Hiring a marketing agency can be one of the smartest decisions that a small business owner can make, both in terms of boosting their brand visibility and growing their client base. Unfortunately, there are many business owners that sabotage their success by entering the collaboration process with a negative mindset or unrealistic expectations. So, what can you do to get the most out of this professional relationship? In this episode, Gene Marks and Valerie Tyson, CEO of the Unrivaled Group, discuss how small business owners can set themselves up for success when working with a marketing agency.

Podcast Key Highlights

  • What Is Valerie’s Advice for People Who Want to Start Their Own Business?
    • There’s nothing harder in the world than starting something from nothing, so it’s important to cut your teeth at a bunch of different places before you get started. These prior experiences will give you a clearer sense of what you want and what you don’t want as a small business owner.
    • The successes and failures that you’ll experience at those different jobs and industries will enable you to reach a place where you’ll feel anchored enough to start a business.
  • How Should Small Business Owners Treat Their Employees Who Are New to the Industry?
    • Unlike larger companies that may relegate younger employees to entry level work, you have the opportunity to give your new employees real first hand experience that will prepare them for this industry.
    • While you should strive to provide your employees with a competitive benefits package and a positive working environment, don’t take it personally if they ultimately decide to move on.
  • What Qualities Led to Valerie’s Success?
    • Valerie believes that being prepared and reliable is how she distinguished herself from her peers.
    • Demonstrating grit, determination, and an ability to outwork others led her superiors to take her seriously as a professional and offer her some really exciting opportunities.
  • What Skills and Qualities Should You Look for in Potential Job Candidates?
    • Ideally, your potential employees should have some baseline knowledge of your industry so that they’ll be familiar with all the buzzwords or tools you use.
    • You’re also looking for people that you can mold or have an aptitude for your industry so that they can best serve your clients.
    • If someone is fresh out of college, character is really important. You can teach a lot of skills, but if they’re a bad teammate, you can’t change that.
    • You can’t coach effort, so you need someone who is motivated and self-driven to be successful.
    • Lastly, your future employees need to be coachable.
  • What Does the Unrivaled Group Look for in Clients?
    • Athletes and business owners don’t necessarily need to be on the world stage to work with the Unrivaled Group. They do, however, need to be loyal.
    • For Valerie, taking on a client is also about working with and for people that she appreciates and she wants to see win.
    • Clients who don’t believe in marketing or are simply dabbling immediately send up a red flag. These are signs of a short-term client and the Unrivaled Group needs clients who want to work with them for a minimum of two to three years.
    • Clients need to be open-minded, all in on learning, and genuinely believe that marketing works.
  • When a Client Hires the Unrivaled Group, How Do They Evaluate Performance?
    • When they first begin working together, the Unrivaled Group provides their client with a clear set of ROIs.
    • Once those goals are established, they’ll create a strategy and then monitor the business’s performance trajectory.
  • What Does a Client Need to Succeed With the Unrivaled Group?
    • An internal partner on that marketing side
    • Transparency
    • Trust
  • Are There Any Marketing Campaigns That Are Better Suited for Small Businesses?
    • For clients with a limited budget, it’s best to pick a lane and stick to it. Then, utilize every free marketing tool possible.
    • Once you see which platforms are generating the most money, you can start upgrading to their paid plans.
    • Meta still has a larger database than Instagram.

Transcript

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are for informational purposes only, and solely those of the podcast participants, contributors, and guests, and do not constitute an endorsement by or necessarily represent the views of The Hartford or its affiliates.

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You’re listening to The Small Biz Ahead Podcast, presented by The Hartford.

Gene: Hey, everybody. It’s Gene Marks. Welcome back, again, to another episode of The Hartford Small Biz Ahead podcast. Very happy that you are joining us, whether you’re listening to us, or watching us on YouTube. Valerie, I forgot to tell you, by the way, when we were talking before we started recording, it’s on YouTube, as well. So, just make sure you’re smiling the entire time.

Gene: My guest is Valerie Tyson. Valerie is the CEO of Unrivaled Group, a marketing agency based in Austin, Texas. Right, Valerie? Welcome to the show.

Valerie: World headquarters in Austin, Texas, and we have team members across the country. Thanks for having us.

Gene: Yeah. First of all, tell us about the Unrivaled Group. I know you guys are women owned. You’re the CEO. Just give us a little history of the company and a little history of yourself, please.

