Maven Marketing with Brandon Welch

Before You Hire a Marketer...

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You’re Not Hiring a Marketer, You’re Hiring a Mindset

You’re not just looking for someone to run your ads—you’re trusting someone to help grow your business. Big difference.

In this episode, we unpack the three things that actually matter when choosing a marketer: curiosity, empathy, and business sense. 

Not who talks the loudest in the pitch meeting. Not who has the fanciest slides. Just real traits that drive results.

Inside the episode:

  • What every frustrated business owner wishes they’d asked before hiring a marketer
  • Why great marketing starts with listening, not selling
  • How to spot the difference between a consultant and a copy-paster
  • The one skill that makes any marketer dangerous—in a good way

If you’ve ever felt burned by bad marketing (or want to make sure you don’t), this one’s for you.

Maven Marketing Mastermind → https://www.mavenmethodtraining.com

Our Website: https://frankandmaven.com/
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/frank-and-maven/

Host: Brandon Welch
Co-Host: Caleb Agee
Executive Producer: Carter Breaux
Audio/Video Producer: Nate the Camera Guy

Do you have a marketing problem you'd like us to help solve? Send it to MavenMonday@FrankandMaven.com!

Get a copy of our Best-Selling Book, The Maven Marketer Here:
https://a.co/d/1clpm8a

Brandon Welch:

Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. I'm your host, brandon Welch, and I'm joined by Caleb, Check out our fancy stop sign, Agee. You look good holding that we went to Home Depot and we bought that thing and held it up, didn't?

Caleb Agee:

we. Yes, yeah, it wasn't Canva magic.

Brandon Welch:

We're talking about our new thumbnail, and a couple weeks ago we challenged y'all to help us make our thumbnails look better, and we got some really good ideas. I think Silas wins the prize, yes. And his ideas led us to what you see on the little thing you just clicked on if you were on YouTube.

Caleb Agee:

It goes away too fast. As soon as you click on it, it loads up Cheers to.

Brandon Welch:

Silas, thank you. He gets a membership to the Mastermind. What is that? Why would he want?

Caleb Agee:

The Mastermind, the Maven Marketing Mastermind is really. It's kind of like this podcast, but on a deeper level.

Brandon Welch:

It's a two-way conversation.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, it's your way really to to be able to actually ask us live questions, cause I'm sure you have questions as you listen to this. You're saying but what about hey Caleb? What about that Brandon? What about? And um, the podcast really gives you access to be on a call, a group call, with other marketers and small business leaders, and, um, we get to answer questions live. People turn them in and, in a group setting, we all get to give feedback.

Brandon Welch:

We have community we have. We even take some stuff for our team and and like there's some, there's some stuff that's getting some pretty high level like editing work, and just like your little fractional version of this big awesome marketing team that maybe you maybe you have one, maybe you just want some more, maybe you have never had one, maybe you are trying to build one and you just want somebody beside you doing it.

Brandon Welch:

That's the Maven Marketing Mastermind. You can join that at mavenmethodtrainingcom. We're having a blast. We're already seeing some businesses grow and just like launch some things that they wouldn't have launched probably, if your name's not Silas, you should join that.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, silas will be there free of charge because he helped us.

Brandon Welch:

Yes, he will be there, and he will not remain, silas, oh, okay.

Caleb Agee:

Just see what I did there. I see it. Yeah, let's get to it.

Brandon Welch:

So if you've ever tried to grow something or you've been presented with a marketing idea or an advertising sales pitch, whether you realize it or not, you are about to choose a marketer. You're about to choose somebody to help you grow your thing, and the myths we talk about in the book is that there's this kind of assumption that we just need to get our name out there, people just need to know about it and then they'll buy it. We talk about some other myths that are the branding myth. Brand is a thing, but the way people talk about branding is very often like not.

Caleb Agee:

Misconstrued.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah, it's missing traction.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah.

Brandon Welch:

And then there's just a lot of things you're about to hitch your wagon to, and most of the time when people end up in our conference room, they're immensely frustrated that something is not working for them. They've probably wasted tens of thousands of dollars and they're just going, like I heard. You guys are the ones that might tell me the truth about this, and we're glad that that's our reputation, but we wish it didn't have to be in juxtaposition to the world. So this episode is first and foremost for you if you are considering either hiring maybe an agency, or maybe it's an actual employee or just anybody who has Just a contractor that might even do a one-off thing.

