835: Leading Teams Effectively to Grow your Business with Amy Anderson

Robert Plank 0:00 marketer of the Day episode 835 Leading Teams effectively to grow your business with Amy Anderson. Welcome back to the marketer of the day podcast, we're here with Amy Anderson from wild coffee marketing.com. Ne is a widely respected and creative industry leader. And she sees the unique opportunity to leverage creativity to transform both brands and entire organizations across multiple sectors. And we have so much to talk about, maybe we will talk about client manage management's managing large teams challenges and balancing that pesky work and personal life who the heck knows what Amy, glad to be talking to you.

Amy Anderson 0:46 Thank you so much for having me today.

Robert Plank 0:48 I'm super glad to have you on, I'm glad we finally were able to connect, I think at one point you couldn't make it, I couldn't make it. But that is just the hectic lifestyle that we live in. And so what has been kind of your focus your your passion, the last six to nine months or so?

Amy Anderson 1:02 Well, after recovering from COVID, which I think all of us had a little bit of that to do, and really sort of keeping things moving with our clients. We've really just been building our creative team. We have hired some incredible journalists as social media experts, which is sort of our new focus, and really just trying to churn out some really great creative work. So that we're really proud of,

Robert Plank 1:24 well, that's exciting. And I think that I felt a little bit of a push myself, I hadn't, hadn't quite clicked until just now, that right before all the COVID kind of stuff happen. I was kind of moving in that direction of actually taking this business thing seriously. And actually having a team and not doing all the work myself and trying to scale things. And that was always a thing on my to do list for so many years. And I would hire like you know, one or two employees and to kind of dabble at it a little bit. But right before the pandemic started is when I started actually building a team, like deliberately. And then it feels like maybe when the pandemic ramped up there was there was all that pressure, right? It seemed like that, like some of the old customers were kind of not there anymore. And there are new people. And it's it felt like there was a lot of like competition with all this, like remote work and a lot of things to be expected. So I feel like just in the way that you put that it just isn't clicking, the pandemic kind of pushed me to take my business seriously. And it seems like maybe something similar happened with you too?

Amy Anderson 2:21 Well, I think a lot of us were sort of impacted by the great shuffle, right, that's still going on with clients doing well, clients really in turmoil in this market supply chain issues, extreme growth, all of a sudden venture capital money is back in. So it just feels like everything is in movement all the time, much more so than normal, right? We're in a difficult hiring market, we're in a difficult growth market, and then some sectors are sort of taking off, and they hire us two months too late. And then we have to scramble to help them get caught up. So, you know, we've always sort of worked at a really fast pace. But in this market, I just feel like there's so much movement that everyone's trying to keep up with right now. And exciting. But

Robert Plank 3:01 yeah, it's exciting, and a little bit of a scary, chaotic way. And I feel like, again, like I feel like the like the couple of clients I've gotten this year, it's been a similar situation where like, there's a mess to clean up. They don't really know what to do you at this point. And I kind of have get been getting this kind of repeat answer like this is the third or fourth attempt at that this right? So for example, like with you having your creative team like your writers, I imagine there's a lot of like, well, we tried this a year ago, we tried this six months ago. And finally we have Amy and the team helping us out. And so do you have any fun stories to share with us just to kind of give us an idea of the magic that you do the secret sauce, the kind of activities that you and your team perform for businesses?

Amy Anderson 3:47 Yeah, you know, it's interesting as people, people ask us what type of company that we're right for a lot of the time and what we're finding in this year, a lot of times there will be a single person marketing team that's actually really effective, right? So it's a team of one. And they tend to be really strategic and implementers. But there's only so much they can do in this market. And repeatedly, we've had a really good marketing leader call and say, You know what, I think I've taken this as far as I can go. And we really have been able to augment that. And we've seen that twice happen. They're effective, right? But we're expected to go so wide and so deep with our skill sets and marketing and digital, right everything from SEO, PPC strategy, branding, strategy, content creation, video development, social media, I mean, it's so much that one person can't do all of that. They end up hiring a bunch of freelancers, small agencies, and then things start to get really disjointed. So that's really a theme that we've seen this year is that people are sort of getting maxed out. And rather than hire an agency, we're actually outsourced marketers, so we can sort of speak their language and being glaciated with the team. And we work really closely with them that way.

