Ever wondered how to prevent marketing malpractice with a dose of operational transparency? Retta and Jared from In The Black Marketing pull back the curtain on their shift from iHeart Media to pioneering their own firm, where they champion the integrity of authentic branding and operational honesty. As they take us through their entrepreneurial journey, they share the keys to their innovative approach that not only promises, but also delivers, revenue-generating pathways for clients. It's more than just marketing talk; it's about walking the walk, and they're here to show you how it's done.
Dive into the heart of marketing with a discussion that goes beyond surface-level strategies. Together, we tackle the operational challenges businesses face in the marketing realm, from addressing the minutiae that can make or break a company’s reputation to differentiating genuine marketing expertise from mere salesmanship. Rhetta and Jared’s insider perspective will arm you with the patience and strategy needed to navigate the complex marketing landscape, ensuring that your business's growth is built on a solid foundation of understanding and meeting real needs.
Wrap up this comprehensive exploration with tales of 'riches in the niches', where businesses succeed by honing in on their unique offerings and building genuine connections through compelling storytelling. Our guests shed light on the art of thriving in today’s market by embracing continuous learning and the irreplaceable human touch. For marketers, whether novices or veterans, this episode is a treasure trove of actionable advice and heartening stories that underscore the transformative power of authentic relationships and specialized expertise. Join us for a conversation that's as enlightening as it is inspiring, proving that the right approach to marketing can lead to profound success.
Presenting Sponsor: Charleston Radio Group
Title Sponsor: Charleston American Marketing Association
Cohosts: Stephanie Barrow, Mike Compton, Darius Kelly, Kim Russo
Produced and edited: rūmbo Advertising
Photographer: Kelli Morse
Art Director: Taylor Ion
Outreach: Lauren Ellis
CAMA President: Margaret Stypa
Score by: The Strawberry Entrée; Jerry Feels Good, CURRYSAUCE, DBLCRWN, DJ DollaMenu
Voiceover by: Ellison Karesh
Studio Engineer: Brian Cleary
YouTube
Facebook
...
Ever wondered how to prevent marketing malpractice with a dose of operational transparency? Retta and Jared from In The Black Marketing pull back the curtain on their shift from iHeart Media to pioneering their own firm, where they champion the integrity of authentic branding and operational honesty. As they take us through their entrepreneurial journey, they share the keys to their innovative approach that not only promises, but also delivers, revenue-generating pathways for clients. It's more than just marketing talk; it's about walking the walk, and they're here to show you how it's done.
Dive into the heart of marketing with a discussion that goes beyond surface-level strategies. Together, we tackle the operational challenges businesses face in the marketing realm, from addressing the minutiae that can make or break a company’s reputation to differentiating genuine marketing expertise from mere salesmanship. Rhetta and Jared’s insider perspective will arm you with the patience and strategy needed to navigate the complex marketing landscape, ensuring that your business's growth is built on a solid foundation of understanding and meeting real needs.
Wrap up this comprehensive exploration with tales of 'riches in the niches', where businesses succeed by honing in on their unique offerings and building genuine connections through compelling storytelling. Our guests shed light on the art of thriving in today’s market by embracing continuous learning and the irreplaceable human touch. For marketers, whether novices or veterans, this episode is a treasure trove of actionable advice and heartening stories that underscore the transformative power of authentic relationships and specialized expertise. Join us for a conversation that's as enlightening as it is inspiring, proving that the right approach to marketing can lead to profound success.
Presenting Sponsor: Charleston Radio Group
Title Sponsor: Charleston American Marketing Association
Cohosts: Stephanie Barrow, Mike Compton, Darius Kelly, Kim Russo
Produced and edited: rūmbo Advertising
Photographer: Kelli Morse
Art Director: Taylor Ion
Outreach: Lauren Ellis
CAMA President: Margaret Stypa
Score by: The Strawberry Entrée; Jerry Feels Good, CURRYSAUCE, DBLCRWN, DJ DollaMenu
Voiceover by: Ellison Karesh
Studio Engineer: Brian Cleary
YouTube
Facebook
...
Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, powered by the Charleston American Marketing Association, broadcasting from our home base at Charleston Radio Group. Thanks to CRG, we're able to talk to the movers and shakers of Charleston, from economy to art, from hospitality to tech and everything in between. These leaders have made a home here in the Lowcountry. They live here, they work here, they make change here. Why let's talk about it.
Mike Compton:Hello, welcome to the charleston marketing podcast powered by the charleston american marketing association, where we have conversations about marketing with the who's who of charleston. We're recording here at the charleston Group Studios. I'm Mike Compton, president of Roombow Advertising goroombocom and your CAMA Director of Membership Experience. I have two guests today. I was very selfish and am the only host today because I wanted to talk to both Retta and Jared of In the Black Marketing. Hey guys, how are you Welcome to the show? Hey?
Rhetta Cloyd:thanks for having us.
Mike Compton:Yes, yes, very cool. I awkwardly get to read the bio in front of you that you wrote. Okay, poetically, I'm assuming, go for it. Jared Black and Retta Cloyd are the owners of the award-winning Charleston-based firm In the Black Marketing and Consulting. With over 30 years of combined experience in driving profitability for their clients and capturing the attention of the target audiences, this dynamic duo's core mission is to prevent other entrepreneurs from failing victim to what they call marketing malpractice. Through operational and financial transparency, combined with cut through, creative and relentless competitive spirit and an all-star team, they are disrupting the marketing game and generating legendary success for businesses and brands across the Southeast. I am going to start a voiceover for now on for In the Black, because I feel like I nailed that just now, I think you did.
Rhetta Cloyd:I was like bum, bum, bum. Yeah, you had it had awesome.
Mike Compton:I was waiting for the sound effects that comes in post. Maybe you can that comes in post. We can, we can, definitely we have that capabilities now. Uh, thanks for coming on the show and spending some time with me, um, and and our listeners, uh, talk about talk about you, talk about in the black what is In the Black's mission, jared. Go ahead, that's you.
Rhetta Cloyd:I have to look. I swiveled my head. This way.
Jared Black:We do have a mission statement, and shame on me. I probably should know it off the top of my head because I'm the one that came up with it. I think our mission is to innovate, create and implement something like that. Shame on me. Maybe we could dub this out.
Jared Black:No, this is good, this is a good practice here, we are going through a website redesign right now, so it will be on the website. And I think that's going to be a mantra for 2024 is to memorize our mission statement. But ever since we started in the black. Our mission has really been to do good really within the community whether that's for our clients or for the community. So, building a team around the marketing world and giving back to the community and providing what we like to say legendary results, that's what it's been.
Mike Compton:Oh, he's got your mission statement right there. This is great and in the black.
Jared Black:Our mission is to innovate, create and demonstrate revenue-generating pathways for our clients' long-term successes. So I got two.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yay, good job See.
Mike Compton:That was a cool thing, because it's very human of you as an advertising agency, marketing agency, to forget your own mission statement. Practice what you preach is such a tough thing to do and mission statements are always kind of shifting a little bit right. So your mantra this year is to learn your mission statement. That's awesome.
Rhetta Cloyd:Well, and to put some focus back on our brand, because it's been a minute.
Mike Compton:We talked about that, right? Yeah, we've been living in the trenches. Thank you, talk about that.
Rhetta Cloyd:I mean, I think that's kind of like any industry, whether you're a chef or you're a masseuse, I mean what you do in your free time, and so we're the same things at the end of the day. We love being entrenched in other people's businesses and understanding exactly what they need, what they want, that oftentimes we have to inspect our own selves, and so you know, obviously learning the mission statement is going to be one of them, because repetition builds reputation I bet at the end of the day, that's that's.
Rhetta Cloyd:That's something that 2024's goal is to make sure that we elevate our brand assets as much as we do our clients.
Mike Compton:Why is that important?
