Marketing for the Modern World: Strategies with Evan O'Brien

Speaker A: Welcome to the Agencies that Build podcast where we dive deep into the nuts and um, bolts of building digital experiences. I'm Varun, your guide through the world of strategy, design, development and beyond and your host. I'm joined by my co host Drew who brings his experience in the world of e commerce and digital growth. This show is sponsored by Together We Ship, committed to helping agencies grow. Now enjoy today's episode.

Speaker B: Hello everyone and welcome to the Agencies that Build podcast. Today's guest is Evan o', Brien, founder of Slake Marketing agency, partner at WIX and former chief Creative Officer. With over a decade of experience across fractional marketing and business development roles, Evan specializes in helping SMBs thrive through strategic go to market approaches, top of funnel strategies and AI driven solutions. His unique perspective is also shaped by a successful career in the entertainment industry where he developed a flair for infusing creativity and a little mischief into his clients marketing campaigns, making him a standout in the field.

Speaker A: Welcome Armin. We are so, so excited to have you on the show. I mean that's quite an intro. So, um, thank you for joining. So, to kick us off, let's start with our regular question that we ask every time. It is about the, uh, myth busting. So smash some kind of myth for us, set the record straight and tell us what you have for us.

Speaker C: Sure. Uh, first, thanks for having me. Uh, it's nice to be in the studio here with so many bearded men. Feels really good. Uh, so I would say my hot take is that, uh, more marketing channels equal better results. Um, I think in reality having a more focused, well executed strategy on select channels, um, will always outperform. More of a sort of a shotgun, um, scattershot approach. And I have to be the person to tell clients who've made up their mind about that. Sometimes I go, okay, I know you want to. I know the plan is world domination. Let's first start in this little corner and then we're gonna, we're gonna grow.

Speaker A: That's so interesting. Especially after a very recent conference I went to where I heard totally opposite of what you just said. So I'm very curious to hear more and give us some more context on what does that mean? You know, we live in the world of Google's Facebook tick tock100.

Speaker C: I'm gonna, I'm gonna put a, um, uh, some context and uh, and a little caveat to my, to my hot take, which is, um, this is for SMBs. So this is not probably, I would assume at this convention you were at, this is going to Be businesses at scale, people with, you know, 50 or more employees. Uh, whole different universe. That's not mine. Uh, I'm in the space where, uh, a lot of time it's, you know, their business model is gonna have grown from solopreneur to or co founder to, you know, building up over, you know, over time. And my objective is to try to get, um, as much energy, um, out of them and into all these different channels as possible. And I've noticed over the last, you know, nine, ten years, you just, at a certain point you, you just run out of energy. You just don't. There's no way for SMBs to have meaningful engagement on a platform. Their, their audience isn't on one and then two. One that they don't really even like the platform. Like, just as a brand. They're like, maybe they're not an X. You know, they don't have a voice that works really on X, or they don't have a voice that works on, you know, Snapchat or something, you know.

Speaker A: And how do you determine that? Do you have some kind of framework or methodology that allows you or business owner to make that call? Like, you know, of course one aspect is where my audience is, right. That is one of the biggest factor. But then there has to be a way to measure it. Like, you know, how do you know what I'm saying? What I want to convey is what is being heard by the right person that I want to convey to. So how do you assess.