Robert Plank 4:59 And That's interesting to think about that, um, that it's, I used to, like be really attentive at the the problem of switching gears of multitasking. And it seems like it was more obvious back when, like, phones were slower and computers were slower. And like your remember when your computer took like five or 10 minutes, just a start up. And for me, it was I was really aware of like, okay, I shouldn't be dealing with this client, and then answering these emails and posting on these message boards. But I feel like in the past, maybe like, five to seven years with computers and phones being like, so quick. And you can just click on this and use this in the cloud and use this app, I've had to, like remind myself that okay, even though the computer can run really fast, I can have all these tabs open and it won't slow it down. Like it still is, like a like death pretty much to have all these could be spread so thin and be trying to do everything ourselves. And I'm always I feel like I'm at war with like, my own ego, because I'm always wrestling with like, well, I could do that better. And I could squeeze in the time. And then I always kind of run across this issue of like, well, do I do I hire a team? Or hire someone to do this thing that I haven't done yet like this, this nagging problem? Or do I hire someone to like, replace a chunk of what I do? Or something else? And do you ever come across it? Do you ever come across like like that resistance of like, well, I'm not sure. Like, what kind of team I'm supposed to hire? Should I do something like replace something new or something existing? I mean, you come across any kind of app just like the the hiring uncertainty, I guess?

Amy Anderson 6:30 Well, I think it's really hard to scale a service business, right? I mean, when your resources, your people, it's trying to understand the exact skill set that you have. And we're having a little bit of that go on right now with respect to project management, because just what you're talking about, right? People at Wild coffee, where a lot of hats, they're doing the thinking and the strategy there managing clients and those relationships, they are doing some of the work, and they're also project managing. So it is so much of what piece of that do you sort of pull back and specialize in a specialized skill set. So it's really sort of narrowing it down to a skill set that you know, that you can find, and a really good person who excels at that. But you don't want to do, right, do you time block and sort of set time aside to try to focus on one thing?

Robert Plank 7:15 I mean, I do but not as often as I should. It's always like putting out fires. But then again, it's like one of those reminders like I forget about I'm like, Oh yeah, I should be just like scheduling the free time, I should be scheduling the time to think because if you're just trying to squeeze it in in like five minutes and 10 minutes, they're like, that's not going to work that's not going to be consistent. And, and what you're reminding me there is like, again, this I feel like this is like just a reminder call, right? All of those, like really simple things that were were so simple, and it works so well. It's easy to forget, there's always like that, but enough issue, right of like, well, you need to have like the the worker and the manager and then the person with the commands. And even above that even like kind of the strategy. So that way, each person only performs one task. And there's not like all those switching gears. And it's a it's a helpful reminder, I feel like I need to hear this like almost every day, if not more often, like stop switching gears stop trying to wear all the hats only do the one thing because there's these different skill sets. And it feels like even as you're describing this, like switching between the project managing and the client relationships and doing the work and the strategy, like it's going to eat up all the time, like you won't have any time left in the day, because you're always like trying to switch gears, it feels like

Amy Anderson 8:24 Well, I tried a time block. I mean, I lead a 20 person company with my business partner and I can still block two hours, maybe three days in advance if I know I have writing to do if I know I have a strategy to do if I'm working on new business development. If I'm doing a pitch or an RFP, I think that's really critical. The other is clarity breaks. And it's something that we really try to encourage people to do during the day I'm a team is just to get up and walk. Take a moment, read an article read part of a book and really just sort of stopped being in this doing phase all the time, and being a little bit more of a still in a silent space to just clear your head. So I walked dogs during the day. I know other team members do too. And I think it's important to step away a little bit during the day.

