GO First
The Anti-Agency Approach to Marketing 🎯
🔥 Tired of writing big checks to marketing agencies with little to show for it? The cycle of "renting" your marketing ends today.
In this game-changing episode, Sara Nay, CEO of the legendary Duct Tape Marketing, reveals the exact "Anti-Agency Model" that helps builders stop wasting money and start building a predictable growth engine they actually own.
📊 THE BRUTAL TRUTH:
Most marketing agencies are built on a retainer model that benefits them, not you.
When you stop paying, your leads disappear, leaving you with zero permanent assets.
This broken system keeps you competing on price, not on the value you deliver.
🎯 WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER:
[] - The #1 Reason Builders Get Trapped in the Agency Cycle
[] - The "Anti-Agency Model": How to Own Your Marketing & Build Permanent Assets
[] - Strategy Before Tactics: The Marketing Pyramid That Prevents Wasted Spend
[] - Case Study: How a Remodeler Doubled Their Inbound Leads in 90 Days
[] - Using AI as a Force Multiplier for Your Internal Team (Not a Distraction)
[] - Your First 3 Steps to Firing Your Agency & Taking Control
💰 PROFIT ACCELERATORS MENTIONED:
✅ Sara's Free Marketing Strategy Resources: https://dtm.world/growth
✅ Business Assessment Tool: Find your biggest operational gaps in 7 mins - https://gofirstconsulting.com/assess
✅ MAP™ Implementation Program: Build the systems to handle your growth - https://gofirstconsulting.com/map
🏗️ ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Sara Nay is the CEO of Duct Tape Marketing and author of "Unchained." With over a decade of experience helping thousands of small business owners, she provides a proven framework for taking control of your marketing and building a system for predictable, profitable growth.
🔗 CONNECT WITH SARA NAY:
Website: https://ducttapemarketing.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saranay/
🚀 ABOUT BEYOND THE BID:
Hosted by Grant Fuellenbach, CEO of GO First Consulting. After helping 312+ builders generate $5.3M+ in additional revenue, Grant brings you conversations with industry leaders who share their proven systems for predictable profitability.
📈 WORK WITH GO FIRST:
Ready to build an operational backbone that turns leads into profitable projects?
1️⃣ Take our free assessment: https://gofirstconsulting.com/assess
2️⃣ Book a strategy call: https://gofirstconsulting.com/call
#ConstructionMarketing #DuctTapeMarketing #SaraNay #LeadGeneration #BusinessSystems
Chapters
00:00
Introduction: Anti-Agency Model
Overview of the marketing problem and Sarah Nay's anti-agency model.
02:43
Sarah's Background & 'Unchained'
Sarah's journey at Duct Tape Marketing and the inspiration behind her book 'Unchained'.
04:27
Strategy Before Tactics
Why a clear marketing strategy is crucial before implementing any tactics.
09:05
AI's Impact on Marketing
How AI is changing the marketing landscape for businesses and agencies.
12:12
Strategic AI Implementation
Steps to effectively integrate AI tools into your business with a strategic plan.
17:25
Elevating Humans with AI
Shifting mindset to use AI to empower human work and elevate team members.
22:05
Justifying Marketing ROI
Moving beyond vanity metrics to track actual revenue growth and marketing impact.
28:27
Key Takeaways & Resources
Summary of advice: pause, think big picture, and how to find Sarah's book.
31:02
Conclusion
Final thoughts and podcast outro.
Transcript
00:00
Are you tired of the marketing roller coaster?
00:01
The leads come in, you pay the bills, but the moment you stop, you're right back to square one.
00:07
Today, we dismantle that broken model.
00:10
I'm sitting down with Sarah Nay, the CEO of the legendary Duct Tape marketing, and she's here to reveal her anti agency model.
00:19
A framework designed to help you stop renting your marketing and start building a predictable growth engine that you actually own.
00:26
You're about to learn why strategy must come before tactics and how to finally take back control of your lead flow for good.
00:34
This is for any builder, any business owner ready to start a system for predictable, profitable projects.
00:42
Let's dive in.