Speaker C: Well, um, it's definitely not opening, um, a relationship with, you know, here's your, your plans and here's your strategy right out of the gate. It does take, uh, some auditing, so to speak, where you say, okay, let's look at all of your previous marketing efforts and have, uh, digital. Have video worked better for you? Is, is video more of a thing for you guys? Great. Your team's really comfortable in front of a camera or your clients are. So we can do some good, uh, you know, testimonial content or something like that. Um, and then we look at what platforms work best for whatever their, you know, their skill set is. We also look at where. Who are you trying to communicate with? Where's your audience? And um, and then we also just kind of look at what their, what their near term goals are. Like I was joking before when I said world domination is their plan. But I do think that they have an expectation where they have to, uh, a lot of times small business owners, businesses under 20 employees, let's say they feel like they have to attack marketing in this really, um, exhausting way. A lot of the time they feel like they have to be everywhere, be everything everywhere, all at once to all people in every channel. And if I can learn about, you know, who are we trying to talk to, what are your strengths? Then we start. We want to stack results and we want to stack wins. So let's see where we can have a platform that works best to, you know, get feedback and engagement and then we can scale that to another platform and then we can move on from there. But I don't think the right move is to, you know, all marketing channels all at once equal better results. It just, it kind of waters down the creative a lot of the time.

Speaker A: So I do want to have one last follow up on that. Um, especially when we live in the space of automation, right? There are so many integrations out available. You post one place, it gets distributed everywhere. So what would be the reason behind not going into like, um, like I create a, you know, short video on LinkedIn and then how does it matter if I post it on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok? It's just one video that is going out everywhere.

Speaker C: Right. So yeah, yeah, that is um, something that I hear a lot. I would say, um, m. Uh, that is a strategy clients do before they come to me. Uh, and then my question is, how has it been working out for you? How are the leads, how's the engagement, what are the conversations? And I think we all kind of fall prey to automation and AI equaling less labor, which might be true in the short term but, but it does equal way worse creative. And I don't think that being able to automate multi platform distribution means that the tone and the video content and all that stuff works really well on every platform. I just don't. I think calls to action in LinkedIn content is totally different than stuff on Instagram versus, you know, uh, there's a client we have who's like in the discord, uh, space and they have a whole idea, they have like this concept they probably learned on another podcast about how they can make this content, distribute it through all this automation. And don't you see how easy it is? We're cut to world domination. And I go, great, let's look at your results and the engagements. Nothing like it's very, very little. And I just think in the beginning, in the early days when you're starting a strategy, you get way more traction on one platform. When you're focusing on one area where your audience is and the Audience will tell you and they almost start to be co creators in what you're, you know, the direction of what topics you choose. They might tell you things you had no idea, like, I like your shirt. So that, okay, now, great. I'm always going to wear red shirts or, you know, whatever. Um, I know it sounds funny, but I've had, well, by the time people get to me, they have tried all of the, like, kitschy, fun things that sound like, we're gonna fix marketing, don't you? Marketing, so easy. Look at all this automation. Every platform, it's going to be great. I'm on the receiving end of those poorly executed strategies. And a lot of the time when they get to me, they're very tired, they're a little fried because they've sort of suffered an expectation that wasn't met. And they go, what am I doing wrong? And I say, well, let's look at where your wins are. There really aren't any. You executed a plan without traction. I think, to be honest, I think what Drew recently has been doing on LinkedIn, um, is a really good example of that. I feel like, um, over the last. I think it's like two years, I've sort of been watching Drew's content experiment with different topics, different editing styles. And there was very little, uh, engagement in the beginning. And then you start to see, like, one topic hits, great, take that topic. That's what gets pushed out to the other, to the other areas. Great, let's see how this works in TikTok. If it doesn't work in TikTok, that's interesting. Like, that's. What's that about? Maybe it's the cut, maybe it's a video. Maybe it's the framing style, maybe it's the, um, you know. But I love watching SMBs who are experimenting and trying to find their voice. And then once they do, everybody goes, wow, they're so, they're so brilliant. And then they, the people who are watching them trying to emulate results go, oh, it must be because they used automation. I don't think that's accurate. I think it's because they did the hard work of like, failing in public, like so many times, trying to find their voice, looking for engagement. I mean, how many times you put out a video and you're like, they're gonna love this. And then it's just crickets. Or somebody puts a comment like, you should delete this and just blows up your expectations?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's the same in my experience in organic social and in paid social that it used to be two years ago, three years ago, it was all this talk about audiences, and we need to set the pixel and we need to sort the audiences, get the data, and we're going to serve the right thing to the right person. And, you know, I'm going to put a, uh, Shake Weight in front of Varun at just a moment when he's feeling fat after he ate some ice cream. And he's going to buy the shake Weight because it's going to change his life. And, you know, with iOS 14 and privacy and, you know, all of this, like, that's really gone away, the ability to make those changes. And certainly there's some AI on the backside, but, you know, we, we don't have the clarity to do that. And so really it's become a lot more about creative. Like you're talking about Evan. And I know that, you know, uh, kind of a base level engagement for, uh, paid advertising on Facebook these days is around $100 a day or $3,000 a month. We call it velocity of creative because for a $3,000 spend, we need to create 30 pieces of creative to be able to test, to be able to find the winner. Because now it's using that. We're back to using that creative. Right? It's almost like we've gone back in time. You know, when Don Draper would spend a month coming up with a saying and then they would put the saying on the billboard and then they would have to wait two or three months to see how the saying did, uh, based upon people's responses, uh, not some sort of analytic thing. And so it's really great to hear you say that and talk about messaging and how much stuff we have to try and that. Like I said, velocity of creative. Um, you know, are you seeing that kind of across the board?

