're talking about, be one of the
• 15:47
  most challenging things. Yeah, you do have to track it
• 15:50
  all the way through the customer life cycle from let's say it's
• 15:53
  that QR code in direct mail that goes to a landing page that has
• 15:57
  a UTM parameter that is stored in the database.
• 16:00
  And you know, whether it flows through a CRM or whatever
• 16:03
  internal system you have, but at the end of the day, if Bradley
• 16:07
  is the sales Rep who converted that customer, who came from
• 16:09
  direct mail, where the lead came from, we need to know all of
• 16:12
  those things. Yeah.
• 16:15
  I mean, it's helpful for the salesperson getting on a call to
• 16:17
  understand, you know, what all they've consumed along the way.
• 16:21
  And so I do sales for our business.
• 16:24
  And so I'm able to look up in our CRM like the person I'm
• 16:27
  speaking to in advance. And I can see, you know, we've
• 16:30
  been around for 30 years. I can say they've been on our
• 16:32
  e-mail list for 10 years. They've bought these things,
• 16:35
  they've been engaged in this way.
• 16:36
  And so my sales conversation with them is going to be a lot
• 16:39
  different than, oh, this person came from an ad and they haven't
• 16:43
  been on our list before and they have no idea who duct tape
• 16:46
  marketing is. And so I'm going to have to
• 16:47
  handle that call differently than I would with someone that's
• 16:50
  like, I've been a fan of your company for 10 years.
• 16:52
  I can't believe I finally booked this call.
• 16:54
  And so giving your salespeople that type of information helps
• 16:57
  them be more successful in that role.
• 16:59
  And do you guys use Salesforce or HubSpot or something else?
• 17:04
  No, we use Kit, which was Convertkit before.
• 17:08
  Change their name to Kit. Yep, it's been great for us,
• 17:12
  yeah. Amazing.
• 17:13
  Yeah, because I'm always curious what are the, I mean, you guys
• 17:15
  know I would assume the best tools.
• 17:18
  I'm like always wondering like, what is everybody else using
• 17:20
  that that really knows they're stuck?
• 17:22
  Yeah. I mean, we've worked within so
• 17:24
  many platforms over the years for our clients because a lot of
• 17:27
  times we'll run their e-mail marketing platforms.
• 17:29
  So we've been in HubSpot and Salesforce and Active Campaign
• 17:32
  and Infusion Soft back in the day.
• 17:34
  So like we've worked in all the different platforms and I don't
• 17:37
  think there's like A1 size fits all.
• 17:38
  I think it depends on your business, your size, your
• 17:40
  revenue, your growth goals, what all you need to track.
• 17:43
  But Kit is a really great option.
• 17:45
  It gives you a lot of information, it's affordable,
• 17:47
  it's easy to figure out. It doesn't have all the bells
• 17:49
  and whistles of the other platforms, but it gives us the
• 17:51
  information we need. I'm so curious, we focus a lot
• 17:55
  on LinkedIn content, LinkedIn thought leadership, building
• 17:57
  trust through LinkedIn. What's your take on LinkedIn
• 18:00
  these days? There's always different
• 18:02
  challenges around it. Thoughts.
• 18:04
  But I'm curious your take right now.
• 18:06
  Yeah. I mean, I think if you're in the
• 18:07
  B2B space from a social media perspective, that's where you
• 18:10
  should be spending most of your time.
• 18:12
  I think that there's a right way and wrong way of approaching
• 18:16
  LinkedIn though, and especially with the age of AII, see when I
• 18:21
  get on the LinkedIn these days, not only LinkedIn post, but like
• 18:24
  AI posts and then AI comments and then AI messages.
• 18:29
  And it's very easy to see through that.
• 18:31
  And so I think if you're thinking about LinkedIn as like
• 18:34
  a volume play, you're thinking about it the wrong way.
• 18:37
  But if you're thinking about it still as to what it was meant to
• 18:39
  be as like a relationship building platform where you're
• 18:42
  going to provide value and you're going to make
• 18:44
  connections, then I think it's an incredibly valuable platform.