Brandon Welch:

Yes, yes, good people, Everybody has good intentions and we're not throwing rocks at our peers and our friends. But what happens all too often in the business marketing equation is that the artist or the website builder or the ad salesperson thinks their job is to do that thing and their job is not that. That is a byproduct. Their job is to grow your business. Their job is to make you more successful. And over the years, frankly, just hiring people ourselves and then kind of like aligning with certain peers in our industry Like there are a lot of other agencies we respect and have wonderful relationships with We've just kind of like gone. Hey, we don't have to be your solution. Actually, most of the time we aren't the ones that should probably move this plan forward, because we have limited people we can help. But we say if you're going to find a marketer, there are a few things that should go without saying. They should be kind of good at the thing. If it's a Google person, they ought to know Google. But also, you want these three ingredients and so we're going to talk about that.

Brandon Welch:

And then, inversely, if you are one of our media partner friends and you want to stand out as one of the ones. There's, like I would say, out of 50 media reps in any given town, there's one that is like a rock star. They are a consultant, they wear this. I mean no offense to any of the other ones. I've lived in that world. I love it. These are some of our best friends to this day. But the truth is that industry doesn't automatically require you to do this and they often don't reward it, so you kind of have to have your own fire for the things we're about to talk about. Yeah, and I would just say, if you want to be the one that is like, instead of having to go prospect for business, people are hunting you down to say, hey, will you do my stuff? I promise these things will be your friends. So, without further ado, we're going to talk about the three ingredients. You want to just say it?

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, let's say it the three ingredients you want to look for in a marketer are curiosity, empathy and business savvy. So I'll say that one more time curiosity, empathy and business savvy.

Brandon Welch:

That doesn't sound like google. That doesn't sound like, uh, award-winning copywriter. That doesn't sound like, you know, media buyer. Yeah, what does that have to do with my business, caleb?

Caleb Agee:

yeah, we're gonna. Well, let me tell you, yeah, albert einstein says, I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.

Brandon Welch:

I think of the old Apple ads and how they just highlighted these monumental people. Einstein was one of them. Musicians are like this and it's like the people that wake up. Just I want to know more about that. Turns out they learn more about that. Yep, and right behind every ad campaign that didn't quite hit the mark is somebody who just didn't ask enough questions. That's right. It's never missed technology. It's never probably lack of creativity. It's always lack of alignment. And how do you get aligned? And how do you get aligned? How does somebody who has the mission or the job of growing your company? How do they know if they're not asking enough questions? That's right.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, and it seems you know curiosity. You'll feel it very early when you sit down and meet with this person. If you're interviewing them or they're pitching you God forbid you will know pretty quickly if they're curious. It'll be evident. But obviously curiosity shows up most in questions and it's not just leading questions. Curiosity is genuine, it's real, it actually wants to know and you can sense that really really quickly in any person. That I think you can tell when you're in a line of questioning like a lawyer, and you're sitting on the bench and you feel like they're leading you Don't you want this and you're like uh-huh, uh-huh.

Brandon Welch:

And you can see that smell that's patting you on the head.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, you're like uh-huh, wouldn't you like this? Yes, I would Thank you, but curiosity is genuine and real and it's asking questions that have, I think, nothing to do with what that person is selling me or doing. It will have something to do with it, but it's okay if it deviates, because they are genuinely curious, in this case, about your business.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah, and that's where it's going to go. It's a creepy thing to say, but it's almost like dating. It's like you are. I don't know anything about that. I did it one time and I did a really good job. But it's like when you're getting to know anybody, you just everything's on the table. Tell me more about that right.

Brandon Welch:

And so we're not talking about light conversation, we're not talking about, you know, somebody who's good at being bubbly and all of that. Those are good skills to have. Personally, and, by the way, I want to say this any amount of training in a, in a media sales role, somebody who's that's their job and they've, they work for some sort of company with any amount of structure has gone through some sort of corporate training and what's very often called is the client needs analysis. Oh, cna, yeah, cna, bring it on.

