How Was I Supposed To Know That?
How Was I Supposed to Know That? is a business podcast hosted by Bernard A. Williams that helps entrepreneurs and business leaders avoid costly mistakes by learning from experienced professionals. Each episode explores legal, financial, operational, and growth-related topics through candid conversations, practical advice, and real-world lessons that every business owner wishes they had known sooner.
How Was I Supposed To Know That?
Growth Marketing For A Higher Exit
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If you’re aiming for a “happy exit” someday, you can’t rely on vibes, likes, or a handful of referrals and hope a buyer sees the same value you see. We sit down with Craig and Emilia Andrews of Beholder Agency to unpack how growth marketing can increase small business valuation by building real assets: clear positioning, a website that converts, and distribution channels you own.
We get specific about the difference between advertising and marketing through the owned, earned, and paid model. Paid media (PPC, Meta ads, LinkedIn ads, geofencing, streaming TV) can accelerate growth, but it also exposes a brutal truth: if revenue stops when the ads stop, you don’t have a durable system. That’s why we dig into frameworks that connect sales goals to marketing strategy, with metrics that matter for M&A like qualified leads, conversion rates, and customer lifetime value.
We also hit the mistakes we keep seeing in the real world, from vanity metrics that only feed ego to messaging that confuses the market (yes, we talk about the “sushi at a gas station” problem). And because growth can create risk, we cover compliance and legal basics, including AI content pitfalls, brand guideline violations, and why your privacy policy and terms of use need regular attention.
If you want marketing that builds valuation instead of noise, subscribe, share this with a founder who’s thinking about selling, and leave a quick review so more business owners can find the show.
Why Valuation Needs Marketing
SPEAKER_02Hi, welcome to How is I supposed to know that? I'm your host, Bernard Williams. I'm also a small business attorney and the managing partner of Company Council. At Company Council, we work with small companies that are in growth mode and that uh really want to do the do the right thing and and help people and do great by their employees and eventually have a happy exit. And for a lot of people, that exit that happy exit uh looks like selling to a third party. Uh but what happens when you want to sell to a third party and you pick your company's worth X, uh, but really it's worth a little bit less than that, and you decide that you're gonna embark on a campaign to increase the value. Uh what happens? Well, that's what we're gonna find out today. Uh, I am really pleased to have with us in the studio today uh the husband-wife our team, uh Craig Andrews and Amelia Andrews, the the dynamic duo of beholder agency. Uh welcome, Craig and Amelia.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for having us.
SPEAKER_02Uh so uh so we're gonna talk today about uh about the concept of growth marketing and and what entrepreneurs, what what what what business owners can do to from a marketing perspective, to to increase the valuation so that they can sell their companies for for what they really feel that it's worth. Uh but before we get to that, I'd love to hear a little bit more about you and and and and and your background and your company. Uh
From Healthcare To Agency Life
SPEAKER_02so let's start with a question that everybody I'm sure has. Uh, which came first, the marriage or the company?
SPEAKER_00Marriage.
SPEAKER_01Oh, good question. Good question.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so then uh the the the company arise out of the marriage.
SPEAKER_00So um actually I will I will be uh fully uh transparent in this. Uh I actually my background was in healthcare. Um uh psych neuro um was my background, and I worked in pediatrics for quite a number of years. And unfortunately, I was diagnosed with um pretty aggressive um form of cancer that um prohibited me from staying on the floor. And a lot of the work that I ended up doing in pediatrics, uh Craig came to me and he's like, You you do know that what you do is very similar to what a producer does. He's like, So uh you you may want to look into that. And I'm like, you know what? That sounds like a really good deal. So I used literally everything that I learned and I studied and I applied it over to the marketing world, and um it's been a lot funner. It's been a lot funner. I I loved healthcare, I love working with kids, but this has been wonderful.
SPEAKER_01And so, in the inception of our business, we actually started as a video production company, which is where the producer side of things came out. Uh, so my background was uh far more into the video production stages of things and and producing films and producing videos for corporations and things like that. And then um, as we started to grow the business in this very, very, very infancy stage, I said, you know, I can help, I need somebody to kind of help me organize this stuff, which is where the producer role comes into play. Um, and so ultimately we turned out to be a great little duo, even though we like to be in separate rooms because we have different styles, but we do come together eventually and put it together.
SPEAKER_02Now, prior to the recording started, we we did have a discussion about those different styles and the fact that you've even right now you're you're in different rooms for for a very good reason.
SPEAKER_01Yes, correct. As a creative of the company, I like to do things differently. I'll I'll get up, I'll stand around, I'll blast some music, and and I'll do things to kind of keep my brain fresh. Uh and Amelia's the more the strategy side of things. So she likes to keep us in line. Uh uh, corralling cats, right? That's what she likes to do.