• 18:48
  But I think that on LinkedIn, you need to be doing a couple
• 18:50
  things in terms of like posting on a consistent basis, content
• 18:54
  that your ideal clients want to learn about, but also commenting
• 18:56
  on other people's content as well, and then thoughtfully
• 18:59
  making connections. I love the providing value.
• 19:03
  It's so simple, right? Just like I'm going to share
• 19:06
  with you what I've learned not from a cringy self promotion.
• 19:09
  Look at me way just they're like, here's how I've
• 19:12
  experienced this in my business or past business or with a
• 19:14
  client or whatever in an authentic way.
• 19:17
  And that's just so powerful. Yeah, And with AI, again, I'm
• 19:22
  not like a obviously I'm not against AI, we use it quite a
• 19:25
  bit, but there's a, again, a right way and a wrong way of
• 19:27
  approaching it. But one of the beauties in AI is
• 19:29
  it's made repurposing content so much easier.
• 19:32
  So you can be on more platforms now.
• 19:34
  And so let's say, you know, this podcast, I could take the
• 19:37
  recording of this, of the transcript of it.
• 19:39
  I could put it into judgy BT it's already been trained on my
• 19:43
  voice and stories. And I could turn it into a
• 19:45
  series of LinkedIn posts so that I can now post moving forward.
• 19:49
  And so I think that's one thing to think about because the
• 19:52
  content production can be overwhelming as a business
• 19:55
  owner, especially when you're doing all the other things in
• 19:57
  the business. And so I'm really big on
• 19:59
  thinking about how you can create thoughtful content and
• 20:03
  then repurpose it on LinkedIn, e-mail, newsletters, you know,
• 20:07
  all different channels ultimately moving forward.
• 20:10
  Yeah, and I'm very open that I take this podcast.
• 20:13
  This is the top of our content pyramid, if you will.
• 20:16
  I take the transcript and turn it into a newsletter, A blog,
• 20:20
  LinkedIn post, right? And then we take the video short
• 20:23
  form across X Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn video.
• 20:29
  It turns into 50 pieces of content for me every week.
• 20:32
  Yeah. And before AI taking you a lot
• 20:36
  more time to do all of that, I mean, someone manually would
• 20:38
  have, and we used to do that manually.
• 20:40
  We have a podcast of duct tape marketing that's been here for
• 20:42
  20 years. We've been doing it and
• 20:44
  literally everything was manual, like even taking it and turning
• 20:47
  it into a blog post. And so that's where it's like
• 20:50
  you're not leaning in to purposing on AAI.
• 20:52
  You're really missing out on a huge opportunity.
• 20:54
  And so again, it's not just more noise, but it's like more bang
• 20:57
  for the time that you put in to something that you care about
• 21:00
  content wise. I mean, I used to pay a writer.
• 21:03
  Yeah, yeah. So did we, right?
• 21:05
  I mean. Yeah, that was reality.
• 21:07
  And it's interesting, the whole tangent we don't need to get
• 21:09
  into, but all of those people, I had a designer, I had a writer,
• 21:13
  I had different kinds of designers.
• 21:15
  I had all these people that I frankly don't need anymore.
• 21:19
  And some of them are still reaching back out to me, like,
• 21:21
  hey, Bradley, do you have any work for me?
• 21:22
  And I'm like, I'm sorry, I don't.
• 21:23
  And I want to tell you, it's not like I replaced you with another
• 21:26
  human. I just want you to know so that
• 21:28
  you can go either learn a new skill or figure out a different
• 21:31
  strategy because yeah, I'm not alone and not needing that
• 21:35
  service anymore. Yeah.
• 21:37
  And that's where like a speaking to, because I speak a lot to a
• 21:39
  lot of marketers and, and even people like entering marketing
• 21:43
  space from college right now, which is unknown and could be
• 21:47
  overwhelming. But I, I talked to a lot of
• 21:49
  people about, you know, instead of focusing on like execution.
• 21:52
  So some of these things you mentioned like design and
• 21:55
  writing and all that stuff, focus on building systems and
• 21:59
  managing processes. Because everyone on my team, you
• 22:02
  know, that was in the execution roles before.