Brandon Welch:

You know what? I love you, my CNA people, because at least we're doing that step. But very often it's just asking questions so that they can run right back and plug their product in as the answer yes. So we're not talking about that. We're talking about somebody who here's what it is If they take interest in how you started this thing or why you started this thing or why you do it a certain way, and not just to say, oh well, we should put that in an ad. No, Tell me more about that.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, they'll start saying things like tell me more. I think they'll catch those little pain points that you have that you'll maybe breeze over or you'll kind of say in passing, but a truly curious person will sense that and see that as a true thing that you have to resolve or solve and they'll ask you more about it. They'll dig deeper, they'll find those pain points and they'll want to understand, well, what's causing that, what's really causing that, and the thing behind the thing.

Brandon Welch:

And you will sense that as soon as it happens, and here's why that matters. Roy Williams said writing good ads is easy when you have something to say, and what they're doing now is they are allowing themselves the position of being your ad writer.

Brandon Welch:

Even if they're not the one actually writing the copy, they're the consultant that's going taking the things out of your heart that are making your company successful, whether you realize it or not, and they're able to read them back to you in a way that you don't know because it's so proprietary, it's part of your DNA. And when they can do that as a third party who is naturally curious, naturally like unreasonably excited about your business, then they have permission to go be your agent for the world, versus going through the motions to try to bring you back a package or something to buy yes, the motions to try to bring you back a package or something to buy, yes.

Caleb Agee:

Or or checking the box to fill out a canned ad script that won't move the needle or connect with a person yeah.

Brandon Welch:

And and that's, and I think this person does it with a posture of I don't know if I'm a good fit for you.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah.

Brandon Welch:

But I would love to learn more about you, like, if you feel any amount of that, you're on the right place.

Caleb Agee:

It'll show up. You'll see them uncovering unexpected things, things you didn't even realize maybe were getting in your way sometimes, and they'll really actually be able to get to the heart of a person. Because it'll show up. That curiosity shows up in writing big time.

Brandon Welch:

And to my media, people who are listening like find their origin story In the origin story which, by the way, we talk about this in the book. Guys, this could take hours. This probably does take hours, should take hours If you get good at it. Not that you want to rush it, but you can start learning the questions that work for you. But every entrepreneur will give you a surface-level answer oh, I'm the best, I just want to be the best quality, I want to be the. Maybe sometimes I want to be the biggest, or we want to have 100% customer satisfaction. They're just saying things that sound good because they think that's what they should say. What you really want is the person that will pull the story out of you that was not going to come out any other way until they politely grilled you and gave you the gift of their curiosity.

Caleb Agee:

Yep, so that's what curiosity looks like, and we really want to find people who truly have that curiosity. In that first interview, in that first meeting, yeah, you'll know it. And in that first interview, in that first meeting, you'll know it right away. But you'll know that they'll have enough of that curiosity to not just be a good marketer for you but also to pull off the kind of writing that you need. They will be a filter. Their curiosity will lead them to ask deeper questions.

Brandon Welch:

They won't just take you at face value, and they'll go further. Roosevelt said it best People don't care how much you know until they, and they'll go further. Roosevelt said it best. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, like you know that feeling. And then there's the why am I going blank on her name?

Caleb Agee:

People don't, will never remember what you said, but they'll always remember how you made them feel right.

Brandon Welch:

I can't remember the name.

Caleb Agee:

Goodness, somebody drop it in the comments right now.

Brandon Welch:

Catch us on the lack of our wisdom there. We're dropping bombs without credit, given. That's right. That leads us right into that's empathy, though right Empathy, and so curiosity and empathy are like they're a paired thing. I think to have genuine curiosity, you have to be empathetic, and empathetic is like I want to know how you feel, because if I know how you feel, I can make decisions on your behalf or I can make recommendations on your behalf. Empathy also says I'm second, I'm backseat, let me just see what you're up against.

Brandon Welch:

I just want to help you and if that leads to know my product, will also be a good part for that, or maybe maybe we part, as I just helped you. Yeah, Um um. We're talking about this quote yesterday Um, what if our work was never intended to make us successful, but simply to make us faithful and generous? Oh, it's such a bomb.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, Um that bar.

