Latest / Honest Ecommerce / Hiring an Ecommerce Growth Agency: Red Flags with Sunnyside

Transcript

Hiring an Ecommerce Growth Agency: Red Flags with Sunnyside · Honest Ecommerce

• speaker-0: What does the first ninety days look like at a good agency? And maybe also what does it look like at a bad agency? speaker-1: The smoother the onboarding has gone and it was really it felt really dialed, generally that turned out to be a great relationship over a long period of time. And then obviously on the opposite side, if things kind of feel hectic and you're you're ⁓ you know, coming in and it's it's a bit disheveled, then that might be ⁓ a red flag right away. speaker-0: Honesty Commerce is a weekly podcast where we interview direct-to-consumer brand founders and leaders to find out what it takes to start, grow, and scale an online business today. Honesty Commerce is proudly produced by Electric Eye, a Shopify Plus partner helping e-commerce brands sell more with strategic design and development. Visit electriqueye.io for more information. Hey everybody, welcome back. To another episode of Honest E-Commerce. Today I'm welcoming the show Matt Ramanick. He is joining us from Sunnyside. Matt, welcome to the show. I'm excited to chat. ⁓ we've been ⁓ partners now for ⁓ going on maybe six months or so. and we thought about what would be a good ⁓ reason to chat on the show and how we could give value to folks. But before we get into that, ⁓ quickly. speaker-1: Yeah, thank you, Chase. speaker-0: ⁓ give me the crash course in your backstory. How did you end up running an agency? speaker-1: Yeah, sure. So ⁓ thanks again for having me. ⁓ stoked to chat with you guys today. I spent about two decades on the brand side ⁓ in e-commer in marketing in action sports and retail and the music industry. ⁓ I had ⁓ senior roles in e-commerce and both marketing or e-commerce and marketing. I was in ⁓ yeah, like I say, I work in music for a while and then I found my way into Action Sports and Outdoors. I was at Quicksilver for a long time and Vil Folcom and Pax Sun. ⁓ so I managed teams there ⁓ at each of those and was responsible for hiring and firing a lot of agencies over that time. ⁓ so yeah, what I kept running into though was just this sort of con consistent gap, I think. And we were we noticed that a lot of the agencies we work with are ⁓ kind of optimizing for metrics that look great on paper, but weren't really focused on the actual business outcomes in many cases. And so ⁓ that was something that really stuck with me, I think, over time. And ⁓ some some got it right, more right than others. And so when I left the corporate world eventually, I really didn't look for another brand to go work at. I just sort of built an agency instead without a playbook and having ever worked at one. And but really had a a solid idea of sort of what I wanted to do and some of the problems that we wanted to solve for. ⁓ so I had I'd all those years of experience knowing what worked and what didn't and ⁓ just set out to build something different. speaker-0: Absolutely. Yeah. And again, that agency is Sunnyside. ⁓ they got a great website over at SunnysideCalifornia.com. ⁓ we had a big laugh about that at the beginning of the show. ⁓ but we had to redo things and anyone that knows me can figure out why. But ⁓ let's let's dive in a bit here. what you wanted to bring to the table today, which I thought was super interesting, was basically ⁓ what every young brand or every brand going through a a change. ⁓ really wants to know how to do the right way and especially the first time, ⁓ which is how to buy growth ⁓ without dealing with you know people selling you stuff they actually can't do without getting got you know what I mean? Basically, you know, what how do I actually find a an agency partner, be it ⁓ an ⁓ you know an agency, a freelancer, a contractor, whatever you want to talk like, whatever you want to call it. It you we're just gonna talk about what you should be looking for. And by we, I mean Matt is gonna help us identify what you should be looking for, what you should be hesitant of. ⁓ when you're kind of looking to hire someone to help you grow sales essentially. So when we say growth, I think we're in we're talking about increasing sales. So selling more of the product, getting more qualified buyers to the website, ⁓ getting new buyers to the website, getting repeat buyers to the website. Matt, Is all of is all of that what you're here to handle and talk about? speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's just more about like how do you how do you find the best partner for the brand, right? And how do you sort of it's it's like a it's it's like a marriage, right? Like you're going into this thing and that you hope it lasts for a a number of years and it costs a lot of money. And yeah, I've I've seen it go wrong and I've seen it go right. And so what that's one of the things I I love talking about because especially if it's a younger