• 22:04
  So maybe they were writing content from scratch 100%.
• 22:08
  Now I'm asking them to manage a writing process and edit
• 22:12
  content, you know, for like blogs, for example, like they're
• 22:16
  doing research and prompting and creating outlines all within AI
• 22:21
  and then creating the first draft.
• 22:22
  And so they're giving their knowledge and experience and
• 22:24
  input on the front end. And then they're using AI to
• 22:27
  move faster and then they're editing on the back end.
• 22:30
  And so in the sense they're becoming managers of a process
• 22:34
  or a system instead of like actual executors.
• 22:37
  And so developing skills and management I think is really
• 22:40
  important in marketers if you've always been in that executor
• 22:43
  role. And so the people that are
• 22:44
  reaching out to you, instead of offering like just one piece,
• 22:47
  it's like I'll build out your post production podcast
• 22:51
  experience using AI so you can optimize it and I'll help run it
• 22:54
  moving forward would probably be a better offer right now.
• 22:58
  Then I'll do one piece of post production.
• 23:00
  Yeah, for sure. You mentioned AI about
• 23:02
  repurposing content and even coming up with, you know, first
• 23:05
  drafts of things. How else are you guys using a?
• 23:08
  Like what are what are the highest leverage things the
• 23:10
  founder can be doing? I use it for strategy and
• 23:13
  research a lot too. You can think of AI as a thought
• 23:16
  partner where you're still like the thought leader, but AI is
• 23:19
  here to help you think and work alongside.
• 23:21
  I think that's important versus just something that can help you
• 23:24
  with execution. And so as I talked through like
• 23:27
  that strategy first package that we do for all clients, we now
• 23:31
  use AI with the research. And so one of the steps in
• 23:34
  strategy first is doing competitive research.
• 23:36
  Before AI, we would go out and we would do all of the research
• 23:40
  manually and it would take an incredible amount of time and we
• 23:42
  wouldn't get anywhere near the information we get today.
• 23:44
  Now, we still do go out and look at the competitors, but we also
• 23:48
  pull a deep research report, which is like a 30 page report
• 23:51
  that gives us more information than we ever wanted to know
• 23:53
  about the competitors. And so think about like from a
• 23:57
  strategy perspective and a research perspective, like what
• 24:00
  can you learn and how can you use AI to support you in that as
• 24:03
  well? I think is is a great
• 24:05
  opportunity. Because AI can do so much and
• 24:08
  it's evolving by, it feels like the hour, let's just say by the
• 24:11
  day. And what action do you actually
• 24:14
  need it to do for you? Because people are like, oh, I'm
• 24:17
  going to build this AI agent to be so cool.
• 24:19
  I'm like, that's great, but what is it going to do for you,
• 24:22
  right? You just gave a very real use
• 24:24
  case, like I'm going to send it off, basically do a bunch of
• 24:26
  research, compile it right, And we're actually going to use it
• 24:28
  for our strategy. That's a real use case.
• 24:30
  Not like I'm going to go build an agent that I can talk to on
• 24:34
  Telegram. Yeah.
• 24:35
  And that's where it's like so important to like put the
• 24:37
  strategy in on the front end to understand like what needs to be
• 24:39
  done from a marketing or business perspective, because if
• 24:42
  you don't, you're basically playing a guessing game.
• 24:44
  But one of the exercises that I did with our team a while ago,
• 24:48
  which I think is helpful, is to make a list of everything that
• 24:51
  you're doing on a consistent basis and then categorize them
• 24:55
  based on things that are increasing in value in the age
• 24:57
  of AI, things that are staying stable, things that are
• 25:00
  decreasing in value. But also analyze like, what are
• 25:02
  the things you like to do? What do you enjoy?
• 25:04
  What keeps you engaged? And then also are the things
• 25:06
  that you kind of hate doing. And so then you can look at your
• 25:09
  list of things that are like decreasing in value that you
• 25:11
  don't like doing. Then you can say, can AI do
• 25:14
  these things? And then you can say, what tools
• 25:17
  do I need to bring in to solve this specific problem?
