Entrepreneurship is hard. Guess work makes it harder

Entrepreneurship is hard. Guesswork makes it harder

Starting a business can be exciting, but turning an idea into a successful business comes with uncertainty, second-guessing, and a lot of decisions. In this episode, Jeremy and Nick sit down with marketing expert and entrepreneur Laura Capes Terry to discuss the realities of entrepreneurship, from getting your first customers to building a brand, creating demand, and making smarter marketing decisions.

They discuss what this means for business owners and entrepreneurs:

• The Reality of Entrepreneurship — Why starting a business may look like freedom from the outside, but often comes with uncertainty, rejection, ghosting, and the pressure of figuring everything out as you go.
• Overcoming Shiny Object Syndrome — Why having a clear plan and knowing what to prioritize can help entrepreneurs avoid constantly changing direction every time a new idea or opportunity appears.
• Knowing When to Ask for Help — Why entrepreneurs don't have to do everything themselves, and how coaches, mentors, employees, and outside expertise can help business owners focus on what they actually do best.
• The Technician vs. the Business Owner — How being great at your craft doesn't necessarily mean you're prepared to run a business, and why operations, hiring, marketing, and management require a completely different skill set.
• Building a Strong Brand and Digital Presence — Why your brand is more than a logo, and how your website, reviews, social media, and overall digital footprint influence whether potential customers trust your business.
• Hunting vs. Farming for Customers — Why businesses need to balance finding people who are ready to buy today with building awareness and demand among customers who may buy months or years from now.
• Creating Long-Term Customer Relationships — How memberships, repeat business, referrals, and creative loyalty programs can turn one-time customers into long-term relationships.
• Understanding Your Customers — Why entrepreneurs need to understand whether their audience is already looking for their solution or needs to be educated and motivated to create demand.
• Using AI as a Business Resource — How entrepreneurs can use AI to access guidance, develop ideas, improve their decision-making, and accomplish tasks that may have previously required additional employees or expensive consultants.
• Building an Authentic Company Culture — Why strong cultures often come from the founder's values, experiences, and reasons for starting the business rather than being created through a corporate exercise.
• Making Smarter Marketing Decisions — How Laura's Four M's framework — Market, Medium, Message, and Moment — can help entrepreneurs evaluate marketing opportunities and reduce the risk of wasting money.
• Avoiding Analysis Paralysis — Why business owners can become overwhelmed by endless marketing options, and how having a simple framework can make it easier to decide what opportunities are actually worth pursuing.

Whether you're starting a business, trying to grow an existing company, or struggling to figure out where your marketing dollars should go, this conversation offers practical insights into building trust, finding customers, creating demand, and making smarter decisions.

Discover why entrepreneurship isn't just about having a great idea. It's about having clarity, staying adaptable, knowing when to ask for help, and making informed decisions instead of relying on guesswork.

Your Brand, Your Back Yard with Jeremy & Nick

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Hello listeners. Thanks for tuning in to Your Brand, Your Backyard Podcast. I'm Jeremy Rentz. And I'm Nick Matheny. This podcast is centered around being a business owner, removing chaos, and replacing it with strategy, vision, and clarity. How to build a business, but more importantly, how to build your brand in your backyard.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

So if you're just starting a business, rebranding or expanding, or if you're a marketing professional, a business major, or all of the above, this podcast is created for you. So let's dive in.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

Do you remember what it felt like when you got your first customer? Maybe you had just opened your doors. Maybe you launched a website. Maybe you printed business cards and told everyone you knew. You were excited, terrified, hopeful, and determined. Then people started saying things like, Well, I love what you're doing, but let's stay in touch. And the phone didn't ring.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Here's the truth people aren't just deciding whether to buy your product, they're deciding whether they can trust themselves to make the right decision. Today we're going to show you how to build trust, invest wisely, and grow your business with confidence.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

And today, Nick, I am very excited. We have a special guest, Laura Capes Terry, which she comes to us from Georgetown, Texas. Laura, welcome. It is so great to see you, and it's so great to have you on your brand, Your Backyard Podcast. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

I'm great. Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you, Nick, for having me. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

