The Charleston Marketing Podcast
Welcome to The Charleston Marketing Podcast, the podcast that dives deep into the world of marketing, with a specific focus on the vibrant city of Charleston. Join us as we explore the strategies, trends, and success stories that shape the marketing landscape in this historic and captivating coastal city.
Each episode of The Charleston Marketing Podcast brings you exclusive interviews with local marketing experts, industry thought leaders and Charleston entrepreneurs who have harnessed the power of effective marketing in the Lowcountry and beyond. From strategic communication, social media, PR, digital strategy and everything in between, we uncover valuable insights and actionable tips for our listeners.
The Charleston Marketing Podcast
The Match Made in Marketing: Insights from Matchstick Social
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What happens when two marketing professionals with complementary strengths join forces? In this candid conversation with Amber and Rachel of Matchstick Social, we explore the remarkable journey of a Charleston-based agency that's grown from a King Street startup to a thriving full-service marketing firm over the past 12 years.
The duo shares how their partnership began with a late-night phone call from a steakhouse bathroom and a spontaneous decision that would change both their lives. Despite facing the challenge of geographic separation when Amber moved to Oklahoma for five years, their business persevered through what they describe as "two steps forward, one step back" until reuniting in Charleston reignited their momentum.
What truly stands out is their refreshing perspective on Charleston's marketing community. Rather than viewing other agencies as competition, they celebrate collaboration, resource-sharing, and mutual support. "If you raise your rate, I can raise my rate," they explain, highlighting how elevating industry standards benefits everyone. This philosophy extends to their approach with clients—evolving from selling services to finding the right fit, creating partnerships rather than transactions.
The conversation takes fascinating turns through discussions of AI in marketing (a tool, not a replacement for creativity), balancing motherhood with entrepreneurship (five kids between them!), and why Charleston has become a hub for marketing innovation. They even weigh in on the great debate about remote work versus office culture, sharing insights from their TEDx talk on the unintended consequences of working from home.
Whether you're a marketing professional, business owner, or simply curious about Charleston's thriving creative community, this episode offers valuable insights into building successful partnerships, adapting to industry changes, and creating a business that truly reflects your values. Join us for this engaging conversation that's as entertaining as it is enlightening.
Presenting Sponsor: Charleston Media Solutions
Title Sponsor: Charleston American Marketing Association
Cohosts: Stephanie Barrow, Mike Compton,
Produced and edited: RMBO Advertising
Photographer | Co-host: Kelli Morse
Art Director: Taylor Ion
CAMA President: Margaret Stypa
Score by: The Strawberry Entrée; Jerry Feels Good, CURRYSAUCE, DBLCRWN, DJ DollaMenu
Studio Engineer: Brian Cleary and Mathew Chase
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Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, powered by the Charleston American Marketing Association and broadcasting from our home at Charleston Radio Group. Thanks to CRG, we're able to talk with 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?
Speaker 2:Let's talk about it. This is compton here. Welcome to the charleston marketing podcast. I'm your co-founder and president of rumble advertising and your incoming president of charleston american marketing association.
Speaker 3:I'm gathered here.
Speaker 2:Thank you, you guys. I need you guys on board as well, please. I need leadership, but before I ask you guys to give me your time, let's talk. I've got amber and rachel of matchstick social here.
Speaker 3:Guys say hello hey, thanks for having us matchstick social.
Speaker 2:Tell me about it. Tell me about where did it?
Speaker 1:begin matchstick social when did you guys start?
Speaker 2:and then we'll get a little bit about you guys personally and how you guys are opposites, yet the same, yet perfect match in heaven, type of thing oh there's something to that there.
Speaker 4:A match made in heaven. I love it.
Speaker 3:I think I did give you a card once that said like we're the perfect match, absolutely. It was definitely like a Valentine's Day card.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've gotten five like I love you cards from Rachel and they all have sort of a match.
Speaker 3:Theme Five is we're in a marriage? Yeah, we're.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I actually, can I tell that joke? I think so.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure.
Speaker 4:We were. I was watching this hilarious video of this guy going through all of the nicknames for your friend named Rachel to her and one of them was inter-rachel marriage, and then she sent it to her, or she sent back to me that's what you and rob are in her husband and I was like that's 100% a rob oh my gosh, that's, oh, it's hilarious I know it's great, um. So anyway, we began in 2012, um we got the opportunity to open shop on king street.
Speaker 4:You know we wanted to make this big splash and we had this big bright sign right above nine west you know we technically on King Street but we were in, like you go up and down a path and up again and you're sort of like not on King, but you know we had the signage which was worth it and we made this big splash and we had, you know, a larger team than we needed at the time because we were, you know, new and we wanted to be entrepreneurial and look the part, and so we started there.
Speaker 4:After about two years, we moved to West Ashley and decided to spend a little. Actually started to be a business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, started to make more money as opposed to.
Speaker 4:Oh, I think we could do this, but we moved to West Ashley. It was much more affordable and it just like that's where we were really like. We have decided to grow. We are going to start going into different industries, start going into different technologies. We're going to hire outside of the scope of work that you and I do so well. Um, we'll hire experts other than what we do which is nice, um, and then we've since moved to a larger, much larger office in West Ashley off Playground Road, and it's been amazing.
Speaker 2:I gotta check it out. I can't wait to go see. It's great, yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 4:I feel like everybody walks in and goes, oh wow. And I'm like, okay, that's what we were going for.
Speaker 3:Half the people do that and half the people go. You pay for an office. Imagine your overhead, yeah, but we feel strongly, I mean, for our team to be able to work together and just bounce off ideas. Amber was in Oklahoma for five years and literally the first three was it five years. I just kind of said five years okay, um the first three months of her being back, we're like, oh wow, it's way nicer we forgot because you just get into this cadence, and I mean to be fair.
Speaker 4:for those five years we were taking two steps forward, one step back, kind of all the time in every area of the business. And then when we were back together, my dad was like duh, it's the powerhouse.
Speaker 3:Like, of course it's going to be great.
Speaker 4:But when we got back together we're like oh shit, we totally forgot.
Speaker 3:Oh, got back together we're like oh shit, we totally forgot. Oh yeah, I was gonna ask are we allowed to curse? Because we probably need a filter you might need like a beep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll beep it out, but we try not to curse because there's a button on the sound um board there that could go live. And every time if it goes live and they curse, they like it find oh like hundreds of dollars like lots of money, so we try not to. But it's fine, I'm gonna try.
Speaker 4:going to try PG. I'm going to try very hard.
Speaker 2:It's interesting. So I didn't know about the Oklahoma five years and the two steps and the one step back. It's very similar to the relationship that I have with my business partner he's in Tampa right now, george who I do love as a brother as well, like you. Guys get along him and I get along Opposite people, right the whole thing. But you left Oklahoma had. Was it a struggle like what? What was the struggling? But what were the one steps? You know? I mean.
Speaker 4:I think it was more that because we weren't in a room constantly talking and and learning from our hiccups and learning from our mistakes, whether it be hiring or with a client or with the technology or whatever. We just weren't learning as quickly, because she and I, we're always going to learn super quickly when we're able to talk it out. And because of I had two small kids, I was working from home she's literally holding down the entire fort. She's managing, she's hiring, she's doing everything. So it's like we just weren't on the same page, like we were as soon as we got back in the office. And even when we've had kids when we're in the office, it's so much better. You're just so much less distracted.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was going to say also the, you know, the pandemic made a big influence on our industry. So there were times where we had to be leaner and you know just more of the highs and lows, I think are things that most agency owners or anyone who works in marketing can understand because it's so dependent on the economy and outside forces.
Speaker 2:We're the first ones to leave here, aren't we? Absolutely Exit the budget.
Speaker 3:So I think, with us being a little more siloed after meeting in a different company, and then what? What Amber didn't say about our kind of story was she was given this opportunity and um, essentially to take over a small marketing firm and called me at like what? Like eight o'clock, from the bathroom of a steakhouse and Amber's enthusiasm, like three sentences of like here's what we're going to do, it's going to be great, you down, and I was like I guess I'm quitting my job.
Speaker 3:You know, that's literally like she came up with the name. She came, she was like let's go for it. And I was like all right, we're going for it, so to be, and I was 25.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, so I was the I would say like the first couple years, like I apologize to any employees who maybe had to learn from my mistakes but, like you know, our mistakes there there's a lot and clients.
Speaker 3:I mean, we have one client who I'll never forget because we literally lost money off of you know, oh sure and looking back at you, know, you, look, look, hindsight and it got us here and we're grateful for it all, but it's more.
Speaker 3:It's less of like the highs and lows and more of just like the discomfort of learning and being put. You know, we were given this amazing opportunity. We've been able to buy out that investor and like truly have this be our business. And a lot of that shift was with, I mean, five kids between the three of us, the two of us and you know, oklahoma, our right-hand woman moving to Seattle, you know, like just the natural changes.
Speaker 2:Are you still working with the?