Valerie: Yeah. Female founded and 85% operated by women. One of probably a dozen, or less, female led sports and entertainment agencies across the country. We are a full service agency, so soup to nuts, everything from digital marketing, branding campaigns, PR, communications. While we focus on brands, property and talent in sports entertainment, we also work with a lot of businesses of different sizes. If COVID taught us nothing, it was about diversification. So…

Gene: Yeah.

Valerie:… we work with a lot of capital companies that have small businesses, small businesses that need some direct branding help. For us, we just want to work with brands that win. So, that’s kind of what we focus on.

Gene: I love that. So, what about yourself? How long have you been doing this, and is this your first business?

Valerie: It’s my first time being an owner and founder, which is terrifying. It’s kind of like being on Red Bull and being electrocuted at the same time…

Gene: Yeah.

Valerie:… at any given moment. My very first job, out of college, was working in radio. I got the bug for sports there. Our radio station, no one was into sports. I had Padres season tickets. So, I…

Gene: Ah.

Valerie:… got to sit on the sidelines, first job, when you’re not well paid. I got to see the Padres go to the World Series, so that was amazing. Then, my first big job was working for Howard Stern. So, I handled all of his West Coast operations.

Gene: Cool.

Valerie: I got into sports there. There was a 27-year-old millionaire who was supposed to get an NFL team for his birthday. I know. It sucked. Right? He actually got an arena football team. One of his fourth hires, that was Casey Wasserman of Wasserman Sports Entertainment. Then just from there, going to places like IMG and working with Wimbledon. Working with different sports properties around the country is how we got started.

Gene: I’m going to try to get some advice from you in a minute. I do want to just make the point, a lot of people ask me about starting up businesses, particularly younger people, as well. They want to start up a company. You’re the perfect example, Valerie. You cut your teeth at a bunch of different places before you started Unrivaled Group. Right? I mean, how many years were you actually active, professionally, before you actually launched Unrivaled Group?

Valerie: 15 years.

Gene: Wow.

Valerie: I don’t know that there’s another way to do it.

Gene: Right.

Valerie: Before anyone thinks about starting a business, there’s nothing harder in the world than starting something from nothing.

Gene: Right.

Valerie: Unequivocally, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I wasn’t waiting out my whole career to start my own business. I learned what I liked and didn’t like. My belief system, how marketing and PR and communications, and how I’d like to work with clients, I learned what I liked and didn’t like. Then realized, “One day I’d like to make a run at this for myself.” I always tell a lot of the younger hires that we make at the company, “Come here. Learn from here because you’re going to get a lot of…

Gene: Yeah.

Valerie:… exposure on a lot of things, where you go into a big company, you might start really lower level. Come here, get as much experience at our medium-sized agency. I will promise to make you the most prepared person at the table.” So, that’s my promise to everyone who comes through here.

Valerie: I worked for Michael Jordan. Did all these amazing things in professional sports. “Go do your version of that before you start your own thing. Then, decide if that’s for you.” You might find…

Gene: Yeah.

Valerie:… your right work family somewhere else. Right? So…

Gene: Yeah.

Valerie:… I always know when hiring those younger staff members like, “Come and stay forever. Great, but you probably won’t.” When I first found that I was hurt every time someone left, I realized like, “This is what they’re supposed to do.”

Gene: Yeah.

Valerie: They’re supposed to grow. They’re supposed to leave the nest. So, “Come. Put in the work here. I’ll make you the most prepared person at the table for whatever it is you want to do next. I’ll open my 20, now, plus years of experience, my Rolodex, to you. Let me know where you want to go, and I’ll help you get there.”

Gene: Okay. Again, I want to get some marketing advice from you, but I just have to jump on something you just said. A lot of people running businesses are afraid that their employees are going to either outgrow them, or their employees are going to get too good and leave and compete against them, or go to a competitor, or whatever. Clearly, you realized, at some point, that you can’t stop that from happening. You’re in an industry, and most cities are like this. It’s a smaller group. I mean, you’re two degrees separated from everybody else in your business. It’s an incestuous group, as well. You know what I mean? Different people come and leave from different companies, back and forth. So, you learn that you’re going to hurt yourself by not helping younger people grow and learn. Let them do that. Even if they go somewhere else and you’ve maintained good professional relationship, they are oftentimes a source of new leads and new business for you. Right? They can help you with relationships. Do you agree with that?