Speaker C: I see it across the board, um, in different ways where, um, so for SMBs, it's really about let's. It's about energy and keeping ad spend down. Like, they don't. Let's. Let's get. Let's stack your wins. Let's get you. Let's, you know, bring the goal post closer and let's really, really listen to what's been working. It also, it's not just sort of digital side. There's a human component to this, which is let's talk to your sales and what are customers saying? What are. What's like the. It could be something as simple as, like, what's the word people use most? Um, obviously there's, um, you know, UGC is huge and helpful, but even that, I feel like, is going to start to fade because there's fake UGC now. You know, there's. With all of this AI stuff, I mean, I can have a video in five minutes. That's my hero client, my hero target audience saying the most amazing things. A boomer will not know that that's an AI. Like, they will be like, this is amazing. So it's, it's. With all of this automation and technology and success, it's a different version of winning the race to the bottom. People think that they're gonna. I'm poking holes in this, uh, expectation that we won't need to, like, continue to just really listen and keep our eyes up for, like, where engagement is. Um, I'll also say that everything I've said I just want to throw. You know, it's been within the parenthetical of, like, SMBs, people who are trying to be frugal with their energy and their budgets. I'm going to go to a flip side, which is I just finished a, uh, consulting project. I can't say the company, but it's a huge company. And they were. They've been in development with the product for two years, two or three years. But in that time, the space that this product is in is hilariously crowded. Just, there's no way. And the space is within, um, content. Uh, it's in the creator sort of economy space. And to them two years ago, they said, okay, let's develop the absolute best tool for this. But so did 500 other companies. Now they're ready to deploy and they're ready to bring on either a head of marketing or somebody to execute, you know, gtm, tofu or whatever. We're having meetings for like two months. And ultimately, you know, what, what they, What I heard their internal team say is we've done the numbers and we cannot go with the traditional marketing approach for this. It will cost too much money. The price of the product, we're going to pass that on to the consumer, and it just isn't what we want to do. And they. Why they were talking to me is because, um, I, um, tend to be slightly unconventional. Drew mentioned this at the top, where I try to infuse mischief. There's a whole area of marketing I'm obsessed with right now called mischief marketing, which is how do we create really unique, interesting concepts and ideas that are sticky and. And then that's what earns all of that organic sort of push and content. It flips the pyramid. It flips the whole concept instead of being what's my ad budget? It's how good is your idea for this? Um, you know, for this, for this concept or for this picture for this launch? And let's come up with a multifaceted idea for how we can get our audience to start asking questions and have them sort of co create with us. And, and, and, uh, to be honest with you, this, this is a huge company. The one I was just talking about with this product. And they, they, at the end of the day, they, they ended up not pulling the trigger and moving forward because they're the traditional.

Speaker B: It.