00:43
You're listening to beyond the Bid the show by GO First where where we share the systems, sales strategies and practical AI for builders.
00:49
Keep listening to learn how to win more of the right projects, boost profitability and scale your company.
00:55
Beyond the Bid.
00:56
All right, and we're live.
00:58
Today's guest, we have Sarah Nay.
01:00
I hope I'm saying that right.
01:02
duct tape marketing.
01:03
And, so welcome to the show, Sarah.
01:05
Thanks for being here.
01:06
Yeah, thanks for having me on, Grant.
01:07
Absolutely.
01:09
Before we hit, the record button, we were briefly chatting about, just where we're at, where we're located in the world, and just how small of a world it is.
01:19
Saying that I'm currently in Fort Collins, and you're, alumni from the school here.
01:23
It's a great city.
01:24
I loved Fort Collins.
01:26
Yeah.
01:27
Yeah, it's a fun spot, for sure.
01:29
but you're out in Boise now.
01:31
Yes.
01:31
The beer is not as good here in Boise as it is in Fort Collins.
01:34
That's one thing.
01:39
But it sounds like the skiing is top notch with, being 35 minutes away from the slopes.
01:44
That's killer.
01:45
Yeah.
01:45
Bogus Basin is here, so it's open year round, which is great.
01:48
so they have skiing, and then they have mountain biking in the summertime.
01:51
And, yeah, as you said, it's 35 minutes every day, which you can't beat.
01:55
Yeah, it's insane compared to the, what, like, four hours that it is anywhere in Colorado.
02:01
Yeah.
02:03
Well, so today we just kind of wanted to chat a little bit about, like, your.
02:08
Your new book that you released, not too long ago.
02:11
And then this is a topic that a lot of builders and really just business owners struggle with, which is this concept of do I need to hire a marketing agency?
02:24
Do I need to look outside of my own skill set or, my team skill set to get a better handle on leads and lead flow as a whole.
02:36
so I'm really excited for today's conversation.
02:38
I think it will definitely hit, a lot of talking points for a lot of, a lot of people listening.
02:43
Yeah.
02:43
It's a challenge, as you said, in remodeling for builders, but any industry, really, for small businesses.
02:48
And I think part of it is there's just so many options and people.
02:52
It's hard for people to determine what's the best route.
02:54
So is it hiring internally?
02:56
Is it up, leveling current team members?
02:58
Is it using an agency or a contractor or a fractional CMO or a consultant?
03:03
So there's just so many options that I think it's really overwhelming to decide which path makes the most sense for you.
03:09
Absolutely.
03:10
Absolutely.
03:11
So, to kick things off, do you mind if, we just kind of hear a little bit about your background origin story and, how you got into this gigantic Worldwide, industry known as marketing.
03:24
It is a gigantic world right now.
03:26
It feels bigger than ever.
03:27
so I've been at Duct tape marketing since 2010.
03:31
I started as an intern, and then from there moved to all different roles in our business.
03:37
So I was community manager at one point, account manager for our clients, fractional CMO for our clients.
03:44
I moved into operations.
03:45
And then this last December, I stepped into the CEO seat at Duct Tape Marketing.
03:50
And so a lot of what I talk about in my new book, Unchained, is I've experienced all different roles within a marketing agency.
03:58
And in those shifts and different roles, I've worked with all of our team, obviously, but I've worked with hundreds, if not thousands of small business owners at this point.
04:09
And so I've seen a lot of challenges in both the agency side of things when it comes to marketing, but also the small business side of things as well.
04:17
And so I really wrote the book to help uncover some of those challenges, call out some of those challenges, but create a clearer path moving forward for the small business owners.
04:27
I love it.
04:28
Absolutely.
04:30
The roadmap.
04:32
That is definitely something that a lot of business owners are just missing nowadays.
04:37
I mean, there's so many rabbit holes you can find yourself going into with, branding and marketing.
04:43
And so having, just a structured resource, I'm sure is incredibly helpful.
04:48
Yeah, it's just as we joked earlier, like, marketing is so complex because as you said, there's branding and then there' growth and there's customer strategy, there's retention.