• 25:20
  And so I think it's really important to like look at what
• 25:22
  you're doing and think about it that way.
• 25:24
  Because as you said, agents are new and exciting and people are
• 25:27
  trying to build them out. But it's like there's
• 25:29
  fundamental things that you're doing on a consistent basis, so
• 25:32
  you don't need to be doing. So free up some of that space so
• 25:34
  you can be more strategic and you can communicate better and
• 25:37
  you can be more creative and do the things that that AI can't do
• 25:41
  as well yet. Yeah, I love that.
• 25:43
  Have you read Built to Sell by chance?
• 25:46
  I have not, but I'm familiar with it OK because.
• 25:49
  One of the things that I know you talk about is, you know,
• 25:51
  packaging products and services. And I'm always curious,
• 25:54
  especially in the agency world and I think this applies to
• 25:57
  almost any business, but you could probably offer almost
• 26:02
  anything for your clients. Yeah, like we, we could build
• 26:04
  you design assets or set up a workflow or paid ads or SEO or
• 26:08
  whatever. How do you think about more of a
• 26:11
  set productized service where it's like this is the box that
• 26:14
  we offer versus we're going to be flexible and meet your needs
• 26:18
  and do whatever you need? I've met a lot of people over
• 26:21
  the years that have led with, we're going to be flexible and
• 26:23
  meet your needs. And what happens is it's
• 26:24
  impossible to scale and revenue is incredibly unpredictable
• 26:28
  because you might get this new and exciting project and it
• 26:30
  takes all your focus and then it leaves and then you have to be
• 26:33
  looking for the next thing. And it's also hard to maintain
• 26:36
  good partners or team to help with execution because it's
• 26:38
  always like something new and you can't document, you can't
• 26:41
  systemize. So there's just a lot of
• 26:43
  challenges and growing that way. So we've been big believers for
• 26:47
  all of ductive marketing existence that coming up with a
• 26:51
  specific package helps people understand what they're buying
• 26:54
  from a marketing perspective, but it also allows us to get
• 26:57
  really good at those things as well versus trying to be spread
• 27:00
  to them and do all of the things in marketing.
• 27:02
  And so when people work with us, we have a 30 to 45 day package
• 27:06
  that everyone starts with. It has a very set number of
• 27:09
  deliverables I talked you through earlier and that's like
• 27:12
  a deal or no deal. You have to go through that
• 27:14
  package with us before we move forward.
• 27:16
  But then when we go into a retainer package, we are always
• 27:19
  in the fractional CMO seat for our clients and then we can
• 27:22
  handle some execution as well. But when we're pricing our
• 27:26
  retainers, it's like here's our fee for our fractional CMO
• 27:28
  services, here's our fee for ongoing execution as well.
• 27:31
  And this is exactly what you're going to get every month, number
• 27:34
  of meetings, number of reports, like all of those things.
• 27:37
  And so when you can start communicating with clients like
• 27:40
  that again, it helps you stay in your zone of genius as a
• 27:43
  business because you're focusing on things that you can repeat
• 27:45
  and get better at each time. But it also helps it easier for
• 27:49
  your customers and prospects to understand what they're buying
• 27:51
  because unfortunately, marketing can be somewhat complicated to
• 27:55
  purchase. Yeah, I love that you go.
• 27:57
  They have this kind of set thing they need to go through to work
• 28:00
  with you, right? And I think some businesses,
• 28:02
  especially earlier on, you're kind of scared to do that.
• 28:06
  What if they don't want to do it?
• 28:06
  It's like, well, if they don't want to do it, then they don't
• 28:08
  get to work with us And like, that's OK.
• 28:09
  I mean, because like I said, we also have a certification
• 28:11
  program where we certify new fractional CMO's, agencies,
• 28:14
  consultants in this approach. And I get those questions often
• 28:17
  like, well, what if they just want a website?
• 28:19
  I don't want to lose the business.
• 28:21
  And my pushback is always, you can't do a website well if you
• 28:26
  don't know who you're targeting with, what message, what the
• 28:29
  customer journey needs to look like.