Speaker 3:Seattle.
Speaker 2:That's great she's back.
Speaker 4:Well, she's in Georgia, noworgia. Now she's married to she. She made the unfortunate decision, as I did, to marry into the military, so you never really know where you're going next. I'm just kidding. I love, I love, but he's actually graduating tomorrow. So he's graduating tomorrow and then they are on their way here. After her maternity leave, they'll be in charleston for about 18 months, for the first time in six years.
Speaker 3:So amber and her name's Nicole, and she's been with us for eight years. Eight years. So she, amber and Nicole have never worked in the same office before.
Speaker 4:Stop, which is hilarious because we're so close.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you said right-hand woman, so it's like she is a right-hand woman, but really our full team.
Speaker 3:We're just excited to have the full team in the same office, the energy of, like you know, being able to be creative. So what is it like for you with having your partner?
Speaker 2:yeah, not physically. Here we do a lot of face time, we do a lot, we talk. We, you know. No, I don't feel detached if that's the thing.
Speaker 3:No, not at all I think a big part of it for us was we kind of consciously knew we wanted to be moms and we're both dads, we both have young children under 10, you know right so you know, like there's, there's. There was a little natural, not pause, but like plateau and growth during that time oh my gosh yeah and then in this, this next kind of phase, because let's go baby baby.
Speaker 4:We got all our babies.
Speaker 2:How old are the babies now? How old are the babies right now?
Speaker 3:Well, the youngest is two. Yes, so we got 10, 8, 5, 3, 2. Yes, I have 5 and 3. You have?
Speaker 1:2. 10, 8, 5, 3, 2 are the ages of our kids.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness gracious, all right.
Speaker 4:I've got two nine-year-olds, yeah, all right, so that's easy compared to what y'all are going through.
Speaker 2:She'll be 10 in july. But you know, yeah, um, so you're like it's always that last child, right that, um, it'll raise itself.
Speaker 1:You're two years old ready to go to work everett is um the most independent of all my children by far, I'm sure he's just like, all right, here I am.
Speaker 2:Everett, that's a cool name.
Speaker 4:I had a neighbor who had three kids and I always knew I wanted to have three. But we took a big break between number two and number three and I asked my neighbor. I said, should I go for number three? Like do you have any advice? And she goes oh God, number three is like having a purse. She's like that's fine, they're all so amenable and ready to go, and she's right, they just get in where they fit in.
Speaker 2:They're like here I am.
Speaker 4:Let's do this. I love it. He's got great energy.
Speaker 2:That's cool For sure. Well, he gets it from mom. How many? How big is the agency? How?
Speaker 1:big.
Speaker 3:So we have nine full time, including ourselves um amber and I recently hired a va who I'm not counting um, and then we have great partners you know that we'll work with on certain projects and uh anyone who's listening.
Speaker 4:We work very well with others, yeah, and I would say we're also hiring.
Speaker 3:Yes, also hiring also hiring.
Speaker 4:I gotta find that. Please submit your resume.
Speaker 2:She was from Montreal. I got to find her. I met her last night. She's like yeah, I need a graphic designer. Great, hopefully we'll you know. But yes, this is why we do these podcasts, too, is to get those words out there.
Speaker 3:For sure.
Speaker 2:We have an intern right now Fabiana's here.
Speaker 3:She's from the College of Charleston interns that we have through the AMA as well. So well, I was thinking about you, fabiana, because I also did something similar in college and you had different roles that you you know. You decided which one, and I insisted on being the camera woman.
Speaker 4:Oh, I was like, which is so, I know I'm very surprised to hear that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like I'll just hold the camera. I literally I think my job was to just pivot the camera like 30 you know inches at to just pivot the camera like 30 inches at one point and I was like got an, A Great. But, it was very cool. It was very cool to be a part of. But it makes me laugh now that I was like, oh, I don't want to my internship out.
Speaker 4:My senior year of high school I went to work for and I don't remember the name but it was in Myrtle Beach and it was a publisher and I think about all the time I wrote copy for like an entire catalog of a golf course, like I wrote like their entire, and I was like man, was I qualified to do that? Probably not.
Speaker 2:I'd love to see it and see if I'm still proud of it today isn't that crazy what they put us through as an intern back in the day, like that know, I was like that's interesting and then I went on a bunch of sales calls and was like trying to help the saleswoman, like convince these people to spend thousands of dollars.
Speaker 4:I'm like, yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:I had it. My very first internship was at the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach. So jealous, it was the coolest. I bet, like I was able to coordinate meet and greets with the artists and it was when Facebook didn't have I was posting on MySpace, basically MySpace.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know I'm that old. But it was so fun and I had this dream that I was going to work before it was Live Nation. I was like I'm just going to market for bands all over town.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome, awesome.
Speaker 3:you just missed a talented violinist oh, really well, I may have met her upstairs that's her you were they're doing a little thing up there.
Speaker 2:Now we're at the charleston media solutions and and um ada came in and did a little quick interview with us too on the american marketing association and talk about marketing and music and she played a little tune for us cool she made up a song on the spot, wow, like. I can't wait to like yeah like super talent, so it's fun like just talking to different people.
Speaker 3:Amber's a singer and I am insanely jealous. I love music and I have no same.
Speaker 4:I can hear it and appreciate it, but I have no musical talent at all. We just got in a big argument about a John Mayer song the other day, that's true.
Speaker 2:John Mayer just came up in the last episode too. Oh hey, it's funny. It's her favorite musician is John Mayer. Oh, now I love her even more. We love John Mayer, we love John Mayer.
Speaker 4:Well, we got into an argument one of his oldies but goodies and she thinks it's too whiny and I love it which one comfortable. It's from his like. I think it's from his ep or his lp, like the very first lp, very whiny comfortable you want to sing it?
Speaker 2:no, I was about to, because I was like I'm recording uh, we'll, we'll figure that out, google that here in a minute, and then I'm curious if who's whose side you're on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, uh, yeah, okay this is a perfect example of Amber and I is like we disagree on so many things, but we make it fun and also, we love John Mayer yeah. We agree on the foundation.
Speaker 4:We love to find the things that we disagree on because we agree on so much. It's like the foundation is strong, so we're like what about this? What about this?
Speaker 2:So, if so, if, if, if everybody's agreeing in the boardroom and then the boardroom in the meeting room, what have you then? Nobody's really thinking.
Speaker 4:So true, so right I think that's her strongest suit. She will, even if she doesn't actually believe the, the antithesis of what we're saying. She'll bring up the antithesis to make sure we've thought through everything you know, like like.
Speaker 3:but what about this Very annoying? No, I don't think it's annoying at all. I think it's.
Speaker 4:I think it does make it stronger because we can get into a situation where, especially because we work with all women or there's, you know, we have clients who have been doing this for 30 years, their business, and so they kind of get into this. You know what if we just do this, what if we kind of maintain status quo and while we're good at going outside of status quo, I think Rachel will be like well, let's think about how it'll be perceived from this angle or this audience, and then it makes everything better for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got to have all, all lenses, all views, all point of views, what so? What do you do? What do you guys do best as Matchstick Social right, and how can we help as far as getting more clients and getting you out there? And then, what do you guys do separately right? What are your each talents you can start.
Speaker 4:Okay. So in terms of clients, I think the last two years we have really blossomed from a digital marketing agency to a full service marketing agency, and what I mean by that is we were really focused on paid organic content. We did a lot of like content for websites and that sort of thing, and now we've been able to do website design, we've been able to do print, we've been able to add a lot of different facets for these businesses who say I really need an agency on of record, you know what I mean. Like I want to come and have a one-stop shop and if there's something that we specifically can't do or it's not in our capabilities yet, we're hiring for it.
Speaker 4:Whatever we'll say okay, well, we have a trusted partner in charleston. That's the wonderful thing thing about Charleston is like there's such a rich network of professionals, and so we've been able to say like, yes, we can handle this, whereas five years ago we were like we would be too scared to say yes, we can handle that Well, and I think five years ago, whether or not we wanted this to be the case, people came to us for social Everyone thought of us as social media, which is where we started and where we're comfortable 12 years ago, okay, so as we've, and even even today, like when I'm in conversations, I think there's um that.
Speaker 3:That's just where where we hung our hat at the beginning you know, yeah, and was great because that was really truly we wanted to be the best at this, one thing that we knew we were the best at.
Speaker 4:Right. We came from agencies and I was very I mean probably. I mean not probably, definitely. You were like what if we do this and this and this? And I was like we don't need to do all that. I've seen it work horribly. You know what I mean. I've seen it go awry and I didn't want to bite off too much for us, and so I think Rachel's had to slowly kind of push me into like let's do this service, let's do this service, and she's absolutely right. So now we've sort of grown to this level.
Speaker 2:Are the riches in the niches.