Rhetta Cloyd:Honestly, at the end of the day, we can't tell our clients what they need if we're not modeling that on a consistent, daily basis. And a website is an ever-living, breathing thing. That needs to be. It's like a baby it needs to be birthed, it needs to be changed. It needs to be birthed, it needs to be changed, it needs to be modified because it is constantly growing and changing and evolving, and so you can't ever just set something and let it go, and it's been probably three or four years.
Rhetta Cloyd:And when we first launched it we were like, wow, this is really cool. It looks great, Of course. But then you don't and you look and you analyze, you realize pretty quickly, yeah, we can do a lot better. In fact, we do a lot better every single day for everybody else. So that is our job now as the leadership team to be able to carve some of that time out to do that, but obviously not letting it take away from our day job.
Mike Compton:Yeah, right how long have you guys been in the black?
Jared Black:So in the black started in July of 2018, july, july of 2018, july 1st of 2018 I'll give you the quick backstory. Uh, so red and I have a previous career working together at iheart media and uh, I left in 2017. Red left in 2017. We both went kind of different career paths. I went to work for adams outdoor advertising, work out at non-compete, stayed there for about eight months, red went and I worked at advantage media, forbes books in their publishing downtown I had a client from radio that said hey, listen, I know you have your own LLC.
Jared Black:I know you want to start your own marketing firm. You've always been my guy. Why don't you pitch me and tell me what I need to do? So I did, and of course he signs it on the spot and says when can you start? I said got to give two weeks. How about July 1st? All right, so that works. So I started in the black July 1st, kind of fumbled my way through the first year and a half, but picked up clients along the way, sure I was working with an oral surgeon, robbie Kincannon from the South Carolina.
Jared Black:Stingrays called me, said Blackie we've got a new owner.
Ellison Karesh:We've got a new owner.
Jared Black:I've been doing that Did you, I played in college just in a club team oh cool Not to the level of Rob and what the Stingrays compete on every week but, all that being said, picked up, the Stingrays started helping with their media buys. And then, about a year and a half in, we're in 2019, and I found myself in a logo website project that I just couldn't get across the finish line. And I called Retta because she had started her own little side hustle marketing firm. She was kind of under the radar, working with a couple of brands, and I said listen, you've got a designer, a graphic designer. I need help. I can't get this across the finish line.
Mike Compton:I'm losing faith in my clients, losing faith in me.
Jared Black:Can you help? Gave her all the specs, and her and our now creative director, kay Goff, knocked it out in 48 hours. The client was ecstatic. I was like holy cow. That was great. Can we do more of this joint venture stuff so fast forward into 2020,? Retta had an opportunity to work with the Fitch family at Mount Pleasant Seafood and she said I'm going to bring you in, we're going to present ourselves as in the black and we went in. We pitched them, told them what they needed to do. They needed a new website. They needed to enhance their logo to celebrate 75 years of being on Chim Creek as a you know, three to four generation family owned business and then pitched them a marketing strategy. After that, they signed it and we launched their website in April of 20.
Jared Black:We all know what was happening in April of 20 around the pandemic and you know In the Black was pretty much born from there. The Fitch family had a banner year, the best revenue year that they ever had, and our business was growing. Name was getting out there and I said we got to like truly partner and bring you in on this thing.
Mike Compton:So full team was 2020.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, yeah, that's what networking can do for you. Right Collaborating Join and merge two brains together. And obviously we had a comfort level there from having worked together for many years at iHeart and you know it was an interesting dynamic because I was his sales leader and he was the star quarterback of the team, so to speak. And then, you know, have an opportunity to shift and let the student teach the teacher too.
Jared Black:Sure.
Rhetta Cloyd:And us understanding, because he had been in the agency business a little bit longer than I have. Certainly I had exposure with working with tons of agencies yeah, you know New York LA even mom and pops here uh-huh they're vastly different and there's no two businesses that are the same, particularly in the agency world so many fun questions.
Mike Compton:Where did you, did you guys go to school for marketing?
Jared Black:and advertising so I went to school for, uh, golf management. Actually I was. I used to school for golf management.
Mike Compton:Actually I used to be a golf professional, but I got a business. Come on, this guy over here.
Jared Black:I know this man over after my heart Okay, go ahead. Was a business major, concentrating in golf management. Obviously took a marketing class in business, but I was in the hospitality industry with golf.
Mike Compton:And when.
Jared Black:Retta and the management team at iHeart back in 2010,.
Rhetta Cloyd:I think 2010. Yeah, about 2010, 2011.
Jared Black:They said whenever you want to play golf or fun, you want to get into sales, give us a call. I didn't know what radio was and digital and all that kind of stuff, but I knew that I didn't want to work weekends anymore, so I took a leap of faith and entrusted all of my faith in the management and leadership team over there and got into sales and the rest kind of just took off.
Mike Compton:Yep, yep, yep. And then did you go to school for marketing advertising.
Rhetta Cloyd:Oddly enough, marketing is like the largest program or one of the largest programs at College of Charleston now, but when I was there. I won't date myself and tell you when.
Mike Compton:You spearheaded the program.
Rhetta Cloyd:The closest thing that you could get to marketing was a communication degree and they had two different tracks, which was corporate communication and media. And oddly enough I didn't pick media. I was really interested in the corporation side. I think it's because of the big, sexy title of corporations I was like, ooh, you know, add that to the resume, That'll sound good. But at the end of the day it just really gave me a love for business. It was a kind of a modification of a blend of business and communication and media and everything else.
Rhetta Cloyd:So I feel like that gave me some understanding on how the economy works and supply and demand and the psychology of how people make purchasing decisions.
Mike Compton:Yes, so interesting. It's interesting to know how agencies start and what backgrounds y'all had, because some, some agencies owners sorry, uh, this slur is brought to you by high tide ortho, go see dr trev over forgive my invisible line here I didn't even catch it right, but I
Mike Compton:did. Um, it's just interesting. So some agencies owners I can't say it some agency owners never even took a class in marketing advertising I'm a media production telecom communications degree you know, I'm not advertising whatsoever. Um, it's just you. That was such a great moment, right, learning everything, going to school and doing that right, but then putting it to use and your own, you know.
Rhetta Cloyd:For for iHeart was iHeart your first job going out of yes, coming out of college then yeah, I entered right into the workforce with iHeart because I had it. Honestly, I've loved content. I really didn't understand that, what that was, but I found myself.
Mike Compton:What was it then, though?
Rhetta Cloyd:right like yeah I found myself um. I had a relationship with radio djs. You know, growing up, my mom would never let us have cable because she thought it was going to ruin us um yeah, and honestly, once I found cable in college my freshman year with mtv it probably did I was watching more of mtv I'm sure of it. Yes, um, but I loved radio growing up so I had an affinity with that.
Rhetta Cloyd:Um, your imagination is greater than than what you actually see, and so, when I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do after graduation, it was a uh, a natural step for me to understand exactly how do people do what they do, what's the magic and the ingredient, and I was equally fascinated what was going on behind the microphone, as I was what was going in the oh, that's cool. The sales and the marketing angle. You know I was able to be there for 15 years and got to see it in all different facets.
Mike Compton:Oh wow, 15 years. Yeah, that's a long time to stay at one place, isn't it? It is.
Rhetta Cloyd:And, honestly, the evolution of just media and platforms in general.
Rhetta Cloyd:I mean, I saw when I first started, radio was just 60 seconds and then it went to 30 seconds and 15s and 5s and audio imaging and jingles and traffic and weather and all of those different things, and then seeing how it launched into the iHeartRadio Music Festival and iHeart Country, and you know it's a great company learned a lot and I feel like that is essentially what we're all trying to do is be a perpetual student of marketing, and even if I had studied deeply into marketing, I think a lot of that content would be your.
Mike Compton:Most of it would be irrelevant now well, yeah, and then you learn as you go yeah, you have to be a student, be a student constantly. I'm constantly learning and I like podcasts in that sense, because I'm constantly can learn from different people like today um you obviously well in listeners you can tell they're male, female, right they them. You want to do the pronoun thing?
Rhetta Cloyd:I'm a he him.
Mike Compton:Right, that's right yeah.