04:57
Like, there's just so many different components of marketing and now layer on AI, it's.
05:03
It's more complex than it ever has been before.
05:07
and so you know what I talk a lot about in the book, though, and this is something we've been doing at Duct Tape Marketing since I've been part of the company in 2010, is, you know, where people struggle is they start with thinking about those.
05:19
They start thinking about tactics before they take a step back and actually map out the business and the marketing strategy.
05:26
And so when you take a step back and actually map out the business and marketing strategy, that will then tell you who can get all of this stuff done, because you know what you're prioritizing.
05:36
So that's really the team strategy from there.
05:39
And then you can start moving into execution.
05:41
And so, again, I talk about that a lot in the book because a lot of the challenges when it comes to small business marketing is people just dive into the tactics or the who without doing that deep Work on the front end.
05:53
Yeah, absolutely.
05:54
Kind of like, a Simon Sinek approach.
05:56
Like, starting with why and then, you know, getting more granular into the tactics.
06:03
Exactly.
06:03
because like I said, a lot of people will be like a lot of small businesses.
06:06
And I'm not saying this is.
06:08
They're doing anything wrong.
06:09
They just.
06:10
There's a lot more.
06:10
There's a different approach.
06:12
but a lot of small businesses will say, okay, I'm going to bring in an agency, let's say, and I'm going to tell them that I want paid ads and my website updated and some email marketing done.
06:21
And so then the agency will come in and just start, Start executing on that.
06:24
But the piece that is missing is the strategy behind it.
06:28
Like, do paid ads even make sense?
06:30
And if the answer is yes, then what are you going to do with those paid ads?
06:34
Like, what's.
06:34
Who's your target market?
06:36
What's the messaging you're going to lean into?
06:37
What's the customer journey you're guiding people on?
06:40
And so in order to do any tactics correctly, and effectively, you really need to have the strategy behind them first.
06:48
and when you create that strategy, it then will tell you, okay, we've put in the work, we've created the strategy.
06:53
We understand we're going to do these four to six things over the next quarter and these reoccurring things over the next quarter.
07:00
Now you can answer, okay, does an agency make sense, or do I have someone on my team that I can uplevel using, maybe AI to layer below them?
07:08
But until you know what your biggest priorities are and what you're going to do on a recurring basis, like, you can't start with bringing in an agency, and directing them.
07:18
It just causes a lot of confusion and complication and wasted money over time as well.
07:22
Oh, absolutely.
07:23
Huge waste of money if you don't really have an understanding of what you're, what you're paying for, or what the overall goal is.
07:31
Yeah, absolutely.
07:33
I think you hinted at it, but with the book that you wrote, writing any book is not an easy undertaking.
07:41
what inspired you to put pen to paper and actually write Unchained?
07:46
Yeah, it's been on my mind for a while.
07:48
So our founder is John Jantz at Ductave Marketing.
07:51
He's written a number of books over the years.
07:53
Duct Tape Marketing was his first book.
07:55
and he's written several since.
07:57
And so people have asked, been asking me for a little while, like, when are you going to write a book?
08:01
Especially now that I Stepped into the CEO seat and I honestly had started and stopped books over the years and I just never felt that motivated to get it across the finish line because honestly, it is a lot of work.
08:14
but with what I'm seeing right now in the small business space with the evolution of AI, it felt like I needed to write this book finally.
08:21
And so that was enough.
08:22
It moved from a want or being told I need to to actually me realizing that I need to.
08:28
And so that was enough to get it across the finish line.
08:30
Oh, yeah.
08:31
So, that brings up a pretty interesting point though.
08:34
You know, there's, there's so much literature and so much content out there for builders and business owners.
08:43
if you were to, you know, just quickly, I guess, answer a quick question on like, why this book?
08:49
Right?
08:50
Why not only what, why did you, decide now is the time to write it, but why is now the time that a small business owner should actually pick it up and go through it and start to understand, you know, what you've put into it?
09:05
Yeah.
09:06
So small businesses have always, it's always been complicated when it comes to marketing, but as I mentioned a couple times now, AI is being layered in.