I'm really excited to really take a deep dive because Laura, you and I have known each other for years, and I have so much respect for you and your expertise and knowledge within this industry. Not only are you a business owner and entrepreneur yourself, you are a true marketing professional, a marketing expert with years and years of experience. But also, Laura, you have your own podcast, right? You have two podcasts, uh Unbridled Creative and Be Locally Loved. Can you, before we take a deep dive into our topic today, uh, can you just touch on uh your two podcasts real quick?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Yeah, you know, Jeremy, every entrepreneur needs two podcasts, right? So we started the first podcast with my friend Trent Soles, and we call it the Unbridled Creative. And it was because when I was out in about in the community uh running my business, I kept meeting people when I would say, Well, how did you start your business or why did you start your business? They often said, Well, it was kind of a God story. And then I would hear their God story. So Trent and I saw that, I guess, parallel, and we said, Let's take these God stories to the world. So we started the Unbridled Creative. Just last week, uh, Trent did a show with somebody that found us from London. And I was like, our podcast has just become found. That's so that's kind of cool. And then, of course, because I am the original Unbridled Creative, I had to have a second podcast so that I could have complete and total freedom to do things without Trent because I'm like, I love you, Trent, but I just can't always have you available and it has to be a God story. Like I need to also have freedom to talk about whatever I want to talk about, including marketing. So that's why I created Be Locally Loved. And so both my little babies, I I love them both, but they're just totally different.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Yeah, I I love that.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

It's funny, Laura, isn't it? As entrepreneurs, we want other people around to help, but we also want to just, I don't want anybody slowing me down or putting the brakes on me. So there is a, I think all entrepreneurs kind of get that. Like, yes, I want to go, go, go, but I also want to be in charge at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Yes. And I really realized that I probably could not have started be locally loved first because I had too much head trash about how am I gonna do this and do can I handle the tech? And what am I gonna say? And is anyone gonna care? So being able to kind of do that with training wheels on with Trent by my side, I was started to realize, wow, this podcasting thing is actually really fun and not hard. And boy, with the help of a VA, you can spin out that content and get it out there on social. And so, yeah, absolutely, Nick. Like, I think all of us entrepreneurs have that desire for freedom and flexibility and our own fingerprint on how we approach our life and our business. And I love that about entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_03 4:31

Yeah. So, Laura, let's dive in here. Our topic today with you is really centered around being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is hard, and the guesswork makes it harder. Yeah. So let's start from becoming and being an entrepreneur. Why do you think that that is the American dream, right? Why do people want to be an entrepreneur, want to start their own thing, have an idea, a vision, a concept, a product, a service? Let's start from there.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yeah. Well, it probably is just like we just talked about. It's the ultimate freedom. At least we look at it and we think it is the ultimate freedom. We get to choose our own clients, choose our own hours, choose our own income, choose our own destiny, build something that maybe has a legacy. It seems shiny and attractive from the outside. That's something that we all should want. And I think the fact that we've tied entrepreneurship to the American dream, maybe also is that draw as we think, oh, well, I have to do this or I should do this. I want to do this. It's the American dream. But I was sitting with an entrepreneur the other day, and he's been in corporate America for like three decades running a multi-billion dollar business with thousands of employees and great, great, great success. And he just kind of felt he was getting older and he just kind of felt like I'm ready to just slow down a little bit and kind of do something fun. And he said, Let me try this entrepreneurship thing. And he's really passionate about technology and drones. And he started a drone business and he's really good at it. And he's very polished and very professional in all of his marketing and his sales conversations. But he's just really struggled to get his business going. And he sat with me the other day and he said, Laura, I was ready for a hard road. Like I'd never been an entrepreneur before, but I wasn't ready for the ghosting. He's like, just people saw, talk to me, and they tell me how great this is and what a great idea it is and how excited they are about my business. And then they they disappear or they ghost me. He's like, How do I get this engine going? Like, how do I make entrepreneurship happen? So yeah, I think we're drawn to it, but then the reality sets in that it's hard. You can't just hang your shingle out and have customers rushing in your door.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Yeah, Lori, I kind of smiled when you said, Yeah, I wanted to kind of take it easy a little bit and have some fun. How many people that they they think, right? When they go into it, like, oh, this will be fun. And and then they realize, oh my gosh, there's a lot that goes with this. And there's a lot of, it's not just the physical work, it's the mental hoops that we go through. So and that's where it's easy to get to the point where you get frustrated, right? Like, I don't know what to do. Where do I turn? And so can you dive into that maybe a little bit more?