Rhetta Cloyd:He's he him and I'm she her. There we go, okay, so we got that out of the way. That's the first time we've done that.
Mike Compton:We should pat ourselves on the back for that one. You're a male team. Love it. That's what you're supposed to do.
Rhetta Cloyd:Personally, I feel like it affords us the opportunity to have somebody challenge our thought process. I think that's one of the key ingredients to a great marketing campaign is usually the first idea isn't the best idea. If you're surrounded with like-minded people, you're often going to always come to the same conclusion. So it's nice to have somebody that is hardwired, if you will, a little bit differently than I am, so that they can give me resistance or give me feedback that maybe somebody who would be my peer or even culturally, the same way as I think, as I do.
Rhetta Cloyd:There's so many vast differences, but we have a commonality. I mean, he's from the north, I'm from the south. He's a guy, I'm a girl. We have all of this blend and mixture and I feel like the blend of the two of us together offers our clients a different perspective. Plus, when we're talking about target audiences, it lends itself to have both faiths covered. Yes, we want to talk to the guy who wants to drive a you know Silverado or a high country. Or you want to talk to a lady who's redecorating her home.
Mike Compton:Right, like what I was saying in the pre-pro was like if everybody is agreeing and saying yes, nobody in the room is really thinking through the situation, whatever it is. What do you?
Jared Black:think, Garrett, I couldn't have said it any better, honestly. I mean she touched on all the points. We are two completely different people. Some may say it's oil and water.
Mike Compton:Some days I'm more or less say fire and ice probably more so fire and ice, or they already can't agree on that, but go ahead peanut butter to my jelly, you know some days.
Jared Black:I mean when, when things are really humming, they're they're humming, I mean, but business is hard at the end of the day and I would say that we do a pretty darn good job of, you know, staying within the, staying within the rails with, with our team, with our clients.
Ellison Karesh:Um, when you know there's good days and there's bad days, but you know you, you gotta be there to support each other.
Jared Black:Uh, I remember when I started this thing and was doing it by myself for the first year and a half, you really didn't have anybody to turn to. You know, right now having having a partnership and someone of the opposite sex who I've worked with in the past, that we've got a depth of relationship.
Jared Black:I mean, you know we're, we're, we're best friends. At the end of the day too, you really kind of lean on someone and just say, hey, I just, I need a couple of minutes, I gotta, I gotta vent. So it's, it's worked thus far. There's no book out there on on business and starting your agency I'm sure agency for dummies, if you will, If not, let's trademark that and coin it, but you know, it just works.
Rhetta Cloyd:Or even have a partnership. I mean, that's something that I'm the researcher, I'm the reader, I love to read and consume as much information as possible probably to a fault at times, but when we were talking about partnering together, I was doing a lot of research, trying to understand. You know, obviously you can see the benefits of partnership, but what are the roadblocks, what are the potential hurdles? There's really not, like you said, a guidepost to that. Honestly, when we were looking at local business owners, a lot of them are family-owned. They have multiple dynamics. Oftentimes he might be the point of contact for this person inside the business, or I might be the point of contact, so it does help itself out. But he's right in the sense that it can get lonely when you're running your own company.
Rhetta Cloyd:That saying lonely at the top, Now it might be top of the molehill you know, or top of the mountain, but it's nice to have somebody that you can say you know what the heck? Yeah, or good job. I mean I could, yeah, I mean honestly, you don't have anybody to say, hey, good job.
Mike Compton:I couldn't do what I'm doing without my business partner. Yeah, Shout out to George if he's listening.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yay.
Mike Compton:George, I'm sure he is, I'm sure he's listening. Best friend best talk about your team um. You've grown over the since 2020.
Rhetta Cloyd:I've noticed it yeah, we've, we've been intentional. Obviously, like jared said, I I already had a partnership with kate, who was actually, um, a high school best friend, college best friend. She's a lifer, uh, and she's probably the. If she is my one call, if I have a one call, she is on that list because I know she's always going to answer. So that was intentional.
Rhetta Cloyd:But everyone else I mean, when we said we wanted to build a team, we wanted to be super intentional because we'd lived in an environment and worked in an environment where there was a constant door of people going in and out, and that we know that the linchpin to anybody's business is the depth and strength of a team. And we grew up playing sports and so we understood that and we said, okay, this is the type of leader we want to be and this is the type of team that we want to create. And we wanted to have that same mentality of whatever it takes, that mentality of if the job requires this, then that's what I'm going to do, somebody that had that passion for the business and for the clients as much as we did.
Mike Compton:And we've been lucky, really lucky, so far you guys do a lot more than just surface level advertising and marketing.
Rhetta Cloyd:You guys dive into the business almost the business plan, yeah, the financials yeah, yeah, in some cases we have access to clients pos systems, their data, all of that to find the, the team.
Mike Compton:You guys know what? You love to do and that's part of it right Diving deep in finding what the root cause is and then finding the solution, but how do you? Find the people that your team that also has that same passion, I'm sure, minus having a best friend since college.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's going to do whatever I say. This is what we need to be passionate about. She's truly committed.
Mike Compton:But other people, other teams, like as you grow and as you're looking for a new teammate, maybe in the near future, what are you looking for that can also carry that load of diving deep into the?
Jared Black:business model. Yeah, I think it's important to touch on this and I'm glad that you brought up this question. At the end of the day, whenever we hire, we hire for what we need, not necessarily what someone's wanting. So we're trying to. It's the old added saying of you know, don't fit a square peg in a round hole and we've been very intentional with who we hire. If corporate America taught us anything, it's slow to hire, quick to fire. Luckily, we haven't had to fire anybody since we started this business. But you know, in that sense we're very intentional with who we hire and for the things that we need, because each one of our clients has a different campaign.
Jared Black:They have a different. We have a different responsibility for those clients of what we're doing each and every month. We know what our responsibilities are and our requirements to that client.
Jared Black:So it's our job as leaders to create you talked about culture, growing the team and telling them who we are, what we do, why we do these things and what the end result is. The end result isn't necessarily success for us. The end result is the success for the client, and if we can get the client success, then we're going to retain that client, which is then going to result in success for us. So it's our job as leaders and the owners of the company to instill that culture and the why behind what we do each and every day, and I think that we've done a pretty good job of that thus far.
Jared Black:We've obviously been able to retain our team and, although they don't have the tenure and the years of experience that we have.
Rhetta Cloyd:They have the skills and with time, they will adapt that.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, and honestly, at the end of the day, the thing that matters most to me and I could say this for him, even though we didn't mention it just then is character. Yes, being able to understand where they come from, what's important to them, what makes a difference in their life, who do they aspire to be, who's inspired them thus far? And asking those types of questions versus. So tell me about your certifications and tell me about your this, like I can look at somebody's portfolio, but I can't look and see like are you a good person? Are you going to have my, my back? Are you going to go into the trenches with me? If I have to go into the trenches with me? And so we've been super fortunate to be able to identify those qualities and people through the interviewing process. That's huge, because we want we want swiss army knives, people that have all kind of different tools, but I just want you to be a good human being that's it.
Mike Compton:That's it right. Yeah, finding that good human being that wants to get in the trenches that you that's right, and then you can pop out and look about that's right.
Rhetta Cloyd:And see what the future is after that.
Mike Compton:So what marketing malpractice? And how everything that isn't shiny isn't always gold. How everything that is shiny isn't always gold, that's gold right there. I like that, thanks. Talk about that Marketing malpractice. That's a retifor, oh now we have retifors Retifors, that's one of her many retifors, she's cringing.
Jared Black:This is her question. She's a bit cringing right now.
Rhetta Cloyd:I like to talk in word pictures and he calls them retifors, which is kind of funny. Yeah, yeah he. He is definitely the mastermind behind the business and the operations, but I can even tell with his comfort level. He's named two different businesses that we've worked with recently. They were struggling to find a business name. He popped it off just like that.
Mike Compton:I mean yeah.
Rhetta Cloyd:We all have our moments of glory. Just have to create that safe space of brainstorming.
