Why Most Brands Fail | With David from Parrot Marketing

In this episode of Chasing Heritage, Chase Hardin interviews David Zuniga, founder and CEO of Moon Parrot Marketing, to explore the fundamentals of building a business that goes beyond sales and becomes a true legacy brand.

David shares his expertise in branding, communication strategy, and performance marketing, explaining why many businesses fail when they focus only on short-term revenue without a clear mission or identity.

The conversation dives into the importance of communication pillars, the psychology behind branding, and how businesses can create deeper connections with their audience by focusing on purpose instead of just products.

David also breaks down key marketing metrics such as cost per lead, conversion rates, and forecasting, emphasizing the importance of data-driven decisions when scaling a business.

Additionally, the episode explores how artificial intelligence is transforming marketing, from content creation to customer engagement, and how business owners can leverage these tools to optimize growth.

Drawing from his own entrepreneurial journey, including past failures and lessons learned, David highlights the importance of passion, consistency, and loving what you do in order to sustain long-term success.

This episode is a practical and strategic guide for entrepreneurs and business owners who want to grow with clarity, build trust with their audience, and create a business that lasts.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Your mission in the school is pretty clear. We want to help kids to be better humans and be prepared for life. I have a client that just uh get a loan for $150,000 to get a couple more trucks and hire more people for new.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Welcome everybody to another great episode on Chasing Heritage. Today joining me is a man who doesn't just sell ads, he builds legacies. David Zunaga is the founder and CEO of the Moon Parrot Marketing, an agency that has built businesses from mere vendors into legacy makers. David, it really is a pleasure to have you here with me today, and I've really been looking forward to speaking to you on your expertise in marketing and all things media. Thank you for joining us on Chasing Heritage. Yes, sir. Thank you for having me here. Awesome, my friend. So one of the biggest things that I want to jump into is branding. Share a little bit about the importance of branding and how it's the difference between just a low-end company and a legacy organization like the ones you've helped build.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Alright, yeah, I think I mean branding is super important because I mean most people think that brand or branding is just the logo, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

But there's a lot a lot of things behind just the logo. There's strategy, there's communication pillars, there's color, uh strategy, and you know, um psychology, yes. Um name right now with all those um, you know, like the SEO, the search engine optimization, yes. When you create a new brand, you need to think about SEO. You need to think about that that the name has some important keywords. So just by the URL itself or just the name, yeah, people, your clients can find you easily on Google or any search engine. Even Chat GPT right now is working as a as a as an as a search engine really, really good. And AI is gonna be a huge uh like vendor in the future for that. So branding, uh it's it's really important to have all the strategy behind that. But once you have a brand itself and a name and all that, uh I mean, creating and and positioning your brand in your audience is key because you know, like that's how you get people to be top of mind. Yes, you know, your brand to be top of mind, top of heart, top of everything, you know. So that's why you see sometimes, and you I mean, people may not understand that, but you see just uh Coca-Cola, right? Huge logo, right there not saying anything, just Coca-Cola. That's brand awareness, yeah, that's brand presence. So yeah, it's pretty important.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah, I love that you're you're highlighting those things. And there's a couple of interesting points that you kind of brought up. Psychology, right? So dig a little bit more into like the psychology of a brand. Like how does it make you feel or what does it make you think? You know, I I think of some really important brands like Nike, right? And and their slogan is is just do it, right? It makes you feel motivated and empowered. So touch a little bit more on the psychology of a brand.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

I mean, when you talk about like Nike or Adidas or any huge brand, it's kind of more complex because those are brands that are meaningful like being in market for for many years and they kind of shift all the time depending on the season or the campaign or if they are merging with a new product or whatever. But if we're gonna talk about like psychology of the colors, yes, you can search for that, you can do a research and you can understand that that colors evoke some feelings in people depending on the culture, the age, and you know, like many other factors. Yeah. For example, blue is known for giving you uh like uh peace of mind and you know, like tranquility and that kind of feelings. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah and red, for example, or I mean hot colors like red or or yellow or orange that are dynamic uh makes you uh feel like I mean there's dynamic in it. That's why all the food and retail, I mean all the food industry is red as red, um yellow and orange, you know, like McDonald's, for example, you know, because that gives you that excitement is super, I mean, for the eye, that the the red is one of the most important colors to catch. You know, like when they you see red, you want to look at that. So that's why they use it. Um and yeah, there's many different uh meanings of the colors that I don't know you know in detail, but I know they're they exist.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

No, that's awesome. And I really like that. Um another thing that you've used for for my own business is the communication pillars, and you know, really allowing heritage monessory to be identifiable and to share our content in a very specific manner. Um, if someone is kind of starting their business out, like how do they identify their communication pillars?