09:14
And so what I'm seeing is a number of small businesses bringing in AI platforms without actually taking a step back and doing the strategic work on the front end.
09:24
And so maybe they've paid agencies over the years for things like paid ads management and SEO and content production.
09:31
And so they decide, you know, now that AI is here, we can start bringing this stuff in house and have our team execute on it.
09:37
But they're bringing in these AI solutions.
09:40
And I think I saw a stat like 91% of businesses believe AI solutions will help make an impact on their business.
09:47
But only a small percentage of those have actually made an impact at this point.
09:52
And that's because they're bringing in these solutions without the strategy and without the plan in place.
09:57
And so now small business marketing is just messy at this point.
10:01
There's a lot of people that are over overwhelmed.
10:04
They're confused, they're making a bunch of noise.
10:06
They're not actually moving the needle.
10:08
Their SEO is no longer working.
10:11
And it's because, you know, it's this, this weird kind of time frame we're in where people thought they could bring in AI solutions to make a difference, but they're proving that they're not making as much of a difference as they thought they could.
10:23
also, you know, we as, we're a marketing agency ourselves at Duct Tape Marketing, and we've been in the agency space for over 31 years at this point.
10:31
We also certify and train marketing consultants, agenc and fractional CMOs in our approach.
10:38
And so we work with a lot of people in that space.
10:41
And I see also agencies resisting change at this point because they're afraid of being replaced by AI.
10:50
And so my call to agencies is we need to take a step back.
10:54
We need to be more strategic, we need to act as a fractional cmo.
10:58
We need to lead marketing initiatives and not just offer execution or we will be replaced over time.
11:06
And so how can agencies shift to provide more value?
11:10
To me, that's leaning into strategy and leadership.
11:13
But then how can small businesses be actually effective with bringing in AI?
11:18
That's bringing in a marketing leader, to help create the marketing strategy, to then oversee all of the marketing execution, to then determine what AI solutions make sense to bring in.
11:31
And so I talk about the anti agency model in my book.
11:34
obviously I'm not saying agencies are bad because, or maybe that's not as obvious as it should be, but we are an agency, we've supported so many agencies over the years.
11:43
But it's really the call to the way we're currently functioning with businesses.
11:48
For a lot of agencies when they're just coming in and outsourcing and they're taking over, the execution like that model is breaking and it's breaking faster because of AI.
11:57
And so again, I think the best path forward is agencies being more strategic and higher level and then even helping their clients bring in AI solutions strategically and even training their internal team to execute on the AI solutions.
12:12
I love it.
12:13
Yeah, absolutely.
12:14
I think there's so much value around that.
12:17
you know, it's, I think it's kind of a testament to, well, just human nature, I guess.
12:23
You know, we've all.
12:24
The silver bullet theory has always existed, right?
12:28
Like the one, the magic pill, the.
12:30
And I think AI is just the new version of that for a lot of businesses where they think that as you know, oh, bring, let's just buy it, we'll bring it in and then it will fix everything.
12:41
And in reality it just becomes another tab in your browser that you never use unless you have a strategy behind it and it have implemented it correctly.
12:51
Yeah, and there's really, there's a couple parts to that strategy.
12:54
It's creating the business strategy, the marketing strategy, to determine what tools you should bring in.
12:59
So that's like the first part because what I see is people just bringing in tools and then like figuring out how they're going to use them.
13:06
So first you have to put in the work to determine what tools to bring in.
13:09
And then let's say you decide you want to bring in like a chat GPT or similar tool.
13:14
then you need to take time to train ChatGPT on your business strategically.
13:20
And so that's the next step.
13:21
You identify what tools, and then you spend, you know, maybe Even up to 30 days training ChatGPT before you do anything with execution, where you're feeding it everything.
13:30
So your company, you know, your mission, your vision, your values, your ideal clients, your core messaging, sales, call recordings, client interviews, leadership stories.
13:42
And so giving ChatGPT all of that information and then you're ready to start thinking about, okay, now that ChatGPT understands my unique business, my tone of voice, my ways of doing things how we want to be seen by the world, then you can start, you know, having chatgpt to do things like assist you in content creation or whatever you, you've brought in the solution for.