brand or a founder who's not had tons of experience really procuring agencies and trying to find the right partner, it ⁓ it can be daunting, right? And the process can be ⁓ a bit overwhelming. So yeah, I'm happy to help however I can with that. speaker-0: Absolutely. I think the easiest place to start will be you can start and then I'll probably have some extras, which is let's just if you're talking to a partner and they say these things or make these actions, like what are the the major red flags that you should be spotting at the beginning of a relationship that you should say thank you so much for your time, but we're gonna go in a different direction. speaker-1: that's a good question. Yeah. So I think it it starts with the the pitch process, right? Like I always ⁓ sort of subscribe to the idea that this the sale is a sample of the engagement, right? Blarian said that in his book. And ⁓ and that really stuck with me. So as you're going through it and you're getting to know these people and you're talking about your desired outcomes and like really what you're trying to achieve, that whole process should be really a sampling of what it's going to be like to work together. Right. And so when you're getting pitched and you're seeing all these great numbers and case studies and all that kind of stuff, ⁓ that's great. And but it's more about really talking about and really going deep on what it is you're trying to achieve. Like what is it in a few years' time that you really want to look back and go, yeah, we did it. We high five over it and let's, you know, let's celebrate. And then the agency partner or the freelancer or whoever it is that you're talking to, should come with some tangible ideas of exactly how they're gonna do that. speaker-0: Absolutely. I think that being on the same page about what success looks like starts before any money exchanges hands. And you have to be like we're big boys, we're talking business, and this all resolves around money. And if you can't have a conversation around money and margins and what you actually want your goal to be, ⁓ maybe you aren't ready to hire someone to help you with this because it really does like. They need we need to know exactly how much money you're making and exactly how much money you want to make to draw the bridge between those two metrics and then bring it and then step it all back. And I know you guys get super deep, not to, you know, or spoiler here. He's got a really cool system ⁓ called Profit 360, if I can remember without looking at my page. but ⁓ long story short, when you're talking with people that are going to help you make more money. If they're not asking you how much money you're making now and what your margins are or your conversion, like if you're asking someone to help you with ⁓ an e-commerce store, which is that's the the the world that me and Matt both play in, and they're not asking for access to your back end to look at your analytics, like that's a major red flag, right? If they're not asking you what, you know, okay, Matt, you really like what we're selling over here at Electric Eye, like in one year, what looks like success to you and you ⁓ made the best choice of with working with us, what are some of those tangible or non-tangible things, right? And some of them are like, ⁓ our conversion rate's gone up by 20%. Or it's like, hey, you've helped me delegate the CRO roadmap completely off of my plate so I can focus on new product development because I've been so in the weeds doing this, I need to I need to build our next winning product. Right. So if they're not asking you stuff like that and they're just saying Yeah, we're gonna charge twenty percent of ad spin. We'll get started tomorrow. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, that last point is so crucial. And one of the things that myself and the team talk about a lot is when we move into a new engagement with a brand and we figure out kind of ⁓ you know, who are who's our key stakeholder, who are the folks that we're gonna be working with day to day. It's our personal goal to get that person promoted. It's like how can we like really sink into what this person's goals are as an individual and then really help them achieve that, in addition, obviously to some of the business business objectives and stuff like that. But yeah, like when we can sort of meaningfully take stuff off someone's plate and help them get back more time to focus on the things that they need to do in order to be effective in their role, then that's a huge win. And I think that, you know, you're not gonna find that many places a a a lot, you will, but I think it really comes down to the individual. And so for us as the agency, we really we've talked a lot about that and found that it has really helped us generate a lot more ⁓ r retention out of a potenti a particular client. And As a result, we see that tip our our typical lifespan of a client engagement is three to five years at least. And