Robert Plank 9:10 You're so right I get again, this is the thing that I have gotten away from I used to have such a good morning routine of I'd wake up and even if I had pressing things to do, I'd wake up right around when the sun came up and I take like an hour long walk and I'd feel so good afterwards. And lately honestly, Amy these days, I've got a new baby so the time thank you very much in that the time was more kind of compressed and sometimes I feel like I sometimes have to jump in just wherever I can squeeze the time, like if it's nap time or freeze not awake yet or if he's gone to bed, but I do feel like that something that maybe I've overcome these last couple of years is just the just doing the task anyway right? Even if I don't feel like doing it and it could be even doing the client work or even like the time blocking or the clarity locking, like you're mentioning here, even if the appointment rolls around, and it's 8am. And I've got this thing on the calendar such as even like a podcast interview like this, but something on the calendar, back in the old days, I would think you know what, I don't feel like doing it, I'll push this appointment off, it can slip it. But these days, I'm, I'm thinking to myself, I don't know when I will have time later. And I know I kind of don't feel like doing this task. But I maybe feel like 60% Like, I feel like doing this task. And maybe in the future, I might only feel like 10 or 20% worth of doing this task. So you mentioning, you know, time blocking in this time management thing. And like, that's something that I recently had to remind myself is, even if I don't fully feel like doing the thing, it's on the calendar, I need to do it anyway, whether it's time blocking or something, or like, you know, sitting in strategizing or something else.

Amy Anderson 10:50 Well, I love that it holds you accountable to have it on the calendar, and then you're anticipating it for a few days. Right. So I knew this morning that I was going to be working on some strategy for a client. I geared up for that time. And then I you know, I just got it done. And and I think that the calendar really helps you anticipate and hold yourself accountable. You know?

Robert Plank 11:11 Yeah, so So what are we missing here? Like we've kind of talked about, like how people need to not do everything themselves. And I mean, that's a problem I have, I'm sure it's a problem that you have, to some extent. And we're always getting better, but it's at least good to have awareness. And we making progress on that. We talked a little bit about like time management and calendaring. So far, what's really missing? What are people missing the boat on as far as like their business or marketing or time management or just like, you know, what's not being discussed enough

Amy Anderson 11:41 strategy. I see a lot of times people will just sort of start diving in and marketing and getting into this sort of implementation of all of these tasks without really sitting down. And you know, developing customer personas, empathy maps, really getting into the hearts and minds of your consumer. Really understanding I don't think we can plan in year increments anymore. Robert Wright member we used to do like one year plan 18 month plans, and we sort of laugh at that now. It never works out did it? No, we may have a little bit, you know, in the early 2000s, but certainly not now. So really to look at a quarter to look at your core strategy for that quarter, six month period and not just start doing people will start posting and creating and buying ads and all of that without a really sound strategy. And we have to make people stop and think and tie it into the core business objectives and sit in executive meetings with our clients who really understand how marketing is impacting all of that. So I think a lot of it is just to really think before you do. And a lot of times we have to sort of reverse engineer and start over for clients in a turnaround situation, or when we're sort of starting an engagement in that way.

Robert Plank 12:53 And that hits me really hard because again, thinking about like my own kind of like hiccups last year. And like kind of where we're at with some of these clients coming in, you hear a lot about it's all it's always stated in different terms, but there's like the throwing of the ball and catching the ball, right? And so like you mentioned, like buying ads, for example, or posting content. And it's really easy. It's really easy to throw some balls, right? Who cares where they end up, and I'll post some stuff, we'll make some ads, and then it sits there. And then days later or weeks later, you say, oh, yeah, what about that Facebook get around? Oh, looks like it got no clicks, I guess I guess I'll put that aside. And then it becomes at least for me, it becomes like something I dread. Because it's something that I failed at? Well, I didn't really feel that I just didn't follow through, right? What didn't do something complete with it. And then and yeah, and it's like, there's so many situations where there's, you know, like, like out LinkedIn or cold email outreach or something where there needs to be like, not just putting things out there. But then having a strategy, as you said, and like coming back to it. And something that I I realized maybe just this morning that I haven't been doing enough of his like, is writing things down. Because when I write things down, I'm thinking like, oh, and even make like an SOP or like Google document screenshot. And the thing that again, we're having this conversation, you're sparking up all these reminders for me is like, I haven't been like journaling, right? Just saying like today's date, here's what I'm thinking about, here's what I'm doing. And then maybe even possibly cleaning out up later and going back and saying like, Oh, yeah, on Tuesday, I did this and this and maybe like organizing it later, or should be handing it off to someone else to organize it later. Right? And so it kind of makes me think, okay, like, where's the line? Like, where do we say, well, I need to be more organized. And I need a better system. And I need to do this and this versus like handing handing it off to a team such as as yours, like, at what point what things are like a black box that someone else should do. And what else is something that like I should fix? Do you think right?