SPEAKER_02 5:25

So, yeah, communication pill the communication pillars are very important because I mean, if you don't eat identify them, you end up just try to sell all the time on social media or any channel. So communication pillars are um like topics that you define to um use through all the channels: social media, email marketing, SMS. Even if you go to a TV show, whatever it is, you can define between five or six pillars. Let's say, I mean, I'm not gonna mention the most like the generic ones, but every brand can create their own. But in general, like one important pill is brand or branding itself. Like brand, uh what do you talk about your brand? I mean, you can talk about like how many years you've been in business, who are the founders, you can talk about employees, or anything that that regards the brand, you can you can use it for communication. Let's say if you're gonna do social media, so Mondays are gonna be about brand. You know, you tell your social media manager like, hey, every Monday you need to publish something about the brand.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Tuesday, let's say um services. So if you have your school, right? So the um the services are the the grades or the or the classrooms, right? Like pre-K, uh primary, elementary, you know, like you you get to talk about anything regarding, you know, like the grades or summer camps and that kind of stuff. Any service or product the brand is defining is that pillar, you know, like what is it that you sell, or what is it that you guys do? A third one, um it could be seasonal, you know, seasonal events. Yeah, like events, yeah you know, whatever it is, like season when the winter comes or Halloween, St. Patrick's, you know, you need to talk about that. Even uh important dates like Mother's Day or breast cancer. I mean, it depends on your brand, but you need to like do a research on what is it that you wanna uh align with, and you can do that. So those are I mean, the brand pillars are important to uh humanize the brand and not end up just talking about your products or your services. It's like me, me, me, I sell this, I do this. It's like yeah, you need to, it's like a person. A brand is is like a person, and it's like a person that has to be able to talk about different topics. If Chase Harding is all the time talking about himself and what I do this and I achieve this, like, oh, you're boring. But if you talk about different topics, and uh one of the most important ones is what is it that you're giving back? And in Heritage Montessory, we defined that it was gonna be parents' tips. I mean parent tips. How do we teach parents to acquire the Messory methodology and mindset at home, right? Or how to handle situations with the kids with the Messory approach. And that's where we found that that was important, right? Like that's how we found the engagement.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Yeah, I mean, and we're you know, we're on our journey of moving from you know a long-standing business really setting the foundation into a legacy brand. Um, so talk a little bit about the differences between, you know, somebody is just trying to get sales, right? Sales, sales, sales, and you know, a legacy brand. Like if you looked at their website or you looked at their social media, like what are the things that you pinpoint and you're like, hey, yeah, they're really doing something.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

I think what you can do with with a legacy brand is it's create a big concept and stick to it. Okay. When you're just promoting your services and that's it, and there's no meaning behind no mission, no vision, it's hard to tell a story that people will will relate to or connect with you with that mission. And not only your clients, but the whole all the stakeholders, for example, employees, that's how you get employees to be really engaged with your mission and help you achieving those goals or objectives. For example, your mission in the school is pretty clear. We want to help kids to be better humans and be prepared for life. So, I mean, anybody that's here at the school, either it's parents because they believe in that mission, teachers or anybody in the community is supporting that. So what I see a difference between a brand that's uh you know, like create a legacy is is have clear goals and clear mission and vision and create a concept that engages everybody to help them get in there.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Uh I'm talking about, I mean, the big brands are pretty clear on that. I don't know, like uh Apple. Apple doesn't talk about like the megapixels on the phone or how fast or whatever technical feature that that device has.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

They talk about like what how do you feel about it or what can you achieve? Or I don't know, like let's talk about the AirPods. When they on the new AirPods, the Pro, uh they launched the Pro the Air Pro the AirPods Pro. Uh the commercial was like you are like you're in heaven, walking, you know, like you're in New York City. In New York City and the Hood.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

I I love those commercials, yeah, especially the the ones where they're walking down the street and the guys like bebopping and like flipping and spinning. Like it's like this magical world.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Exactly. And they're not telling you the battery length or the how loud is it, or the base features, you know, like they're not talking about it. So I feel like when you don't communicate the what, but the why, yeah, that's when you connect with people.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

How how do you kind of break the news to one of your clients? Let's say they bring you on and they're talking about sales and they're talking about metrics, and you know, we want to do a revenue of 200,000 by next year, and there's none of the heart, right? There's none of the passion. Like, how do you break the news to them that they're probably headed down a very dangerous path?

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yeah, so when you're trying to hit goal, like like those metrics, those sales metrics, or I mean those business metrics with uh the heart in it, um is gonna come to the point that if you run ads, for example, and you're getting I mean, some sales in it, but the day you stop doing ads, all the structure is gonna fall down. That's gone. So ads is is a good feature to get you there and to keep some metrics going on, metrics going up, but the whole structure should be I mean the organic strategy should be a complement of the ads should be a complement of the of the organic strategy, which means organic means anything that's not paid. You know, like when you post social on social media, you update your blog post on your website, you update your Google My Business profile, yes, all these organic things that you can just place for free, uh there are long-term strategies. And when you achieve that that uh goal of the communication on the long term, but you boost it with ads, that's great. But when you're only focused on doing ads, for example, yeah, with no heart, I don't think it's gonna is gonna it's gonna is gonna fall down once you just turn it off.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah, so I have some experience with our with our business in you know really only generating ads, right? It's what we did for for many years. And now that we've shifted into more our brand pillars, our communication pillars, I've seen a buy-in, you know, from employees, from people coming in and doing tours. You know, I'll have customers come into the school and say, Hey, you're that guy, or you know, there's that lady. And they have a sense of feeling like they belong there, like they've been there already. They already know you. Yes, and and so when we have that kind of internal connection prior to them coming, it makes the conversation smoother, it makes the interaction feel natural, and and it's not like I'm trying to sell you, right? And you're not you don't have a guard up, right? Trying to defend your you know, your hard-earned cash. So you're nailing it with our business for sure.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