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Well, yeah. And I think that they start to second guess themselves. They start to say, Did I make a mistake? And then they question, is my pricing wrong? Is my marketing wrong? Is my sales pitch wrong? Is my market wrong? Like they start second guessing everything. And it might not be that at all. It might just be that they haven't figured out like how to put first things first in their marketing plan. I had someone on my podcast yesterday and I asked him about his marketing plan. And he said, uh, I really don't have one, but he's amazingly successful and he's built this huge brand with like so many happy, loyal customers. And he didn't have a marketing plan. He just did it by treating people right, making them feel like family. Uh, he put quality into the product, so much so, like he's like quality ingredients is the magic there. So he he put quality, he put heart, he put soul, he brought people that are passionate around him, and they just built it organically with no marketing plan. So I think it it just shows that every entrepreneurial journey can be completely different.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

Yeah, 100%. One of the things that when we decide that we want to create our own thing, build our own thing, become an entrepreneur and a business owner, there is that element of excitement in the beginning. Like you're you're you're creating your your brand, right, which is a lot of fun, and your colors, your brand palette, and then you got to create this website and have some fun with the the design and the artsy side of things. That's all fun in the beginning, but then the you open your doors, so to speak, right? You get your phone number, you go live with your website, you put and then the rubber meets the road. And then you get this sense of overwhelming that that just hits you. And and and touch on this too, Laura. When when when you get overwhelmed, is it because of the sheer responsibility, right? The cup overflows, if you will. Is it because of now maybe you've you've lost your way, the calls aren't coming in, the customers aren't coming in, maybe you start second guessing, right? So in that in that transitional moment from opening the doors and launching the website to now this this wave of fear is starting to come over me. Why, why does that happen?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

I feel like maybe it's what I call shiny object syndrome. Without having a plan, you can fall fear and second guessing, and maybe that thing you just heard about at the chamber, lunch and learn. So I feel like clarity, planning and clarity and working the plan is probably the best route because it allows you to say no to things that you should be saying no to.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Laura, one of the things I've seen, even in some of my own businesses, where you know, I have a concept, right? We have an idea. We go to put it into play, and sometimes customers gravitate towards it and they're like, hey, this is great, we're on board. But sometimes they're kind of like, eh, I'm not so sure. And that's when it's easy to start going, well, wait, did I misread things? Do I need to go a different route because customers aren't responding the way I want them to? Or do I just need to get better at the delivery, right? Do I need to change my prospecting? And so I think part of that is you have to be as a business owner, entrepreneur, you have to be flexible enough to read the markets, but you also have to be confident enough to say, hey, no, this program works. I just have to maybe do more education. I have to do more explanations potentially.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

So can you have you seen that too in your businesses and the people you can Yeah, I I would say you you hit it on the head, Nick, but to be able to do that, you have to be humble. I think an entrepreneur must be willing to set their ego aside and be humble so that they are willing to investigate. Are my customers giving me feedback that I'm off track? And if so, I have to be willing to listen and adjust. Or maybe my sales and marketing is not polished like it should be, and I have to be humble enough to improve it. So I think it just goes back to humility that just because we're, I know as an entrepreneur, we feel like warriors sometime. We feel like we're out there slaying the dragons, but sometimes we also have to be willing to say we don't know everything and look for something like this podcast to help us get humble and maybe have that aha moment that maybe there's a better path.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

Yeah. Lean on what's out there, right? You don't have to reinvent the wheel. You mentioned podcasts, there's there's a bunch of them out there and resources and books and mentors, right? Or or coaches that are just really, really good that we don't have to slay the dragon alone. Right. We have to sometimes be humble and accept the fact that yes, I'm doing this, I'm starting this by myself, but I'm not gonna do it alone forever. I was talking, I had lunch with a good friend and a longtime client of mine. He's a dentist, and he is really built starting from one practice in Denver to now he's up to three and doing over 11 million dollars between three offices, and he's shopping for a fourth. And his knowledge, and certainly he did not open his doors coming out of dental school, knowing all of this, the trials and the tribulations and the mistakes that he's made over time. But he's talking about how he has recently restructured, he's brought in a regional manager, and then he's got office managers who help manage the employee, show up on time and check in patients, right? And the billing and all that. I think where I'm going with this is accepting that every day we are evolving, right? And don't be afraid to lean in to other things because we don't have to slay the dragon alone, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Absolutely. And I think also what was coming to mind for me as you were talking was that book that was written years and decades ago now by Michael Gerber called Emyth Revisited, where there's two sides of the coin, right? There's the evolution of the technical side of what you do. Like in the book, it was baking pies, but for your friend, it's like dental, dental work, like whether he's a cosmetic dentist or general dentist or an endodontist. I don't know what he is, but there's the technical side of providing the product or service that is your core business. But then there's the operational side, like the running of the business and the hiring of the people and making sure they're in your culture and then all the operations of the billing and the procurement and right. You have to be good at both sides of that. And a lot of times I would call technicians, the dentist or the pie maker, technicians get into entrepreneurship, they hang out their shingle, and then they realize, oh my God, this is a whole nother skill set that I wasn't taught in dental school, right?