Amy Anderson 14:49 Well, that's sort of it's sort of the outsourcing model, right? Is it better to keep your marketing in house? Is it better to outsource it? Or is it better to hand it to an agency and we're not an agency because we're We are actually sort of client side marketers who run our own agency. So it's really understanding sort of the cost structure of that, and how much you are actually capable of doing in house. And where does it make sense to delegate and and handoff, a lot of our client engagements have been two and three years long. Where will it is possible to run marketing for a company and not be a full time employee of the company, it just depends on how you sort of approach that. When we put engagements together, we're actually looking at what percentage of what person's time and what skill sets and we'll build a team. So you may have a team of four people, you may have a team of seven people, and then we have a very flexible scope, right? So that so much comes up in marketing, and we're very opportunistic, we end up creating work for ourselves, a lot of the times just say, Oh, we do ideation sessions, prom season is coming in the spring. So we're already thinking about that. And we work with a formal wear client with 100 tuxedo rental locations in the middle quarter of the US. So already, we're starting to do ideation on tick tock Snapchat, reaching out to influencers. And so we're able to sort of plan and execute full marketing programs and strategies without being full time employees of a company. And this is the white space we saw in the market, right? That it doesn't have to be all in house. And it doesn't have to be an expensive, expensive agency model, it can be the strategist and the marketers who are actually implementing the work.

Robert Plank 16:25 And you hear about that a lot more these days with like things like a fractional CMO, or with remote work are all kind of doing the work and the time that they want to do it. And also, your your answers here remind me of just how important it is to plan ahead, which again, seems like really, it's such common sense advice that people don't follow that, but like, you hear that a lot in like in E commerce, right, they plan for like the busy q4 season during q3 Or the people who make who like generate content sites and things like that. They're writing their Halloween content in the summer. And you know, they're writing their, their Christmas content in September and all that because if you wait until the time when you need to do it, it's already too late. Everyone's already like listed on Google or got the got the traffic or the links or any of that stuff. So that's just like, in general, a good idea, right? Just see if you can plan for something months ahead of time, that way you start the work now. Yeah, you hire the team, you do the interviews and all that. And then they're kind of debug the system. So that way, when you actually need it, it's already done. So that's a good just lesson in general. And so you kind of dropped in some of these kind of fun, a little a few like fun, kind of interesting, you know, client stories and success stories and things like that, like what would you say, makes you and your team unique? Like you've talked about, you know, but building a team, you do all these things differently, but like, how are you unique versus like someone else that we might go with?

Amy Anderson 17:48 Well, we're actually client side marketers, the senior consultants who run the business, have actually been VPS, of marketing, CMOs at companies. And so they have are used to developing strategies and running marketing teams on the client side. So what they are now is just the CMO or the VP of Marketing for four different clients at the same time. So that's that fractional cmo model that you mentioned. And that's what we run, we don't just develop a strategy and give you a beautiful deck and say goodbye, then we say, okay, are we in alignment on the strategy, and then we actually have our own in house agency that implements that strategy, right, typically, you would just get the implementation piece of the creative, or you might just get the advisory services of a consulting firm. With us, it's all built into one. So we believe that every company, even small, maybe even three or four people may need cmo services, because you have to have that strategy before you just start doing the differences that you don't need us all the time. Right? If you're a smaller company, you can't afford or have a CMO on full time. But when you do that fractional service, you get access to the strategy, and then the implementation. And we're actually using our own model, we just hired a fractional CFO. Makes perfect sense. We don't we don't have a high transaction business. So we don't need them there full time. But we need the forecasting, you know, balance sheet work, right ability to really understand our gross profit margin. So he's with us just not every day. So I'm glad to see that we're practicing that model sort of in other sector segments.