Speaker C: It's got to be it. A traditional marketing person is always going to end with, you need more ads. You to need. You need more. You have to put more budget into the ads. They're looking at it from. We do this in a million areas already that are successful. We're not trying to go to market with a product and try to compete on ads in a very saturated space. And they said, yeah, right now it's not the right time. Let's revisit it next year. But companies are seeing that ads, I mean, and Drew and sure, Varun, you know this. The whole space is just not. It is completely different from what it was a few years ago with how Google has been changing and how there's so much AI and automation within ads. You as a business owner think, or you as a strategist, or you as a, you know, an agency owner, you think, ooh, this is perfect. I've got the magic tools here. But you forget everybody else does too. So now everybody else is deploying automated infinite content, but it doesn't have. It's missing a key component. I just call it mischief, which is like, you can tell somebody really cared and spent time on this campaign. And, um, there's a little bit of fun there. And then the feedback starts to come from that. I love, uh, fast and light. Uh, Drew's, uh, they all wear these. I think you did a whole rebrand where you guys became mechanics. To me, that's mischievous. Because every other agency can go, oh, we're mechanics of, uh, SEO. But you can tell it's just a word. You can tell it's just a phrasing. But then when the guy shows up and he's in a mechanic shirt, there's something immediately you're different and you separate yourself from other people. And I'm going to take that meeting. Like, I'm gonna hear that pitch because you instantly are different. And I can tell you're Not. And you're not from the traditional marketing space where everybody's wearing cornflower blue and, you know, you're having fun, basically.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That makes a lot of sense when, Especially in a crowded space when you are looking for that differentiator. Right. So you need to find that unique component. I mean, what can you change when the quality, the price, you know, all of these things are the table stakes. That is the baseline that. Yes. That needs to be there. Right. Everybody is expecting that before even they begin talking. So how do you find yourself, you know, just a unique. Uh, yeah.

Speaker C: And also, it's. There's still no way to avoid failure and learning, even having mischief. There are some people who look at mechanics and go, all right, like, that's just. That's. You're never gonna be it. But I think for the people that you do connect with, um, when you have surprise elements in a campaign, where appropriate, um, it's probably not a good idea to do this for medical or like, you know, anything in that space. But if it's, if it's appropriate, people. What's that old quote? People don't remember what you say. They remember how you make them feel. And if you can make an impact. Okay, uh, I need to get a CRM or I need to get an EHR for my medical practice. It is so stale and, and frighteningly boring that you can't even imagine all the marketing is competing on the same tiny little square footage of trust, uh, price. Like, it's all like this humanless thing because they're working in a traditional marketing space. It's ads dictating brand voice basically, at that point.

Speaker B: But differentiation is so key.

Speaker C: It's everything. It's everything. And instead of paying Google to do that with ads, or instead of, you know, uh, in, like, the entertainment business, there's a phrase where they'll say like, we'll fix it in the edit. Like, it doesn't really matter what we shot, right? We'll just fix it in the edit. That's a bad idea. And I think a lot of marketing agents go, that's fine, we'll fix it in the creative. We'll fix it in the ads. We'll just, we'll just try a new hook at the front. We'll change the H1, H2CTA. But it's actually, I think from an internal standpoint, you have to say, like, is this company game to. To have playfulness? Is there anything in here that's true to their value proposition? Like, you've seen, you know, where the one where I think this really started, um, was like years ago when people started to like use their, their kids, their own child, elementary school photo on their about team page. Little things like that. People go, oh, that's cute. Or then they started using their pets and then it kind of grows out of there. It's like, oh, it's okay because we're in the team section and the about section of the site. And then it sort of grows from there where they're like, well, if we can do that in there and people are like talking about the about page on our website, why don't we just do this on our homepage? Why don't we do this with our services? And then that's where your CFO jumps in and goes, well we can't because you really do have to be game and open, um, uh, and open to failure because you absolutely can do things. You go, I just want everybody to know this is not surefire. This totally could not work. But we're going to get amazing reactions and responses and then from that we can pivot and do the next.