• 28:30
  You need all of that information in order to build a website.
• 28:33
  So if you don't charge them for strategy on the front end,
• 28:36
  you're just going to do it for free as part of the website
• 28:39
  build and you're selling your value at nothing at that point.
• 28:43
  I've been a big believer over the years, like people obviously
• 28:45
  have come to us and say, can you just help with our paid ads or
• 28:48
  can you just help us with our website?
• 28:49
  Or we just need this thing. And I'm always like, yes, after
• 28:52
  we do strategy because I can do those things so much, you know,
• 28:55
  and I'm not just trying to like upsell them into more.
• 28:57
  It's like I can't do that stuff well until I know all the stuff
• 29:01
  that will guide doing those things.
• 29:04
  Right. So your your options.
• 29:05
  If they say no or you either do it for free because you know you
• 29:07
  need to do it, or you don't do it and then you build a website
• 29:10
  that inherently is not a good output because you didn't do the
• 29:13
  work ahead of time to. Yeah.
• 29:15
  And I don't know how many stories I've heard over the last
• 29:17
  16 years of small businesses being like, I spent thousands of
• 29:21
  dollars on a new website and it's pretty, but nothing's
• 29:25
  happening. And then when you start
• 29:27
  uncovering like the why, it's like they hired a company and
• 29:30
  they charge them a lot of money and they build a website that
• 29:33
  looks nice, but it doesn't actually speak to their clients
• 29:35
  or do any of the things that a website should.
• 29:37
  So it's really important. I know it's sometimes hard to be
• 29:41
  patient for strategy, but I always tell people, if you sit
• 29:45
  through, if we go through strategy, it's going to save you
• 29:48
  time, energy, money in the long run.
• 29:50
  So invest now for a successful future in your business.
• 29:54
  And it lasts for a long time, right?
• 29:56
  Like eventually maybe it pivots, you need to refresh, whatever,
• 29:58
  but it can get you a long time and you're grounded into, all
• 30:03
  right, this is my customer and this is the value that we add
• 30:05
  and this is what differentiates us and all that kind of stuff,
• 30:07
  right? Yeah, exactly.
• 30:09
  And as you said, there's a heavy lifting once, but and you know,
• 30:11
  on a yearly basis, maybe you're just relooking and analyzing the
• 30:14
  strategy and maybe you're interviewing some of your new
• 30:17
  ideal clients just to kind of get different perspectives.
• 30:20
  But it's not like you're having to go through this whole
• 30:22
  strategy creation every single year.
• 30:24
  It's a lot of times laying the foundation and then just helping
• 30:27
  it continue to evolve as your business needs evolve.
• 30:30
  Yeah. So you start with this initial
• 30:33
  upfront offer, right? Everyone gets to go through
• 30:36
  that. And then you're like, OK, we're
• 30:37
  going to help you with some of the execution stuff and actually
• 30:40
  make this strategy come to life. How flexible are you then?
• 30:45
  Like, if someone's like, OK, SEO is going to be our strategy.
• 30:47
  Do you have an SEO expert? Do you have the paid app?
• 30:50
  Do you have everybody you need to like freelance people
• 30:53
  sometimes? Like what does that look like?
• 30:54
  So we're always, once in, we're in retainer, we're always
• 30:57
  staying in the fractional CMO role with our clients.
• 31:00
  And so we're overseeing all of their marketing team.
• 31:03
  And So what we do is once we understand what needs to be
• 31:06
  done, which is the end of strategy, we basically put it
• 31:09
  all into an execution calendar. We'll then say, OK, who do you
• 31:11
  currently have on your team and should they stay around or not?
• 31:16
  And if yes, that's great. And then we analyze, okay, if
• 31:18
  we're going to focus on these priorities, it looks like you
• 31:20
  have gap. You don't have a website
• 31:22
  developer, you don't have an SEO expert, for example.
• 31:25
  And so we'll bring in our team internally or we do have
• 31:28
  partners that we'll bring in from time to time.