Speaker 3:Not for us. I mean, I think as we have grown and learned, we know what's a better fit for us and we're not afraid to pass on someone that we know a colleague is just going to do better work for. I mean, it happens quite often and that's what I love about businesses in Charleston. I don't really know that anybody like views each other as competition as much as colleagues, which I appreciate.
Speaker 2:I would love that that that's a great thing to say is you think that's practicing?
Speaker 3:though In my experience it's how I feel we can shout out Legacy and Squeeze.
Speaker 2:Okay, sure, sure, we talk to them quite a bit Q at Legacy, yeah, q at Legacy.
Speaker 3:All the guys at Squeeze are great. I just went to a marketing like a female marketing meetup that Charlotte Berger.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, she talked about that.
Speaker 3:She was on the show too. It was like just being at around a table drinking a margarita with a bunch of women who want to support one another and um yeah, that's really honestly. I mean, if people are talking smack, they're not saying it to my face at least, because I experience has been nothing, but how can I help you? What are you working on? And we feel the same way.
Speaker 4:I also think if you start with transparency, you're going to be met with transparency as opposed to. I don't really know why you're calling me and you're trying to get information out of me like bless your heart yeah, people, if you start with like. I don't know that yeah, like hey, if hey, this is what we need. And then people are like okay, great, this is what we need.
Speaker 3:Well, and that's a perfect example, Like the guys at Squeeze, we were hiring, they were hiring. I think we ended up like swapping resumes and it worked out. They ended up, you know. Oh, we went with this candidate.
Speaker 4:That's cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's, I think, how it should be. There's a hundred percent. That's what we're trying to grow here.
Speaker 2:That's what we're trying to foster here at AMA and the American Marketing Association in Charleston.
Speaker 3:I ask that, was it practice?
Speaker 2:because what I've learned from the time before us. I moved here in 2019 with this idea from Tampa, with this idea of collaboration with agencies, working with agencies, just like what you guys are doing now.
Speaker 4:But that's not what I was hearing, what was going on beforehand, and you were here in 2012. So you know, you know that maybe I think the environment shifted so dramatically when Charleston started to explode, because not only did Charleston, businesses explode and we have just a ton. I mean, even if every single person got every single client they wanted, there would still be more clients, you know, and we've become such a destination for people. So when they think of creativity, they think of Nashville and Charleston and Houston and these sort of like once once middle markets. We're now a hotspot, so we're getting calls from out of state with as much regularity as in state. Oh, cool. And so I think, because of that, nobody feels the need to like grip on and hold tight and get too.
Speaker 4:You know precious about the leads.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree with that. I will say without putting too much thought into it, in 2018, that was a time where the radio, or like the radio stations, or the bigger publications were selling digital. So there was a little bit of just trying to explain why, how we do it differently and defending our price point and all these other things.
Speaker 3:So you kind of held that client like so close to your chest, of like, well, I worked so hard on this account, or whatever it might be that there the collaboration may have not been there because a lot of people, I think a lot of businesses that were working, you know, paying budgets, that now we're used to get it. You know seeing, they were like, oh, we're just going to do it with live five news, now we're used to get it. You know, right, seeing they were like, oh, we're just gonna do it with live five news and they're gonna handle our this or that. You know all the things because I remember that being a big turning point for us.
Speaker 2:I was one of our first like well, it's like, yeah, when a bookstore when barnes and nobles sits, you know opens up next to a small bookstore, like you're like wait a second, we do that well, and I think there's also like, I think, at least the people that we've talked to have a real appreciation for.
Speaker 4:If you raise your rate, I can raise my rate, you know what I mean and like it doesn't mean that we're price gouging by any means, but it's like if you're seriously under charging for services and you're spending hours and hours and hours and you see me doing the same thing for a lot more money, now you're not willing, you raise your price. Now I'm not worried about you undercutting me and you're making more money. So really it becomes about who has the best skill set for that client.
Speaker 2:Lifting each other up.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, and also with software and like that's this past week. Yeah, it's like oh, what software are you using for reporting? We just found we just switched from sprout to cloud campaign. Save what? 10 grand, or something like that agency analytics. Yeah, okay, yeah whatever it is, I don't know, it's all over my head. We're doing a lot of different software right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, are you really, because I got a new one. Okay, oh wait, you already know about it.
Speaker 4:You already know about it yeah, gasser, told me about it on the panel. I'm very excited to see it and I'm very happy for him to have had that he's so cool that um patent that there's an onion that yeah what a great way to describe layers of that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah I agree, I agree, I. So it's funny because I feel like the the situation at squeeze is like everybody has their you know, like they have a really great personality and they're so warm and welcoming and we were sitting across from them going like, oh yeah, this is like the energy that we feel when people come in to see us too.
Speaker 3:It's like you kind of you know parts of this and parts of this really resonate. Well, they just listening to their them talk.
Speaker 2:We're like oh yeah, yeah, we say that too or like they're dynamic, they're definitely bros like you know they're, they're friends they're eric and um brian. Yeah, yeah and their team. Uh, they do um special child, they do our website oh cool devon is our website. I don't know if you met devon, but I love him. I have to shake his hand he won a spark award right I may have met him then.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think he won the best website last year, oh, if it's who I'm thinking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so they. But our website didn't win an award. But, yeah, there, you go there, exactly, but squeeze helps us out with our website, you know.
Speaker 3:So, um, I love to hear that that is actually in practice, like the collaboration, the lifting up different agencies is I think the next step, for us at least, is to figure out that, like big agencies do it and at our previous agency they did as well or like we worked with other partners, it's figuring out how to have the conversation with the client of this is our preferred partner for whatever.
Speaker 2:Versus white label Versus fully white labeling right. I think white labels.
Speaker 3:Well, it's just so tricky and I don't know how to tell a lie.
Speaker 2:It doesn't feel transparent.
Speaker 3:It doesn't feel transparent and it's more, I don't know. It's just like there's too many possibilities.
Speaker 4:Yeah, back in the day when turning on ads meant turning on ads as opposed to what day, though?
Speaker 2:like specific, what day are we talking? Like what year? Yeah, well, like six years ago okay, all right, because I was going back to 2000s, but that's just for my back like you could white label, because somebody just had to have the setup and then turn it on and yeah you know, let you know once a month how it was going, but now it's like we're in this all day, every day.
Speaker 4:We have to be changing strategies, we have to be messing with the algorithm and all of that. So it's like you can't. It's just harder. If you want that level of communication, it's just not really possible.
Speaker 3:Right Well, and I think for the most part clients don't care. We just haven't figured out what that positioning is language yeah, actually, um, speaking of legacy, we have q pulled us in on a proposal and this is the first time that, like at the beginning, the proposal is being presented like right off the rip with both of us um, so I'm kind of curious to sit on, sit in on, like what that looks like from the beginning.
Speaker 2:So real quick then, not to cut you off sorry, no go ahead. What part are they taking care of? What part are you taking care?
Speaker 3:of TBD. I mean this is like so vague.
Speaker 2:Oh, you don't even know yet.
Speaker 3:No, I mean essentially we would we're going to do. We have a lot of similar strengths.
Speaker 2:Is it like an RFP that we're going after, type of thing that we're going after? Yeah, yeah, copy, yes.
Speaker 3:And so we would probably handle some like. They'll help with some of the ideation for branding, we'll handle the actual development, they'll do the content creation, we'll handle the media strategy for all of it, seo, web dev, but they'll be primary account managers and content developers in theory. But again, like, I think the point of why I brought this up is more the collaboration of like. I think it's so cool that another agency was like hey, I have this rfp at my desk, I'm not gonna take this on independently. So from day one, you know we're meeting and working together because we, you know, and this is not a local client, so I don't know good point.
Speaker 2:Good point well, we can do more together we could do more together, right yeah? Oh, that's great. That's great. Makes my heart warm to hear that we. We've done that too. We we always played nicely in the sandbox since we were um about 15 years ago, since we started, because we were started as a multicultural agency and we would help do the research and strategy behind.
Speaker 2:Hispanic marketing or what have you. So that's always been our thing is, you know, in the past, president of the American Advertising Federation down in Tampa. Both my business partner and I, we just like build community. You know we saw it happening there and when I moved here I wanted to see it, but then I heard these kind of whispers of people really hold tight to their own and you kind of proved that You're like like back in the day they kind of did. But now, as times as charleston's growing and as as we're all growing as agencies, and as the whole marketing atmosphere is changing every day it's opening up more opportunity for all of us to collaborate absolutely yeah, and work on our strengths right.
Speaker 2:So that's great. I love to hear that. What can we do? So I like to give the notes right. Like what can we? I want our listeners to really go away from this conversation with some sort of note some sort of what do you think, and we've done a great job so far.
Speaker 1:You're killing it, by the way.
Speaker 2:You're killing it. Thanks Super. She was super nervous before this killing it. She was super nervous before this. It took me months to talk her into coming on the show and I was so surprised last night when I saw you typing. I literally was in the Google Docs seeing somebody type I'm not sure who it was Well, you thought I bailed. I know you bailed. No, you bailed. There wasn't a thought.