And I I I feel like um what I've learned about this is that people don't want to connect with a logo or a company, they want to collect connect with humans.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

You know, they wanna they wanna understand who's the human being or who's the team behind the the strategy, the communication, and the videos. And when you show the founders or the owners, the CEOs of the companies talking to a camera, people will connect easily to you. And when it's time, when it's the time to talk about business, talk about this, schedule a meeting, it's gonna be easier for you. The conversion rate will go higher because it's gonna be easier for you to connect with somebody that already feels like knowing you.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Yeah, I love that. And it's really important in today's world because there's so many businesses out there who are just trying to make a dollar off of you, right? We really live in a cynical time where people are hyper-aware of being taken advantage of. So, how does a business owner or an individual, an entrepreneur, really build their integrity so that when individuals come in and connect with them, they feel that level of trust?

SPEAKER_02 15:10

I mean, talking to a camera is not easy, right? There's some people that are are just natural doing that, and some people are shy about it and they feel like uncomfortable in front of camera. So I've been doing videos since I was a teenager with my dad, you know, like he was like the high-aid camera, and we were all like recording stuff and doing that. So I've been doing that. Also, I started, I went to college for advertising, and uh I ended up doing like TV shows at the beginning, like my internship. Yes. Uh so I was like cameras, and I was I'm a musician as well. So I was like playing drums with artists, but at the same time recording and interviewing. So I've been interviewing for more than I don't know, like 13 years now, like doing interviews. Yes. So I know how hard it is, and uh right now what we do, I mean the strategy we do when it's time to do a recording session, uh, there's two things. The first thing is the teleprompter. We use a teleprompter, a small one, uh, to make sure people is saying what they need to say. The second thing is the warm-up. We need to warm up, work them up, you know, like uh let them talk a little bit, that's easy question at the beginning, like let them, you know, like feel the flow, and then we can get into it. That way uh people will feel comfortable. And within, I mean 30 minutes of recording and you know, the last shots are gonna be even better. But when the time comes, and if you do it like regularly at least once a month, yeah, with them, they're they're gonna improve, and anybody needs to improve their communication skills. Any leader needs to do that and learn. Yeah. So if you're a business owner that is afraid of doing that, I mean you need to take the shot because that's the only way you can connect with more people. People will see you when you go to a networking event, you're gonna be clear in your message. What is it that you're selling? Yes. If you go to a TV show, you're gonna be ready for an interview, radio, whatever it is. So I think what we do with the business owners that we try to help like small business owners, not the huge companies. We're not targeting uh companies with more than 50 employees. If they come, that's great. But the target we have is small companies between five and ten employees. Okay. Uh that wants to take the new leap. You know, like take the next step on the marketing, organize, be in front of the camera, be part of the community, uh, and and do content that will expose them, you know, and let them, you know, like let people know what they're doing, why they're doing it, and how they do it. So yeah, that's what kind of what we do in paramarketing.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah, for sure. And you know, you've really helped my business and me personally move into a direction where I felt much more confident. Um, you know, I don't have a background in in media or recording. Oh, but you're so good. Anything like that. You're really good at it. You know, what I'll share is um I'm willing to do what's necessary. Right? I have grits. Um, I'm willing to do anything. You know, in my business, I've done every aspect of my job in my company because I wanted to show my employees and the people around me that there wasn't a single thing that I was not willing to learn and willing to do. And to be a business owner or a small entrepreneur, it requires that grit. So, you know, really our our listeners and people out there, like they just need to get a camera, they just need to start recording, and and get some hours under their belt because getting that experience builds your confidence, it boosts your portfolio, and it does so many other amazing things. Um I did have my first um kind of negative interaction though here recently. So I I on one of my videos I got a comment from a lady who messaged me, you know, privately, and she's like, I saw your video, but who are you? Right? Like, who is this guy on this camera, right? Like acting like he's somebody. And I very politely responded back and I said, Hey, you know, go to my page, check all my social media links, and you'll find out exactly who I am and what I do. And then she sent me a voice message message back about 10 minutes later, and she says, Wow, thank you for responding to me. Thank you for all the work that you do, and thank you for being a good human being. That's great. But had I not spent that time on all these things that we're talking about, in really highlighting our mission, in really identifying our brand on social media, all that would have been out there is just some paid ad. And there would have been no backup, no follow-through of an individual to look me up, and I wouldn't, I wouldn't have had validity, right, in my space. Um that was really powerful just to see a combination of all of those things, you know, really come together. Um it kind of moves me into, you know, what what is you know the soul of a company? Like what is the thing that really makes a company live and breathe in the marketing space? And like how how does a small business owner identify that? What would you tell someone who called you, you know, just starting up, you know, maybe they've got 50 to 100 clients, but they know that they're ready for more. How do you guide them in that direction to really dig deep?