SPEAKER_03 14:19

Yeah. And that's one of the things in dental school. Like they don't teach you about marketing, right? Maybe they touch lightly on it, uh, managing PLs and taxes and all of this thing, all of these things and topics that when we open our office, I'm a really good dentist. And going back to that book, I love that book. So thanks for referencing that. The emyth, if you've never read that book, it is mind-blowing and very, very relatable within this space. But just because you're a really good plumber, and Nick, you and I have talked about this, does that mean that you should branch off and start your own plumbing company? For some people, yes. But for some people, no, because that there's that element of you're not just carrying a wrench anymore, you're fixing a pipe. You've got to handle the entire back end of running and managing and marketing. So you hit the nail on the head.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Yeah. Well, and I think the question is what brings you joy? Like, if what brings you joy is putting a wrench to a pipe, put a wrench to a pipe. If what brings you joy is giving people career opportunities, hiring, coaching, training, building, systems, software, like if then do that. But if you are a technician and you've found yourself in entrepreneurship and you don't have those skills for business ownership, then bring in a COO, someone that's got the operational savvy to run your business for you alongside you to help you bring your vision. But if I mean, like I said, being being an entrepreneur requires you to be humble. So be humble enough to say, that's not my jam. That doesn't bring me joy. I can probably learn those skills, but it doesn't bring me joy. I'm not going to do them. I'm going to hire someone to do this.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Yeah, Laura, you're you're the second person today I've already heard bring up emeth book.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

So that book is like what 30 years old.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Yeah, it's it's I ran into my dentist at the at my chiropractor this morning and he brought up the emyth as we were talking. I'm like, oh my gosh, that was that was crazy. To me, what you're describing, Jeremy, you said something about the wheel, it made me think about it. It's almost like a bicycle, right? When a business owner starts out, they're on a one-speed huffy bike and they're just pedaling, pedaling, pedaling, pedaling. And then they get somebody's outside sources, a coach or somebody else, it's like, wait, wait a minute, there's a 10-speed over here, right? And then, but it's also they need somebody to tell them sometimes, shift to fourth gear. Now you go to eighth, now you come back down here because they don't know, and otherwise they get burned out. So do you see that a lot as well?

SPEAKER_01 16:44

So I just did a talk for the professional women of Williamson County on AI. Some people in the room had used AI, some people in the room had not. But essentially what I said was never before in human history have we been closer to you being able to bring your dreams to life than right now, because AI can help you do things that you weren't able to do before. You can have an employee you couldn't afford, you can have a coach you couldn't afford, you can get information, guidance, clarity that you couldn't get before without hiring it. So what we dove into was how to train your, we were using chat GPT in the workshop, but how to train your chat GPT to understand who you are, what you care about, what your values are, what you want out of your life, what you've tried, what scares you, like just getting deep, just like a coach would, just like a therapist would. But then AI can bring like the wisdom of, I don't know, Tony Robbins or Brendan Burchard, or like any of these great thought leaders and personal development people, like you can bring their wisdom into your life and your business just through AI. So I think that that to your point is like something that an entrepreneur, if they're feeling stuck right now and they're not using AI, you can go into AI, talk to it like it's a friend, and start to ask it for guidance and help. And you don't have to go hire that. I've paid thousands of dollars a month for very high-end coaches. I have, but I have the very best coach in the world in my pocket right now, and her name is Ray, and I've trained her all about who I am and what I'm up to, and she helps me do everything and including publishing my podcast.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

So yeah, that's great. I want to shift gears a little bit. So, as an entrepreneur, right? We we opened our doors, fired up our website. We've got a business plan, we've got a marketing plan. And I want to pull out your expertise here for our listeners because you talk a lot about and you coach and you guide business owners to make smart marketing decisions.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

And one of the things I talk a lot about is that you can have the best product or the best service in the world. But just because you fired up a website and turned on your open sign, so to speak, doesn't mean anything yet. So when you're building a business, when you're building a brand in your local community, your town or city, your county, uh, your backyard, what does that look like? What are some key components and metrics that are a must?