Mike Compton:Well, that's the important part, especially when you're brainstorming. Having a safe space oh, what about that? About and honestly with the marketing malpractice side of things, yeah, where was?
Rhetta Cloyd:that um the way that we're able to achieve that is creating a safe space for our clients to be completely transparent yes so when we meet with somebody and somebody presents themselves as saying, hey, I need marketing help, um, oftentimes that's disguised in I have issues, I have problems.
Rhetta Cloyd:I don't know where to start, because they too are busy putting out fires every single day or handling employees, or handling a customer that put a bad Google review, or whatever the challenge is. Sometimes, when somebody needs marketing help, it is masked in what could potentially be shiny and gold. So that's our due diligence of being able to ask questions and create an environment where, one, we they know that they can trust us and two, they can be vulnerable, because as business owners, we never want to show weakness, we never want to say, hey, we need help, um, but at the end of the day, if, if we can gain their trust, then we can offer a different perspective that maybe they can't see themselves, to the point of you know, we do secret shopping, we do even helping them with their POS systems. Or what does their restaurant interface look like? Do they have the right imagery inside of the order form?
Rhetta Cloyd:I mean all the different facets that, at the end of the day, can make or break our business, because… All we're going to be measured on is did we generate more revenue this year than we did last year?
Rhetta Cloyd:But, if the pitchers weren't right on the menu, if the person who's answering the phone is in a bad mood every day between 12 and 2, if this person over here is chronically late and doesn't show up. All of those different things impact the bottom line revenues. So we have to do our due diligence first to find out out is it a marketing challenge, right, or is it an operational challenge?
Rhetta Cloyd:and oftentimes we find that there is operational improvements that we can help create, but we first have to be able to one get their trust to pop up in the hood, inspect all the wiring and say, okay, is this a tune-up or is this an engine rebuild you know right and sometimes it's the engine rebuilding and they're okay with, but the last thing we're going to do is start marketing and press the throttle on a campaign when we know at the end of the day, it's not going to be as efficient or work as well, or it might work for a small bit, but still the problem is going to continue to resurface because at the end of the day, that was a controllable that wasn't controlled and that's our job to do that.
Mike Compton:Yes, preach, on end of the day, that was a controllable that wasn't controlled, and that's our job to do that. Yes, preach on, reach on yes, because you can have a bucket load of money and you can throw it at us all day long, but all the shiny stuff in the world is not going to fix your I mean core issue.
Rhetta Cloyd:You can relate it to the medical industry. I mean you've got to walk in, you tell them the problems. It's up to them to be able to cover what is a real problem. Or am I just going to write you a script and send you out the door and tell you good luck? Right, you know right, and we found that a lot of folks do that.
Rhetta Cloyd:We've also understand the difference between really great salespeople and actual marketers yeah um, and, and it's our job to be able to understand exactly what the end result needs to be and how long, and manage that expectation. It might not be. We don't throw the throttle down until nine months after we've engaged in an agreement Because we're having to figure out a new user interface or a website, or hey, you need to actually hire two more people or you need to extend your hours. I mean, we've had clients that they were cutting their day off at four o'clock and I'm like, but no one gets off work until five. So you've got to be able to be open for business in order for you to be able to generate the sales.
Mike Compton:Yeah.
Rhetta Cloyd:So it's just little things like that, at the end of the day, that that we feel like are super important, that if you don't address, you are committing malpractice.
Mike Compton:Oh man, don't look and say that to me.
Rhetta Cloyd:I'm not, I know, not you, you're great.
Mike Compton:Oh, thanks, rata, yeah uh, that's that, that's it. That's exactly it. Like you know, um, the research is so important. Um, yeah, sorry, thank you for the note, thank.
Rhetta Cloyd:Thank you, I'm sorry, I get so excited.
Mike Compton:It happens a lot, though it does. Like I said, you know you could go all day and if you're not researching, if you're not doing your due diligence into a campaign, into a business, then you're just spinning wheels and wasting money. Exactly right you know what else, being contagious, being viral. There's so many great little topics here that I want to talk about. What do you want to talk about, jared? You want to talk about inspect before you expect. You want to talk about being contagious? These are all retifors, I'm sure.
Jared Black:They're all retifors for sure.
Mike Compton:I love it.
Jared Black:I can talk about the riches being in the niches.
Mike Compton:Riches in the niches.
Jared Black:That's something that we talk about all the time. It's you know, rather than being all things to all people, it's better to be you could either be all things to all people or be nothing to no one, right? And I mean you think of the old adage of like Chick-fil-A, Chick-fil-A, the original chicken sandwich. I mean they do one thing, they do well, they do chicken sandwiches raising canes. I love raising canes. Business model.
Ellison Karesh:Who doesn't love?
Jared Black:their chicken tenders, by the way you got four options right. It's either the big box, the small box. You get three tenders, four tenders, six, six tenders.
Jared Black:Sorry, just banging on the three three tenders, four tenders, six tenders or a tender sandwich, you know, and that's one thing that we try to tell all of our clients too is that you know, the riches are in the niches. So when we're coming up with creative ideas, we're trying to look for different pathways to revenue. It's you know, let's use a restaurant, for example, because I'm playing off of these fast food restaurants. If you are trying to create all these different menu items, because you want to sell this and you want to sell that, and you want to sell that and you want to sell that.
Jared Black:It's like why not just dumb it down and do volume for these three things, rather than having a menu of 30 different?
Mike Compton:Right.
Jared Black:So the riches are always going to be in the niches and just you know, finding one thing and really kind of doing it well, and identifying their superpower.
Rhetta Cloyd:I mean, every business, I think, has a superpower and something that makes them intrinsically different. And I feel like it's oftentimes when we don't know what to do, we go and look to the marketplace. And when I say we business owners look to the marketplace to see what everyone else is doing, and if they feel like they can do it better, they do, and if they don't, then they just replicate and duplicate. And it's at that point what makes you different than this person.
Rhetta Cloyd:So, even though you sell this product, even though you do this same thing. What is it about your business that we don't know that we can then tell everybody else, Because I know you had asked us a little while ago about millioris and that was something that is near and dear to our heart, and that's a great example of taking something that's super intentional and special. The milliori families has one.
Mike Compton:Talk about Meg's pizza real quick. Yeah, talk about the whole.
Rhetta Cloyd:One. They're a fantastic family and they are the benchmark and standard of how to be good human beings and they've been super successful in their own right and both Joanne and Don are successful in their current careers and former careers and all the other things. But they have a Dawn has an older sister, jill Marie, who has special abilities, and Jill Marie has obviously been the cornerstone of their family. She just celebrated, actually, her 65th birthday.
Rhetta Cloyd:We went the other weekend just celebrate actually her 65th birthday. We went nice the other weekend um, but instead of joe marie um being occupied during the day by um adult daycare yeah, adult daycare and things like that they wanted to create a model or a business that that really kind of married their two worlds together the love of italian cuisine.
Rhetta Cloyd:I mean you can't get more italian than milliori, yeah. And then, um, obviously joe marie. That really wasn't a focal point, though, when they first started the business. Love of Italian cuisine I mean you can't get more Italian than milliori. And then, obviously, jill Marie. That really wasn't a focal point, though, when they first started the business, but that is by far and away the thing that they do. The way that they care for their family and the people that they love is the same way they care for their customers, and so being able to showcase that and do good and eat good, it's just been a slam dunk, and it wasn't necessarily something that was intentional on our part. It just kind of curated itself, naturally.
Jared Black:Yeah, we had to find, like what Retta said, what their superpowers were. So, as Retta mentioned, their previous career, they're in the legal business, but they wanted to be in an Italian family, they have all these Italian recipes and they wanted to open up an Italian restaurant more so for a place for Jill Marie to go and work every day so she didn't have to go to adult daycare.
Jared Black:Jill has become the cornerstone and now the patriarch of that restaurant here in Mount Pleasant where she gets to go to work every day. She's the first employee there. She is excited to go to work every day. She folds pizza boxes, she puts stickers on the to-go boxes. We even designed a pizza box that is curated.