14:05
but also when you start executing in something like a chatgpt as a business or a team, you then need to have processes and systems in place and guardrails and regulations on how you're going to use the tools.
14:18
Because if you go through all of these steps and you identify what tool you train it properly, and then you put SOPs and processes and all that in place, like, you will get a lot more consistent content moving forward or deliverables moving forward within these platforms.
14:33
And so I see a lot of businesses, like, they're just missing like all of those steps, or at least one of those steps.
14:39
And so, you know, when they get to the execution phase within AI, like there's, you know, maybe they have one team member that's like representing and producing content on brand, and then they have another team member that's just like over here doing their own thing.
14:52
And so everything is inconsistent and, you know, it's just kind of generic content.
14:58
And so you really need to go through all of those steps to then be able to be consistent and actually make an impact with the solutions you bring in.
15:06
Yeah, absolutely.
15:07
And you know, I'm right there with you.
15:09
I've seen that happen in numerous, in more orgs than one where basically you have one user who has custom prompts and custom GPTs and everything.
15:21
And they're very dialed in with the, brand and voice style guy and everything.
15:26
And then right next to that person is somebody who has no structure and they're just, you know, Trying to crank out as much content or whatever it is that they're doing.
15:37
so for those who are listening and watching this, I guess what are, what are three quick like tactical takeaways that they can start to deploy?
15:47
to really help streamline that, to help you know, set those guardrails put more process in place and even maybe create an sop or two around how to deploy AI correctly.
15:58
Yeah, I wish it was quick and tactical when it comes to this.
16:02
I mean it is a bit of heavy lifting.
16:04
but my argument is it's going to set you up for long term success if you go through this process.
16:10
But the steps that I would work through is creating your business and marketing strategy.
16:14
That's always the answer first.
16:16
And so that's things like what's your current revenue?
16:18
What are your growth goals?
16:20
what's your mission, value, vision?
16:22
All of those things.
16:24
but then after you answer those questions, those are more business strategy questions.
16:27
It's okay, what are you trying to do from a marketing perspective?
16:30
So who are your ideal clients?
16:31
What's your core message?
16:32
What's your customer journey?
16:34
What are your growth priorities over the next quarter?
16:37
and then putting that all into an execution calendar.
16:39
So starting there is step one.
16:42
and then after you've created that then putting like think about your team, so who do you currently have on your team, that can handle a lot of this stuff?
16:50
And then where are your gaps?
16:51
And then starting to do an analysis of how are you going to fill those gaps.
16:55
Is it an agency?
16:56
Is it a fractional cmo?
16:58
Is it a contractor?
16:59
Is it a part time employee?
17:01
Like you know, you can answer those questions at that point.
17:04
so that's you know, the first few steps and then it's you know, analyzing what are the AI solutions that you can bring in from there.
17:11
So again, it's not a, it's not really a quick tactical thing and I know you were going ask me that, but it's not really a quick tactical thing.
17:17
It's more of a strategic heavy lift that then you can move into the tactical steps from there.
17:25
That makes sense.
17:26
Absolutely.
17:27
yeah, it is, it's a, it's a big process.
17:30
You know, when it's done correctly, I think that's that you, I think you nailed it.
17:34
That's actually the issue is speed.
17:37
and just trying to, you know, turn this thing into the quick golden goose.
17:42
It doesn't work that way.
17:44
It's actually you need to have like a process and method I can't say that word methodology behind it, you know, in order for it to actually scale and be sustainable over time.
17:56
Yeah.
17:56
And that's where I think, like, the shift needs to, the mindset shift needs to happen.
18:00
With AI, it's not how can we be faster, how can we be more productive?
18:04
Like, yes, AI can assist in that stuff, but the way to think about AI is how can I elevate the humans that are on our team to do better work?
18:13
And I think when you have that, that mindset shift, it helps you think about AI a little bit differently.
18:18
and one of the exercises that I recommend going through is doing a bit of audit of your time and everyone else's on your team's time and analyze where are you spending most of your time and so listing out all the tasks or skills that you're doing on a regular basis.