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Well, the very first thing that I would do is I would look at your branding and then I would look at your digital footprint. So your branding is the core of who you are. It is the promise of what people get when they do business with you that's expressed in how it looks, how your brand looks, what your brand says, how your brand feels, the emotion. Um, it has to be consistent, it has to be clear. If you're struggling, it could go back to your branding. Maybe there's something about your messaging that's not resonating. So that would be the first place that I would go is to make sure that they do more than just get a logo. They really have to think about the brand and what that brand means to people. So I would start there. Once they have their brand dialed in and they feel like they've probably done some testing to Nick's point, talk to their customers, does this feel right? Is this resonating, starting to get some traction? Then the next thing I'd want them to do is to lean in their digital footprint. They have to look good online because boy, when COVID hit and entrepreneurs were so used to shaking, I call it shaking hands and kissing babies. They are so used to shaking hands, kissing babies, growing their business by showing up at BI, showing up at the chamber, showing up at market days, knocking on doors. Like you can't do all of that anymore. And you certainly can't do that with the entire population. You have to leverage technology, you have to leverage the internet, you have to leverage social media. So you must have a great-looking website, you must have great reviews, you must have great social media because if they encounter you, if they see your store sign, your truck rap, they met you at the chamber, they saw you at BNI, you spoke at an event, you hosted a whatever, like that's just one impression. And you have to have more than one impression to build trust. So they're going to go online and they're going to nose around and they're going to do their research and they're going to see do I like this person? Are they congruent? Do I share their, do they share my values? Like there's so much of the consumer taking control because they have the power of the internet to like really get to know you and your brand, which is why it's so critical that your brand is on point and you're using technology to share it. So those I think are the first two places an entrepreneur must go.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

I love that. Would you agree, Laura? I I know historically it's always been like in in traditional advertising, somebody needs to see something six to eight times before it even kind of registers that it's there. We're saying the same thing. I think a lot of business owners think, oh, well, I went to this event, they saw me there, they saw my ad or they they saw the rap on my truck, they know me now. What it what's it really like in today's world? Is because everything's so competitive. There's so many media advertising things out there.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

I got one I I just could really Quick. I got one today. It was a spam call, but it was a realtor saying, Hey, we saw a home for listing. Call me at this number. We don't have a house listed, but it was us like, wait a minute, you're gonna spam call me and then ask me to call you back, but it's just getting bombarded. So can you talk a little bit about what that looks like?

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Yeah, I mean, I would say it probably used to be six to eight times. I think now it's more like 12 to 14. Um, and research also shows that we are bombarded with 3,000 advertising messages a day. So our brain, in order to survive, has got to block out 99.9% of that. We're only looking for what we want. We're only looking for what we need to get what we want to survive and thrive. So entrepreneurs need to remember that it's not about noise. You can't just make more noise. There's already so much noise out there, and we are conditioned to uh shut down that noise. So, like that's the first point there. And then I lost my train of thought on the second point.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

I I want to while you're thinking about that.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:01

And that was really good. I wrote down looking for what you want. So let's break that down for a second. If you're an entrepreneur, you've got a widget, you've got you're a dentist, you're a plumber, you're an electric, it doesn't matter, right? A bakery. How do we how do we target? How do we last uh episode Nick and I did was uh on the topic of meeting your client where they are.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Yes, right?