some it's longer than that. So ⁓ and a lot of it has to do with that really sort of personalized, almost hospitality approach of how we're working with somebody. speaker-0: Do you know what's going on with Clavio? When is the last time you explored what it can do? Clavio has been shipping tons of new AI data and automation features designed to help e-commerce teams move faster, personalize better, and automate more of the work that used to take entire teams. Most brands are only using a fraction of what is already inside their Clavio account. Clavio is not just email and SMS anymore, it is your customer data platform, your life cycle marketing engine. Your analytics layer, and now your AI-assisted execution layer all in one place. That means your customer data updates in real time. Your segments stay current automatically. Your flows and campaigns all run off the same source of truth. And now AI can help predict churn risk, forecast spend, recommend next best products, generate campaign content, and optimize send timing across channels. The big unlock is speed and efficiency. There are fewer tools to manage, less dependency on engineering, less time moving data between systems, and a lower total cost of ownership across your marketing stack. And brands are seeing real results from leaning further into Clavio. Dollarshave Club has reported over 30% reduction in total CRM stack costs after consolidating onto Clavio. Brands like Third Love have seen a 15x ROI from SMS after consolidating channels. And companies like Corksicle have grown flow revenue over 90% after bringing email and SMS together inside Clavio. Across our customer base, almost every single brand we work with today is using Clavio. That is just where serious e-commerce customer data and lifecycle infrastructures are living these days. If you're already on Clavio, but you feel like you're not getting everything you can out of it, or you're just running multiple tools and want to simplify without losing power, I think this is worth your time. You should head on over to clavio.com slash honest to learn more. That's k-l-a-v-i-y-o.com slash honest to learn more about what Clavio can do for you today. Another thing you mentioned earlier that I want to bring up was ⁓ In this process, when you're evaluating folks, you're looking at case studies. And this is something that I really harp on people. Cause I we we talk to brands that are really, you know, they just gotten funding or they had a great Q4 and they're looking to reinvest. And like, you they're always swapping teams and this, that, and the other. And they're always looking, you know, when they're looking to buy growth, ⁓ one of my major things is like they didn't they need to meet you where you are and they need to have a case study that proves they've done exactly what you want before. Right. And what I mean by that is if you're, you know, a direct consumer brand, you're you're selling apparel, right? And you're talking to an agency and you think they're great, but like all of their case studies are about lead gen. There's like a massive disconnect there between the outcomes of those engagements. So one, it's like make sure that they can show you a case study of like basically a competitor that they helped find success. Right. Like you have to be able to draw more overlap between the case study and your current business and your current problems than than less. Right. So there's that. And I think one of the hardest things to do, ⁓ and Matt, I would really love your opinion on this. The hardest things to do is to build traction for a brand that doesn't have it. So for like a net new startup direct to consumer brand, a lot of marketing and advertising agencies will take anyone's money. and but the the really hard thing to do is to get traction from from nothing, right? And so when you're in that scenario, it is almost even more crucial that you do what I just said and say, show me a case study where you took a brand with zero audience, zero exposure, zero celebrity influence, you know. What did that look like to to build them traction and then what what did traction look like, right? Was it did you got ⁓ to ten thousand a month, you got ⁓ to one million a year, like what did that look like and what was the timeline behind it? And obviously what was the investment involved? speaker-1: Yeah. So on the case study thing, ⁓ it it should be really tailored towards what it is they're trying to sell you, right? Like ex just like you said, if they come in with some sort of generic boilerplate case studies, then that's a red flag right away. You know, like they should have taken the time ⁓ to put in ⁓ some effort to create something or show some work that was super relevant to what you're doing. And and I think that agencies that do it right are the ones that Focus on a niche within whatever it is you're doing. So if you are a CPG brand, cool, you should find a CPG agency. Or if you're an apparel brand, find