Valerie: Yeah. I’m not afraid of it. I think when I first started, I thought, “I’m going to start this.” When I first had a temporary office space and co-working, but it was our own zone. If someone wanted to leave, it would just crush me, in the…

Gene: Right.

Valerie:… beginning. Then, I learned. I’m like, “This is what they’re supposed to do. This is what I did at their age.” Like…

Gene: Right.

Valerie:… “I wouldn’t have been able to come to a place where I felt anchored enough to be able to start a business had I had not had those successes and failures along the way.”

Valerie: Every job you take, or every career move, or anything in life, I guess, there are wins and losses. Learning from those, that’s when I determined that I was then finally, or at least I thought, built to start my own business. It’s really not for the faint of heart. It sounds like a great idea until you actually get into it. It’s a lot of hard work. “Great. Come here. Contribute, give it your all. Then when you’re ready to leave, let me help you.” I mean, it’s been great.

Valerie: I also learned, too, in doing that, you need a mix of that. You can’t have everybody leaving all the time. After COVID, people’s work patterns, in 10 years, seemed to change a lot. So, you can’t have constant turnover. That’s not great stability for clients. I’m willing to take the risk.

Valerie: I mean, we’re right here next to UT. Texas State has given us some great, not only interns, but also employees. It’s great. They come out of the sports management school, or the marketing school, or the comms department. It’s great to be able to say, “Okay. Great. You’re going to get to do lots of things, where if you went to a bigger agency, you’d probably be doing the entry level stuff. Here, you’re actually going to be in front of clients.”

Valerie: Our hashtag is #SolveCity, and all we’re here to do is solve problems. “How do we solve problems, and how do we help companies grow and build for the future?” We’re going to figure that out together. Then, I’ll get a question from them once in a while, too, like, “Valerie, you do these cool things, and on private jets. You must’ve been a lot of fun back in the day,” which makes me wonder, “Am I not fun, now?” My answer to that is, “I got to be in a lot of cool rooms where things, I would never have dreamed of…

Gene: Yeah.

Valerie:… happened because I was prepared and reliable.” It wasn’t because I was fun. I would not have been…

Gene: Right.

Valerie:… in those situations. It was determined like, “Hey, she’s reliable. She knows what she’s doing. Come to this meeting. Come contribute. Come be a part of this brainstorming session. Fly with us to see this new property we might acquire.” I think…

Gene: Right.

Valerie: I always kept my head down, and I always wanted to be the most prepared person in the room, that’s why I got to do those things. That’s what I try to teach. I don’t know that it always sinks in, but I try. I really think that was the key to some of my success. I think, also, preparing me for my role, now, leading a team of people I’ve built, deeply responsible for. It’s just not you when you get into this business, unless you’re a single business. You know? One…

Gene: Yeah.

Valerie:… owner situation. When you’re responsible for a team, when things like COVID, or client changes, or things happen, the first thing, it’s not like, “What am I going to do?” It’s like…

Gene: Yeah.

Valerie:… “How do I support my team?”

Gene: Right.

Valerie: That’s what you have to put first. It’s interesting. I’ve seen a lot of businesses come and go. They always question, “Why me? Why did I make it, where others didn’t?” It’s not a judgment on them, at all. It’s really me, introspectively saying, “How did this happen?” I think it’s grit and determination, and maybe, being a little bit crazy.

Gene: Yup.

Valerie: It’s just trying to outwork someone. I mean, outworking others.

Gene: Okay. So, you’re in the field of marketing and branding. That’s what your company does on behalf of your clients. You are out all the time looking, we’re talking about building a team, having the right people working for you. You’re trying to find people that are not only doers and are reliable, and have the right attitude, and all. Good luck with that, finding those kinds of people. You’re also looking for people that you could at least mold, or have some kind of talent in the area of marketing and branding so that they can best serve your clients. So, am I. I mean, I’m not in your business. I run a technology consulting firm, but I’m constantly looking for good marketing people that can help me brand my company, or with campaigns, or getting the word out about my company and spreading awareness. What skill sets do you look for, in people, when you’re looking to hire.

Valerie: I would say…

Gene: What should I be looking for?

Valerie: I mean, I think there’s kind of two things, there. One, you don’t want to hire somebody to do public relations who’s in school to learn about philosophy. Right?

Gene: Right.