18:33
And then from there look at your list and identify what's increasing in value because of AI, what's staying stable and what's decreasing in value, and then looking at the things that are decreasing or staying and think about, okay, can we bring in AI solutions to help us on these things so I can spend more time on the things that are increasing in value.
18:54
And so I think when you go through that exercise, it helps you as the business leader understand your time and your team's time, but it also helps everyone on your team understand that you're not just trying to ask them to work faster or harder or create more output.
19:09
You're having them think about how can they elevate and really future proof their careers moving forward, which is a really important thing for everyone to be on the same page.
19:18
Because you'll find in your company, if you haven't brought in a lot of AI solutions yet, and then you start bringing or talking about them, there's going to be people in all different areas.
19:27
Some people are going to be like, yes, my job's going to be so much easier.
19:30
Some people are going to be like, oh my gosh, they're going to fire me because they're trying to replace what I'm doing.
19:35
And so it's really important as well just to have these conversations with your team and talk about how we're helping you do better, more impactful work and not just be brought into the weeds.
19:46
Because AI can do things like analyze data better than any human can do at this point.
19:52
And so, you know, what can you really pull on AI strengths for to help you focus on more human specific tasks?
19:59
Absolutely.
20:00
Yeah.
20:00
I love that.
20:01
Like Putting, what's that term, Keeping the human in the loop.
20:04
Right.
20:05
In terms of making sure that you're actually executing on that high value, tasks and projects, I think that's huge.
20:13
And yeah, unfortunately that's an issue.
20:16
I know a lot of people that I've spoken with over the years struggle with who operated their own company.
20:21
It's, how do you step back from doing that, $15 an hour task and actually focus more on the $289 an hour task, if you will.
20:33
Yeah, and it's a shift for a lot of people too, because that's talked a lot about at the leadership business owner level.
20:41
But having your team also think that way is equally important and I think feel like that's a little bit more overlooked.
20:48
but now with AI, like for example in marketing, we write a lot of content for our clients.
20:54
We always have.
20:55
That's always been a piece of marketing.
20:56
But before AI, you know, we would have a content writer that would sit down and do research and create an outline and write all the content from scratch and then edit all the content and so, and let's say just like for a blog post, just to make it easy, for example.
21:11
And so that person was doing all of the work.
21:14
Now with AI, like they're essentially managing a process so they have the writing and the human experience.
21:21
But now we're able to bring in AI to help them with the research and the outline and the first draft and then they're editing and getting things across the finish line.
21:30
And so they've really moved from executor in the weeds work to now and essentially being a manager even though they're managing AI systems and tools.
21:41
And so we're asking, you know, people that were doing all of the work now to overseeing work being done.
21:48
And so it's been interesting because it's a complete shift in perspective.
21:52
You know, I've had people come to me and on our team and say, you know, I feel like I don't, I'm not working anymore.
21:58
And it's really that your work is just shifting and changing.
22:01
So what you've always known is, is now evolving at this point.
22:05
Oh yeah, absolutely.
22:06
And it's evolving quick too.
22:09
You know, if you let it.
22:11
getting back to the topic of like the anti agency model though, you, you brought up a pretty interesting point around, you know, ROI and justifying, you know, bringing things internal.
22:24
can you kind of shed a little bit more light on, you know, how do you, how do you justify that how do you quantify the ROI of your team?
22:31
Yeah.
22:32
So it, the last piece, when you're creating a marketing strategy should always end on okay, what are we going to do over the next few months?
22:40
And then the next question should always be, how are we going to track all of these efforts?
22:46
And then what are we going to determine are successful or not based on what we're prioritizing?
22:52
And so that's where a lot of small businesses Ms.
22:54
Is like, let's say they're working with an agency, for example.
22:57
I hear a lot of these stories over the years where the agency is, you know, they're paying the agency a flat rate, let's say paying them $5,000 a month.
23:04
And then the agency is doing some SEO work, maybe some paid management and some content production.
23:10
And now the agency sends the company a report every single, month that shows like they're getting more traffic to their website and then, you know, a bunch of other numbers that they don't understand.