Speaker 3:I think I emailed you at like end of January and I was like cool, I have anxiety until april yeah can't wait.
Speaker 2:No, but this is I like this way better conversational yeah than I thought it was okay, good, all right, and you're easy to talk expectations. Well, thank you. Uh, as you guys are too, um, what kind of trends are we looking at and are you guys digging in ai?
Speaker 3:yeah, of course, great question, right like.
Speaker 2:So the question Digging in AI, yeah, of course.
Speaker 3:Great question, Right Like so the question of the time it is really.
Speaker 2:But if you're because right now we have college students, we've got solopreneurs, you know, we've got small agencies.
Speaker 1:We've got big agencies. We've got MEDALSA.
Speaker 2:I like to talk to everybody. So what would a student? Let's start, let's go with a smaller agency Like what do you suggest that they kind of tune into as far as a trend or technology that you guys love? Is there an AI software that you guys love?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think that the obvious I'll just start with like the low-hanging fruit chat.
Speaker 3:GPT, since, you know, in some tables it's a bad word and in other tables it's a best friend right. And for us, if, if you, I have amber right, so I have someone which is invaluable for me to brainstorm with, bounce ideas off of. Almost always, when I run with something without talking through it, it's never it's not going to be as good as it could be. So what I'm getting at is, if you leverage an AI software like ChatGPT to brainstorm, what am I missing? What am I not thinking about? Tell me three things that could be misinterpreted or whatever.
Speaker 4:My favorite prompt is be meaner yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, because I use be friendlier. Yeah, oh my God, because I use I use be friendlier.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I just it gets. So it's like it's like toxic positivity, this robot, and I'm always like just be meaner, what does?
Speaker 3:that mean? What are you making it mean? For? She's saying you know the trend. That's like tell me what you know about me, based on it's anything it'll say.
Speaker 4:I'll say review, like I'll put my client's book and I'll say review this book oh my gosh, and it will be like this is the best book I've ever read in my whole life. And la, la la la and then I'm like being meaner, and it's like, well, some of the points are a little commonsensical and then, like you, get a little bit more critical and I'm like, okay, thank you. That's why the robot is there.
Speaker 3:I don't need you to pat me on the back robot, yeah, so I don't know about that. I like it more for bouncing ideas off of to make the existing idea stronger. I don't believe that it should replace our unique ideas. That's my. You know the fear, right, we all saw the movie. It doesn't end well.
Speaker 1:What movie was it? Irobot Every movie that had a robot in it any robot movie that they take over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, um, but I think oh god, that was just in my head just now. I was thinking about that. I love that movie.
Speaker 3:That's my favorite but I think that. So that's my answer. I guess, for a small, smaller company that doesn't have an amber like I do, um, and I will say the fear of like. Oh, designers are terrified all over because of the like things are gonna have to change, so much for it to. I just don't think you can replace skill human.
Speaker 3:I think right. I think it's more about giving me the like, making my idea, improving on my idea, giving me like I have the foundation. Tell me how, what I'm not thinking about. I think that's the way to leverage.
Speaker 4:I also think people a don't realize how obvious it is when it's chat gpt writing stuff, right, it's very obvious, it's like really easy to spot, and I also think that they think it's coming up with um original thoughts. It's not yet it will, but it's not. It's. It's a scraping tool and it's an amalgamation tool and it's spitting out ideas that are already on the internet.
Speaker 4:She's saying plagiarism, but really nicely, but like it's, it's not even it's not even intentionally plagiarizing, it's just like statistically you can't comb without propagating words that have been said before, and although marketing is all about making old stuff seem new, it's still, it's still not an okay practice to just churn out a bunch of stuff on ChatGPT and call it your own.
Speaker 4:It's not and it's just going to make the idea stale. But what she's suggesting is like I have an original thought and sometimes it helps to just be like is this an original thought? Like comb through and make sure I'm not accidentally absorbing this through osmosis somehow. We've had a couple of times where I'm like is this logo already used?
Speaker 2:Because it looks kind of familiar. In a great way I love that idea or naming of a product, exactly so it's like just a more refined Google search in some aspects.
Speaker 4:But I think it's also like here's my original idea and here's the audience I'm going after, and here some considerations that you know I'm trying to leverage and then see what it spits out to help you along the way. But I don't think, you know, I think people who are worried about just constantly turning out content that's, you know, not exciting, that's how they're using it yeah, no exactly it's tool.
Speaker 2:It's a tool Same as you guys, right? Even I'm buying out my lease right now of my telluride. So, yeah, give me cars with third row seats with 30,000 miles on it that are in Charleston, and it spits out the different cars that are and where they're being sold at and, like I was like amazed.
Speaker 4:I, my friend, just told me the other day that. Well, not the other day. You know the other day is relative, it could have been a year ago. But she told me that she just puts ingredients in her kitchen and then she'll say give me some recipes.
Speaker 2:And I'm like oh, that's so pretty too. Yeah, it's all the littlest things. Littlest things like travel planning. This is fun. This is kind of a fun thing, though, and if you haven't done it yet, um I want you guys to do it maybe not now but when you get back. And then let us know I was on um the marketing mayhem podcast, the gritty gals you, you know Jenny and Rebecca.
Speaker 3:Haven't met them, but I'm familiar with the podcast. Get on the podcast I'll introduce.
Speaker 2:I'll connect you guys. I was the first guy on their podcast.
Speaker 4:Great.
Speaker 2:Very, very, very proud of that. I wore my dad's shirt and the whole thing. They turned us on, stephanie and I. They turned us on to using ChatGBT, to having you roast, having ChatGBT roast you, oh yeah, so I had to roast my LinkedIn. I'm so excited Like roast my LinkedIn and what came? I'm like gut punched.
Speaker 1:You're like what have I done with my entire career?
Speaker 2:It was awesome, so we read it on air the whole.
Speaker 1:Thing.
Speaker 2:And yeah, it should be launching next week. But um and then, and then they said you know you want to, you want to feel better, have it, pump you up, have chat, gbt, like, be your, your right, which is your be nicer to ambers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what I, what, I, what?
Speaker 4:rachel was suggesting was we? We had this trend a while ago. That was like ask ChatGPT to tell you something about yourself that you don't already know.
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 4:Okay, woof, you're like. I was like, yeah, dead on, dead on, and I mean I sort of knew it anyway. But it's like oh, this robot that I don't even use that much knows exactly what's wrong with me.
Speaker 3:I read mine and Amber was like, like how do they even know that?
Speaker 4:it's really interesting when someone's different personality types total and that's it, yeah was it what?
Speaker 3:recently I was in on a call or like in a conversation you'll have to remind me because I can't even remember my own story but I was like they. They were referring to ai as if they were like a person.
Speaker 4:She was in a proposal process and the guy was like well, I asked, so she was giving the advice and he was like, oh yeah, that's what the people, or they said.
Speaker 3:They keep telling me that and finally I realized, like he is, or whoever it was, was using chat GPT to help guide what the strategy should be for ads and I was validating him or he, he felt like, oh, I can trust what you're saying because that's what they told me and it took me a while to realize he meant AI. Yeah, it was really interesting and a little terrifying. But, on the other hand, if you're I'm like man. It took me a while to like map out what I want to do for you.
Speaker 1:And you did it with AI?
Speaker 4:I guess Joke's on me, but if you're a, novice business owner and we've heard so many horror stories of people just way overselling their capabilities and way, just screwing up strategies right and left, and it would be helpful to have a little tool and be like. Is brand awareness? This Is lead generation that, if you don't know, that's such a good point because we know, fake it till you make it.
Speaker 3:very well, we've lived it. And if we had a fallback to say like is this right?
Speaker 2:When we were in our 20s. That would have been lovely, yeah imagine what they're gonna have at their tool, you know, on their toolbox now, like all the things I think about my girls all the time I'm like are you guys even gonna like I I joked that I.
Speaker 4:My second act is I want to be a college professor.
Speaker 2:Same, really, yeah well, there you get your master's yet I do fuck I, I did that straight out of the gate because I knew I was like I'm gonna get into my career and I'm not gonna want to do this I go to all these classes and I say the same thing every class I go to or we're talking to the, you know the students. I'm like get your master's right now, don't screw around, just get your master's well, just do it on your free time, all your free time, all the free time that's coming up.
Speaker 4:But my second act is teaching college and I joked with my kids. I was like I'm just going to have to have oral presentations at all times, Like there's not going to be any writing anymore because I'm just because it will be so sophisticated that it won't be detectable.
Speaker 2:You just have to alter how you teach.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're going to have to just be like okay, you need to stand up and tell me what you think, and, honestly, maybe Gen Alpha could really use that anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah, true, true, true, they're going to be recorded at all times too, which terrifies me. But maybe your AI could just do the lesson, oh my gosh, my hologram, that's so funny.
Speaker 2:George sent me an AI of him before our status the other day talking about our status.