Jared Black:It's a custom pizza box and it even says made by the special hands of Jill Marie and her team that are on the side of it, so taking one of their family members, giving them even more of a purpose in life to come to work every day making that the story behind the marketing. It's really kind of elevated their brand. They now have over three, four, maybe even up to six depending on the summertime of people that work at that organization, work at that restaurant, that possess some sort of special abilities, whether they're on the spectrum or not, and people love it.
Jared Black:I mean, they're happy people to be around. Even the Migliore family sat on the board with the Mount Pleasant Chamber, the town of Mount Pleasant, just on the All-American City.
Mike Compton:Board. So, they were there for that, weren't they? Didn't they go travel, they were part of that initiative. They went and traveled to where Colorado?
Jared Black:They traveled to.
Mike Compton:Colorado. To do what? Now To the Mount Pleasant.
Rhetta Cloyd:Essentially, when you present that, you have to present a big presentation. Yeah, and part of that presentation initiative was making the city of Mount Pleasant special.
Mike Compton:Yes, whichever way you want to. Yeah, well, the mayor likes to call it the town of Mount Pleasant. Yeah, but it's a city.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, and they were a part of that, and them being so vocal about what's important and how this community in itself is a community that are viable employees, that can contribute to businesses, that can help shape shift work cultures.
Jared Black:All about inclusion, yeah.
Rhetta Cloyd:It's really a lot of people talk about it, but what do you do about it?
Mike Compton:Right.
Rhetta Cloyd:And they really have done a lot and modeled that a lot so much so, like Jared said, said they've worked to recruit and and they have exciting plans for the latter part of this year, um, with, uh, a new concept and and within that concept, is going to be a new restaurant concept all together we can't share no, I'm trying to dig in a little bit, aren't I?
Rhetta Cloyd:yeah, but um, but within that concept is is going to be space dedicated specifically amazing for those employees to continue to learn life skills. So it is, it's huge and um they've honestly inspired us to continue to give back, not only to their community, but also finding other communities within um charleston as a whole, of what can we do to help make a difference? Because you know you put good juju out there. Like taylor, swift says karma is real, so we've got a swifty.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, we've got to put good karma out there, so it'll come back to us as well.
Mike Compton:You know you were saying that that wasn't the initial point, wasn't to have it the way it is now, but as good people talk to good people.
Rhetta Cloyd:That's just how things form right well, yeah, you do the right thing at the end of the day absolutely, and it comes together well it's their purpose to open it for jill marie, but it wasn't their purpose or their intention, yeah, to talk about it talk about it, but at the end of the day that's, you couldn't get more authentic, and I think people have a radar for what's truly authentic and what's not.
Mike Compton:Oh, especially now yeah.
Rhetta Cloyd:And so just sharing their story with purpose has created a new purpose under the Millie Woodbury, which is exciting.
Mike Compton:It's great. I'm glad to hear that they're growing on that as well and having a different, a new venture possibly. I'm not going to say anything more than that, but they only not talk.
Rhetta Cloyd:It's still going to be Italian, we'll just say that Okay, that's a good little pivot there.
Mike Compton:We need a good Italian, like another Italian restaurant. Anyways, in Mount Pleasant they did it internally but they're also trying to grow that special abilities community, like how you say, special abilities. We just did a mini doc for the Disabilities Board of Charleston and the amount of work that they do at the Disabilities Board of Charleston. And the amount of work that they do at the Disabilities Board of Charleston they're covering like 1,600 different families different members and they put them to work.
Mike Compton:So I need to connect the mix with the Charleston with Evelyn Turner is her name. She is an amazing executive director and Layla Luna. Obviously you probably know her already. Layla, her son's and she owns. She started b, just b. Yep, yeah, everybody's here, leila, that's great. Okay, see through the mount pleasant chamber. I'm meeting a lot of these.
Mike Compton:A lot of these folks too, just building community and doing the right thing and and inclusion yeah, is so big, and it's not just in our little marketing world right that I like to talk about how we can collaborate, include everybody in the mix, but even with people with special abilities, even outside of our wheelhouse, we're always connecting and changing people's lives in one way or another, hopefully for the good.
Jared Black:Tying it back to marketing. It's content right. It gives us something to talk about and, with all the negativity that sometimes surrounds the world that we're in, it gives us something good and positive to talk about. And I think that's why it really kind of tugs at our heartstrings as well, as, you know, many other consumers.
Jared Black:So you know, tying it back and bringing it full circle to the riches are in the niches. There's always a story, regardless of the business that you're in. You've got to really uncover, going back to pop and open the hood. What's the why? What's the reason? Why are we doing this?
Rhetta Cloyd:And you know, I think as a whole, I mean you have to be different in itself to be an entrepreneur. It takes a special person to be an entrepreneur, and so what I found is that just asking questions and understanding why they did what they did, and learning their story. I mean it's crazy, the things that we've. It's like how did you go from A to Z? And, honestly, there's one key element in all of it, and I think it's just there's no fear in failing, because they all recognize that failure is a part of success, and so I have done my best as somebody who was always trying to present, as you know, having things.
Mike Compton:So Right Together yeah.
Rhetta Cloyd:Leaning into failure and cheering when you have failures, um and sharing when things haven't gone your way, because if somebody can learn so they don't have to repeat that mistake. It's kind of like parenting you're getting to share all these types of stories with clients and understand their why and what other businesses have they gotten into, because most of the time it's not just one business, right. They've. They've had different career paths, different, different, exciting ventures. So I think that's what keeps us so passionate about it, because every day is completely different. Heck, every hour is different of every day.
Mike Compton:Isn't that well? Yeah, as you know all too well.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, that's the fun part about marketing, but also the thing that's challenging. Is that frequency hopping and how well can you do that?
Mike Compton:It takes a certain person like my wife when she doesn't. She's a nurse, she's a nurse navigator now at Roper, starting next month, but she doesn't do marketing. Yeah, and you know, we get along just fine.
Rhetta Cloyd:She does people, though she does people, though she's in the people business. Exactly exactly.
Mike Compton:What does it mean to being contagious? Because you guys already, when I read that you're contagious in my world right now by doing good, you know the whole the big story, the building your team, even like. Even how you guys began, you collaborated, you were two separate entities and then you got together because you both had certain strengths right. Yeah, and you complemented each other right. I want to talk about how being contagious in your eyes is something that you know doing good and seeing the ripple effect.
Rhetta Cloyd:Sure.
Mike Compton:You know, especially in your employees.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah Well, when we talk about being contagious versus being viral, it's because, honestly, every person that we sit down with from the marketing perspective wants to go viral.
Ellison Karesh:I mean, it's like how does this work?
Rhetta Cloyd:and they they somewhat get confused about does. Does the number of likes or does the number of shares equate to the bottom line revenue? And that's part of the education process is. No one loves social media more than me.
Mike Compton:I'm embarrassed if you looked at my apps and my time spent on social media, yeah um, it would blow your mind, I hate it when I get the update on my ip. Screen time went up 14%.
Rhetta Cloyd:Oh no, no, my son, he's like you're doom scrolling. There's no purpose Is that another.
Ellison Karesh:It's like my stimming.
Rhetta Cloyd:I'm sitting there scrolling with my thumb.
Mike Compton:Doom scrolling. Your kid came up with that one.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, he's going to be a marketer one day, oh my gosh. But at the end of the day, when we're sitting there and we're talking to clients and you know a lot of them in the beginning at least want to have their brand on social media. Great, we can help you do that. And then, obviously, understanding and educating them that variability doesn't always transfer to revenue.
Mike Compton:Yeah.
Rhetta Cloyd:But what are the key benchmarks? What are the markers that are really most important to the bottom line?
Mike Compton:Mm-hmm.
Rhetta Cloyd:And not to say that….