Valerie: They don’t know. When you use buzzwords, and things, or tools, you want there to be a baseline knowledge. Actually what I’ve learned, though, a lot of these students are coming out not prepared.

Gene: Yeah.

Valerie: Like, “Hey, can you write a creative brief about this?,” which is kind of basic to marketing. They’re like, “Oh, I missed that day.” Right?

Gene: It’s unbelievable.

Valerie: You learn about that…

Gene: That’s a whole other conversation.

Valerie: Right. It’s not enough. It depends, different levels.

Gene: Yeah.

Valerie: We have seasoned people who’ve been in the sports and entertainment industry. We’re a medium-sized agency. So, if they seem to pick up the same language and know the same people, and prepare decks. Decks are a huge thing in marketing, all these presentations we make week to week. If they get that, that’s great. If it’s someone coming in kind of fresh out of college, character’s really important.

Gene: Good.

Valerie: You can teach a lot of these PR and marketing skills, but if they’re going to be a bad teammate, you can’t change that. Something else I’ve had to learn with that, you can’t coach effort. So, it has to look like someone who not only is a good teammate, but is self-driven to be successful and is motivated. I can’t judge people on effort. I can talk about…

Gene: Right.

Valerie:… what they’ve achieved, but measuring effort is hard. To use a sports analogy, I need to field a floor of point guards. Point guards can see the entire court. I want everyone here to feel like they’re a marketer. So when they come here, or when they leave here, especially when they leave here, they should be able to sit in a meeting. So, if someone talks about a website build, they understand and can participate. They don’t know how to code a website as a marketer, but they at least know what people are talking about. If we’re talking about design, or cost per click, they can sit in a room and still feel and be knowledgeable, and support wherever they go next.

Valerie: And, being coachable. There’s nothing more important to me than being coachable. If you think that you know everything and that you don’t need to learn anymore, or don’t need any coaching or any feedback, that’s probably not the right person for, at least, our team. Obviously, having baseline knowledge for entry level, but also just being coachable.

Valerie: I also tell people like, “I came from working on the team side.” Even though I didn’t play at the pro sports level, I wake up every day thinking about how we run through the tape every day, for our clients. “How do we…

Gene: Cool.

Valerie:… solve problems? How are we successful?” That’s hard to teach. I learned that from being in a team.

Valerie: I worked for the Charlotte Hornet, where Michael Jordan owned the team. I worked for the greatest player to ever play the game. One of my co-workers, now, who I later hired… I was pushing bobbleheads to the front door. It wasn’t even my job. I’m pushing bobbleheads to the front door, and he came along and pushed the box with me. Everyone just helped each other. We weren’t on the…

Gene: Right.

Valerie:… court, but we built the experience around the court. I try to recreate that here. I don’t always win because you have to go and have that experience, to our earlier point. You have to go out and see the world and bring back new perspectives. That’s the kind of environment I shoot for, that everyone is good at teammates. We all have each other’s backs. We do what it takes to win. We care about each other and our clients. We care about each other first, being good teammates. Then, we put our clients first, their efforts…

Gene: Good.

Valerie:… above ours every day.

Gene: Okay. Your agency, you focus on sports entertainment. Obviously, you want diversification. You’re focusing on small, mid-size companies, as well. I do a lot of speaking to a lot of industry associations around the country. These are the most boring, unsexy place that you could even imagine. It’s gasket fabricators and corrugated container manufacturers and metal fabricating manufacturers, not exactly Michael Jordan or Howard Stern. They’re like the backbone of America. I mean, these are rooms filled with people running businesses that are supplying the core materials and services that are running this company, but they’re not exciting. Are those companies good clients for a marketing agency like yourself? If you were representing a mid-size company that manufacturers gaskets, again, you’re not representing a Hall of Famer, NBA stars. A gasket manufacturer. What kind of things could a marketing agency like yours do for a company like that?

Valerie: We don’t approach clients. So, we have a lot of clients that aren’t on the world stage. We have one of the largest sun farms in America as a client.

Gene: Okay.

Valerie: They have products that can test your… They were the first people to step up when I opened this business and said, “We want to be your first client.” So…

Gene: Okay.

Valerie: Through COVID, when sports shut down, those clients went away. The ones who stuck with us were the exact type of businesses that you were talking about.

Gene: Yes. They were the ones…

Valerie: They said, “If we have money, you have money.”

Gene: Right.

Valerie: So, that…

Gene: Okay.