Robert Plank 19:23 You would hope so right. What's the point in having that this innovative thing if you yourself are not doing it? We're walking our talk, right? Yeah, you might as well and and even just a little bit of your kind of your thought process there. Like I think that, like you said, like it's very much needed, and it kind of fills a gap there. And like a big change in my thinking at some point was, well, I'm only I'm going to decide ahead of time how much time I'll devote to making this thing work. Because there's always that hesitation of like, Well, should I hire this person or should I buy this this kind of high ticket monthly software, or should I pay these ads and there's always Just kind of a hesitation of like, well, I need to save up for that, or I need to carve out something in the budget every single month. And, and at some point, I was just like, well, I'll give myself three months for this new project for like this Etsy sort of work or I'll give myself six months for this podcast editor or something like that. And like that, that's helped me so much. And I'm hearing a little bit of that in your your answers here in that we you might only need to hire out for like this chunk of time for the strategy. Or you might only need to hire out for like the these handful of people for this number of hours per week. And so kind of like along those lines, has their like, what kind of resistance has there been for people using you and your team, because we mentioned a little bit about like the outsourcing kind of hesitation. But when you say we need a strategy, we do this things, what kind of objections have you come across from people who are like they need what you provide, but they haven't quite pulled the trigger?

Amy Anderson 20:55 Well, we have learned that if an executive team has been successful, without a significant amount of time and budget dedicated to marketing, it is difficult to convince them that they can accelerate their business even further by deploying it. Right? If you don't really believe in what we do, and that brands have value, and that customer centric communications are really important, delivering the right message to the right person at the right time in the right way, about the equity of your brand and how it increases the value of your company. I cannot convince you that that is very important. And we've been in that scenario just one time. But that was sort of eye opening for me as I was thinking, well, everybody believes in marketing. I mean, this is an industry that is vibrant and growing. And we have so much data to support the value that we bring. But really, if an executive team, if they're like, look, we've we've gotten this far without it, it's really hard to convince them that they need it.

Robert Plank 21:55 And so I mean, like you are I can't convince someone like that. But what should they do? Should they be like going back? And like looking at the marketing principles? Or like if someone says, Well, I've lucked out up to this point are I've done something magical? And I'm not sure how long the gravy train will last? What should people be doing? Should they just be getting more education or wait until things get bad like, or do we just ignore that segment of the marketplace,

Amy Anderson 22:19 I think that that's just somebody you know, we say that that that typically is not going to work, typically what they'll do is hire a junior marketing person who gets a little bit of graphic design and some things posted on a website. Right. And that's sort of how they it's almost like being in a plane at the top of the clouds, you can't change the altitude, and you're just sort of bumping along there. And they continue to bump along there. And they may have growth because they have a strong sales team. They may have a product that's super viable in a market and they survive that way, you know, but if you don't really sort of believe in that, we have a client that was just named one of the top fintechs to watch in Miami, and they wholeheartedly believe that their growth is coming from the pipeline that we are creating for their FinTech, right, we're doing a ton of inbound marketing, they really value and watch over their brand. Lots of video, full Salesforce deployment. So that's just sort of a very rich environment of growth of an early stage company with a CEO who's super sharp and gets it. So that was another case, right? Where they had a really strong one person team who was trying to sort of outsource and hire freelancers. And it was really hard for her to keep it together and, and really develop the growth and we came in and have a pretty full engagement with them with a person I think we have nine people on our team working on that account at any given time. So

Robert Plank 23:36 and so when you're explaining some of these people's situations, it kind of brings to mind how you mentioned earlier about this whole thing with marketing is there's the right this the right this the right this right that the right problem the right person, right time. And so for for many people, it might just not be the right time yet. And you're kind of reminded me of the whole like whole like that idea of like with the funnel and you have like just a ton of people like in your with your reach and with your list that they're just they're not quite ready yet, right? The problem isn't quite bad enough where they haven't been weeded out by recession or a pandemic or some up ending in their industry. So maybe things are good, but if things start slipping or things maybe could be better, if they're tired of the same old stuff, if they want something new if they don't like the whole like limping along feeling, then maybe it is time for them to pull the trigger and talk to you and your company and figure out some strategy figure out some marketing figure out all these things that they know they should be doing, but And imagine if they combined it with the magic they have now with actually some being deliberate and having a real plan. Right,