SPEAKER_02 20:45

But do you mean I mean, do we mean on the mission and like why they're doing it?

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Well, the mission is a is a bit of the soul of the company, but you know, for you, from your point of view, right? Like what would you say? No, let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

For example, in my case, I've I've I mean, this is the third company that I have, and uh the past two companies sort of crashed it. Yeah, and that's good because that's a lot of learnings. Now I know what not to do and you know how to not do it. So that's important. But what I learned, and uh the first company that I had, it was a tech company that helped nonprofits to raise money from big corporate uh companies, and we did all the logistics to deliver the goods, the food basically, yeah, to the the the donees, you know, like the people that was the beneficiary, yes, and make sure that we're receiving it. That happened in Latin America because there were there is a lot of um you know, like uh a lot of um corruption there on the on the donation side. So we were trying to make it transparent, and that's how we crushed uh the the company because I mean that we get I mean Yeah, there we go. Yeah, yeah, it was dangerous. So we had to close the company for that and other reasons. But the second thing that the one that I one important thing that I learned from that company is that the mission was so strong on helping, not only giving food, but we were teaching, I mean, we were trying uh the the big mission was to uh teach people in Latin America with technology. Provide Wi-Fi and and devices so they can connect and learn, you know, and have the skills so they can thrive. Because the government, so I mean, so I mean corruption lazy or or corrupt or s or whatever that cannot provide that for everybody in in Colombia specifically.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

So we were trying to help, you know, like give that back to people so they can thrive by I don't like learning how to do a website or doing social media, like basic stuff that they can do to, you know, like thrive and help their family thrive. Yeah. And we're talking about like teenagers, 15-year-old, like people that will end up like selling drugs or getting in problem, you know, like having problems, you know, and they're up in jail or dead. Yes, without a doubt. So try to give them some, you know, some something to do, like something that that drives them. But uh what I learned is that when you have a clear mission, people will connect. And we had a lot of people that helped us, even employees, uh, we got uh investors and that kind of stuff. So what I what I can say to anybody that's try to do uh like create a new brand and create a new company, uh it has to be a reason for that. You know, like why are you doing this? And in my case for parent marketing right now, is I always saw my parents that were, I mean, at some point my mom was all the time in corporate, but when then when she retired, she started her own company. She was doing candles and beautiful things. But uh my father was uh an entrepreneur all the time, he had uh uh music academies, like rock and roll music academies in Colombia. Yes, uh he was like going against the like everything, yes. Um and I saw them struggling with marketing and growth. I mean, how do I get more sales? How do I grow this? How do I I don't like do in that time brochures and uh how do I do partnership with people so I can get more students or whatever? So I saw that, and for me it's so hard to see that people cannot, I mean they don't know what to do, and that I'm trying that's what we're trying to do, help small businesses to figure out a short strategy that is not a lot, I mean, so expensive, yes, but that has a clear return of the investment, which is Facebook ads. That's what we do. We help local service businesses to run Facebook ads so they can they can sell more and be more uh have more brand awareness and be more have more exposure on social media so they can get get busy. That's the the name of the campaign that we have right now. Get busy.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Get busy, get busy, get in there, get it done. That's great. So we've been you know really building this great picture of successful businesses that are really trying to move in a direction of being a legacy organization. Give us an example of a legacy company in today's space, you know, that that you really feel like is is highlighting and doing a lot of these amazing things.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

One in the in the US?

SPEAKER_01 25:34

It could be global, it could be US. I mean, one one that always comes to mind for me that that I've tried to use as a standard here for Heritage Montessori is the Ritz Carlton, which is you know a fancy hotel brand, uh, which is like white glove service. When you pull up in the car, there's someone waiting for you. You know, at every step of your experience in this hotel, they're service-minded and they will always make things right. The reason why I love this brand so much is because they're really putting service before anything else, but it's not cheap service, right? When you go there, you know, the waiter is dressed up in a nice tie and is really looking sharp and says good evening and opens the door for you. And so this is kind of like a lost art in today's experience, is this service-minded, you know, type industry. So for education, it really isn't service-minded. Most schools say, this is what we offer, this is what we give, take it or leave it, right? As we're here with us at Heritage Moral Story, we say, let us get to know you. How can we better serve you, and how can we join you for 18 years? It's definitely a shift in the dynamic, you know, for you know, for the education space.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