SPEAKER_00That's exactly what I call it. Corraling cats.
SPEAKER_02So in in those first few days when the company was first forming, uh, I mean, did you did you formalize it right away by uh maybe registering it as an LLC or incorporating it?
SPEAKER_00Actually, no, it was it took us about three months because I didn't know if he was just going to do this as a freelancer because back then it's like you know, you could he was working with another organization. Um, that company ended up closing down. Um, they ended up not doing the business anymore. And you know, at that time you were able to be like our freelance photo, and we really didn't want to just he didn't want to just do that. Um, I was also still working in healthcare at the time. And I and I'm talking like I'm Craig, I'm gonna age us. I mean, we were married in 97 and we started the business in 99. So let's be for real here. It's been a minute. Um, and back then it was really, you know, running gun bags and how things were. Clearly, it's totally different today with the onset of you know, cell phones and and how even media coverage is happening now, with we have this and we're good to go. So um, I do love the fact that we've switched over. I mean, I we switched over to marketing in 2007, um, instead of just strictly video production, which was wonderful, which then really kind of brought the onset of us really focusing more on, I don't want to say just a small business, but really having a focus on, well, wait a minute, why are we doing this? What's what's the purpose behind this? It's not just to generate content, it's like there's a reason behind it. And so if we think about on you know TV shows, when we our work in the early days was 50-50 broadcast, you know, TV programming and corporate. Well, for the TV side of things was eyeballs. Well, if you think about it, the same thing happens over on business. If there's no traffic, if there's no traction, you really do you have a business or is it a glorified hobby? So um we really applied a lot of the broadcast standard things over to what we did over here on the marketing side, and we're like, yeah, this is our niche. This is nice.
SPEAKER_02That's interesting. So um, so you formed and you started working together in '99. You said formed a business really good year. Uh you've been in business 27 years? Is my method? I uh I mean to start 32. Started a business at three years old and to have had it last this long is just nah, it's good. Uh but but going back to again to those early days, uh at first you're doing photography and video production, you said, and then maybe 10 years or so into it, maybe a little bit less. Correct. You made a bit to marketing. Uh was that what what was behind that decision? Uh what prompted that that change in business strategy?
SPEAKER_00Um,
The Shift From Video To Growth
SPEAKER_00Google and Meta, to be honest with you. We are there was already such a shift in distribution. So back in the day, when you're thinking distribution, it's cable channels. Came mid-2000s, then there was such a shift between what Google was doing, you know, obviously, you know, the early onset of SEO and all of that other fun stuff. And then you also now have a variety of social media tools where the way that we approach social media is distribution. We we don't just think of it as like, oh, here's your account platform. It is uh uh amplifying what you're doing and distributing that model. So by taking that approach, we were saying, well, wait a minute, we can then produce the content, develop the brand infrastructure for these businesses, and then look at it as saying, okay, here's the brand, here's the website, here's your content, and here's your social. And now you created your own little mini TV network, you know, and and you can amplify yourself and what you're trying to accomplish to your audience. So that's then just you know, set it and keep on repeating the process every quarter, make those updates and whatnot. But uh go going back to us and our business when we did that, on the business front of things, we even had to change up. Like, for instance, you know, starting as a video production company, what is the the NAICS codes and all that had to switch over to more marketing and consultancy, and then we had to then, of course, adjust our insurance paperwork. So it's like all these little little things you don't realize you have to do on the business front, but you need to. It's it's very different then.
SPEAKER_02How did you handle doing all those things? Did you put on the producer hat, Amelia, and produce everything?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's when the COO hat had to come on. And it's it's definitely a lot more when you shift from strictly video production to agency. It is so much greater then because there are more things that you have to be careful and cautious of.
SPEAKER_01And so part of part of the shift also happens because when you think about the producer side of things and the video side of things, a lot of the stuff was more about setting up structures and systems uh versus just doing the task of the video. So a client may say, I have no idea how a website's done, but I have no idea how to create a brand for myself, a personal brand or a business brand. So it incorporates forced us to bring things into a system altogether to allow the clients to be able to move through that system easily and still get results that they were looking for. So when you when you add the technical side of things into it, which is really scary for a lot of small businesses or medium-sized businesses who aren't sure, you automatically add into it, they need a comfort and a trust with a partner that they can work with that allows them to move easier and still get results, right? Um, the our the word marketing is a dangerous word because it can mean anything, right? It can mean I'm marketing myself, I'm marketing a product. Uh I can tchotch keys for a trade show is considered marketing, texting is marketing, right? So we have to make sure that the right system fits the right client and how they move forward, which is all built on, if you think of a film set, is built on everybody as a role.