Speaker A: Well, that's why I think the right audience to follow this direction is when the business is small, when you have more control as a founder, you can take these decisions when you don't have many decision makers and you can experiment this stuff, set up your own branding and direction on how you want to communicate. So that makes a lot of sense. Talking of that, I mean, I'm curious to know how you got into this business in the first place. Tell us about your thought process when and why you started this agency.

Speaker C: Sure. Um, I'm originally from New York, grew up in um, you know, in and around like New York and Connecticut. And it was a child actor. So I had my first job when I was like seven and um, joined the union, uh, Screen Actors Guild when I was probably like 7 or 8 and was like a working child. Um, so the hustle was started young and I always had kind of a mind for what is this, you know, production trying to do? How do I fit into it? What's the sort of message or line or feeling that they're trying to communicate? That's all like from you know, riding a skateboard age, you know, uh, and then uh, in Manhattan, um, I worked as a corporate sales executive for like, uh, like an events and catering company. And um, it was, it was a lot of in person presentations and I really learned how to like, listen and communicate and close human to human. And then from there I actually told my, I Was I've always been a coworker or worker who had ideas about how to improve the company. So, uh, it was a lot of like unsolicited advice for every boss I ever had. They're like, let me guess, you think we should fix our website. I'm like, yes, I do. And here's the plan I think you should execute. And they'll be like, what? Who is this guy? Aren't you in sales? What are you doing? Go, go out of here. Um, and it always was around, I worked with a super, uh, talented photographer, uh, Leslie Hassler, and was her assistant and studio manager. And even there I was like, hey, we should systematize these, uh, these negatives because then when the clients call we can like, you know, I think we're leaving some money on the table here. She's like, aren't you supposed to hold a reflector and answer the phone? I'm like, yeah, yeah. Um, have you ever thought about, um, we could do like a funneled voicemail where they leave a message and then we get. And she's like, dude, what, what are you talking about? So it's always been there, it's always been inside of me. And then, um, and then working in, you know, showbiz, you do nothing but basically, um, pitch. You do nothing but take a sort of, uh, half assed idea. You take a 50% idea and try to make it a hundred, you know. And I don't really see a huge difference, uh, between that and working with small business owners. A lot of the time they have a concept, but a concept is not a plan. They have an uh, example, but they don't have a strategy. And I saw that my whole life. You see people who say, what's the show about? What's the movie about? If it doesn't interest you within five seconds, you're probably not going to like or enjoy the experience at all of doing it. The same is true for business owners. Um, if I say, what, what does your service do? What's your product do? The answer to that question takes 10 minutes to answer. We're in trouble. And my process is like sort of bringing them down. Um, I initially when I came to la, uh, I was working on a couple TV shows and doing lots of, you know, commercials and things like that. And a buddy of mine, uh, was a successful actor and he had a pretty horrible WordPress website. And he said, I am, um, losing my mind. I paid this guy to do this WordPress site. I actually don't know where he is or if he will ever return. He could be dead. Uh, we don't know. He could have been sucked up into the computer, but I don't think he's ever going to come back. And I don't know what to do. And at the time, this is like many years ago, this is like over probably like 10 years ago now. This, it was very weird. It was a very new idea to have a drag and drop web web editor that was like. I looked at that and I was like, that's crazy. Well, let me help this guy. I'm just going to help him and then he'll leave me alone. Because WIX has all this. It has 100% uptime. You don't have to do any of the apps. All the, like, micromanage of, uh, WordPress, it doesn't. And that was over 10 years ago. It's only gotten better now. But that's where it started. And then it was that old. You know, I always think of like Wayne's World or something. It's like. And they tell their friends and they tell their friends, and they tell their friends. I was at