I mean, I feel like now that that you mentioned that, if if we're gonna be talking about like brands, I like to do that in two steps. The first step will be, I mean, let's talk about like how do you connect the mission with the market, the communication, and that makes sense. Because sometimes you market things that are not real. Products that say that they're gonna do this, and it's not, I mean, it's I mean Temu things. When you order things from Temu, we order like a shoe, yeah, keeper uh uh for for house, and then it's what it's like. Exactly. Yeah, it's crazy. So that kind of stuff. But I I was thinking about like Tesla. I don't like, I mean, I'm not into Tesla and stuff, you know, like but a lot of people do, you know, like and and and I and I consider that's a a huge company that's doing a lot of great things. I just uh let's talk about the cars. Yeah, so Tesla cars. We were super excited to get one car when we were living in Florida. So we were I mean, we had uh like the test drive and everything, but I mean for us the car looked so like so cheap, like everything was plastic, yeah, and just the huge screen, and I was like, man, this is like a taxi. This is like a toy, you know, like a taxi, like you know, like a like a Chinese taxi. Yes. I don't know, like so we I mean what what we were expecting, and we had a lot of friends that that are like in love with the Tesla car. Yeah, but so I I guess that depends on, you know, like how I don't know, like we they they really market for me, I mean I got engaged with it. I won and won, and I I was willing to, but when I tried the product, I didn't I mean I did fell in love. I feel that the self-driving features is amazing. Um but I'm I mean I'm I I don't totally trust that, you know, yeah, right now. Like yeah, it takes time.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

So I know one thing that you did with us to you know is is we come up with our marketing strategy, but then we did a test, right? Yeah, we didn't just like you know just go ahead and spend all of our money and run it and run it and run it. You know, so talk a little bit more about testing strategies and you know, kind of coming up with various plans, yeah, because it's not just a home run, you know, every time you build something.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

Yeah. So that takes me to the second step that I wanted to talk about is is that like heritage monitoring as brand. And um when I came here and you, I mean you told me what you guys were doing, how how you guys were getting the tours, how many tours you you were doing, uh uh take a look at the social media strategy, and we like do a whole strategy step by step because it was a lot, you know, like we were talking about organic social media, we're talking about like uh social media ads, Google Ads, Google Map Business, that's right, email marketing for parents, yes, uh CRM, yeah, booking system. There were a lot at the table. I was like, okay, let's take the first step with let's do ads, let's get busy and start getting more tours, and then you know, like the first year in 2024 to 2025, you know, like that range from I mean basically 2025, yeah. We ended up like we ended up with so many new enrollments, right? Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, it was great.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Yeah, we doubled all of our enrollees.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

But then we already had a system going with uh getting the tours and uh getting a lot of people on the door and more visibility and all this, but then we had a good problem with was uh we get a lot of people on the door that is not qualified. So, how can we qualify them better before getting here? And that's the whole communication strategy that we refined because we were having a nice communication strategy, but like um fun, like the concept was the the fun uh like preschool yeah, daycare, daycare, you know, like feeling with the with the font that was like the font that we were using was kind of funky and dynamic and playful and music, yeah, like kids playful music. Uh and we saw the competition, right? We saw all the like the the cools around like the schools around that uh I mean in McDana, like try to copy it. They did. But then we we we we s switched the strategy and now we're I mean, because we thought about like what is the mission, what is the vision, and our mission in the a heritage monitor is that that kids graduate and go to college. That's right. Hopefully with a scholarship, right? That's right.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

So we need to look more like uh like what it is, because Miss Kim, your mother, the founder of the school, she sat down as well at the at the board meeting that we had, and it was like I mean, I like everything that's happening because it's working, but we need to tweak a little bit how we look. Like we need to be elevated, yeah, elevated, and uh the classrooms need to look, you know how it is, organized. The kids need to be, you know, like because that's how mandatory it is. And sometimes we the pictures and videos when you know like when we had the time to, you know, like they weren't doing exactly the works that we're doing. So right now we focused on try to get the those special moments when they're doing their job, you know, their works, or they're being independent by you know like cleaning the dishes or cleaning after themselves. Uh everything that they do here, which is amazing. I have my kids here. My daughter is here, and my my my uh baby boy is gonna be here any anytime soon. Um so I know how it is, I know how it works. And and and I do the marketing for you guys, and we do the marketing for you guys, but I'm also a parent, a heritage monitoring. So I know the importance of knowing what's going on inside. And I think that was the most important thing that we discovered. We need to show the parents what's going on inside the classrooms. That's right. What are the other parents saying, what are the teachers uh thinking about this, you know, like what they do with the kids. So that's what we were we started doing with the new marketing strategy 2026, where we were like creating this elite club where just no, I mean, not everybody just can get in because there's a lot of filters for for sure. I mean the first one is tuition. I mean, you need to know from day one that the tuition is 1300 a month. You know, like that's that's one important thing. Before you take the tour and talk about this and that, you need to know if you can afford it. That's right. The second thing is is your kid a fit for the school? Is your kid already uh young like what are their skill their skills? If uh how attached is to the parents, uh is he, I don't know, like when for younger kids, I guess, is he biting or or you know, party training, biting people, hitting people, you know, they do they adhere to basic stuff, right? So there's a lot of things that you guys need to discover from the families and the kids, but also the families discover if this is the methodology they want. Yeah because at the end of the day, this is a commitment, a 12, like a I don't know like how many years, 15 years commitment where you're gonna be here, your kids are gonna grow up here, and they're gonna be ending up getting a scholarship at school. That's right. I mean, the last uh last year that you have the graduation, the three of the kids, uh three of them, I mean, it was small graduation party, right? Like three kids, but they all got scholarships.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