Speaker 4:It was creepy, was it?
Speaker 2:I mean, it was good-ish the mouth always like smiles, and then the eyebrows do all these weird things. You know weird points, but he was able just to prompt it and send it off within minutes.
Speaker 3:Wild, have you seen any of the videos of like sales calls with your voice scheduling a meeting, so like? Instead of cold calling you can pre-record yourself and then like AI would guide the conversation, the call great I'll put you on my calendar. Well, all you have to do is show up, but they're doing all the cold calling. Not that I don't think we've ever called. I think gerald's and massage book were I we've technically cold called gerald's.
Speaker 2:They treat the ladies right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, is that you guys, you guys come up with the treat the ladies right, right Cause one of our first.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 4:Right, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It was one of our first that we didn't inherit Um and then massage book. That was a cold LinkedIn DM, right. I mean I used to hold LinkedIn DM people.
Speaker 2:I'm sure doing that, yeah, I.
Speaker 3:He sent the message to the then CEO of all the things that they were doing wrong.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Because I had the confidence of a 25-year-old.
Speaker 3:I was like let me tell you everything you're doing incorrectly. And it just so happened that their marketing person was leaving, so he was like you have my interest.
Speaker 4:I'll hear you out. And we worked with them for over a decade yeah, over a decade and he had such the personality for that that was so lucky. That approach, because he was very he's very much like tell me everything I'm doing wrong, let's fix it because he's a startup guy.
Speaker 2:He's great. So I love gerald's too, because the radio spots are great oh my god, you automatically know that it's a gerald their traditional marketing.
Speaker 4:did you guys see that blue billboard like a year ago and kind of like worry, I was driving, I was driving on 26 and I said we just having fun, but it was blue and not orange and I was like oh my God, are they doing a rebrand? And didn't tell us, or?
Speaker 1:something it was so funny.
Speaker 4:But I was like I was smart because I really did stick out.
Speaker 3:Blue billboard. What, yeah, they're great. What I love about them is they it's not just a shtip, they really like they care.
Speaker 2:No, they'll give you a rose. And they really invest in that I didn't get a rose, or was it a carnation? No, it's a rose. It's a rose. Yeah, it's a rose, carnation.
Speaker 3:But they're just truly good people.
Speaker 4:They spend an exorbitant amount on those roses. I believe it. They look nice.
Speaker 3:One of the things that one of the guys at Gerald old said to us like at least 10 years ago, that I still think about Um, and I actually just told this story. But he said you know what? There might be flying cars one day, but we'll still have customers because we're in the service, we're in the customer service industry, which I thought was like. I was like wow, like that's such a good point, that because we really like sure, we are very good at what we do, you are very good at what you do, but this, the connection and the relationship, that's what really matters. Because if AI, when AI changes our entire industry, or whatever comes next, or if Facebook shuts down, or whatever that might be, I think of that line often, because the reason why our clients or our colleagues will still have our back is because of, you know, the bigger picture.
Speaker 2:The human form, the relationship that was formed. You know it doesn't match.
Speaker 4:You can't match that.
Speaker 2:You know that's the sauce, if you will.
Speaker 4:Right, but we'll have to go through a period where they think it can be matched before we realize that it can't.
Speaker 3:Well, and that has happened. I mean, I don't know if you've experienced this, but we've had a couple of like well, can't you just run Like, why am I paying for this? Isn't this mostly a chat, gpt, or isn't this mostly you know? You're giving me and to Amber's point, I mean it's going to be a lesson that we all learn and pivot and whatever. At least we kind of have the opportunity to know it's coming Right.
Speaker 2:I was just looking up the John Mayer song. Are you allowed to?
Speaker 3:play it. Oh, that's good. Well, I'm podcast. Okay, you got to wait until it gets real whiny.
Speaker 2:Oh, I got to. It gets too whiny. I don't know if I know this song.
Speaker 3:For the record I love John Mayer.
Speaker 2:I just can't believe Just wait, huh, it is a little whiny, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yes, just wait until the chorus.
Speaker 2:It's a beautiful song. You have to listen to the chorus. It's a beautiful song.
Speaker 4:You have to listen to the lyrics, okay.
Speaker 3:This is the one she hates oh.
Speaker 2:Your facial expressions right now are killing me.
Speaker 4:Listener. She is disgruntled.
Speaker 2:It's a little whiny right. Your facial expressions right now are killing me, Listener, she is disgruntled.
Speaker 3:It's a little whiny right? I mean, he's a brilliant songwriter.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:He's classically trained, like I trust it and I said this Like he knows, like the science behind music. So, I'm sure it's correct in the ears of someone who gets it, but for me it's not the one.
Speaker 2:Nope. What is your favorite type of music?
Speaker 3:no, I love john mayer I love john mayer, dave matthews, amber and I like see it find us in the pit every see every june dave matthews.
Speaker 4:I love dave matthews are you going in june?
Speaker 2:sure I haven't got tickets yet. Well, you better hurry yeah, they are so expensive they went like triple price this year oh my, my gosh so annoying Two pit ticks for night one. It's at Credit One, right, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:That's a cool venue, it's like 720.
Speaker 3:Yeah, stop it. After everything, I'm not going. And, by the way, it's Credit.
Speaker 4:One's fault, so we're mad at you. Credit One but we put it on the card Sure yeah, what a cool venue, though. Oh yeah, the best venue and I live on clements ferry road. I live right across the street from here, so I'm like it's the best I can be home at 11 like oh sure, yeah it's amazing time and I'm home at 11 I just want to like be able to look up and see. Yes sweat, and well, we've done it for years, so how?
Speaker 3:many concert you've gone to like. I think I'm at like 23 I think I'm at.
Speaker 4:I think this will be 34 and 35. But I you know, back in the day all you could afford was lawn. You paid 50 and you went and sat on the lawn and then, like the first time I could afford good seats, I was like, oh god, I'm never going back I'm never gonna be back there again but when you're in the lawn though I'm listening to the jokes I would never go down there.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't. Why would I spend all that money to sit down there when I got the lawn?
Speaker 3:but I'm like one or the other, I don't need to be like in a seat.
Speaker 3:Well, because, I'm short too, so like I'm not last year or no, he wasn't here last year but the year before. Uh, I got floor seats and we ended up got my husband is six two so, like you know, people like me have an issue with him being in front of them. But so we ended up going in the corner and I had, like, the full view, but we paid a fortune for our tickets and ended up standing in the back like just dancing by the bar the whole time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, because going back and forth just kind of like they won't let you stand there, but you can dance wait.
Speaker 4:So if you're a day fan, what's your number one song or album? Oh, I'm old school, like satellite always grabs me, no problem you know under the table I mean uh I'm a before these crowded streets gal okay that's my absolute number one favorite album of all time.
Speaker 3:I love it yeah yeah, yeah, that's great my all-time favorite dave song is stay or leave. Which two, three years ago it was the second song he played and I was like I think he played like back to back the two that I we were on the way in and we always do, like what do you want to hear?
Speaker 4:and she's like man I'd love to hear, stay or leave. And I think I said, like you're never gonna random, I'll never play it.
Speaker 3:I don't think he played it out like wrigley once, like in a live album, you know, yeah um.
Speaker 4:You guys are super fans yeah, yeah, satellite well, sadly it's like no, it's a classic, everybody loves it. Now it's come back around like 10 years ago everybody's like boo satellite, but now everybody loves it again.
Speaker 3:Uh, the longevity of dave that it's funny that you said satelliteatellite is like Blab, because I disagree. But I will say Dave did an interview saying he's not going to play Crash anymore because it's old and creepy, and then just because he's at the point where the lyrics feel a little odd. And then when he was in Charleston two or three years ago he played and I'm like, like what in the world?
Speaker 4:I think he even said, like the energy is leading me to play this or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I went we always feel like the energy is like these Charlestonians?
Speaker 1:they don't care.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's true my dad is, he's you know, he knows enough, but he all, he thinks it all sounds the same and um, I think that's you know, that's your choice, whatever sure but I was telling him like, oh, I'm going tomorrow night too. And he was like why in the world would you go again? And I was like, well, everything's different. And he's like wait what? And I was like you think I'm just out here watching the same show over, and, over, and, over and over again.
Speaker 4:Like I guess you would think that's nuts, I was like he looks at the last three years playlist before he even sets the playlist.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that.
Speaker 4:Oh, and I was like, yeah, now the Friday night concerts are live on XM. Okay, so I think even Friday nights are going to be super different just because he doesn't want to give the listener on XM the same show, so it's you know there's a little science to it.
Speaker 2:It's very cool. I didn't know any of that. You guys are really deep into the big huh we're into the lore um what, what else can we? What else can we talk about? Like is there any um partnerships like in the community that? Is there any non-profits that you?
Speaker 4:are. It sounds like we need to join the board of the ama correct.
Speaker 1:Yes, well so we're members.
Speaker 3:But and I I've been open to it, it's just, oh, you know the kid. I blame my children so we do.