Valerie:… loyalty. They could go and make wrenches tomorrow and change business, and I would still be with them. For me, making this choice is also about working with and for people that I appreciate and I want to see win.

Valerie: So for us, it’s no different. It’s the same. We have a way we go to business. We build a strategic map of a business’ goals, whether you’re an NBA team, a WNBA team, a pro golfer, or a widget maker, whatever that might be, a pipe fitter. “What are your goals?” “Here’s my revenue goal. Here’s how many installations, or widgets, I need to make.” What I don’t like is when a client comes to us and says, “Marketing doesn’t work,” because there’s always…

Gene: Yes.

Valerie:… a roadblock there. So, if you think marketing is going to help you grow your business, again, all I care about is driving business performance. So whether you’re a widget maker, or you are a NBA team, it’s about business performance and whatever metrics are important to you. So, “What are you trying to do?” So, if you already have a block for marketing, it’s never going to work.

Gene: Right.

Valerie: They’re like, “We don’t believe marketings work, but we’ll give you a try.”

Gene: Yup.

Valerie: That’s a clear sign that that’s going to be a short-term client, when all of our clients are a minimum of two to three years…

Gene: Right.

Valerie:… minimum. So…

Gene: Right.

Valerie:… I already know that’s going to be a failure. So, being open to the process. If a business comes to me, a small business, and they’re not used to marketing, being open to what we’re saying. “Here’s some of our expert advice. I know you have this set of beliefs, but let’s try this.” We build a strategic map. We don’t do a lot of project work. We’re on retainer because we want to see marketing end to end. It’s not, for us, a land grab of cash. Someone will call us. “We have a problem with Twitter.” “Well, your problem’s not Twitter. That’s a tactic.” There’s something wrong in your strategies and goals, and Twitter’s not the problem. There’s something else going on. So, we like to be able to look at it end to end. To my board’s chagrin, even when we aren’t paid to look at it end to end, I still have to look at it end to end and put time in because what they’re saying might not be the problem.

Gene: Right.

Valerie: Whether that’s B2B and B2C, we work in both categories at a bunch of different verticals. We go to market the same way. We deliver the plan and then we’re like, “Okay. Great. Here’s the plan. If we get hit by a bus, you could take this in-house and do this.”

Gene: Right.

Valerie: “But, you really need our expertise, then, to execute those tactics that manage them for you, or work as your in-house team, or with your in-house team, to be able to take those things you’re doing and either course correct, or amplify them, and make them better.”

Gene: Got it.

Valerie: It’s the same process for every client. We’re not super excited about working with someone who doesn’t want to invest in strategy. We want to identify what the real problems, or opportunities, are. “If you called, “Hey, Valerie, our Facebook stinks. This is what I think the problem is.” If I get your Facebook to a right place and your business still doesn’t grow, or we increase your business performance, you’re going to be very unhappy with that relationship.

Gene: Sure, sure.

Valerie: “So, let’s go through a quick strategic plan and figure out what the opportunities are, the gaps that you have. Maybe you’re doing things that you shouldn’t be doing, or maybe you’re doing too many things.”

Gene: Right.

Valerie: “Could you do less and be more successful?” So, it’s kind of the same assessment and process. Our formula, in going through this process, 95% of the time we will win the client. We’re pretty proud of this.

Gene: When someone hires you, how do they evaluate your performance? I mean, some people will hire you and be like, “Oh, we want leads. If I don’t see an increase in leads over the next 90 days… I’m assuming that’s not your ideal client. You said you worked for a longer period of time, and there’s a lot more involved than just lead generation. How do we evaluate you? How do I know I’m getting return on investment for working with you?

Valerie: We establish the ROIs. So, if on average, now, you’re getting 50 leads a month. You’re like, “I need to get to 100.” I need to find the volume of the tools that we’re using. So, “Are we…

Gene: Sure.

Valerie:… going to use in search? Are we going to use paid social? Are you going to be speaking to clients?” For example, in your business, you said you do a lot of speaking engagements. Maybe, you get…

Gene: Right.

Valerie:… clients that way. I don’t know. I’m making an assumption. We put in metrics, like, “Have we increased revenue? Have we increased your followers on social media?” Whatever the goals are, if we’ve seen those. Or, “Hey, you want to market share?”