That's right. Right? Yeah, to this college of their choice, exactly where they wanted to go. Right. So that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

One of them was a uh a lady that that's singing opera. Yeah. Who graduates on a scholarship for opera? So when I see that from a parent, I mean, like I'm talking right now as a parent, and I see everything that's going on inside. But we're not saying outside, we're not communicating outside. Right. That was part of the strategy. We need to let people get inside, you know, like put their head inside the school without being inside, right? Like from social media, from the website, from landing pages, from ads, videos, this and that.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

That's incredible. And you know, thank you to MoonParent for all that they've been able to do. One of the next things that we're moving on to as a school and a business is using AI, either in AI calls or or generating or qualifying individuals with AI databases. So share a little bit more about what you're seeing in the AI space and marketing and some of the tools that you feel like would be beneficial for a business owner to really be engaged with.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Yeah, I believe AI is is is running so fast that we can just barely catch up on whatever the new platforms they're uh creating. Uh I believe, I mean, I s uh right now I strongly use AI for a lot of things. Yeah. But at the same time, people need to be aware of what's of what's coming. You know? That's right. And uh we need to, I mean, the government needs to create policies about what's AI gonna look like in a couple of years. Right. But let's don't go there. Let's talk about like what we can do with AI right now and uh on the marketing side, we I mean basically um all the copywriting or understanding or understanding of uh the client's ideas. For example, every every time I I have a meeting with you, I try to record voice, right? Then I transcribe it, yes, and then feed my child meet my GPT. I create a specific GPT for the school, meaning that it has a knowledge base with everything you guys do, and um and it has a tone of voice that I want. And uh so every time I I pass it through it, it's gonna give me what I want in terms of scripts, copywriting for Metads, social media, so my team can use that GPT when they have to create anything. Even sometimes when there's a weekend, I mean when it's a weekend and somebody um replies a message, okay, you know, like writes a comment on social media, which is complex sometimes because some people don't under don't understand the methodology of the mandatory. That's right. So we have to have we have a system where we can respond to that kind of messages with Miss Kim's tone of voice. Yes. When she cannot do it, you know, when she's not available, because we need to be fast on that side. The second thing is the CRM. We have a CRM at Customer Relationship Manager software, okay, where you guys have all the sales team receiving all the potential parents that wants to enroll, have questions, want to book a tour. We need to know, you know, like everything about their child, and you know, all the information that that that we need to know to tell them if they can come to uh a tour or they have to wait. That's right. And uh yeah, we have some AI agents that are right now like operating to uh tag, I mean, respond messages, uh receive some inbound calls when uh office is closed, yeah, you know, like after hours. So we get an AI agent that can respond that quick, that that call and receive the information and then create a task for sales to get back to them, right? Uh so there's a lot of things that we can do with AI with optimizing processes, but also like responding messages, live and comments on social media, even responding uh calls.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Thank you for going into detail with that. And I think for most entrepreneurs out there, like listening to this, you know, the biggest thing that I would share is is find a marketing company that is well versed. Um, you don't want to be one-sided or only have one angle, you know, in the marketing space. You really need somebody who's gonna be able to tie all of these things together. But you also need somebody who wants to actually know your business, you know, who's willing to come and show up and get to know your staff and really dig into the who, what, and why. And so I thank you for being someone, you know, who's come into my organization, who's really partnered with me, you know, really got into my classrooms to understand something that you know you had to learn too, right? It's it's not like you just showed up here and was like, yeah, I know all of what schools do. You had to really invest time. Um, so you know, don't get caught up in a marketing agency that's just so one-sided. You guys really need to have partners that are multifaceted, that can tie in, you know, what we're doing in today's world, but also really be able to, you know, take your company into um the future.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

I feel I feel like um you need to really connect with uh your clients so you can dig in and understand what they're doing really doing, so you can communicate that.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:11

Sometimes, you know, like uh I mean sometimes uh it depends on the complexity of the business model, which at school is pretty complex.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Understanding the you know, like the inwards of a school is it takes time, yeah. But in my case, uh it's worth my time because I mean this is the school I want my kids to grow up and graduate from. So it's it's easy. It's an easy choice.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

It's beautiful, it's beautiful. So tell me uh of a time where you were working with a client and they were really headstrong on this idea, right? And and maybe they they thought this idea was great because they saw, you know, revenue income or a really great stream, but with your experience, like you kind of knew this decision would be very bad for the company. How did you communicate to that to them? You know, like how do you let somebody down a little bit easy?