Speaker 2:We I'm gonna be incoming, so we're gonna do, you know, virtual board meetings like after bedtime um well, yeah, we can talk about that. We'll have to figure that out or during the work day.
Speaker 3:Right, that's tough right because a lot of the board members have they.
Speaker 2:They can't break away from their day job. So right now it's at five, which is the worst, which is really tough. I'm usually cooking dinner and having a board meeting yeah or driving stuff. Yeah or driving yeah, working from home, you know, gets me to my kitchen a little quicker than yeah, um yeah, but, uh, but we'll, we'll figure that out, we'll do a little survey and you know I don't want to overextend anybody and I don't want to stay stagnant either.
Speaker 2:We need fresh, new minds and smart brains and people looking at different views and just kind of like making and helping build the community.
Speaker 3:I'm all about it. It's something that we've talked about and I would love to be a part of, and everyone on the board that we've met is lovely, everybody's great.
Speaker 2:Margaret's fantastic. She's been president for two years. I'm trying to talk her into a third one. She's like no, you're doing it.
Speaker 3:Time to step up.
Speaker 2:I know, and I've been here since 2019 and they've asked me.
Speaker 4:It's a big thankless job and then, I'm like shoot.
Speaker 2:It's time now, Okay, but now I feel like I can handle it.
Speaker 3:You asked if there's any like local clients. We wanted to shout out. So Recovery Jam is a organization we've been working with. They're going to I'm not sure when this is coming out, but April 12th.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:They'll be at the refinery. Cool and it is a really wonderful organization.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what do they do?
Speaker 3:They organization supporting artists, musicians, in recovery, so nonprofit they'll have. I think there are several artists, both creative and musicians. So what's the organization called? Again, it's called Recovery Jam.
Speaker 2:Recovery Jam, because I don't think we're going to be out April 12th, but it's probably going to happen again.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's annual.
Speaker 2:Annual deal where people can go to this com they can Google it?
Speaker 3:I think it's org now org.
Speaker 2:That makes sense, yeah, and what do they do again? That's really cool.
Speaker 3:So it's an annual event to raise awareness for musicians and artists in recovery.
Speaker 2:In recovery. Musicians are so funny. Like I just said, we just talked to Ada just now. She's your typical musician. Like coming up with creative, on the spot natural marketers.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I'm asking like who's designing? You know, she said the sticker that I have here was designed by a fan. Oh cool, because she reached out and said, hey, anybody want to do this, and somebody did it.
Speaker 1:Wow, very cool.
Speaker 2:I'm showing them the sticker that the fan came, so that's just smart marketing right there.
Speaker 4:That's all that is. Yeah, it sure is.
Speaker 2:And you know she doesn't have any money, she doesn't have a label, yet she's independent, and what a perfect way to get some design done for her.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely Also. Just so, just because you mentioned, april 12th is also the grand opening of our client, the Archive, and they are a new dark academia bookstore in Mount Pleasant, in Shellmore.
Speaker 3:And it is so beautiful and cool. Everyone's reaction is what is dark academia? It's very cool.
Speaker 4:I don't know exactly how to describe it. I would describe it as like kind of gothic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4:But more moody. Well, there's nothing moodier than gothic.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:That's like, I guess like.
Speaker 3:Less like devil worship.
Speaker 4:No, no no, nothing like that.
Speaker 3:Devil worship. Well, isn't it? I don't know.
Speaker 4:We're getting off that. We're not selling this well, no, no no, it is a fabulous bookstore that's a little moody. It's got some edge. It's not this like bright, shiny, all white coffee house scenario. But she also has wine and coffee and it's a place of just like. It feels very intimate, it's got a lot of it's just got a lot of character and you feel very connected when you're there and it's about a bookstore like go have a bottle of wine hang out.
Speaker 3:She has this very cool hidden band book, nook okay um, but so she, we, we helped it do all of the branding. It was, I would say, like the quickest brand project we've ever done because amanda the owner, she knew exactly what she wanted. She just needed someone, you know, a company, to put it together. Um, but she had her soft opening and for sure go support her because she's great and beautiful what's it called again? The archive the archive.
Speaker 2:That's cool. It almost reminds me the way you're describing it. Um, have you ever been to the library on sullivan's island? I think it's pose library no oh, it's cool really it's it's kind of you know, if you go behind um, all the restaurants and stuff like that between the beach and the restaurants and you know that there's the um, this abandoned like fort type of thing right.
Speaker 2:But if you keep going over there, um it it's if the roof is grass, right, you right, it's kind of like over foliage and stuff like that. But then if you keep going around the side, there's this door and it's a perfect little library, cool. Yeah, it's the neatest little thing, very so cool. My kids would dark looking very because you know it's like almost underground, it's like built within that's very cool. I've never heard of that Anyhow learning something new.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What else can we talk about? What Do you?
Speaker 3:have any projects you're working on?
Speaker 2:I love projects. I just you know we love the corporate sector, so it's nothing like a lot of people don't see 99% of our work. It's just because it's all like internal Like we just did a retirement video.
Speaker 1:Oh my we just did a retirement video. Oh my gosh, it was the sweetest thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah For a bank I love that the dude's retiring he's a legend in the bank, and he ended up crying over this piece. Oh, everybody's all teary. Stuff like that Just internal communication, cultural-driven stuff for what you would typically think would be boring.
Speaker 3:We like to kind of have fun with it, jazz it up and how do? You guys get new business. How are people just?
Speaker 2:knock on doors. You know um cold linkedin. Linkedin's my fave. You know um I'm? We're targeting banks and credit unions in the financial sectors and just helping internal marketing on that and on that end, we've done some really cool things. Like, if you go to our website, we've done some really cool things. If you go to our website.
Speaker 3:We've done some really cool things. Oh I have. Your work is incredible.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's really nice of you, but we've niched down to like let's just focus on this, Because we love creative, we love bringing different thoughts and strategy to like. I said something that would be boring.
Speaker 4:Well, and it's such a great niche because those folks there's.
Speaker 2:They don't team of one creativity yeah, and they don't hire for creativity ever you know it's all about logic and math and right, standards and right and so so the fun part is is resonating that down to the audience and consumer and taking all that and bringing you know.
Speaker 4:I just did that in my voice, but you know, that was really weird, but you get it, yes, um, so yeah, yeah, yeah, some fun stuff like that I think all of our clients over the years have like taught us a lot of things and I think in the beginning we wanted to work with like exciting, I'm putting sure it's up sure, exciting brands exciting businesses and like things that had you know energy, and not realizing that every business has someone.
Speaker 4:Who's the driving passion behind it and learning from them that, even if it's quote unsexy or something that you know isn't, as you know, flashy, it's so exciting to hear what people are passionate about and to really get into what they're passionate about, what message they want to get across, and then, you know, adding the creativity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so cool, and then seeing it resonate with others.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:I'm seeing it happen, and then they come back from it. Right, it's fun. I like what we do, of course, you know what's your superpower. Adhd. That's the perfect Undiagnosed ADHD.
Speaker 4:ADHD.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure 30th person to say that to me in the last year I feel like everybody's like undiagnosed ADHD right here big time. Yeah, they didn't diagnose Gen Xers with ADHD, you know so you know he's confused.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he's a kid, yeah you're always looking right, right.
Speaker 2:I just like exactly what's next who?
Speaker 4:can I help? That you don't like to be bored is that you can't be bored?
Speaker 2:I don't know how, to be bored like your brain like, literally, don't like to be bored.
Speaker 4:is that you can't be bored? I don't know how to be bored. Yeah, like your brain literally won't let you be bored Right, because it's like, oh, that's messed up.
Speaker 2:And then I'm like squirrel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you said, you and your partner are very different. What's that dynamic?
Speaker 2:like he's the madman of the group. He's the design artist strategist. If you would put him into any other agency in town, he would fit right in. Talking about data, talking about strategy, talking about creative, talking about why, what colors and what designs, I don't know how he does it, but he does it.
Speaker 3:He's got both brains where I'm just the song and dance guy hey, come work with us.
Speaker 2:We're fun to work with and I produce and I know how to produce video and produce content you know, wait, let's talk about your ted talk.
Speaker 4:What are you going to talk about?
Speaker 2:I don't know you're undiagnosed adhd maybe, but I think that's almost kind of being used right now.
Speaker 4:So I was actually thinking it could be the art of interviewing or something like that like how to like making connections I feel like I've gotten better get people comfortable enough to divulge yeah yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, we have not answered one question that you provided.
Speaker 3:I don't think we've gone completely off script, but you haven't it's a great thing because it's been you've been guiding a really seamless conversation and I think the art of interviewing that we love, amber and I both love Howard Stern and, um, he is such a genius when it comes to getting people comfortable and talking and everything. I think there is like there's. I mean Amber knows what Ted would bring you through.
Speaker 3:But right, but I think you could just talk about like the phases in which you make genuine connections with people and how you're able to do that in interviews?