the point where a friend of mine, I, uh, was telling him, like, yeah, man, I got all these people reaching out for feedback about their websites and you know, hey, do you think I should do a mailer? What would you do with the mailer? And they're asking me all this stuff and I was like, what do I do? He's like, start a business. You should have a. It sounds like an agency. So then, uh, I, I circled back, I got, got a lot more education and, you know, had a little season at like, Y Combinator Startup School. And then I did, um, Uh, I think I read like every book. I, I did a book, I did a year where I said, I'm going to read 52 books on marketing and sales and development. And I did it. And then like the week I finished, one of my clients got funding and they said, hey, would you be interested in coming on board as a Chief Creative officer? And it was like every single thing I'd ever learned in my life up to that point got to be put on full display. And people were like, wow, this is amazing. How, how do you come up with all these quotes? Did you just read that book? And I was like, matter of fact, I did. Um, and I learned on the job, I learned with an amazing group of people. Uh, that was a company called Capturely. That's still going strong. Um, and it was amazing. I got to every single angle of creative from cx ux, personal branding, um, employee branding, um, all of that, I mean designing truck interiors and uh, office spaces to obviously websites and ads. All of that I got to do as a chief creative officer. Um, but it didn't work for me in the long run because I really love work life balance. I really do enjoy, you know, having, I like to take uh, a nap occasionally go for a walk. And I found that in the startup space I wasn't able to do that really at all. Uh, but I learned what I did and now I took, I took that and then I really have scaled that in my business, all of that sort of work experience and everything into a variety of fractional roles. So I've done, I just finished a fractional cmo, I've done fractional, um, business development and I've also just done a lot of one on one coaching and consulting where they have a very specific issue that they need insight and perspective on. And I'm just sort of, I'm there to listen and then we strategize around it. And I love, that's, to me that sort of solutions to architecture space is just delicious. Like, I just, I love it so much because now I'm like, I'm not doing external marketing or surface level marketing trying to execute on one campaign. I'm like within the sanctum, you know, and I'm hearing from the only people that matter in the business really like, here's where we're stuck. We can't pay anybody in our business for perspective because they're like nose to nose, they have zero perspective. We're willing to work with someone outside to help us see what we can't. And I love it. It's just my, it's as Drew can attest to. Over the time we've known each other, I nerd out about it. And I, I also just try to have bring. I. Going into the inner sanctum, I always try to bring in a sense of like, hey, why did we start this business in the first place? Is there any curiosity left? Is there any fricking joy? Is anybody having a good time? Why are we getting out of bed in the morning and all of a sudden people are like, oh, right, yeah, thank you, appreciate it. But there is a lot of, you know, when you have negative outcomes, people tend to become hyper vigilant and they default to more control and more control and the results get worse and worse and worse. And uh, I come in there and I'm just sort of like a little wild card and it's been really great. It's a. It fits my personality really well. And I think my, um, you know, my, like, sort of like reviews and, you know, client video testimonials and stuff help me just close more business. I don't even really have to run a lot of marketing. My own people just see that stuff and they're like, yeah, done great. Or referrals, you know.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think that that's super cool to hear your perspective and journey of, uh, how you come to where you are now, not only for small, you know, agency owners or even, you know, bigger companies. Because at some point you do need to answer this like, why? Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why did I start this? And that answer tells us a lot of things. It's not always about money. Right. It's about freedom. And as you said, right. You want to do what you wanted. Like, you want to take a nap in the afternoon. You know, that if my job in the business allows me to do that, this is what I'm gonna do, you know? Yeah.