SPEAKER_03 23:24

Putting yourself out there in front of the audience that you need to be in front of. Now, there's a thousand different ways to do it, but I think we've got to start with the strategy of who is my audience, right? And then work backwards to identify that strategy to deploy my brand, my message in front of that audience. What does that look like? Let's break that down. And then if you remember what you were gonna say, feel free to wrap that in here.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Yeah, first I'll address what you just said. So I want to lean into this idea of people are problem aware or not, and solution aware or not. So when you're looking at like where am I gonna go first with my limited resources, my limited time, my limited money, the most, I don't know, uh intuitive place to go is people that already need what I sell. Okay, let's be a baker, let's be a pie maker. I sell cherry pies, key lime pies, chocolate pies. There are people right now looking for a place to go to buy a pie. So I want to right now that we're talking about it, we all want pie. But I want to make sure first that I'm being found for people that have already decided they want a pie. They are aware of the problem. I don't have a pie and they have decided I want a pie. Now they're looking for the solution. Where do I go for a pie? Well, you better be found. You better be found online, you better be found in a in an AI search because people are using AI to search now. That is the first place to go for what I'd call the low-hanging fruit. But if you want to grow that proverbial pie, like raise the tide that lift all boats, you also have to be doing things to trigger people to make them want a pie, right? Like we're talking about pie. So now we all want pie. Our mouths are watering or thinking about our favorite pie. If you're a pie maker and you want to grow your client base, then you better show up in a way that helps people want pie. Maybe you're baking pies during the, I don't know, the most busy time on your square in your hometown and you're piping the smell of the pie like out into the street. So people are like, it smells so good. Let's go see what that is. Like, or maybe you're bringing pie to a chamber meeting and you're giving a free piece to people. You have to do things to also, for people that don't have a problem yet, called I need a pie. They're not even thinking about pie. You have to do some things to stimulate that desire and that need for the pie. And in that moment, you've already shown up as the solution. So I feel like you've got to be looking at it from those different perspectives.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Yep. I agree. You're really describing an active buyer versus a potential buyer.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

Some of them haven't entered the buying cycle yet. And so many businesses are like, I just want to get the people that are ready to buy right now, which can lead them into this kind of it's kind of putting out the proverbial, the next fire, right? That's all about getting it today. But then it's that that doesn't that lead you to these ups and downs where your business is going great, and then it's going terrible, and it's going great, and you got these waves in your business. And that's ultimately what we're trying to avoid. We're trying to get more words steady.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Amen. And I say it's hunting versus farming, honestly. Hunting is like, okay, let's just be centuries ago and we need to feed our family. Like, we're gonna take a quiver and we're gonna go find a deer and we're gonna eat today, and maybe tomorrow, and maybe this week, but not next week, next month, next year. So you have to be farming also so that you've got something coming in the future. And I feel like the same is true for marketing. A lot of times a business owner is only thinking about hunting. They're thinking about how do I get the person who needs the pie today, right now, because I need a customer today, right now. And they're not thinking about what I can be doing to be farming, building demand for my product and service so that people are coming to me year after year for pies. Maybe it's something, excuse me, something around holidays where you have like a holiday buying program and you let us know what you need and how many you need, and we'll deliver it to you for every holiday all year long. Like they have to be thinking about hunting and farming because if they're only hunting, they're gonna run out of deer, they're gonna run out of quivers, or they're gonna have to move because they've killed all the deer and they're gone.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

So But everything that you just said, you touched on it as I was thinking about touching on it. Because right now, going back to the pie, I I'm not thinking about a pumpkin pie right now. Right? It's 95 degrees, maybe a key lime pie. Right. Right. But what what you said with the holidays and the farming, I'm gonna get my name out there now. I'm gonna plant the seeds now and understand that the harvest of what I have planted now is going to come to fruition in four, five, six, twelve months from now.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Yes, yes. I love this idea of businesses finding a way to do like a membership. I just literally saw it this morning on my social media with a local business here in Georgetown. They have live music, they serve food, they sell musical equipment, and they said, Hey, we're gonna start a membership. It's $250 a year. And what you will get is advanced invitations to private events. You'll get 15% off all purchases, including swag, and you'll get a free drink every day, come in every day. Like they're creating a community and they're creating a membership. And this is a small business that's essentially said it's limited to 150 people, and you can buy your membership. And as long as you pay your 250 every year, you'll be in that kind of exclusive insider's club. Same thing could apply to the pie. Like, I want to create a pie membership. And when you're in my pie membership, these are the holidays. You pick your pies, you tell me how many you want, and you don't even have to order. I'll just deliver them to you the day before the holiday, right? Entrepreneurs need to be thinking about tomorrow, next month, next year, the next five years, and not just today, this that my PL this month.