one that has tons of apparel clients. ⁓ and then the other thing with chase with case studies too is it should really focus on or it should have show some tangible outcomes that contributed how they contributed overall business growth. And so if they are not showing how they're optimizing for your scorecard and what your goals are as far as scaling the business, whether that's from zero to a million or five to ten million or whatever, then that's worth digging into also, you know, and it I think that a lot of times you see stuff where it's like, ⁓ yeah, we got this great ROAS or we got ⁓ all these impressions and whatever else. And that stuff's great, but that's really just more themselves patting them up them patting themselves on the back of it. And so that's one thing I think to look for is is yeah, did they do the time do do the the work to create some kind of proof or or a case study that is applicable to your business. And and yeah, and then your your next question about going from zero and trying to get it off the ground, right? Like that's it's hard to do. And I think ⁓ we just brought on a brand that ⁓ is doing this exact same thing. They it's It's a bit unfair for them because they have a a major celebrity behind it. And so that obviously is going to help a lot. But ⁓ I'd say that, you know, especially in the beginning, like it's really you got to focus on the things that make you special, right? Like what is it about the brand that is is going to differentiate? Like who are you? Who are you for? What's what why is your product special? What is it that's gonna make you famous? ⁓ really nail all that down. Like who's your who's your target customers, all that stuff, and then start building a brand. Like the first thing you should be doing is really like focus on building a brand and then think about how you can amplify that in the right ways. And ⁓ as you scale, I think it you're gonna find that there's gonna be some channels that work better than others or some creatives that work better than others. And that's where you really should start to ⁓ start to lean in a little bit more. And ⁓ And then at some point eventually, I actually liked what Jacques from Raindrop said on one of your episodes. He was saying about this there was this idea where brands that go too long on one channel that works, they sort of become like beholden to that channel. And if that has a bit like if meta goes down one day or something, like the business tanks, right? So there's some there at the stage where you're gonna have to start thinking about like diversity and where you wanna invest your next dollar in order to start reaching new customers. And so It's it's a good problem to have, I think, but as you're scaling, really just trying to keep a pulse on some of those signals that you're seeing and where some of these new customers are coming from and just carving out a tiny p part of the budget to place some strategic bets, right? Like think about ⁓ like maybe maybe YouTube w will work for us or maybe we should talk you know, talk to some creators and TikTok, et cetera. So yeah, long winded answer, but I think ⁓ start with brand, really double down on creative, have and have great product. speaker-0: What is the next big idea that could change your business? A pricing change? A new bundling strategy? Adding subscriptions? Tweaking your shipping offer? Most brands make these decisions based on gut feel. They roll out the change, hope for the best, and have no real idea if it helped or hurt their business. IntelliGems fixes that. It is an AI-powered testing platform that brings CRO level clarity to the decisions that actually move the needle. Not just button colors and headlines, but the big stuff. Pricing, offers, shipping, new apps, even major site changes. Brands like Ridge, Jones Road, and True Classics are using IntelliGems to test their most important decisions and see exactly how each one of those impacts profit before they commit. Momu Fuku used it to test promotional offers ahead of Black Friday and found the version that increased profit by about 28%. Mott and Bow ran structured pricing tests that drove roughly 30% more incremental profit. We use it at ElectricEye with almost every client we work with. And now IntelliGems has a free AI-powered audit that gives you three specific ideas that you can test on your store today. No commitment, no credit card, just three opportunities worth exploring. Head to intelligiums.io slash audit and get your free audit in just a few minutes. That's intelligents.io slash audit. Intelligems.io slash audit. Now, so the original name for this episode, which may or may not stay, but I I want to mention it now to follow into the next question, was like how to buy growth without getting burned, right? And so we are putting ourselves in the shoes of, you know, in quote the buyer from a brand side, right? And I think that it it probably we need to take a step back from the search phase to I hate