Brandon Welch:

Yeah, it's like if we are doing that, all fulfillment happens and good work naturally flows. So I'll get off the soapbox for a second. That's philosophical stuff, but, man, that matters. And if you're sitting here going, I've thrown money at this corner and this corner and this corner. Until somebody doesn't believe their job is to do these things for you, it won't be, and that's what you actually need. You need somebody who will slow down and get that for you. If they think their job is to be the ad person, then that's what you've hired.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, empathy will show up on two sides, right. They'll feel for you and you will feel them, understanding your emotions, understanding how you feel. But then, on the back end of this, when they go to create any sort of marketing materials for you, it's going to show up in them having to feel what your customer is feeling.

Brandon Welch:

Yes, we tell our people don't just get obsessed with your customer, Get obsessed with your customer's customer. And that is the thing that has to be true behind every effective ad person right. Like productive, effective, like true champion that's going to grow your company.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, the ad that will win every single time is the one that is empathetic and not clever when it actually speaks to the heart, the feelings of another human, the human that is your customer, that will always win over the prettiest sounding ad, the coolest looking ad, the most clever and unique ad, those will get attention Even the more scroll stopping ads. Yeah, they'll get attention, but they won't get a business change. They won't take an action because you didn't convince them and you didn't connect with them.

Brandon Welch:

And that's because to take somebody where you want them to go, you have to first meet them where they are, and that is empathy. When you can understand where they are, you got all the permission, all the credibility, all the trust, and it happens in a microsecond. And so if your marketer is not doing that for you, how in the world are they going to do that for your customer? That's right. So you're looking for people who are digging in, asking more things like what did she need to hear? Oh well, why did she say that? Or why do you think that's happening? Or what else do you think could be going on, Like they're asking these questions around the questions. That's demonstrating them wanting to understand.

Caleb Agee:

And when they pair this curiosity and empathy, it's a killer combo because they'll also dig in and say, okay, tell me about your customer. Like, tell me about your last five customers. What did they all have in common? Yeah, what do they like? What do they do in their free time? What kind of all have in common? Yeah, what do they? What do they like? What do they, um, what do they do in their free time? What kind of cars are in their driveway? What kind of house was it? What you can get? Very carefully, they will start digging into exactly understanding who you're talking to. And when you do that, add copy changes and everything changes.

Brandon Welch:

I think, as consultants, they're also asking like what's a home run for you? Yes, like if you could change anything about your business right now, what would it be?

Caleb Agee:

Yeah.

Brandon Welch:

And, by the way, that's a lot different. If you could change anything about your advertising right now, what would it be? And nobody's sitting around going oh, I wish I could change this about my advertising. It's about their business, it's about the life and the experience that they have. These are the partners you want, my friends.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, we ask questions like that. We ask them in different ways because we're curious and we ask it with different words, not as a tactic, by the way? No, not as a tactic just because we want to know, and people very often, even when they're our clients, will say hey, at the end of this year, everything's you know in life and business is exactly like you wanted it to be. What happened to make that true? And they're like well, this doesn't have to do with marketing. We're like great, can't wait.

Caleb Agee:

Tell me about it, and it's really interesting, because they almost feel like they don't have permission to say it in their marketing meeting and we're like, no, no, no no, no, no, it's like well, I really got to deal with this culture issue. Oh, tell me more, or I'd like to hunt and fish more. Yes.

Brandon Welch:

Or yeah, I'd like to buy five rental houses.

Caleb Agee:

Yep.

Brandon Welch:

Or I'd like to get debt free. Yes, like those things are huge for us, yep, and it might directly impact either the origin story we talk about or the talk or the analogies we use in their ads. There's this mirror um um neuron mirroring thing you can do somehow when you talk about stuff, the universe brings stuff to you right when you put it out there. So it informs a lot of the actual work later. But at the, at the core level, you you are building trust if you're the media person and you are just I hate this and I'm sorry if you're a very awesome, well-meaning sales rep or, sorry, sales manager for a media company.