Amy Anderson 24:41 right. Well, you say funnel and I get really excited. So it's like the marketing dork and me that can not hold back. I was actually mentoring some entrepreneurship students this week, and one of them commented, gosh, you really love what you do. And I think I get really spazzy and excited when you mentioned things like funnel but I think A company's own database is the most valuable asset they have. Even if you have leads in there that are what we would consider cold, right, that's usually they haven't opened an email from you and More than three months, I think it's really important to stay top of mind with content that is useful, maybe even entertaining once in a while, so that they just know you're there. And then to really segment the rest of the database according to have they transacted with you once have they interacted with you at all. And that's the beauty of all these systems that we have now to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. Because ultimately, marketing is very simple. It is, you know, who are you saying what to and when you know that, what are you saying to whom, you know, and so when you really sort of break it down simply, there, I just saw an Adobe cloud commercial today on YouTube. And it was a guy running into a conference room. So I just got an irrelevant, the 14th Irrelevant email from a sales rep and he has just what I need. And this extreme sarcasm about just not getting something that's useful to you over and over from a sales rep via email, I think it's really important to sort of look at the funnel segment and develop really good content. And sometimes it's simple, right? It's a text based email, it doesn't have to be fancy, and you don't it doesn't have to contain video, in all cases, not at all,

Robert Plank 26:14 what you're speaking my language and that for so many years, I got so just overwhelmed, stressed out about all the things I should be doing, right? Like, Well, you shouldn't be having a a one time offer and an upsell, it should have this whole email sequence. And, and I mean, I know that there's, for all of us, there's like a long list of things that we should be doing right. And I think I myself, I know, I'm a big candidate for someone that just like, there's like 25 things, at least that I know I should be doing. But at one point, I stopped stressing out about the UPS only thing and I was like, well, maybe a more short term thing is just to like, send some more emails instead. And, and I was stressed out about, you know, like tagging leads and sending them off on this branch. And at one point, I thought, you know, why don't I just lead score my leads and just look at the top, like, you know, the top lead score people for this week, and just kind of go after them manually, or kind of like you said, like, figure out different queries, different views and say, Well, who has bought from me once who hasn't bought in a year, maybe I can get that person to buy from me, like more recently or twice or just like something to move the needle forward. And like sometimes you hear about I think it was like Dan Kennedy or someone who was saying, like, just do a couple of things per day, like just drop this letter in the mail per day, just, you know, send this one message to this employee per day. And like that was really helpful. And it seems like that's a little bit of what we're tapped into here is like, just keep it simple. You know, ease yourself into it, you don't have to, even though a funnel sounds really cool, once it's built, and it's all working really great it is. But if you're feeling like you you're behind on, like things like retargeting or things like ads, just like figure out a plan and just slowly like inch forward and make these things habits instead of like flash in the pan fads that you set up ones, and then you don't finish up anymore. Like that's a bunch of chaos. And so there's so many cool things that can be done and should be done. But as far as you and your company moving forward into the future, what's on their highs, and what's next for you guys.

Amy Anderson 28:13 Um, we have some some really interesting sort of big deployment projects coming up. We're doing a lot more with video than we've done. We are breaking into Snapchat and Tiktok I can't believe it's happening. But we are developing some really good content. And think about this, like even b2b players are expected to be publishers in this market. I mean, in order to stay relevant in order to provide value, right, if you're value selling, you have to provide and deliver really valuable content to people. And there's a lot of pressure for companies, I mean, from health care to SAS firms fin tech to really develop good content. So we've built a team that has this ability, whether it in social or a blog, or in video or in podcast is developing really great relevant content for b2b and b2c companies. We're also doing more with AI and machine learning. And so we are working with a few sort of technology partners to really develop sort of the best ads that we can using machine learning to help us rewrite copy. And that's been a really exciting space to be in also, exciting

Robert Plank 29:17 cutting edge. So if someone is listening to a conversation today, and they say, you know, you've checked a lot of the boxes, I know I need content. I know I need strategy. I know I need a team. And perhaps it could be like this fractional thing where I don't have to just like hand over the keys in my whole business. I don't have to throw in 100 grand just as a test to see what happens. So So who, who can if someone's listening, how do they know if they're the right ideal candidate for you and your company? And if they know that they're the right person, where do they go? What's the next step?