SPEAKER_03 29:30

The pie program. Once you buy 10 pies from me, you get your 11th pie for free or yeah, something creative and different. Not that that's different, not that that's that creative, but you you gotta offer something, right? Keep people coming back. They love your pie. You bake a delicious pie, keep them coming back.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yep. Yep. So word of mouth and repeat business is the lifeblood of a local business owner. That's how they grow. That's how they often think of marketing, is they say, I don't need to market, I don't need to advertise, I really, I rely on word of mouth and I rely on repeat business, which is great, but it's also the icing on the cake. It is not the cake. You cannot build a sales pipeline on word of mouth. You cannot build a sales pipeline on repeat business. Those are byproducts of running a great business, and hopefully you have them, or you're probably not running a great business. But to be stimulating demand, like we talked about, you have to be doing some sort of proactive marketing, proactive advertising to grow that proverbial pie, right? To have a bigger piece of the market share in your town and grow your business beyond just the people that are already your clients so that you can bring in new clients.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

So, Laura, can you talk a little bit about too as a is somebody's kind of the owner operator? As they start to grow and expand, they have to start trusting other people, or maybe they're they've got a system in place, but now they're going to expand into a new location. I I had a conversation with my my oldest son, his high school coach for lacrosse. And he, I have a younger son that just got done playing in the All-Star League. And as I was talking to him, it was there, they've won multiple state championships. They're kind of seen as the best program in the state and one of the best in the entire Midwest. And he said, Yeah, Nick, he goes, it's our third year of having this program. And he goes, It's been a it's been a transition having the 50 or 60 kids that I was responsible for. Now it's 400 kids among a bunch of different school districts and a bunch of different coaches. And he goes, I knew we had kind of a cool culture, but I didn't realize how realize how unique our culture and program was until I really got involved with all these other teams. So can you talk about that that business goes from that owner, operator to a true business owner, or they've got one location going to that second location, what those challenges look like. It's not as easy as people think.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Well, I just had on my podcast yesterday chef Jack Gilmore, who's built uh he's a legendary chef here in Central Texas, and he's built epic, three epic brands. Um, Jack Ellen's Kitchen, Salt Traders Coastal Cooking, and a half day cafe down at Silker Park. And I asked him that same question. Like he started with one restaurant, and what he believed was high quality ingredients. So you have to start there. He's like, but also all the restaurants are still, I'll say oysters. All the restaurants are sourcing, sourcing oysters from one of the same three purveyors. But it's like what you do with those oysters that attracts people. So he made sure that he was cooking or preparing those oysters in the most unique, authentic way. Um, but he also was making sure everybody felt like they were at home when they walked in his restaurant. So he started attracting people that wanted to work there because they were like, oh my gosh, this is refreshing. A restaurant that genuinely makes people feel like family that also produces high-quality food, delicious and high-quality ingredients. So he built his culture organically. He didn't sit in a corporate room and say, What's my culture gonna be? and whiteboard it with his executive team. He I asked him yesterday, like, how did you build this culture? And he said, it came from my roots. He said, I grew up in Corpus Christi. I watched my parents and my grandparents, like everything happened around food. So when somebody showed up at our house, we're offering them something to eat, we're offering something to drink, we're bringing people together to celebrate around food. And he goes, it was just the way it was. Just life happened around food and fun happened around food, and family and community happened around food. So he said, we just did what we had to do to bring that into a business and it attracted people. And he said, We've attracted so many people that now we have nine restaurants and 600 employees. So I think that's also maybe a great inspiration for the entrepreneurs out there as are listening. You don't have to go to ChatGPT and your whiteboard and say, How can I create a great culture? Like get to your why, get to you, like, why did you start this business? Like, what are you trying to do differently from maybe some other plumber or pie company that you didn't have the greatest experience, right? Bring your unique whatever it is to the table. And I think people will be drawn to you if it's authentic and special.

SPEAKER_03 34:16

Yeah, that's great. So this has been a lot of fun. And Laura, I know we could keep going for hours and hours, which I really appreciate and respect about you and your knowledge and your wisdom. Any final thoughts that you want to throw out to our listeners? If you are starting a business or you're trying to maybe get to that next level, maybe you're a marketing professional, maybe you're in the advertising field. What does success look like? What are some things to consider or not consider, right? Because when you're building your brand, when you're trying to get out there in your community, there's a lot of noise. And how do we break that down to know what to trust? Right. And there's some trials and tribulations. You're gonna try some things and adjust your strategy. But what are your final thoughts on some of that?