Brandon Welch:

But sometimes you got to stop like giving these guys five and ten bullet points of just like, go get all the answers to these questions, run back to the station so we can build a proposal that just says that it's like, that doesn't work, that's fake. Yeah, you know, that's that's like, that's like the knockoff version of Dale Carnegie, right, these are tactics. These are the creepy things that will touch their arm a little bit, right? This is that is that is manufactured and manipulative. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about give yourself room to breathe, make your goal to have one quality appointment per day instead of knocking on 40 doors.

Caleb Agee:

Yep, that's it. Yeah, all right, that's curiosity and empathy. And third is business savvy. Now this is what separates the marketers from what I would call consultants. The first two actually do pull the. I think they separate the two as well. But, man, when somebody can step into your business and talk about business, that's a game changer. A marketer who talks about business, yeah.

Brandon Welch:

Some things that would just be. I think, man, it would be impossible for me to do the job that we do for our clients if I don't have immediate knowledge of what their average customer is worth to them, immediate knowledge of what their profit margins are. Because how in the world am I going to set goals inside dashboards and lead costs? Uh, I need to know what their appointment set ratios are, their close ratios are their followup ratios, their, um, their cancellation rates. I need to know.

Caleb Agee:

Their major services, profit centers. Yes, we've got to dig into all of these different. Where's the money come from? How much weight does each you know segment have? A lot of times, business owners, they're inside the box and they need somebody from the outside to ask them these questions, to show them exactly what's going on.

Brandon Welch:

Their CFO would do it for them. But their CFO does not do it in a fun way. Usually the CFO is delivering after the fact. You know bad news, right, You're going. What would you like it to be Like?

Brandon Welch:

Um we talk a lot about, hey, are you? Are you holding a 35 margin, like if you're a $10 million or you know better service company? You ought to at least be able to get a 35,. You know, to the bottom line. Sorry, gross margin is not the bottom line, but gross sales margin on minus cost of goods sold and all that stuff.

Brandon Welch:

So it's not that this can be an intangible, but there's some people that are just going to be really nerdy and really, really good at this stuff. They don't need to be a finance major or anything like that, but they need to understand the building blocks of how you get from um you know just doing busy work to being profitable and they need to know what that costs you to operate that and they need to know all the factors at play that could be against maybe, their campaign working. Because very often here, like we're, like, you don't have a lead problem, you have a lead conversion problem, and we've got 50 other examples of somebody who's converting appointments at a you know 40% better rate than you are, and we just need to coach you on some sales a little bit, or, or, or coach you on some scripting for your customer service people. Yeah, and that's a marketer, or that's actually a consultant, that is. That is somebody who is equipped to grow your business.

Caleb Agee:

Yeah, and I think this business-savvy person will. In our world we call it strategy, where we say what's the business objective they're going to take. They're not going to just say, well, I'm a web developer, you need website. You know what I'm saying. They're going to understand, even if they're just a I'll put this in quotes just a web developer. If that's all they do, they're a specialist. In some way. They should connect your website to some sort of business objective you hope to achieve Definitely. And if they can't or don't or are unwilling to, all you're getting is the rest of it. You're getting message and media, but with no strategy at the top. You know what I'm saying.

Caleb Agee:

And so we want to make sure we go all the way back to strategy and this person, when they're business savvy, they're going to start with now, what do you need your website to do? What do you need this campaign to do? What do you need on a holistic level? What do you need your business to do on a holistic level? What do you need your business to do? And then they will walk down toward empathy and curiosity and say, well, now who's the customer we have to talk to to make those things happen? And then they'll finally in the media section.

Caleb Agee:

This is the danger. Those people are going to be beasts at media. That's why they're, that's why they're walking in the doors. They're the best media buyer in the world and they're confident in that, in that. But they have to connect those first two pieces and this is where marketing gets off. Most often is because they're rock star web web developers, they're rock star videographers and or designers or whatever that's what you think, that you think that's what it takes to get to success yes and it's not you're going to have a pretty or funny product, but it is not going to translate into long-term growth for your business.

Brandon Welch:

Yep, I go back to a real quick story. Remember Kmart? Remember that place? Yes, At the end they were like circling the drain and they hired some big ad agency to make them like a viral ad, and boy was it viral. Do you remember the ship my pants? Ship my pants.