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Yeah, sometimes I mean I get that a lot. I mean, a lot of people uh think that they know what, I mean, they know what they want, and sometimes they do, but sometimes they they're just uh like driving, I mean their driver is just a hunch, a hunch, you know, like it's not it's not data. So what we try to do is be driven by data, you know? And we have a lot of average uh averages, you know, like we have a lot of data on the average by the industry. And now with AI it's too easy to extra extract that information as well. So the majority of the of the of the clients that I have is is uh we run ads for them. Okay, ads is metrics, you know, like is how much money you put in. What is the cost per objective? Is it if it's sales or leads or tours or you know, like bookings, whatever it is. So you need to have that data, and that's what we do is just to uh do a forecasting. We do a forecasting that's pretty accurate, accurate because we use averages of the industry averages, and that's where we normally end up going to. So when uh normally a client is is pretty strong sometimes on what how they wanna see the video or how they wanna see the image. And and and and they need to understand that there's two different worlds the organic world and the or and the ads. Ads is different. Okay, organic is is uh it should be like more organic, you know, like more like I'm taking this selfie video and talking to you, and maybe put some captions and that's it. Okay, but ads has to be like really strong, uh dynamic, uh you know, like uh we try we try to do videos with effects, sound effects, transitions, so you can grab the attention of the people because you're scrolling, scrolling and watching things, so it has to catch yeah, it has to catch your attention. Yeah, so and also has have some uh uh the hooks at the beginning, hooks at the middle, good call to action so you can drive them to take an action on whatever it is. So when people is trying to tell us, like, hey, I want to do this, or it's like, yeah, let's try to get your idea and my idea and we do A-B testings and see what works better. Because sometimes yeah, their idea works really good. So I'm willing to test that, but let's make decisions later with data.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

With metrics, with Casper Leap, Casper company.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

And I'm glad that you brought up you know data because when I started expanding my viewpoint and going out and meeting with you know very successful business owners, you know, people who are operating seven and eight figure companies, all of these individuals drive everything off of the numbers. And it was one of the first um questions that they really came to when we did our 101 sessions. You know, is what is your, you know, what is your cost per lead? Right? What is your return on you know investment in your in your marketing strategy? Yeah, conversion. You know, what what is, you know, what's your, you know, the life um the life of yeah the lifetime value of your clients. And so let's just break down like those three things. So cost per lead. Do a breakdown of what a cost per lead is.

SPEAKER_02 44:35

So so we I mean it depends on the type of company you have but in general there's like three metric in three important metrics when you run ads. The first one is uh the cost per a thousand impressions. Okay. You know like the that that's called CPMs per mile. Got it. So is that the what is the cost to get a thousand impressions and impressions thinking about like how many people watch one time you're at or watch the video more than 10 seconds. Got it. And there's a lot of I mean it's not the exact explanation because it depends on the objective or the type of video or or asset but let's uh say is that so the casper mile impressions is super important because that's the one thing that you can calculate. If I can I mean the casper mile is five dollars if if it cuts to me I mean it is four five dollars to get a thousand impressions. Yeah thousand eyeballs so we can say okay let's uh let's get fifty thousand impressions because from the impressions it comes the next metric which is the clicks okay and and and you have impressions and clicks yeah I have the video that I watched and somebody click on it okay so that creates another creates another metric the click through rate got it which is how many clicks you get from this amount of impressions yes and I mean let's say you get 1% or 3% the average is 1.5. Okay so I have 50,000 impressions and the the click through is 1.5 so I got this amount of clicks right yes and what do I do with the clicks?

SPEAKER_01 46:19

Okay so when they click maybe they're going to a landing page and see my videos and fill out a form or they click in and there's gonna be a form pop up okay that comes the the objective of the campaign so you have different objective awardance which is watch my videos right or watch my images or you know like see my thing don't do anything else um uh lead generation which is fill out this form traffic campaign which is click and see my landing page or see my website and know more about me yes so depending on the objective then you have different metrics but the most important thing is how much how many impressions can I get with this amount of money and then what is the last outcome are you gonna be buy for me you're gonna uh create a lead for so for that school is lead generation first yes right we got impressions clicks and then lead generation so the cas per lead a lead is a potential buyer right a lead so the cas per lead is very important because we can say okay the casper lead is I don't like ten dollars for BDC BDC business to company business to consumer so business to consumer yeah so B2C yeah ten dollars let's say so with uh how much I mean how how many people can I get in my CRM with a thousand dollars right and that's gonna tell you you know right yeah and those numbers that you're highlighting are so important you know again I can't reiterate enough to any business owner out there you know you're dead in the water if you do not yourself understand these numbers yeah because you cannot trust a marketing company to put the passion and growth all for you you have to educate yourself so hopefully you know this information is really triggering for individuals that have never heard it because they need it you know um I was not able to scale and grow my business to this level until I shifted my education my focus as a businessman to really deeply understand the client the client experience and the ability to scale and and grow.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

And that's what we do we we teach them. I mean for the for the for our clients that are like really into learning this kind of stuff we we take the time to teach them what is it and how that works because in the future that's how they get this forecast the financial forecasting of the growth. This is the money that I put and this is the return of the investment and they can go to a bank and say hey this is my plan this is what I've been executing the last year I need $300,000 to get more trucks or equipment or hire people and that's your go-to market plan that's been with real data real numbers and that's what we do for some companies I had a couple companies that we've been working for more than a year and now we have that PL with real data that we can just download from meta ads and put it on the on the document so they can just get I mean they I have a client that just uh I get a loan for $150,000 to get a couple more trucks and hire more people for next time. Amazing yeah so yeah that's the main goal like get the data so you know how how much you can grow.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