Speaker C: The nap. Or like, maybe see your kids, if you have them.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker C: Yeah. Crazy idea, you know, like, are we working to live or are we living to work?

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker C: And you can also, you can, you know, as varun as you know, and Drew and I'm sure a lot of the other guests who've done this show, you start to get a sixth sense when you see the output from a company that they've lost their, like the, the C suite or, you know, the real decision makers have kind of lost their path because they start copying other people's campaigns. They're just trying to replicate results without being true to their own brand voice. You can see it. You can see the stuff that comes out and you go, uh huh. Okay, let's keep it in mind where

Speaker B: they try to play it safe. Right? And playing it safe isn't playing it safe. And being everything to everyone means you're competing with everyone. And you know, we're not, uh, you know, Nestle or Pepsi here. Right. Like, we need to, you know, radically differentiate, we need to get over to the edge of the map and we need to do our own thing.

Speaker A: Let me ask you this. You know, uh, since you talk so much about what you want, how you got here, and you're very clear about this is what I need. Do you also take. I guess I'm sure you do. I'm curious to know how you do it about picking the client, who is the good fit client for you and, you know, a bunch of questions around that like, have you fired any client? Why would you fire them? Like, how. Help me navigate that process. On, uh, how do you know if this is the right, right person to work with?

Speaker C: I think that's a great topic. If I talk to other agency owners, that's the topic that comes up most often. Who do we work with and why? First I'll say there's no shortcut to knowing who you should work with. You, unfortunately, as an agency owner, have to have had a couple of knocks. You have to have, uh, you have to. It's like dating. You have to know who not to date before you know how to spot the one that's the person that's going to be right for you.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Um, first of all, pre qualification, even from the welcome mat, for me, it starts at the contact form, it comes in the calendly. You know, questions. I don't have a ton of questions. I don't go. It's not like I'm trying to audit them at the gate, but there's just a couple of little data points that help me understand where they're at, um, in their journey. Uh, so how do I do that? Um, and have I fire clients? I, um, think in 10 years I've fired two or three clients because I am very, um, sort of protective of my current roster. So the way I think about it is if I, here's the question. If I bring on this new opportunity, will they begin to sort of rob time, energy time from my team so that we can't continue to provide the value we have been for the people, uh, that already love us? And it's like a dinner party, you know, And I want to make sure that they have, uh, first of all, they're open to feedback. I'm really not in the business of someone telling me to say, you know, jump, and I say how high. They have to be at a point where they're willing. There have to be at a point where they, where they, where they. For me, it's really good to see and hear if they've tried things independently and haven't had good outcomes, mixed outcomes. Because to me that shows an eagerness and an engagement level that's important to me. But it also shows me they know how hard it is. And it's not just about getting the next landing page or ad or sticky concept. They understand how, okay, this is tough. Um, and then I would say,

Speaker B: uh,

Speaker C: having a good idea of, um, what their expectations are in every area of the relationship. What's your expectation for communication with me and what's your ex. What's your expectation of me being able to communicate with you? Are you going to be. Is this your 75th hat you're going to be wearing? Or does it make more sense that we give. Give this to someone else on your team that's like, able to handle. Because I know you handle the marketing, but this is going to be a lot more touch points than you're used to. Should we bring somebody else into the mix here? And you can always get a sense if they're like hyper controlling. I don't take that as a negative. I just go, okay, this person has had some pretty bad outcomes in the past. Uh, that's actually another point is I ask them about what was. Tell me about your history of working with marketing partners in the past. What strategies have you done in the past? How have those results been? And I say, you know, tell me about your previous experience in whatever they're bringing me in for. You know, tell me about, um, I see you've been in business for three years. You want to do a rebrand. Relaunch. Tell me about what the. What's. What was the first one like? Why. I'm asking that a yes. I'm curious. I want to. I can tell a lot about a person just by how they reflect it, but 99% of the time, they will be projecting that previous relationship onto my agency. They're going to try to prevent past negative outcomes that I had nothing to do with that. Um, and I really try to sort of take the pulse. I mean, I do a lot of pre qualification. I do not just send an invoice. It's a lot of time to say, you know, are you going to be. I say no at the starting point. And that's why I don't have to fire a lot of people.