RFPs, but we're going to use them in a generic sense here of like, this is the thing we need help with. It's not necessarily an RFP, but we're just going to use that term. ⁓ just is side I'm just gonna take a step to side here. Don't send out RFPs, they're stupid. Have conversations with smart people and do their process the way that they want to do it. But, you know, if for a general sense here, an RFP is just like, hey, we need help with this thing. Can you help us out with this thing? Before we get there. I think that ⁓ mistakes are made before it even gets written on paper about what the brief or like what the engagement looks like. So what are some of those mistakes that brands are making? speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, good one. ⁓ I think ⁓ generally when it comes to RFPs, especially, like they're just not an effective way to hire an agency, right? Like we it the mistake is like not having the conversation first and then talking realistically about where the business is at and where you're trying to go. speaker-0: I'm seeing on my side, man. We're getting clauds talking to Clauds and there's no real strategy or learning or you know, outcomes being discussed. It's just it's just marketing hogwash. speaker-1: Yeah. It's a bit concerning because everyone's trying to over optimize when it comes to this. And I think having a messy conversation or just a realistic conversation is that's a that's gonna be more telling, I think, than a response to an RFP that is just generated by AI and has a couple tweaks to it. And so yeah, I think for us and I think smart agencies, we We just generally don't respond to them unless we have a really ⁓ unless we have a contact internally who like personally referred up to us and we have a relationship already with them and some in to be able to have that type of conversation, then maybe we will. But yeah, I think we're more interested in in just having an honest conversation and and trying to help illustrate what that bridge to success sort of looks like. And again, like using that as like the the sample of what it's like to work with us and bringing bringing all the people in the room that would actually be working on the account, not like a bunch of senior people who talk a big game and have all these great ideas, but then you never see them once you sign up with the agency. speaker-0: You have prepped all year and all that hard work is paying off. Your store is converting, the ads are working, and this is shaping up to be your best holiday season. But your 3PL can't keep up. Orders are backing up, customers are asking where their stuff is, the reviews are starting to turn. All that hard work, all that momentum, undone by a fulfillment partner that can't scale with you. This is a nightmare scenario, and it happens to brands every holiday season. Enter e-fulfillment service. EFulfment Service is the 3PL that scales with you. They are family owned, they've been in business for over 25 years, and they're built specifically for growing direct-to-consumer brands. There are no setup fees, no minimums, and no long-term contracts. You only pay for what you use. If you're scared your 3PL can't keep up this holiday season, now is the time to reach out to eFulfillment service. Go to eFulfillmentservice.com/slash honest and get up to eight weeks of account fees completely waived. That's EFL. U L F I L L ⁓ E N T S E R V I C E dot com slash H O N E S T e Fulfillment Service dot com slash honest. Yeah, ⁓ we actually charge to respond to RFPs, and that usually changes the conversation a lot. But what I've been doing a lot lately as I go, this is clearly written by AI. Would you like to have us help you rewrite this and get you the result you want? And then we'll give you a bid and then you can go bid that thing out too. Right. So that's been my approach. I've had yet no one has bit on it yet, but it's like this is the nicest I can be in this scenario. speaker-1: Yeah, I was gonna ask if that's worked so far 'cause I steal that idea, but it's a good way to respond. Hey. speaker-0: ⁓ we get paid ⁓ our you know, just to kind of be honest on the radio here, ⁓ is like getting paid to get senior leadership on the next call is not uncommon and and we do charge ⁓ for like we call it our Shopify Diagnostic. We have friends out there that call it a workshop, you know, it's basically just a strategy session at the end of the day. you're gonna get such a better ROI from those micro commitments than you are going to be, you know, pig headed and I'm not spending money with anyone. Everyone else is doing this for free. But you gotta really think about the free information you're getting is not good. speaker-1: Yeah. It's it's ⁓ yeah, it's output from AI mostly, right? It's it's ⁓ that it's a lot of shortcuts and I think yeah, that's that's a smart way to take the approach to take. speaker-0: Sure. I do think though it is worth talking to Claude when you're in the RFP phase, like as a