Amy Anderson 29:50 Well, you can find us at Wild coffee marketing.com And I'm also on LinkedIn, and under wild coffee and the team is developing some good content so you can see the type of work What we're doing, the clients that we are with, you can always reach out to us and see if we're a good fit. We do some well funded early stage startups, we do turnaround work. We do accelerations, digital transformation, sometimes we'll just do some project work. Whether it be sort of creative design websites, we do as well. So it really just depends. You know, what I was thinking to Robert, with, when you were talking earlier about just getting started, I just want to be able, it's something we've been talking a lot about is not letting great, get in the way of good, right? You can think about it and think about it, and want it to be perfect. And think that you have to do deploy all of these tactics at the same time. Really, ultimately, good is done, right and out in the market. And so I urge clients and colleagues and my team, you know, just don't let greed get in the way of good and it'll be out the door, because chances are, it's probably excellent quality. So

Robert Plank 30:58 I like that a lot. And you reminded me when you were mentioned about like clicking something about quick and simple emails, that alone was huge, right? And for and we've all been there, especially early on, especially with email marketing, it's so tempting to say I need to have a once every Friday newsletter and first of all, that's boring. Second of all, that's so much work. And third, like what decade are you living in, and even like a couple of decades ago, back then I would just say, a quick and simple sales letter, headline, 10 bullet points button, it got the job done, it was something I could improve later. Same thing with the email, something that just took like a minute to read that when I tried all kinds of different fancy stuff, it's like so many times the simple beat the fancy. So I love what you said there, don't let great get in the way of good, you have to start somewhere, you have to get that proof of concept. And it's also I think, more encouraging, right, because if you can get some, some easy wins some early successes, maybe you plug some of the leaks in the funnel, or just kind of get some numbers, get some measurements. And then if you can say, well, if I if I contacted 100 people and I got three clients out of that, well then cool, now I have something that I can repeat, I can refine and all that fun stuff. So ya know, you

Amy Anderson 32:09 have a 3% conversion rate at that point, right. So then you have a benchmark, you have a benchmark key performance indicator that you know, three out of 100 That's the Holy Grail, right, trying to figure out where you can get your lowest acquisition costs with the least amount of effort. You know, our business is very much a referral business. That's where how we've built it from the ground up is clients that we've worked with, or people we've worked with in the past. And but for our clients, it's really understanding where that low acquisition cost is, was the least amount of effort and then be able to scale and sort of crank that up for them.

Robert Plank 32:40 Imagine that actually having a business based on math based on logic, and not just on on the whims of your emotions, and like emotions are great, but I know that they lie to me. And I know that if I'm happy one second, maybe in five minutes, something else might ruin my day. So why not do it based on the numbers. And I also imagine that many people are passionate about what they do what they're doing in their industry, if they love the the formal wear and the prom dresses, they don't want to learn things like conversion rates, or like customer value or KPI so why not leave that to the experts at Wild coffee marketing.com and we will see you there and you have any final parting words of advice or any just like last thoughts that we feel like we were unable to fit in here, Amy?

Amy Anderson 33:25 Um, well, for anyone leading teams of people, I just have been really trying to encourage empathy towards people on your teams and really sort of practice compassion in this market. As we started this conversation, there's a lot of movement, a lot of chaos. I think it's it's hard on people sort of what's happening and to really see what your team is saying, see what they're not saying. And because a lot of us are on Zoom, that we continue to check in with each other as we continue to sort of emerge out of this market. And it's what we try to practice it while coffee and I hope that others do too.

Robert Plank 33:56 I like that too. And and like because one of the many things I do is like I'm on a team of some like podcast guys was like six of us. And we hadn't actually met on Zoom until this morning. And I just I thought like, what is this at some meeting? We don't really have a plan should I really show up? And I showed up? And I'm glad I did because now I was able to put the faces of some of these names and it's just like a simple, easy thing to do, but often overlooked. So it was a really good reminder you have there really appreciate that. Great, thank

Amy Anderson 34:23 you for having me today.

Robert Plank 34:25 I'm glad to have you and we will see everyone at Wild coffee marketing.com And thank you very much Amy for stopping by.

Amy Anderson 34:31 Thanks so much.

Robert Plank 34:36 We really appreciate you being a listener of the marketer of the day Podcast the place to go right now. If you want to know more about running your own podcast is dF wine podcast.com/free Go there right now claim your free gift dfi podcast.com/free