Caleb Agee:

Yes, ads, yeah, and they were like Enunciate, real clearly.

Brandon Welch:

Ship my pants. And they were like, oh I, I shipped my bed and I shipped my. You know it was hilarious, but of my like you know, young advertising career, I was like I want to write ads like that because they're funny.

Brandon Welch:

And then Kmart was. They were in the ground. Like two years later they were dead. They were completely shut down. Yeah, and it's like. Here's what they needed to have happen. They did not need to spend $50 million on some genius ad idea. They needed to find somebody who would say your store just sucks, man, Like. You just suck, yeah, Like.

Caleb Agee:

Well, if you think about the business objective on the ad campaign, it was don't come to our store, yeah. Oh yeah, it was. Ship it to my house. Don't come to my store, yeah.

Brandon Welch:

And then you, when you do actually go to those stores, the lights are flickering and their shelves are half cleared out but here's the problem grade a commercial space is really high for, as that's a, it's a lot to pay for warehouse space, yes, like you can go set up an e-commerce store for about a third of the rent. That's right In the industrial part of town. So that's a big, big example. Just saying that because some people may remember that campaign. But you don't just want to entertain people. It's going to be fun. You're going to high five and you're getting some likes and comments. And is it going to be fun? You're going to high five and you're getting some likes and comments. And, you know, is it going to be good for for news? Yes, but it is not going to be the the long term partnership or the long term traction to grow your business into something bigger.

Brandon Welch:

So James Clear said if you don't know the difference between principles and tactics, you'll always be chasing somebody else's playbook. Principles are the things we're talking about. You can only find things that wrap around principles when you are curious and empathetic and you have some business savvy. Tactics is like make me a funny ad. Any of us could write a funny ad.

Caleb Agee:

Tips and tricks will only get you so far. That's right, and I think you as a marketer, as a Maven Method type of marketer, you are going to really want to become this kind of marketer that we're talking about. I want you to challenge yourself to be more curious Next time you're in a meeting, force yourself to ask more questions, force yourself to ask why do they feel this way about this thing? And I'd encourage you just to plug into things that will make you more business savvy, even if it's outside your industry, even if it's outside of your world. We're challenging our team, even here every day, to grow in their business savvy, because that's what separates the marketers from the true marketers who can grow businesses.

Brandon Welch:

And this was not intended to say, oh, let's do this, because this is what we do. There are really good professionals out there. There are people who have exited themselves from being button clickers and ads and they've been like you know what? What I really want to do is grow small businesses. We share that mission. That's why we're here, that's why we show up. That is why we get so dadgum excited about your business, whether it's, you know, just starting or it's a hundred million dollar business. We, just we, we love that.

Brandon Welch:

Um, that is the thing driving this podcast. Uh, that's why we write books and give them away for next to nothing and we, you know, make notes and spend hours and hours of our time putting this together. That's why we do, um, carve out time for masterminds and the stuff we have coming to help you be a better marketer. I couldn't be more excited about, because that is our mission. We talked about this yesterday with our team. It is our mission to affect the lives of tens of thousands of entrepreneurs. We want you to be better, we want you to be more confident, we want you to be more clear, because when that happens, you affect the world in a better way.

Brandon Welch:

Your little business is more than your metrics. It's more than your livelihood. It's more than your livelihood. It's more than your people's growth. It is like, literally, the beacon of hope and the world we're going into. Big business is not going to change the world in a positive way. Big business is always asking how to do it faster, cheaper and with less people.

Brandon Welch:

You are a small business if you're listening to this podcast and you are finding out a way to do it with people, because that is who you live in, with and around and, just from the bottom of my heart, that is why we're here and thank you for being here. Before you throw money at another shiny object, just ask is the person who's going to help you spend this money curious, empathetic, and are they business savvy? And if they're not, send them to the Maverick Marketing Podcast, because we'll be back here every Monday answering your real-life marketing questions with curiosity, empathy and a reasonable amount of business savvy. Hope you guys have a great week. Oh, because marketers who can't teach you why holy smokes Are just a fancy lie. Now you can have a great week.