brand, but not to build an RFP. It's like this is what these are the shortcomings, these are the gaps that we have. These are this is the strengths of our team. This is the weaknesses of our team. Have them really build out like all right, this is what you need to hire for. It's actually, it's not, you don't need a meta agency. You actually need an agency that can also source you influencers and then then those influencers are going to give you creative. It's like you guys have all of these gaps. So if you just hire a meta agency, you're going to have the same problem you had six months ago, which is you didn't have enough creative to build that flywheel. And then they can't do their job, but you can aren't seeing the ROI because they can't do their job because they are bottlenecked by your creative output. Right. So being honest with yourself about what it is your brand can bring to the table to make the partnership better. ⁓ you know, I don't p think a lot of people have enough honest conversations with themselves about that. So just talk to AI about it. speaker-1: So true, dude. I think yeah, it's certainly we use it a lot, right? Like our agency runs on AI now. And so it look it but it's you can't outsource your thinking too too much because then everything just starts sounding the same. Everyone starts talking the same. it's interesting because yeah, I I post on LinkedIn a lot and I've made a point to it which is kind of sad, but like you almost have to write in a way now that's a little bit more messy and like unconventional in order to not get called out for using AI. And and I'm guilty. I used to use it all the time to like help ideate and come up with concepts of of content and stuff like that. But I've since moved away from that now. And and I think in a as an agency we moved away from it too because everybody can sort of sniff it out. And I think that it's almost become a point of differentiation to show your your human thinking and leverage it for more of the the operational stuff that's maybe taking time away from being able to do that. speaker-0: Absolutely. And Matt, I knew this was going to happen. We were going have too much fun on this. So now I'm going to I'm going to narrow in and focus. We've got three questions left. Okay. Let's see how quickly we can actually get through them. Yeah. Which I don't really care. We can have a lot of fun with this. All right. We talked a lot about like the red flags and what not to do. But, you know, my brand, we've talked to of quite a few folks. There are three agencies that I really like. What are some good signs? What are some of those different differentiators? What are some of those you know, opposite of red flags, the green flags that we should be looking for, ⁓ to help, you know, in that decision making process of like the this would be what you wanna see. speaker-1: Yeah, that's a good one. So I think that just like you said, they should be asking for access to accounts. They they should be wanting to get their hands dirty with looking at historical data before really touching anything and asking about what your business objectives are, what's going on with the brand, what else you have going on. ⁓ I think a good plan comes grounded in your numbers and not like a templated playbook. And so and then who getting in touch with the right point of contact. Like we always talk want to talk to the CFO. We want to know sort of what's in his head as far her head as far as what what their objectives are and what the numbers look like. And so ⁓ I think like a red flag on that though is is more that they don't, right? And they're just like they come in and let's say you move forward and they want to change everything week one. no one's really asking about ⁓ overall business objectives or goals and ⁓ and then obviously like we said, like the the person who pitched you isn't isn't around anymore, right? Or like and then you know you're sort of now working with this new person. So that's that's a big one, right? And I've that I've totally experienced that. I've been in I've I've had that happen. I would was like a a young marketing manager of at Quicksilver and we're getting pitched by a big agency and ⁓ next thing you know, we're in we're in go mode and it's like, Okay, who who are you? And you're You're you're not the person I talked to originally. So yeah, that's a big one. speaker-0: Hey everybody, just a quick reminder. Please like this video and subscribe if you haven't. We're releasing interviews like this every week. So don't miss out. Now back to the interview. Absolutely. Now let's say ⁓ we've made our choice out of those three. One of them really stood out. We signed, you know, what does the first 90 days look like at a good agency? And maybe also what does it look like at a bad agency? Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. Good one would be that they have a really dialed in onboarding process. I think that is a really good telling sign. And you should ask about it as you're talking to them and throughout that sales process. And they have a dedicated person or a team of people who handle onboarding. They make it super smooth. They look to get up and running quickly and become effective. ⁓ they're collaborative with your outgoing agency or whoever it was that was managing everything previously. ⁓ ask a lot of questions or setting up meetings with them. They're really getting their hands dirty when it comes to the creative and trying to understand what's worked and what hasn't, talking to the creative director or whoever's in charge of the overall creative strategy on the brand side. and then yeah, as far as the the channels go and the data and everything like that, just get everything hooked up quickly so they can start to build out their forecasts and understand sort of what the the media plan is and working collaboratively with your team. So that's that's what good looks like. And I think that in my experience in the past, the smoother the onboarding has gone and it was really it felt really dialed, generally that turned out to be a great relationship over a long period of time. And then obviously on the opposite side, if things kind of feel hectic and you're you're you know coming in and it's it's a bit disheveled, then that might be ⁓ a red flag right away. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. It's it's it's pretty obvious in that conversation that ⁓ everything that he said was good. If they're not doing any of that, that is bad. but let's talk about ⁓ I kind of mentioned this before, but I don't know if it's the same thing that you wanted to say, but like when should a brand just not hire an agency? speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, I think it's in the very beginning, you might not need an agency, right? Especially if you're just trying to figure it out and you are looking for product market fit, you're pressure testing if there's who you know who your customer is and trying to find them. I think that's a, you know, you might not need that. You might just need like a contractor or freelancer or somebody who can ⁓ kind of do a lot of things for you and help you get it off the ground. That was one of the most fun things I did w ⁓ before I started the agency and actually that turned into what is now Sunny side was I was doing consulting for small startup brands and really helping them figure things out and get everything off the ground. And ⁓ in one case there's a brand, ⁓ it's a brand called Beak, and they were it's this women's sandal brand and they were just getting off the ground and had ⁓ really had no clue on like how to stand up e-com and ⁓ get everything going from a digital marketing standpoint. So I was I was actually working at Paxun at the time and I was kind of moonlighting on nights and weekends trying to help them get off the ground. And yeah, that I look back at that and was and I'm pretty fond of that experience because it was number one, it was it was fun for me because I was learning things that I had never done before. And I was honest with them and I said, hey, I haven't done this, but I'm happy to figure it out. And that was from everything from like setting up their Medads account at the time or running Google ads or whatever, you know, setting up a product page for them. ⁓ so someone like that can be super helpful, especially in the beginning. And then the fun thing about them is that they're a client today. Like they've they've grown from they were doing six figures just early on when I first started with them, low six figures, and now they're well into nine figures. And so that was that's been a fun journey to sort of be a part of over a long period of time. But I I suggest that to people all the time for founders who are really trying to get it going is find someone who's got a hunger in it and they have some experience ⁓ with what you're trying to do across a bunch of different channels and and ⁓ and can really help you kind of get off the ground. That's, you know, that might be a much better option than bringing in an agency where, especially early on, it feels expensive and there's a lot of expectation and you're kind of wanting results quickly. so that's that's what I would suggest. ⁓ another one though is like Or let's say the brand is more established and the the you sort of see some warning signs internally, right? For example, like you the maybe certain teams are talking to each other, or if there's the problem that they're trying to solve is actually internal. Like the the say that for example, the buying and planning folks are not talking to marketing and there's disconnect between what was actually bought in ⁓ the line versus what's being marketed in. built around as far as like the the brand strategy goes, like that's that's an org fix and not really like a a media or agency fix. And so that's some stuff to sort of try to suss out and fix before you bring in an agency to