Rhetta Cloyd:It's not always ROI, it's not always money, right I'm sorry, yeah, no, you'd rather count your profits than the number of profiles that have followed you. So you know, when we're sitting there and we're looking, it's like, okay, yeah, sometimes the number of followers transfers to revenue, but it's not an all-time thing and I would rather look and measure of what's really important. And sometimes we've got to remind them like, yeah, we grew your audience by 12% and we've got the engagement up, but there's some categories of businesses that it's not.
Rhetta Cloyd:You know the likelihood of us making you a social superstar is slim to none, but we can make you a rock star in your personal life, you know, with giving you opportunity and assets, if we were able to generate the outcome from a revenue perspective and we're able to do that. But I mean it's, that's the buzzwords. I want to be viral, I want to do that.
Rhetta Cloyd:And a lot of folks you know can do that, make that happen. But that's not our primary concern at the end of the day. Our primary concern is profitability, because even you can throw up big numbers. So Our primary concern is profitability, because even you can throw up big numbers. So we did X amount a million or seven figures eight figures. But were you profitable? Right, you know, because at the end of the day, if you weren't profitable, if you spent too much money to make that happen, then, yeah, really, what's the big number?
Mike Compton:Right, and so sometimes I think you know, the way I read.
Jared Black:The be contagious part, though, is also just like speaking authentic, speaking your true self, and then the revenue comes that's right, that's right, you know um a prime example of that here in the marketplace, you know not that they're a client of ours, but I know, mr bill watts, on a personal level, is gerald's tires and brakes yes like you know, they treat the ladies right. Yep always give them a rose. Smiles are always free right. So you know you got to give the watts family, you know, all the credit in the world yes for being able to to compete in such a crowded marketplace of tires and brakes, so being contagious of telling people over and over that they know how to treat the ladies' smiles we're all free and we were just having fun, right, as opposed to….
Rhetta Cloyd:And nothing about tires and brakes. Nothing about tires and brakes no.
Jared Black:When my wife got the Rose, I'm like who's giving you?
Mike Compton:what's going on here? She's like no, they just gave me.
Jared Black:I'm like oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, they're contagious, they're not viral, and they don't need to be viral Exactly Because they're yes.
Rhetta Cloyd:And that's something, too, when we're looking at inspecting is like what's what's going to be the thing that creates people to talk about you or want to post about you. There's a great book actually called Talk Triggers by Jay.
Mike Compton:Baer, what is it?
Rhetta Cloyd:now it's called Talk Triggers.
Mike Compton:Talk Triggers.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, it's basically. It lends itself to say if you do business really really well, you don't actually have to invest in marketing. I can make a case for either way. I could debate it. I was going to say yeah, but if you are really great at service and you look at the people in our community who have built a brand off of what we call white glove service, that's how you become viral. That's how you become contagious is when you do something and you do it super well.
Mike Compton:Who's your catering client again.
Rhetta Cloyd:Hampy Catering.
Mike Compton:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rhetta Cloyd:Iconic, iconic. Right, they're a Charleston staple.
Mike Compton:Yeah, when I see their brand, I think White Club Service. They make just really good food and I think Charleston Thanks.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, that's a huge compliment to them. Candice and her team over at Hamby are great partners of ours, but they're a great example of how you can take something, um that is iconic, but add new ingredients all of the time and continue to evolve with the company and what she's been able to do, um, by the passing of the guard of miss franhamby, who started at 1979, to candace taking it over in, I think, 2017. Um, you know, she's inspiring, as if as a female boss leader too yep, yep, so are you ready?
Mike Compton:how about that? Thanks, I mean, we talked about a lot. Is there anything that you guys can give our listeners that's more of like, you know, a key takeaway? Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. Stephanie stephanie's back there making sure I do what I need to do.
Mike Compton:Thank you, steph, keeping you on keeping me on track, as a woman will do for sure um touche guys, that's right so I was wondering about, you know, key takeaways, especially for a younger type of marketer and advertiser, these kids, these young adults that are coming out of the College of Charleston. I noticed you're kind of are you there a lot? Yeah, are you adjunct there?
Rhetta Cloyd:too. No, not yet. That's my retirement plan, if I can help it. Same, I've got to get my master's first, but yes, but at the end of the day, yeah, I still am very involved. I'm actually still involved in my sorority.
Mike Compton:Oh, is that what? It? Is? Okay, yeah, yeah.
Rhetta Cloyd:And so I'm able to mentor different young women who are across the Southeast.
Mike Compton:But in terms of advice, and I'm sure 90% of those are marketers.
Rhetta Cloyd:A good bit I can believe it.
Mike Compton:You know I'm exaggerating a little bit, but yeah, a good portion of them want to be influencers. What do you say, yeah? What do you yeah? Influencers oh my gosh.
Rhetta Cloyd:Honestly, what I tell them is that, again, you can't be afraid to fail, yeah, you can't be afraid to ask for help and you can't be afraid to try something that you've never done and that, honestly, I think is bode well for me and Jared in our business, because what I knew how to do in 2003, when I entered into this field, is completely different than what I do now and if I wasn't a perpetual student, like I cringe when somebody says expert yes our cult refers to me as an expert, because no one's a marketing expert you can't be at the end of the day you.
Mike Compton:My favorite was an AI expert, yeah, and who was giving certifications in this it changes all the time. So, anyways, that was a little thing, and if you're an expert and you know.
Rhetta Cloyd:Enjoy the 12 minutes, because something's going to change by the time we get off of this podcast, but at the end of the day, you have to be a perpetual student.
Rhetta Cloyd:I think in honestly anything that you do, whether you're in medicine or legal precedence, is being set in different scenarios and different categories of business every single minute of every single day, and there's something new to be learned, and it's up to us as marketers, I think, to share repeatable successes and allow everybody to put their own flavor and their own spin on it, but also, you know, to my younger self or to the youth. I would say that you need to have a hard skill which is something that's completely different, I think, from when I was coming out of school.
Rhetta Cloyd:We learned a lot of theory, but I need to see what you can do right, you know right I need to see if that's great that you took a class about google, yeah, but what can you do with? It yeah um, so getting those hard skills and that's to me. Now I I look at those. That's everything I'm saying. I'm like go to google university, get the certifications for google. Get the certifications through meta there. Get the certifications through Meta. There's like seven of them that are free, so do all those things and learn. Find a hard skill and be great at it.
Mike Compton:Yeah.
Rhetta Cloyd:And be fantastic at it, and then you'll be undeniable and probably the highest paid person in the room if you're the best at that particular skill.
Mike Compton:Yep.
Jared Black:The riches are in the niches. That's right. And then, dovetailing off of that, my key takeaway to anyone listening would be we're in the people business, regardless of the type of business that you're in. You could be in the restaurant business, you could be in the medical business, you could be in the car business. You could be in the radio business. People buy people at the end of the day and certifications are great.
Jared Black:I don't want to discount that. I went to college. I got a four-year degree, five and a half actually. Same, yeah, but yeah, that's right. All that being said, you know school doesn't teach you how to interact with people and I think it's so much more important now and even as a marketer any marketers that are listening they might be cringing when I say this, but we're so connected to our screens. We just just talked about screen time. I'm embarrassed to look at my screen time that it's eight hours a day.
Jared Black:I'm in marketing, so I've got to look at it. I've got clients that are texting me and calling me.
Mike Compton:Emails are part of the screen time, by the way You've got to separate yourself, and you've got to separate yourself from the iPads.
Jared Black:You've got to separate yourself from the phones. I know it's difficult, but we talked about networking. You got to get out there and you got to network. You got to talk to people. You got to be engaging. You got to have some sort of personality. I understand introverts and extroverts, but you know, get out of your comfort zone. Like Retta said, teach yourself something new. And that teaching yourself something new might be people's engagement and interaction. I always attribute the golf business. The golf business has launched me to where I am today. When I was 24 years old, I was running a golf operation and I was hiring and firing kids that were 16 years old and then managing people that were semi-retired, well up into their 70s.
Jared Black:I'll be damned, I'll tell you, that business taught me more than any college class or any marketing class could have ever taught me as to how to interact and how to engage with people. So, anybody that's listening. The key takeaway is you're in the people business. Treat people right. Do the right thing. Always do what you say you're going to do and never over-promise and under-deliver.