Valerie: We work with a lot of movie theater clients, that’s part of a limited chain. They’re like, “We want to have 20% market share.” It was arbitrary, and they were at 10%. By going through the process, within a month they were each at their 20% mark, in markets that are very challenging where they are. So they’re like, “This is great. Let’s do more of this.”

Valerie: A lot of businesses will come to us that are unfamiliar with marketing and think that… Even though they’re using all their free social media tools, those tools are set up to make you pay. So, in addition to having us help you, you also have to gin up those tools with cash, an Instagram campaign, a TikTok campaign.

Gene: Yup.

Valerie:… a search. So when people, in the middle of the night, are like, “Where do I find the best trustworthy CPA…

Gene: Yup.

Valerie:… those keywords are in the back. There’s so much to that. Then, the keywords will pull from your site, where you also purchase keywords. So, it’s really an orchestrated effort to see that success. It’s not a one-off. It’s kind of…

Gene: Yup.

Valerie:… turning the dials across all the marketing buttons in your toolkit.

Gene: Yeah. We have the same conversation even here, with this podcast. We put the podcast out on YouTube, but there needs to be some campaigns around it. Just because you build it, doesn’t necessarily mean people are going to come. So, you have to create awareness. You have to drive viewers to those videos, for example, which hopefully keeps bringing them back, and ultimately does turn into leads.

Gene: I think a lot of businesses don’t understand what you just said. The free social media tools, in the end, it’s an introduction for you to have to pay. What are the clients that you work best with? What are the types of organizations? I’ll give you an example. My company sells hub spots. Okay? Which you’re familiar with. It’s like a Sierra.

Valerie: Mm-hmm.

Gene: We found that selling hub spot to just a business owner is usually not a great thing. We’ve been more successful when we sell it to a marketing manager in a company who might have a small marketing team. Then, they can leverage that as their tool. So, I’m wondering if you find the same thing. Is there sort of a demographic, or a type of client, that you’re like, “Yeah. This client is set up to succeed with an agency like mine?”

Valerie: It’s always great to have an internal partner on that marketing side, or they let us under the hood and let us act as that partner. So…

Gene: Right.

Valerie:… as part of our services, we have a client service team. All those client service managers are marketing experts. So, it’s not just someone who takes notes and does things like that. They actually are a strategist at the top of that piece of business so sometimes they plug in as the marketing manager. We have a social media specialist, we have an email team, we have a paid team, a design team. It’s, first of all, that client being vulnerable enough to say like, “Here’s what I don’t know. Here’s what’s working.” Or, either let us come in and partner with them. Every week, we have a call, we go through metrics, we go through all the areas, we’re engaged, we report on the success of those, and then we’re like, “Here’s some things we saw that didn’t go so well. How do we address those?” We can get all boats to rise, we’ll have more success.

Valerie: So, it’s plugging in as part of that team. Then, having the owners be open to, or the leaders of the company that we’re working with, be open to suggestions. Again, I always know it’s going to go south when a client presents well. Then, we have a conversation, they’re all in. You start making recommendations like, “Tried that didn’t work. Tried that didn’t work.” It’s like plugging in a tool. “I tried that tool. It didn’t work.” Well, “Were they coached on the tool?” I’m sure you have these conversations. “How well-versed are they in the tool?”

Gene: Yeah.

Valerie: So, all these things, you recommend. One, if you’re open-minded. Two, you have to be all in on learning and believe that this will work. Just like anything, owning a business itself, that you put that same effort into your marketing efforts. Or, people…

Gene: Yep.

Valerie:… who start out and say, “Oh, marketing is just an expense.” It’s not. It’s the voice of your brand. Back in the day, you could buy an ad in the magazine, or a billboard, and you could shout. Today, you have to create marketing messages, how you want them to be received and not how you want to shout them from the rooftops. So…

Gene: Right.

Valerie:… thinking about the end user in mind and really designing specific tactics, messaging, image, graphics. It’s much more complicated than it was before. Again, obviously you have your goal in mind. We have to think about, “What does your target customer want to hear from you?” It may not be the same thing that you say. So, it’s great when they’re open to an outside voice like our team to say, “Look, here’s what you have been screaming from the rooftop. Here’s what people heard. Here’s what they want to hear.”