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Yeah, I love that that question, Jeremy. Thank you. And I do want to talk about trust. I do want to talk about making smart decisions with your money. Like I feel like that's one of the biggest challenges that an entrepreneur has when they hang out their shingle. They will be called on by every media person in town. They will be called on by the billboards and the newspapers and the magazines and the radio and the TV and the chamber and like everybody in between. And they're honestly a little bit of deer in the headlights. Like, what do I do? What do I do first? What's smart? What's not smart? And then that whole like analysis paralysis kind of stops them from doing anything. So I guess I'd love to lean into the framework that I teach business owners to help them make smart marketing decisions with their money. I call it the four M's, the market, the medium, the message, and the moment. So if they're sitting in front of a media person and that media person is saying how great their media is, I'm gonna look at it through that filter. The first is the market. Is this the audience and the geography and the place that I want to reach? So is it the I'm gonna just lean into be local because I own a be local and I believe in be local because I feel like it checks all four boxes. The market, the medium, the message, and the moment. So a new homeowner, if you're if that is your audience, then be local is a great way to reach a new homeowner. And these new homeowners are also in your backyard. So we're looking at an ideal audience in an ideal geography, right? That checks that box. Be local checks that box for me. The market, the medium, now I'm looking at, okay, I've decided I like your audience and I like the geography of your audience. Now, how do you reach them better or differently than some other medium that can do that? So I'm going to be looking at are you using the power of print, the reach of digital, the influence of social? Like you really have to be doing all three. You cannot be doing one or the other. So I'm, if you're checking that box, I'm saying, yeah, that makes sense to me. That would be a good buying decision for me. Then I'm looking at the message, meaning, am I spraying and praying, saying, hey, everybody, I'm here. $500 off your first project, like whatever it is. Like I'm not gonna be attracted to coupon and groupon style spray and pray advertising. I'm gonna be looking for does this add value to someone's life? Like what message can I give them about how I'm adding value to their life, making their life easier, giving them an easier go of it, adding value. So for be local, it's a welcome. It is a welcome to the community. We're glad you're here. We've noticed you're here. We want to help you have an easier go of it. So we've created this essential resource guide that helps you find doctors and dentists, but also restaurants and shopping and fun with your kids and fun with your pets. So the message for me is really important. The market, the medium, the message, and the moment. The moment is the one I feel most media fails. The moment is the hardest to hit because you just don't know where people are in their journey, which is why they say you have to be consistent or you're non-existent, right? Because we don't know where they are in their journey. So we have to be there all the time. Well, not all business owners can afford to have a mass media approach to being a household brand and being there 24-7, 365. Most entrepreneurs, especially if they're getting started, they need something that's like ninja, like laser being focused on the market, the medium, the message in the moment. And if they can find a moment when someone is in a natural buying cycle, that is money right there. That's why I love be local, because it reaches a homeowner when they are first buying a home. They've broken those relationships with their doctors and dentists from California, and now they're moved to Texas and they need new doctors and dentists and nail nail techs and hair salons and like all of the things. If you can, when you're talking to all those media people out there, if you can run the filter of the market, the medium, the message in the moment, and check all four of those boxes, you are making a very smart advertising decision for your business. You are mitigating risk, which is really all we can do as business owners is we can work with that media rep to mitigate risk because no advertising can guarantee a new customer. No advertising can guarantee a new customer. All it can do is help me get in front of the right person at the right place with the right message at the right moment. And if you've done that, Mr. Business Owner, you are being a pro when it comes to media buying. So I'll leave you with that.

SPEAKER_03 39:51

Really, really good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Final thoughts, Nick. Yeah, I think that was awesome. I love that information. And I'm just super appreciative that you took your time to kind of share some of this experience and the wealth of knowledge. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

My pleasure, guys.

SPEAKER_03 40:04

Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to the Your Brand, Your Backyard Podcast. I'm Jeremy Rentz. And I'm Nick Mathee. Be sure to like, follow, and subscribe. And tune in to the next episode. More great content coming soon.