Mike Compton:Ooh, that's it.
Jared Black:People, business, those aren't retifors, those are not.
Rhetta Cloyd:Those are all blackies, blackies.
Ellison Karesh:Whatever?
Rhetta Cloyd:they are and it's a great reminder too, because I don't have a challenge paying attention, I have a challenge regulating my attention. And I get laser light focus sometimes down the research path or down the trial and error path, and that's another thing that lends itself well. It's like look up, just look up, exactly.
Mike Compton:Yeah.
Rhetta Cloyd:Just the perspective of having somebody say look up, you even say smile, like before we're walking into a club because I'm so focused on what I'm thinking about or what ideas got me excited that I just I forget that a smile can just go a long way. Somebody feel comfortable to tell you all the things you need to do to be able to help them.
Mike Compton:It's a game face. Okay, people, I don't have to smile, right, it's a game face, that's right, but a smile does go a long way, for sure. And to kind of put your both together, your both inputs there, I was at a College of Charleston marketing thing the AMA did not too long ago where it was a mentor, mentee thing, and so it was like a speed dating thing. So please do it next time. Cool, yeah, you guys, let's do it next time. Um, it was amazing experience talking to these young people and and I said, okay, I'm building a team, it's going to be, I'm making it up. Uh, the chess team needs a logo. I'm building a team because I need a portfolio and this is going to be.
Ellison Karesh:I'm just throwing it out there.
Mike Compton:What are you going to do? What's your part of the team? You're on my team right now. What are you going to bring to the table? What kind of hard skills do you know?
Mike Compton:Or are you just the organizer? Are you the producer? Find out what you're good at. Hone in on it. Learn everything what you're good at. Yeah, hone in on it. Learn everything else. Find out what you got, hone in on it and then build your team. Treat people the right way, ask them for help. Right, like just kind of put yourself out there so they can put themselves out there, so that we can all make this great chest logo yeah, you know what?
Mike Compton:I mean, and then if you, you know, as a kid you don't have experience, but you can make it up and and you can build the team and, like I said, you can go to the volleyball team and say, hey, do you need something? Or anybody, whatever.
Jared Black:What's your passion? Make shit up, that's right.
Mike Compton:And then build. And then grow Practice, they may not have a marketing experience.
Rhetta Cloyd:but we're a mosaic of all of our different life experiences and every life experience can be applicable to a business lesson. You've just got to help sometimes connect the dots and find the common thread, Somebody that can do that.
Rhetta Cloyd:well, that's what connects me to them is somebody that can find the thread in the storyline and make that the most interesting thing. Even when I watch TV or movies or whatever else, like Will and Grace, jack and Karen were, to me, the stars of the show versus Will and Grace, because they took that thread of storyline. There's no small parts, there's no small roles, there's no small experiences. How do you leverage what you do know and make for maximum impact?
Mike Compton:In the Black, I like it In the Black, so obviously the last name impact. So in the black, I like it in the black, so obviously the last name. But you know, in the black, you know you're doing a financial thing there. What are we doing with?
Rhetta Cloyd:it's a play on words you can't.
Jared Black:You can't operate a business in the red, ah, only operate a business in the black.
Mike Compton:So you gotta go to the black marketing. That's right. Yes, I love it. That's great. Thank you, uh. What else you guys want to talk about? We can wrap it up. I mean, I'm having a great time.
Rhetta Cloyd:I'm gonna like take callers, like call or not. Can we go live on the board?
Mike Compton:no, no, we can take reviews, though that makes me think about we can. You can make comments as well. All nice, nice, all right, all nice, all nice, for sure.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, no, it's funny because, like I told you, I love radio. So the fact that oh yeah, you know sitting behind the mic.
Mike Compton:I'm like let's go, let's keep going. Yeah, let's keep talking. Well, we'll have you on next time. You know what?
Rhetta Cloyd:would be fun is if you had employees of the different people that you've had on here.
Mike Compton:Get their perspective, because I'm sure they would probably. Oh, they would talk crap about you, wouldn't they? Yeah, they'd be like whoosh, they'd say whoo.
Rhetta Cloyd:Well, I'll tell you, our team members are probably a lot more entertaining than we are, for sure, Nonsense.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, no, get their perspective too. At the end of the day yeah, 100%, and I'm sure they have a lot to share. Yeah, honestly, I love hearing their perspective on particularly our two team members who I would say are four or five years post-college the advice that they would now give to somebody and they do when because a part of our hiring process is actually including our team. So we, oh uh, we vet out different resumes and and things of that nature, but then we also send basically like a personality test. But it's not a personality test like the enneagram or anything else. It's like who would you want to go to dinner with? What's your favorite book like?
Rhetta Cloyd:just get to know them just yeah, just get to know them. Like, are they going to tell me some literary masterpiece? Are they going to be truthful and tell me it's the trashy novel that they read? You know, it's just those things that intrinsically make people unique, and so if they take that initiative to actually fill out and answer those 10 questions, that right in itself weeds out the pool, because some folks just won't even take the time to fill out. It's crazy, right.
Jared Black:Yeah, there's three steps. Retta has implemented this three-step hiring process Love it. And the last step and I think that this is important goes back to the culture that we had talked about. Your last step, your last interview process, is interviewing with the entire team outside of Retta and I. Now, as a small business right, that's got a team of six, like if we were a corporation. I couldn't imagine someone interviewing with 20 or 30 people.
Jared Black:Yeah, but it's worked well up until this point. Well, why is that important? Well, we've got to work together every day. We've got to communicate, you've got to be present. You've got to talk to people. We're not working remotely. We ask people to come into the office as marketers.
Rhetta Cloyd:We've got to collaborate, we've got to come up with different to hear their take, because part of the role is that they do a kind of like a roundtable interview, roundtable zoom, um, and I I give them assess, yeah, they, uh, they assess different things about their personality that they like and don't like and either swipe right or swipe left. Yeah, um and then the notes and the columns. I'm like but you can't share.
Rhetta Cloyd:This is a collaborative effort, but you can't share yeah, and it's interesting the things that they again pick up on yeah, that's why it's important to have that level of collaboration, and we wouldn't be able to do that if we weren't a tight-knit, uh family, so to speak, and even our office is the an open-air office space so that we can just look up and say, hey, what do you think about this? Or read this, or how's this going? That's the stuff that you can't get through a screen. You have to look up and have that interaction. And, man, our team's special yeah, and they're all local. They're all here. Yeah, they're all here.
Mike Compton:Very cool. Yeah, why Charleston For you? Where are you from again?
Jared Black:So I grew up in Pennsylvania.
Mike Compton:Sure.
Jared Black:Went to school in North Carolina.
Mike Compton:Okay.
Jared Black:Moved here in Charleston in 2009. And you know, growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania and growing up in a single-parent home, it proposed its own challenges. You know, whether it's you it's not making a sports team or not having a father figure, that's always kind of there. I don't kind of hang my hat on that stuff, but sometimes you've got to go away and see other parts of the world to really kind of understand what's out there and how you can appreciate where you've come from. One thing about Charleston I moved here, as I mentioned, in 2009, and I was in the golf business and golf has given me an opportunity to network, obviously getting into sales. Working from iHeart has expanded my network to see business owners and other types of businesses and industries and networking. And one thing that I've always done because I come from a very small family, I don't have any siblings. It's my mom and I and then my uncle. I looked at my friend group as my family and my network as my family.
Jared Black:I mentioned earlier in the pre-production meeting that if you embrace Charleston. Charleston will embrace you. That's not just with business, that's with giving back within the community, that's within the golf network. It's not just with business, that's with giving back within the community, that's within the golf network, it's with restaurants, I mean, you see it, I mean the food and beverage scene here is, you know, it's amazing. Not that I'm a local bar guy.
Mike Compton:You know you're not going to catch me at you know a bar for happy hour.
Jared Black:But when you go into these local places and the bartenders know you or the servers know you I mean Halls was is a prime example of of culture and embracing you, but, um, you know what? What bad is there to say about Charleston?