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe I like it, I like it. You know what I'm going to chat GBT that. What will my TED Talks be? I fear my strengths.
Speaker 4:I think what I've told people in the past is you know, I always wanted to give a TED Talk. That was like something that was on my bucket list.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:And I didn't have anything to talk about. I was very much like I could talk about anything. Just give me a subject.
Speaker 4:I'll talk, and the way I came up with my subject matter was because I realized that I had said this thing, this premise, 30 times in the last year. Every time I met someone new who asked me what it was like to work from home, I launched into this whole diatribe and then I was like, oh, I need to talk about this. This has nothing to do with, like my quote, business or my personality.
Speaker 4:It's just like how I feel about this is happening to society and whether or not we should do it long term, and it was just like the passion.
Speaker 2:What was it? What was it that talks about? It was called?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was called. The unintended consequences of remote work. Find it on YouTube.
Speaker 2:Yes, Perfect Please do.
Speaker 4:The unintended consequences of remote work.
Speaker 3:Remote work, okay, and there is pre-pandemic too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I worked from home here by the time, oh, before it was cool yeah, I started working from home in 2015, so, and I did it for five years and then so at that time when I wrote the ted talk, I had five years in the office and five years from home in our company. It was like exact. So I was. I feel like, if anyone's you know able to weigh it accurately and with fairness I can at this moment, and so I feel like that's what I did.
Speaker 2:How long is a TED?
Speaker 4:Talk. It's 10 minutes. Mine was about 9.48.
Speaker 2:And your times. You can't go above 10.
Speaker 4:You cannot go above 10. They will let you go to 11 if you kill it. If you kill it, if you're just like we cannot get rid of this point, it's too good. They'll let you go to 11, but they like you to tighten it to 10. Um, there is a timer on stage which they don't tell you until the very last minute, um, and you have to just sort of put that out of your mind yeah, just have it practiced, have yours, you know yeah, well, I think people, me included I didn't realize charleston has one of the best.
Speaker 4:I've since talked to a lot of people in other chapters Charleston has this is TEDx, by the way, obviously not big Ted, but they have one of the most involved chapters coaching wise. Most people get chosen and then they're like, ok, we'll see you the day before for a dress rehearsal, charleston. You have your coaching one on one coaching every week, and then you go to group sessions every other week. So it's like a leadership thing intensive.
Speaker 4:I told her, I was like I I was like this is about to be my part-time job, like that's how serious it is, um, if you want to do well, which everyone does then you crush it.
Speaker 2:I'm sure I think I did she opened.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they opened tedx and it was incredible they elected me to open, which I was very excited about, okay that's a opening is a good spot you want this, you want the first spot. I mean set the tone sure yeah, love it the closer is also great, which was aaron kenzel oh, was it so good?
Speaker 2:oh, sure, fantastic. What do you remember? The power of introverts.
Speaker 4:I know everybody's. I could probably give them all right now because I'm like. I've heard him so many times. I remember everybody's, but hers was about the power of introverts because she said you know, I'm a news anchor. You'd think that I'm an extrovert. I am not. I hide in the bathroom during a party and I have to recharge by myself and just her exploration of getting from the.
Speaker 4:the common misnomer is that introverts don't like people and she loves people. It's just how you recharge Do you recharge with other people or do you recharge by yourself. Just her journey on that was really cool and obviously extremely well spoken.
Speaker 2:Have you seen her auctioneer yet?
Speaker 4:No, but I've heard.
Speaker 2:She's talented.
Speaker 4:How could she not be?
Speaker 2:She's a super talent Raising a bunch of money for a lot of these non-profits. These live auctions. They had one for Camp Happy Days. She was the auctioneer for that and, yeah, it was great. How do you?
Speaker 3:find out. That's your talent.
Speaker 2:You're like let me just try, you know what I asked her, and you can probably listen to our podcast with aaron, I think I did ask her like what do you? What do you mean? It's so random. She's just like but she's taking classes for it and she's trained for it and and all that, so I found that that's pretty neat, right? What else, guys? Good Lord, every time I try to wrap this up, we always get into another 15-minute conversation.
Speaker 2:It's kind of fun. Let's talk about what's in the future for Matchstick. Are you guys growing? Are you guys narrowing, slimming down Like what's the next five to 10 years outlook?
Speaker 4:What a loaded question. Well, we are currently growing, we are currently hiring. I think we always get into like what do we need, skillset wise, and we put out a job description that we think is our best you know job, and then we just hire people that we really like, that are driven and ambitious and hungry and awesome yeah, um, and when their skill set, like we make the skill, we make the job fit the skill set if that makes sense.
Speaker 4:Um, there have been a few times where we're like we just have to hire this person because we don't want them to work anywhere else.
Speaker 2:You know, because they're just so great right, right, and oftentimes what you think you're getting hired for.
Speaker 3:As we get to know you and your strengths and your passion, it's like, okay, well, that's not really what you want to be doing. Anyway, you want to be doing this, let's get, and there's a need, and we're able to now offer more because of that. Um, so that's kind of the, the benefit that that we get of being a small business too, that we can right.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned charlotte burger, you mentioned q and and legacy. I'm seeing a theme here, right? You guys match stick. You're known to be a female owned. Obviously we have four, just for the record we've had three male employees oh, I didn't know that that's where I'm headed to.
Speaker 4:Right here, I'm like no we do not, but not recently, you know. I think you'd have to be a special human to want to work with a team full of women and to be fair, it's when we were social media primarily.
Speaker 3:We naturally attracted women, for better or worse marketing in general. Yeah, and so we had never do. We want to amber and I, as women in business, want to support women in business of course but we've never intended to only hire women, nor have we only hired women um as much as now. Our suspicion is because we have a larger team of only women, those that are applying it just kind of like begets more female employees type thing. But we are absolutely open.
Speaker 1:Okay, good.
Speaker 3:We're hiring right now desperately looking for a Google advertising specialist meta. We need some help there, just solely based on the demand. Yeah, yeah, I mean wanting to go to bed at a reasonable hour, right, um, you wouldn't do that anyway you know, I wouldn't but maybe I could like watch tv instead, like without my computer on my lap, you know, yeah, right oh, I know I'm big into white lotus and gemstones oh, I haven't got astones yeah, so good so good baby billy's well you were just um across the table from a few gemstones, not have you met?
Speaker 3:you were, oh yeah and yes, so um you saw danny mcbride danny mcbride walks in with his husband, with her, his wife.
Speaker 2:I didn't know he was gay and no his wife listen Danny McBride. Are you listening?
Speaker 3:he walks in with his wife and I. One of our clients heart had just sold Gigi Hadid a necklace, so I knew that, uh, bradley Cooper was in town, and so I made a joke that story alone okay.
Speaker 3:I know. So I made a joke to my friend like how cool, danny McGrath's like right behind you, I, how cool would it be if Bradley Cooper walked in? And like 30 seconds later she's like Bradley Cooper's here and I feel horrible for my friend because the whole dinner they're behind her and I'm just like watching in, but not in a creepy way, just so like how cool, you know, and she's like, hey, uh, do you want to have dinner?
Speaker 2:with me, I would do the same. But yeah, how can you not stare at bradley? Right, right, but the part he played in that, since you haven't no, I haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 3:It's so awesome yeah, yeah um, I mean, he's such a good actor. His interview. Speaking of the art of interviewing, do you listen to Armchair Expert? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Dex is yeah, I've.
Speaker 3:I love that Hot take, you're a better interviewer than.
Speaker 2:Dax, shut your face. Don't say that.
Speaker 3:He interrupts so much I like have a difficult time.
Speaker 2:He's got that ego. You know those guys with the egos, they want to talk.
Speaker 4:He's also ADHD as well.
Speaker 3:Well, but he lets you finish the story. You know, I mean you let him. I'm saying yeah, no, but he, I love it, I love armchair.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:The way that he gets people to be vulnerable because he's bringing in his friends or people he respects. I think it's fantastic. Yeah, but his Bradley Cooper's recent one was really I mean recent. It's probably like a year old by now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but it was really good. It's really good he does.
Speaker 3:He's very. Bradley Cooper Now I'm talking about is very um, like what's the word I'm looking for?
Speaker 1:every day he wakes up and he does the exact same thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's not the word I'm looking for, but I hear you. Uh, but, and he does like a cold plunge every single day and he does like right.
Speaker 2:Not doing cold. My wife does it, I'm not.
Speaker 3:Does she go to sweat house?
Speaker 2:Did Okay.
Speaker 3:So I have a membership.
Speaker 2:I've only gone twice yeah, that's what I did. Is the answer there?
Speaker 3:I'm like I think that the longest I've lasted is three minutes. I can't struggle, but I respect it and I get the desire, but manifesting danny mcbride on our show like let's just like that would be well, we can tag him, you know what I did, kind of, I reached out on instagram did you invited my birthday party.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, how stupid is that this is like when I first moved here because I knew he lived here.