Yeah and I know you know with with moon parrot marketing we have monthly meetings right we meet and weekly meetings right so talk about how critical and how important it is to have those meetings.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Analytics so analytics is key for us. So internally with my with my with uh employees we have um a weekly meeting reviewing all the accounts it takes like three hours but we know that uh from those three hours sometimes four hours we review every account and take actions like oh this company uh the Casper lead went super high what happened oh yeah we have to refresh the ads yes or uh it was a season was winter break nobody was you know like taking look at this let's see if the next week it comes like that or we need to take actions so every week we need we we take action and we review and do some tasks to optimize. Yes with the client we do a monthly reviewing uh uh meeting for the analytics this is your cas per lead this is the amount of leads we we had this is amount of tours this is the amount of enrollments we have this month so we have the metrics clear uh that so we can we can forecast how to how to how to optimize them how to get a lower cas per lead yeah or a better conversion rate we can say things we can analyze things and say hey we got a lot of leads but the leads are not moving forward let's talk to sales let's have a meeting with sales yes hey how are you approaching this or that oh I thought it was like this no let's align marketing and sales because we're promoting this and you're saying that so let's align yes and that helps a lot you've seen that we we we have the meeting with the sales team yes they align they need they learn something new about the CRM or features that we're doing you know like anything within the the software and that takes I mean that that breaks the you know like the knot and then they move forward too I mean we we see a lot of new tours a lot of new enrollments a lot of new uh discovery days and that kind of stuff yes I mean and and what you're sharing you know has really allowed you know my organization and my business to really grow um you know having those meetings to make sure that people are connected with what the mission is of the marketing team is is really critical and and really important.

SPEAKER_01 52:04

You know employees love their job they love to be motivated and come to work and and they're very very passionate. But they also want to know that they're appreciated in the organization and outside. So by connecting your team with your marketing you're drawing in that passion you're drawing in that support that's coming from the community and it really allows them to to feel this sense of pride and ownership of something that you know really really is in incredible.

SPEAKER_02 52:36

Yeah the good thing is that in the heritage manusori school there's a lot of teachers that are I mean that are special I mean for to be a Montessori teacher you have to be special. Yes it's not just any teacher. So you have very unique teachers that some of them love the camera some some of them don't but anyhow we make them like yeah we we make them feel like comfortable and they when they see the outcome in the video they get excited because they get highlighted the the community is watching them you know like sharing knowledge and showing what they're doing and that's important that that you know like that gives you you know like that that fire that you're doing things right. So yeah we've been I mean every Tuesday we come here and do market you know like do videos with them and do interviews and come up with ideas for uh some trends or tips or activities they're doing so it's pretty it's pretty cool it's it's a it's a cool job to come here and you know like interact with them and with the kids and um yeah I mean we can we can see the that the data is showing that all of this is is really working.

SPEAKER_01 53:43

Yeah yeah so David if you you know took away like the marketing and the logo and the flashy lights and the social media like what would be one piece of solid advice that you would share with the next generation um of business leaders I believe you gotta love what you do.

SPEAKER_02 54:13

If you don't love what you do you're gonna end up doing something you hate. I mean you're gonna hate it eventually. Yeah you gotta you gotta really love what you do because when it comes becomes your job in your daily basis you got employees and probably investors and and loans and things that you don't like won't let you go away from this you're gonna hate it. So you're gonna love it. Yes no so don't get into business that you don't love uh things that you don't think you're gonna really connect with yeah for for me doing videos is something that is natural for me it's something that I started doing and I I really enjoy and I mean comes with more things but I I really enjoy doing uh content. Yeah I love it.

SPEAKER_01 54:58

Awesome. Well David our conversation here today has been absolutely fantastic. I'm really grateful to have you here on Chasing Heritage. Thank you go ahead and share a closing message to our listeners and just communicate with them like how they can get in touch with you how they can support you and also sign up for your services at Moon Parrot Marketing.

SPEAKER_02 55:21

So anybody in Atlanta Metro, Henry County or McDonough that wants to really get busy uh you guys can uh find us at parrotmarketing.ai and the same thing on every social media platform.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

Uh we also have a podcast going on called Carpool Marketing which you were part of as well and we're just discussing business and marketing strategies for different businesses but if you really got want to get busy and uh run and we we can run your Facebook ads and you're interested in that and you're ready to grow right now yeah you can you can search me on parrotmarketing.ai and social media and talk we can we can discuss that yes sir awesome thank you everybody for joining us on another great episode of Chasing Heritage we just closed out an interview with David Zuniga the founder and CEO of the Moon Parrot Marketing Agency we talked about some crushing gems in the marketing world and how to grow your business from a simple vendor into a legacy brand. I appreciate you joining us and we'll see you next time on Chasing Heritage