Jared Black:And that's rhetorical. No one, no one, could say anything bad about Charleston, the, the people, the culture, the community, um, the history that's behind this city and now the big business that continues to move here. I mean, there's no other place that I'd want to be. I've worked all over this country. Charleston's it for me. So, whether it's marketing or picking up trash, this is it.
Rhetta Cloyd:We're going to keep this marketing thing going for a while. Awesome, yes.
Mike Compton:I love that. If you embrace Charleston, Charleston will embrace you.
Rhetta Cloyd:It's true, and I've seen the evolution of Charleston. I came here in the fall of 1998. I'm from a very small town called Lugoff. That is where the lug came off. The truck. It is not a town, it's not a city, it is a community.
Mike Compton:Okay.
Rhetta Cloyd:And it is the most special place. We call it God's country, South Carolina. Yeah.
Mike Compton:South Carolina.
Rhetta Cloyd:So if you were going between Columbiaumbia, and florence about middle way. Sure is where lugoff is lugoff elgin um shout out to lugoff that's right, ellie, demons, that was our mascot, okay, yeah, yeah they.
Jared Black:There's a whole group that wanted to change our mascot for years because the demons, the demons did not translate well in the Bible Belt Small plug Retta was the 2022 commencement speaker for the high school graduation of the Lugov. Yeah, Alright.
Rhetta Cloyd:Congrats.
Mike Compton:Yeah, thank you I appreciate that.
Rhetta Cloyd:That was a. You know came a long way from a teacher that called me average.
Mike Compton:She didn't know shit anyway. I mean, she didn't know what she was talking about anyway.
Rhetta Cloyd:Right, you know again. That's why I'm so passionate about trying to figure out what it is about somebody's superpower. Yes, because it may not be reflected on a standardized test 100%.
Rhetta Cloyd:But the reason why I chose I'd like to say I chose Charleston before Charleston was cool is because I had parents who actually were lovers of American history and because I was the surprise baby, I had the opportunity of benefiting from having older siblings but also having my parents just the two of them. And when I was really little, when we vacationed, we would go to Myrtle Beach.
Rhetta Cloyd:But as I became older, obviously they would expose me to Charleston and I just fell in love with history, and I am a big believer that if you don't learn from our past, that we're going to repeat it, and so understanding how you know America came to be, how Charleston was so important to the founding of this, country. And not only I mean. You talk about entrepreneurship. This is where it was. I mean and the College of Charleston being the first ever municipal school college in the country to exist.
Mike Compton:I guess I didn't know that. That's pretty cool.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, yeah and I fell in love with it. I remember I was 13 years old. I came to Charleston, walked through the Cistern Gardens, saw this written in latin, actually went back, looked in the library in middle school to sell my brain works. I wasn't studying for my english test, but I was going to look. What does this, this phrase, mean?
Mike Compton:in the library that has a rolodex of books that you know not the internet, yeah, you know, not google that's right.
Rhetta Cloyd:The periodic table with all the fans yeah, we can get back um was uh, this word written in latin and it was to know thyself. Okay, and that is above the cistern. That's uh, and honestly, I think that's the kind of the story of college at ralston you walk in and you don't know really who you are, but when you walk out, you do and you understand exactly how the city can impact you and how the history of this country and you just, I think you buy a product, you get a minor in history by going there, even if you don't take a class, because you're learning something new every day if you just stop, pay attention and read what's on that placard and what's on that wall.
Rhetta Cloyd:And so I've just honestly fell in love with it. And to see the change in the evolution is really cool, and with the explosion, obviously, of the digital age, it just opened up the door of so much more. And so, you know, I think tourism is great. It's the cornerstone of this city, it always has been. But it's the spirit of Charleston, I think, and you know, you've seen it time and time again when you're not supposed to be strong, when you're not supposed to be a community, when you're not supposed to, you know, have this positive attitude, somehow Charleston in itself inspires people to be their best self Sure, and I think College of Charleston, at least least, was the foundation for me for that way, and I think it just has that ripple effect through the city. So it's not a university or college that is in the middle of the city, it's the college and university that's the middle of the community.
Jared Black:And the culture.
Rhetta Cloyd:And. I'm just really fortunate and blessed to be able to have gone there, and it's still pretty cool to be able to turn around the corner and walk the same streets that I did when. I was 18, 19, 20 saying maybe one day I'll have a business down here, maybe one day I'll have you know if it weren't for this guy, I probably wouldn't so.
Rhetta Cloyd:I appreciate the fact that the business side of things I can think of some cool things right, of wars if you will, but he can bring them down from 30,000 feet and make them turn into reality. So it's a it's a great perspective, that's a true partnership.
Mike Compton:That's right, yeah, know thyself.
Rhetta Cloyd:No, to know thyself to know thyself. That should be your mission statement you know what, that'd be a lot easier to remember I'll like bring that around for you.
Mike Compton:Jared, my bad I appreciate it.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, no, I just hope they stay in the the podcast long enough to listen to get to the good right exactly, exactly.
Mike Compton:Of course they are. Thank you, listeners. Um I mean, let's wrap it up, yeah. This has been a lot. Is there anything on your heart, on your mind, that you can? Because Charleston, to your point, has brought the best side of me out. I can feel that, okay, so you're right, charleston just brings out the best, and your point of if you embrace it'll embrace you.
Jared Black:I mean, all that's true. It's crazy, it's crazy. I think it's important to just say thank you. Thank you to you and Stephanie, and the American. Marketing Association for Charleston chapter for having us and continuing for us to be a part of the organization. I know that we're not as active as we'd like to be, you know, because we're a lot down.
Rhetta Cloyd:But we're getting out of the trenches, we're getting out of the trenches you do Spark, you guys join. Spark. We do and I actually do take advantage of a lot of the blogs and the resources that are available to us digitally through our membership.
Mike Compton:Oh good.
Rhetta Cloyd:I'm just not as able to go to the before or after. But that's our commitment again to ourselves this year is to get out of the trenches a little bit more. We are looking for leaders.
Mike Compton:So I will take you on that commitment. Yeah, because I understand the agency owners and myself. If you don't have the time, you have employees that might want to help and become leaders in some way or another.
Jared Black:Yeah, I'm asking you guys for sure, yeah.
Mike Compton:But I understand, if you know, and to other agency owners, we are always looking for leadership in the organization. You know I think you and I said it at a Sparkware like steel sharpens steel, we're all in the same boat together and we're not competing for the same clients, even though sometimes that might come across but we're all specialized in different things. We can all work together and make this community even better, even stronger as a marketing team, for sure.
Jared Black:I think it's important too to thank our clients.
Mike Compton:Yeah.
Jared Black:You know, without our clients, rhett and I and the rest of our team wouldn't be here. I mean, they embrace us. It goes back to Charleston you know, Uh-huh, I'll give a shout-out to Dr Jason Hare. He took a shot on me back in 2018, and then Rob Kincannon, you know, 90 days later. And then, obviously, we mentioned the Milliori family Hamby Catering.
Jared Black:The list could go on and on, but if it wasn't for their continued trust and support in our team, you know we wouldn't be able to take time out of our day to be here and talk about our success and what we've seen and how we've been able to grow and what really the future holds for not just us but them, and why their success is so important to us.
Mike Compton:That's great, you guys are doing something right.
Rhetta Cloyd:Thank you. Thank you, we appreciate it.
Mike Compton:Thank you. Oh, we got applause.
Rhetta Cloyd:Yeah, keep going, we need a light. Keep clapping, applause, applause.
Mike Compton:Rhonda Jared.
Rhetta Cloyd:thank you so much Thank you, we appreciate it it was fun, I hope so I hope you guys had a good time.
Mike Compton:You can tell me later if not. I'd like to thank our sponsors, charleston Radio Group and the Charleston American Marketing Association, and if you're interested in sponsoring or being a guest in the show, feel free to reach out to mike at charlestonamaorg. Like and subscribe is what I was going to say. That.