• 31:30
  But essentially what we're doing is we're helping them build a
• 31:33
  marketing department with the key roles they need in place to
• 31:36
  execute the strategy that we would have put together.
• 31:39
  Or we help them hire the roles internally is another option as
• 31:42
  well. I hesitate saying we're a
• 31:44
  marketing agency like that's what people know of us as, but
• 31:46
  we're more of a fractional CMO business.
• 31:49
  Because perfect world in a lot of cases is when a small
• 31:52
  business can have some internal marketers in place and then
• 31:55
  they're bringing us in as a fractional makes a lot more
• 31:58
  affordable for them and then they have ownership and control
• 32:00
  of their marketing. Yeah, we were talking in the
• 32:03
  beginning and that just a tiny, tiny percentage of CE, OS or
• 32:06
  female. I'd love to hear just what
• 32:08
  that's like. What is it like to run a
• 32:09
  business as a woman in today's business world?
• 32:14
  Challenging, rewarding, always learning, being in the CEO seat.
• 32:18
  It's, it's interesting because you have a team relying on you.
• 32:21
  And so there's been a lot of leadership stuff that I've had
• 32:24
  to learn over the years because sometimes it can feel lonely,
• 32:27
  you know, when you're at the top of a company.
• 32:29
  And so yeah, it's, it's like there's days with complete
• 32:33
  roller coaster for me where I'm like, this is the best thing
• 32:35
  ever. And then it's like, Oh my gosh,
• 32:36
  this is so hard. But I think that's that's normal
• 32:39
  and that's part of the process. Yeah.
• 32:41
  I mean, is that the biggest challenge for you kind of that
• 32:44
  roller coaster or is it something else?
• 32:46
  Yeah. And I've learned to ride the
• 32:49
  roller coaster over the years because I, like I said earlier,
• 32:53
  I really do care about our business and our team and our
• 32:55
  clients. And so like if a team, like a
• 32:56
  team member was unhappy or a client left or our revenue was
• 32:59
  down, like it's hard not to take all that stuff personally as a
• 33:03
  leader. And so it's been a lot.
• 33:05
  That's another like mindset thing that I've had to really
• 33:07
  work on is, you know, we're not going to be like the best fit
• 33:09
  for everyone, but as long as we're doing our best work and
• 33:12
  you know, I know that we're getting value and results to our
• 33:15
  clients, that's been a challenge.
• 33:17
  And stuff that I've had to work on over the years is like,
• 33:19
  there's gonna be downs, but oftentimes the down leads to a
• 33:22
  better upside in the long run for everyone involved.
• 33:25
  Yeah. How big is the business now as
• 33:27
  far as number of people that you work with?
• 33:29
  There's about 15 of us. My guess is being part of the
• 33:31
  company for 16 years, you've built up so much trust and
• 33:36
  rapport and you know the business inside and out,
• 33:39
  everyone respects you. And so I think my guess is it's
• 33:43
  easier to be in the CEO overall now.
• 33:44
  It's ever easy, but it's slightly easier given like
• 33:47
  coming up through the ranks versus just being brought in and
• 33:50
  like, all right, I'm Sarah. Like everyone, listen to me.
• 33:53
  Yeah, I agree. I've developed close
• 33:55
  relationships. We have, you know, as an agency,
• 33:58
  there's a lot of turnover. We have actually really great
• 34:00
  retention with our team. And so we have people who have
• 34:02
  been working with us for years and they've seen me grow, you
• 34:06
  know, from where I was before to where I am today and then really
• 34:08
  supportive along the way. Amazing.
• 34:11
  If people want to work with you, learn from you.
• 34:14
  Like what's the best way to get in touch?
• 34:16
  Ducttapemarketing.com is our website and then I'm also very
• 34:20
  active on LinkedIn. My name is Sarah Nay on LinkedIn
• 34:23
  as well. Awesome.
• 34:24
  So and we'll link all the links in the show now so people can
• 34:26
  easily find you. Sarah, thanks so much for
• 34:29
  joining us today and sharing. I really appreciate how tangible
• 34:32
  you made things and just sharing your process.
• 34:34
  So really appreciate that. Thanks for having me on.