23:21
And so the small business just keeps paying the agency because they feel like they're maybe getting some results, but their, their revenue is not actually growing and they keep paying because they know that they need to be marketing and they think this is the right sol.
23:34
So I hear stories like that all the time.
23:36
And you know, as a, when you're doing any marketing initiatives, regardless of if you're doing things internally or you're outsourcing to an agency, like you don't want just top line metrics identified, like traffic to the website, yes, might be interesting, but what you really care about or should care about are people actually calling you, are they booking consultations?
23:59
Are they then converting into clients, is your revenue than growing?
24:04
And so you need to be able to track the full story and not those vanity metrics that a lot of people track, unfortunately.
24:11
And so again, identifying what you're going to be doing and then identifying what are you going to attract specifically to determine if you should be doing those things moving forward or not, is an important step in the process.
24:23
And so what I typically recommend is setting your marketing initiatives for three months at a time where then you're reviewing your metrics on a daily, in some cases weekly basis or monthly basis.
24:36
And then when you're about a month and a half in for those first three months, you're then planning out the next three months based on what the metrics are telling you.
24:45
And so marketing should always be driven by what are you tracking, are things successful?
24:51
Does it make sense to keep doing them or should you shift your focus somewhere else?
24:55
And so when people don't have a handle on their metrics again, whether they're out, like they're internally executing or they're relying on outsourced solutions, then they're essentially just playing the guessing game and they have no idea if they're getting an ROI or not.
25:08
Yeah, absolutely.
25:10
I think you you hit, hit on something very interesting too, which is just how many people and how many businesses are fed just this endless flow of BS known as a vanity metric in terms of, you know, impressions or eyes on or, you know, it's, it's like, okay, that's nice, but it's not actually doing much for your business.
25:32
It's not getting you more calls.
25:33
It's, you know, you don't even know if it's the right ICP or the right ideal client profiles that are actually looking at your stuff, let alone giving you a call or getting connected with you.
25:44
Yeah, absolutely.
25:45
And that's why when we work with our clients, are more strategic when we work with clients.
25:50
So we come in as a fractional chief marketing officer and so we create the strategy and plan and then when we go into execution, we're essentially working alongside the CEO and reporting back on marketing metrics and how we're making an impact.
26:04
And so that's one of our key roles.
26:06
But I share that because then the CEO or founder or whoever we're working with directly is then reporting back their revenue numbers and their growth to us as well.
26:15
So it's, it's a bit of a partnership in a way.
26:17
Like we're reporting like this is what we're seeing and this many people booked consultations or this many people called you from the ads.
26:24
And then as a business owner you need to report back to the marketing solution that you're working with.
26:29
Okay.
26:29
Out of those phone calls, X amount actually turned into clients and X Amount didn't.
26:34
And these are the reasons they didn't.
26:36
They weren't a good fit or you know, whatever the reason might be.
26:39
But it needs to be a two way communication street, with the marketing team, you know, reporting on what they're saying and then the business owner or whoever's internal at the business reporting back.
26:49
Okay.
26:50
And this is actually what happened from a revenue perspective?
26:53
Oh yeah, absolutely.
26:54
If you can tell that whole story from you know, ad copy or ad click all the way through, you know, sentiment analysis and the actual conversation that hopefully led to a sale.
27:08
Huge.
27:10
Especially for, you know, just like you said keeping that relationship alive, whether it's through a marketing agency or just an in house marketing person and the CEO.
27:20
yeah, and it's the only thing that's going to tell you if you should keep doing the tactic or not.
27:25
And so if you're not able to say, you know, we did, we spent this much on paid ads and these many people booked calls and these many people turned to clients and increased or turned into this amount of revenue and so this is our return on spent.
27:37
Like, if you can't tell that whole story again, you're essentially playing a guessing game with your marketing and with your money and with your time and with your people.
27:47
And so it's really important like if you're going to determine we're going to do paid ads or we're going to do SEO or we're going to do social media or whatever, we're going to focus on email marketing, it's, it's okay, that's great.
27:58
How are we going to determine if this is successful or not?