Speaker A: Well, that's pretty awesome because in today's economy, people are dying to win businesses and, uh, you know, it's such a competitive world. Right. I mean, it's hard to say no. It's very interesting to hear the way you're thinking and I'm glad that, you know, you're able to successfully do that.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think what you just said makes a lot of sense. When you haven't been burned before, there's an eagerness and an excitement that it's like, go, go, go. Revenue, revenue, revenue. That works. If you're like selling coffee at a coffee, but internally, your team will revolt if there's a nightmare client sucking up all resources like a black hole, you. Yes, great. You had A little bump in your revenue for the quarter. But now you might have to hire a new, like, designer. You have to. You know what I mean? Like. But if you've never experienced that before, your. All of your attention is just on the front side of the relationship, which is, um, you know, establishing the contract. They're so eager to get to. Yes. They're so eager to sell. Sales guys love that. They love that. You know, they think they're. They have, like, there's a little magic in them or something. Like, I can get anybody to say yes. That's, that's actually not the hard. I mean, the hard part is yes, and, and, and we can deliver the maximum amount of value and maybe you'll be a great referral engine in the future. And, you know, and how do you find that? Like, yeah, you do need to have a lot of leads, I think. Yeah, that's. I benefit from the partnership that I have because I have a very, very low cost per acquisition. Yeah, some businesses don't have that.

Speaker A: So one, one last, one final question before we wrap it up. Um, what is keeping you up at night these days?

Speaker C: I think for me, so I live in Los Angeles, there's a big shift in this economy. In the, uh, whole universe of watching anything on a screen is just, you know, there's. There's a lot of, uh, they call it the great contraction. Not a lot is being made, not a lot is being greenlit. A lot of people currently are unemployed. It kind of reminds me of the Great Recession, but only within one. One sector. And it's cascading into advertising and it's cascading into brands. It's like everybody's sort of looking around going, what's this about? It's. Because I think I heard a great thing once. Um, you. You never know the time you're in. Like, you, like in architecture, when you point at a building and say, oh, that's. That's, uh, you know, mid century. In mid century, they weren't able to say, this is mid century. That was just your house. Once you were leaving mid century, you could point and go, oh, that was mid century. You know, if you walk into a house that's like, you know, 70s ranch. In the 70s, it was just a ranch. In the 80s, they would be able to point at it. I think now in this moment, we're in. We have a lot of undefined experiences that are happening. We don't. We're not totally sure how AI is affecting things. It doesn't worry me, but it does Keep me up at night looking at all of the information I'm trying to really learn and absorb and get the. The words to describe the time that we're in. Um, because what used to be called creator economy is becoming the economy. And if anybody thinks that you're an agency owner now and you're just going to be the specialist who's going to just work in ads, it's going to all. It's all changing. You might be in your safe spot now, but it is shifting and there's going to be tons of opportunity. But trying to do the, like, the 2000s, like, you know, 2009-2022 playbook is a race that you. You will lose that race. That whole world is going to be gone in the next couple of years. So what keeps me up at night is like, I am a. I'm a nerd. I love absorbing data. I love reading, reporting. I love all that stuff. I'm absorbing stuff, seeing, like, okay, which way is the wind blowing? Where are we going to be in the future? And, um, um, also, like, where is the creative good and where are people having fun and where are people getting results that I just look at and say, what is that? How do they do that? That's kind of where, you know, I spend my nights scrolling. That's where I'm at.

Speaker B: Oh, thanks. Now I'm not going to sleep tonight. And I was waiting for the pager to come back. I mean, you know, I still got my pager, Motorola flip phone.

Speaker C: So they're back now.

Speaker B: It's the best. Um, Evan, thank you so much for coming. Where can the people find you?

Speaker C: Uh, you can find me at, uh, Slake Marketing. And you can also, uh, I think LinkedIn's probably the best spot, which is just, you know, in Evan o'. Brien.

Speaker B: Well, we appreciate you, Varun. Uh, you're the best. Um, we're all the best. We all have beards. Um, everyone have a great week. Uh, and, uh, we look forward to seeing you next week.

Speaker C: Appreciate it. Thanks for having me, guys.