to look at how you're gonna grow things because you're gonna run into issues, especially in that that sort of scenario where it's going to impact performance and there's nothing the agency agency can do to fix that. So ⁓ that's another one that we've run into in the past, but is a little bit less common, but I'd say that look turn turn inward first, you know, before you're trying to figure out what it is that you're trying to do from a growth standpoint or goal standpoint and and what you need to solve. speaker-0: We were talking about doing this episode together, we had like a few different ideas and and I was like, Inevitably it's gonna get a little more inside baseball. But like one thing that we love to do when we're ⁓ talking with potential clients is is asking a question somewhere along the lines of like, What do we need to know about your business that's gonna come up later and like throw a wrench in the works? It's like, ⁓ like you guys have a lawsuit going on, or you know, the CFO's pregnant and and she's gonna be gone for you know a an extended period of time. Like, you know, what's you know, ⁓ this person's leaving the company or like, you know what, we like all of the back of house is actually offshore. And, you know, there's like all the there's there's so many weird specific situations that you gotta directly ask. And then if you know about them up front, you can plan for them. ⁓ but just keeping it in the dark, you know, as a buyer, you should be forthright with all the information because At the end of the day, they want the engagement to be success successful. You need the engagement to be sex successful. So, like being completely transparent about the state of things is the only way to do so. speaker-1: Yeah, that's a great one too. Yeah, I'm gonna steal that and put it into our our onboarding questionnaire. speaker-0: Absolutely. ⁓ Matt, you I mentioned it earlier. ⁓ but quickly run me through like ⁓ what is Profit three sixty and why is Sunnyside so cool and if I think you guys sound awesome, where do I go to find out more? speaker-1: Yeah, I appreciate it. So, you know, our own our our unfair advantage is that myself and most of our team have brand side DNA. Like we've we come from brands and and the people that you talk to are the ones that work directly on the account. And so ⁓ a lot of us have real operate operator experience and not, you know, necessarily just provide a bunch of agency jargon. And so I think that that to me was important when standing up the agency and really building the team and ⁓ thinking about how we could get people in in the working with brands that have actually been in your shoes. And so that was that's a that's a big one for us. Profit360, that's that's our operating system. That's how we run growth. ⁓ it connects the business outcomes, which is for us profit and new customers to the day-to-day work and the creative strategy and what and how that comes to life across paid channels. ⁓ and so we yeah, we get our hands on the PL and really build our build out our own forecast model and plan in directly, like I said, with the CFO, with the head of e-com, whoever it is. ⁓ that becomes the sort of guardrails. We work directly with the product and marketing teams on alignment there. Well they really want to know what inventory we have, what's selling, ⁓ what seasonality looks like. ⁓ then the one of the probably the biggest thing these days is is the creative strategy and how that ⁓ how what we're talking about comes to life and who we're showing that to and what the framework is there. And the bottom rung is really just the channel execution and how we distribute and optimize everything. And so that becomes a big flywheel and ⁓ this repeatable sort of loop and ⁓ you know across like tracking and forecasting, review, optimi optimizing. And so everything gets diagnosed and mapped back to business guardrails rather than like channel metrics. So that's a big one for us. And it's we've really leaned heavily into that over the past couple of years. And that's become ⁓ how we manage things now. And it it's worked really well. We've had ⁓ like I said earlier, we've had some clients that have been around for three, four, five, six years, and we've we've really enjoyed a a a high retention rate as a result and seen a lot of growth with it. And yeah, so if anyone's interested, happy to chat. You can find me on LinkedIn, post on there pretty frequently. Our website's Sunnyside California. dot com. ⁓ we'll have a guide on there too. Like so if you're interested in our philosophy and and some some ⁓ high level ways you can grow your brand. ⁓ it's sunnysidecalifornia dot com slash guide. So come check it out. ⁓ grab it. It's free. And ⁓ yeah, hope to hear from everybody that's interested. speaker-0: Awesome. Matt, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing all those amazing insights. speaker-1: Yeah, Chase, I appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me, man.