28:00
And how are we going to shift and evolve?
28:02
And so let's say you launch paid ad campaigns and you're not hitting, you know, your success mark two months in, you know, paid ads do take some time and learning, getting up to speed.
28:11
Like, then you need to answer the question of like, do we need to adjust our strategy on paid ads or do our clients just not react or relate to paid ads or is it too expensive based on the competition?
28:22
but if you don't have that tracking and those goals set up again, you're just kind of guessing and winging.
28:26
Yep, absolutely.
28:28
Well, this is great.
28:29
Yeah.
28:29
yeah.
28:29
Huge, huge takeaways.
28:31
Especially just in the world of small business, everything is moving so quick.
28:37
So just to give yourself a little bit of a grace period to set strategy first and to actually understand what is the actual goal I'm trying to do here before just diving into the rabbit hole of implementing AI or the rabbit hole of ad spend or, or you know, a webinar or whatever it is.
28:57
yeah, so I guess, you know, summer or if you can just, what is, what's one thing that a listener or a viewer, if they're a small business owner or they're just part of an a, company nowadays, you know, what's one thing that they could implement or take away today to start making, you know, more gradual changes?
29:18
Yeah, absolutely.
29:19
And, and what you just said there I think is so true.
29:21
Like if you're feeling overwhelmed, you're not alone.
29:25
is complex right now.
29:27
And so really, the biggest, the one thing you can do is to take a step back and pause and think big picture.
29:34
Like, that is my best advice at this point.
29:36
don't just keep executing.
29:38
Don't just keep spending money, don't keep doing tactics, and don't spread yourself too thin.
29:43
Like, take a step back and answer some serious questions, like, what's our revenue?
29:48
Where are we trying to grow to?
29:49
Who's our target market?
29:51
What message resonates with them?
29:52
what does our customer journey look like and what should we prioritize?
29:56
If you're going to do nothing else, sit down and answer those questions, because that should then guide what you do moving forward effectively.
30:03
Oh, absolutely.
30:05
And, those who haven't picked up a copy, is the list of those questions by chance in your book?
30:11
Yep.
30:11
I go into all of this in a lot more detail in the book.
30:15
and so the book also comes with 40 resources as well, which are worksheets that encourage, you to work through a lot of the concepts in the book.
30:25
And so it's really not meant to be something that you read once and it sits on your shelf.
30:29
it's meant to be something that you read, consume, work through the worksheets as you're going through it and actually take action.
30:35
Cool.
30:35
Yeah, that's.
30:36
That's awesome that it's an.
30:39
It's, actually a plaque.
30:40
It's an actual applicable book.
30:43
That's.
30:43
It's, Those are rare nowadays.
30:45
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:46
I've read a lot of books, and they sit on my bookshelf.
30:49
And so this one, you know, I wrote to try to help people actually make some moves.
30:53
I think that's huge.
30:54
Absolutely.
30:55
So, for those who haven't picked it up yet, how can, how can readers or listeners find the book and get connected with you if they want to learn more?
31:03
Of course.
31:03
So unchainedmodel.com is the book website.
31:06
That's where you can grab the 48 resources as well.
31:09
And then it's sold on Amazon in different format, so Kindle print and audio.
31:15
Amazing.
31:16
I'll definitely grab my copy.
31:17
But, thanks so much for coming on, Sarah.
31:19
I love chatting with you and your story and, definitely some strong takeaways for me.
31:24
And I'm sure everybody listening as well.
31:27
Yeah.
31:27
Thanks for having me on, Grant.
31:29
And Go Rams.
31:30
Absolutely.
31:31
Go Rams.
31:34
Enjoy the rest of your day.
31:35
And thanks again.
31:36
You too.
31:37
Bye.
31:39
All right, that's a wrap.
31:40
My only goal with these videos is to give you actionable systems that you can use to build a more profitable business.
31:47
If you found this valuable, please share it with another who needs to hear it.
31:51
That's all I ask.
31:52
And if you haven't already, hit that subscribe button so you'll never miss another episode.
31:57
Until next time.
31:59
Remember, systems scale success.