Valerie: Then, we start to test it. We split test messaging. Again, I always say, “Fail fast and often.” Like, “Hey, we’re going to try this at a low investment.” If you’re like, “Hey, Valerie, we need your team to help create a paint campaign.” “Great. Let’s fail, or test for $50. Then, let’s roll out a higher amount.” If we’re successful at $50, then we can kind of start to boilerplate a predictable turn on it. We’re like, “Hey, you know what? This totally failed.” You’re like, “Valerie, you were on. Your team was honest about the process. Here are all the things we learned. Let’s tweak it and try it again.”

Gene: Right.

Valerie: What’s great with digital marketing, now, is you can turn it on and off. So, we can…

Gene: Yes.

Valerie:… have an overall budget and carve out something for testing. So, you learn like, “Hey, you said this was your best keyword in the AdWords. Let’s test that against a bunch we’ve suggested, and let’s see who wins.” Sometimes we’re wrong, and that’s…

Gene: Yes.

Valerie:… great. “Then, let’s do more of that.” I think to earn our clients’ trust, to be able to do that, is something we take really seriously, and we’re super proud of. I think it’s just being open to that process to learn new things, and learn what your customers want, or your clients, not just what you want to say. Once you shift that mind shift in an owner, or a leader of a marketing team inside, that unlocks everything.

Gene: You’re probably going to answer this with “It depends.” I’m going to ask the question anyway. By the way, we’re running out of time. I have so many more questions to ask you, but. In 2023, 2024, do you find most of your clients gravitating towards a certain type of marketing campaign, or branding exercise? In other words, is the money really in online advertising? Do you find that most of your clients have a success, if it’s done well, with email campaigns? Again, I know you’re going to say “It depends. I’m just wondering if you see any different types of… I mean, we have a limited budget as to what we can do, most small businesses do.

Valerie: Mm-hmm.

Gene: So, is there any one type of marketing campaign where you’ve been like, “This usually has better success than others?” What would you think?

Valerie: Depends is the right answer, but let me try a different answer. I think…

Gene: Okay.

Valerie:… if you have a limited budget, you pick a lane and stick to it. Then, you…

Gene: Yup.

Valerie:… do everything else that you can, free. This won’t be a popular answer, and there’ll probably be comments in your podcast. Meta still has the largest database between Meta and Instagram.

Gene: They do.

Valerie: So, we have a lot of success on Facebook with our campaigns because they’re just the largest audience and the largest demographic. So, if we can test there and have some success, then our clients will like, “Okay. Great. Let’s use this Facebook and Instagram, but let’s try AdWords.” Or, “Let’s find out the one link where everyone in your business…”

Valerie: Say, everyone is searching for you, but the search volume is super high in Google, then that’s what we should go in on.

Gene: Yup.

Valerie: Then, there’s free things. Like, “Great. Let’s fix your website, then, to make sure that it matches the keywords we have in AdWords.” Or, if we’re running an ad in whatever platform, making sure that when they get to that part of your website, it pays off that ad. That it’s not disconnected. Okay. You have a limited budget, and it’s scary for everyone. We work with a ton of startups, so I’ve seen that fear in founder’s eyes. I have that fear, still, every day as a founder myself. Then, let’s do all the free things. So as we have wins, let’s figure out where to reinvest.

Gene: Right.

Valerie: So, people don’t come to us with just huge budgets all the time. It’s, “So, how do we…

Gene: Right.

Valerie:… we use that budget to be really smart?” Then, “How do we do the free things, that are available, to the best we can?”

Gene: Valerie Tyson is the CEO of Unrivaled Group, a marketing agency that serves small, mid-size businesses throughout the country and is based in Austin. Valerie, great advice today. Thank you very much for your time and would love to have you back. I went through a third of the questions I had for you, but I walked away with some great information. I know our audience will, as well. So, thank you.

Valerie: Well, thank you for having me. I’d love to come back, any time.

Gene: Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. We will have you back. Thank you, again. Everyone, thank you for watching, or listening, to the Hartford Small Biz Ahead podcast. My name is Gene Marks. Hope you got some good information from Valerie. I certainly did. If you need any advice, or tips, or help, in running your business, please visit us at smallbizahead.com or sba.thehartford.com. Thanks again for listening, or watching. We’ll see you again very soon. Take care.

Gene: Thanks so much for joining us on this week’s episode of The Hartford Small Biz Ahead podcast. If you like what you hear, please give us a shout-out on your favorite podcast platform. Your ratings, reviews, and your comments really help us formulate our topics and help us grow this podcast. So, thank you so much. It’s been great spending time with you. We’ll see you again, soon.

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