Speaker 3:I'm like dude but you know, come party with me, yeah, yeah how cool that would.
Speaker 2:Be well, now you get to say well, I'm the president of ams oh, yeah, right we'd love to have you yeah, yeah, it would be, yeah, it would be awesome to have him or anybody on his team. It's awesome how he brought LA here as a film geek like wanted to be a filmmaker, like that's just amazing. Yeah, it's here A lot of great talent here in Charleston, so thank you for staying, you guys included, as the talent here, like you've been here since in business, since 2012.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I moved here in 2008, 2010 sure that's early on yeah for most of us I'm 2019, yeah, um, but you guys chose to stay. Can you say, can you tell me, like, why you chose charleston? To live and grow, and build compelling story which part my family yeah, but we only have a couple minutes, okay, fair um, the?
Speaker 3:why did I stay? I mean, the? Is there any place more beautiful than charleston? I think. Uh, to be fair, my family has, and my best friend has since followed me here, rather than I don't know where, where I would go at this point All my family other than a couple are here.
Speaker 2:Where were you from then, new York?
Speaker 3:Okay, so I did after so I grew up about 30 miles north of Manhattan.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:And I did what everybody in my hometown was meant to do, which is go somewhere for college and then come back, move to the city, get a job and then, until you're ready to have kids, you live in Manhattan. It's kind of like, you know, pre-pandemic at least that was the norm and I my first job. I worked, you know, 10 plus hour days at this PR firm and was taught everything not to do in terms of when I became a boss myself and I got to a point.
Speaker 3:I think, think honestly, it was my dad that was like f that like this, is not what a career is meant to look like, and I had great opportunities, but it just wasn't the right fit and I I applied for jobs in Denver, Charleston and DC and I got my first job down here from New York. And then I mean honestly At an agency.
Speaker 3:I worked for it was PR and marketing for a, so she they're still around too. I'll plug them. The keynote group they Yolanda who owns it, started started. She actually works with tedx now, but she used to work in the marketing department with tony robbins and did like alt like from the beginning and so she then created her own business where she did marketing.
Speaker 3:So built brands, websites, social media, everything for speakers and then actually booked them. So that's where I started. I worked for her for like probably three or four years and then started working at agencies Downtown Charleston, at the time it was in Mount Pleasant. I think she's on Daniel Island now. That's cool yeah.
Speaker 2:But then from there, yeah.
Speaker 3:So from there I went agency and I could never go back because I was like doing Super Bowl campaigns and like big. You know, we worked with Bridgestone Tires and Firestone Complete Auto Care and it was just like so fun and I got to go CMA Fest because our clients were sponsors a couple years and then I was like all right, that's.
Speaker 2:That's funny. I've been to a couple CMA Fests. So fun, so fun. Yeah, I met Taylor Swift there oh my god pretty cool she thought I was a jock, she said goodbye.
Speaker 4:I'm like you um, you probably went the year I went because I don't think she was there for many years I mean super like first year she was out like yeah rookie season or something. Yeah, I don't think it was her rookie season. I went, but I did something there and it was fantastic oh, 70809, something in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I worked for a company and we did um video for radio cool, cool live stream. Yeah, back when live stream was cool, yeah, um, that's awesome, but you stayed because the city and the people and the thing and yeah, the right, why, why?
Speaker 3:live anywhere else because, well, I think, like to harken back to what we were talking about, because, from a business standpoint, there's so much support and opportunity and, honestly, I get annoyed at times because the reason I came here from leaving New York is what I find is happening here.
Speaker 2:You're part of the problem. You're part of the problem.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that's fair, but like just the cost and the traffic and all the things. But I do think for as a small business owner, that I don't feel like there once upon a time where I'm like, well, we're going to flatline eventually or plateau because of being here. And I don't feel that way at all.
Speaker 3:I think the reason that that is complete out of the conversation because, like, not only is Charleston growing, but the, the economic growth and the openness for investing in marketing and knowing like this isn't something like a luxury that we have to really push hard to sell again, amber, I think, said really well earlier that it's more of like, are we the right fit for you? Is is what growing our business has turned into. Then, um, selling you on why you need meta ads, you know, yeah, and that's been, that's a part of the, the growth in the community, I think yeah, we're a small city but there's a lot of opportunity for sure in the small city.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did. My parents were looking at me like cross-eyed too. You're coming from tampa, which is a bigger market, to a smaller market and I just didn't know that. I guess it didn't really. I mean, it makes sense, but I'm like, oh shit, that's right, we got here and you just have to put your faith in it. I think one of our interviews jared black of in the black. He said if, if you embrace charleston, charleston will embrace you, and he's a come yet too. I mean, he's been here a while, but you know what I mean. Like this is.
Speaker 2:I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 4:Well, my perspective of Charleston. I grew up just down the road in Merles Inlet so I have been coming here a long time and I had friends that came to College of Charleston and I visited throughout college. But my you know experience with it growing up was it was not cool at all. It was like where my grandparents lived and it's where you went back to school shopping and that was it. Like that was all charleston offered us. And then when I came down here for college is when it first started to like kind of grow and get this new, like youthful. The really old school people on this listening will remember granny's goodies was on king street and that was like.
Speaker 4:But to think about granny's goodies being on king street blows my mind now, because I'm like that was like a vintage, like super crunchy hippie you did just light up a little bit.
Speaker 2:You must love this place.
Speaker 4:It was great it was great, but like that could never survive. Now, but back then it was like kind of this crunchy, hippie young. The college of Charleston was growing. And so it was getting this like more youthful vibe and then after we moved down here it still felt a little like corporate and then it started to really take off with the food and you know the festivals and all of it.
Speaker 4:So it's so funny because people are like oh man, growing up next to Charleston should have been awesome and I was like, I mean to be honest, myrtle Beach was cooler at the time.
Speaker 2:Oh, dirty Myrtle which is crazy.
Speaker 4:My dad still lives. He works in Myrtle Beach, he lives in Myrtle's Inlet and we're constantly like why are you still there? Like you love to golf, come down here. And he's like never, never, charleston's gotten too big for its britches. I'm like okay, fine.
Speaker 2:True, true, yeah, same. I just love the people and the location and raising the families and I'm on a cul-de-sac with the golf cart and the teeters down the road and I'm at the grocery store twice a day. You know the things, you know. Yeah, there's always something to do.
Speaker 4:There's always an event to go to, there's something to do, but there's not so much to do that you feel like you have to do everything well, that's because we're old, that's because we choose not to do everything we've learned that lesson when I moved to oklahoma.
Speaker 4:You know, the the biggest difference obviously is that I was in rural oklahoma oh 45 minutes to a target and the lesson I learned there about slow living yeah and intentional living and not being so. And I told my husband I was like I was nine, seven months pregnant when we moved there and I was like this was such a blessing because we would have still been trying to do stuff with our friends in Charleston and raise this kid, raise this human, and because that's removed nothing to do, the only thing you can do is go to your neighbor's house and drink a beer.
Speaker 4:So like it was so nice because we got that really, really focused time. And then we got back and like, okay, now it's party time there's time for everything, right.
Speaker 2:You have what is it? Seasons, right yes you know for your kids, and then you got your career, and then you got your parent. You know there's. You just gotta ebb and flow with what season you're in and just understand that it's not all going to come at once, but when you need it it'll come.
Speaker 4:Right, right, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I got this new tagline. I'm breaking out here. I have a lot to give and I have a lot to learn. Love it. That's going to be my kind of like tagline for podcasting.
Speaker 1:You like that, matt, I love it.
Speaker 3:And perhaps your TEDx topic there's your title.
Speaker 2:There it is. Chat gbt tedx me, write me a 10 minute tedx thing. Oh, I love it, guys. Thanks for coming, thanks for doing this. I'm glad I pressured you, rachel, to doing this. I did too.
Speaker 4:She tried to bail this morning. You know what I specifically didn't press yeah I didn't.
Speaker 2:I was about to email you, I was about to text I don't know if I have yourself I was about to do all the things. I'm like, like you can do this, but I'm like you know what she's going to do.
Speaker 1:It she's going to come on her own. No, I appreciate it. I'm not going to pressure her and do it, it's good.
Speaker 3:Yeah. The thing is still running.
Speaker 1:The sophisticated iPad.
Speaker 3:I'm hidden behind the screen.
Speaker 4:I'm like a match to Greg for the best.
Speaker 2:You are on brand. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:It was fun.
Speaker 2:Cool. Before we leave, we need to thank our sponsors the Charleston Media Solutions Jerry Feels Good with the Boots and the American Marketing Association. If you want to be a sponsor or a guest on the show, reach out to podcastcharlestonamaorg and we'll get back to you. Thanks for being with us again. Ladies, matchstick Social look them up, follow them on social, give them tags. Do you have tags? And all that.
Speaker 3:Matchstick Social.
Speaker 2:Matchstick.
Speaker 4:Social Matchstick Social.
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