SPEAKER_02So
Marketing Versus Advertising Explained
SPEAKER_02so Craig, that raises two questions for me. My first question is what is the difference, if any, um, between marketing and advertising? Great question. And my second question is what is growth marketing? Uh I imagine that beholders known for growth marketing. Um I I imagine that growth addresses gotta have meaning, otherwise it wouldn't be there. So I'm curious as to what growth marketing means. Uh, these would be progressive marketing, but but the first question is uh advertising and marketing. What's the difference?
SPEAKER_00Craig, do you mind if I jump in? Please. All right. So there are three aspects that we look in as it relates to marketing and advertising. There's owned, earned, and paid. So when you think of advertising, that's the paid component. It could be pay-per-click, meta-ads, uh LinkedIn ads, uh geofencing. You're paying for a certain area that you're trying to target that area, digital streaming, TV ads, anything that you actually have to pay to play is considered advertising. Marketing is the owned slash earned. So the owned is you built up a system. For us, we work in frameworks. Start at the foundation level. Do you have um your your local business, Google business um profile? Is that optimized? Your website, is it clearly articulating what you do and who you're targeting? Do you have an ICP, which is an ideal client profile or profiles? Like all of those things go into effect. And typically what happens is most businesses focus on the tactical things. I like to liken it to, well, we're hitting every train station, but we don't know where the train is going. And so that's where we have to take a step back and saying that's great. Tactically, you're putting some posts up, you're writing some blogs, yes, the site is there, but is it actively doing anything for you? So
Frameworks That Raise Exit Value
SPEAKER_00on the growth side of things, we develop those frameworks and the strategies to say, okay, if you're at you know 250,000 and you want to hit a million, we have to work with sales and marketing together, create a plan to get you there. One to two, two to ten, we're dealing with different operational issues, different legal issues that we really have to focus on, um, and then continue to build that. And especially when we're dealing with folks that are in the process of wanting to go through um, you know, an MA opportunity, whether they want to merge, they want to sell, whatever they're trying to do, it's essential to show that this company is on the trajectory of growth versus being stagnant.
SPEAKER_01And the thing I want to add on top of that is that traditionally marketing agencies are doing the tactical things in terms of putting up the posts, doing the blogs and things like that, which is incredibly important. But the the attribution to the actual revenue is not always super clear. And so part of the growth marketing piece, and that also works with the MA piece, is if I grow my revenue, how am I gonna do that through the marketing channels? And and being able to attribute to these things came in from a marketing effort that led to this revenue. One of the things that we always preach on is that we're not gonna just take your check and just put it into ads, and then when the ads get turned off, so does them, so is the revenue that came from it. Building those foundational pieces important, which is why we call ourselves a growth marketing agency, is because we're trying to grow with the process, not just turn on, turn off, right? Because that's that's detrimental if you try to push it over to the MA thing, and now they're realizing I have to pay for it versus having collateral in pay in place to move things forward.
SPEAKER_02So it sounds like you're suggesting that there's maybe an initial investment of time, money, resources, and building a foundation that then began to snowball. Is that how it works?
SPEAKER_00Snowball, but in a good way. So if you can imagine this, um, there was actually an organization that we worked with that we were helping them to, they wanted to boost their valuation for uh uh uh a sale, a business um for sale. And um, they were at 2 million, and in 18 months, we were able to get them to six million. We were able to put in the proper frameworks, the processes, and the the systems in place by utilizing their people and saying, let's shift this, let's do it this way, and then you were able to see the growth. With that growth, there's a couple different things that they were actively seeing when they were being evaluated. Now, for instance, on the digital side of things, their URL had much more value, which boosts their valuation up. The traffic and the leads and the and the content, and then as thought leaders skyrocketed, which then helped to boost that value. Their systems that we were able to put into place that were able to be repeatable was also boosting up the value in the business. So while it is an investment, it's not just a tactical investment. We're coming in here saying you are taking this from just a general lifestyle business, one that's paying for your lifestyle or your staff's lifestyle, to an actual functioning corporate entity that can be sold for a valuable investment, as a valuable investment, I should say. So those are all things that really, really help us um, I guess, differentiate the intent of why someone would want to work with us.
SPEAKER_02So um I you know, one of the things that uh I'll just be honest with you guys, one of the things that you hear a lot a lot around entrepreneurial circles is that uh a lot of marketing people um have really good sales pitches. Uh they'll show you a lot of shiny objects, they'll they'll promise the world. Uh but then ultimately maybe there's no tangible results, uh, or the results are ambiguous, or it's difficult to attribute where the results came from, or uh there tends to be a lack of clarity as to what the marketing function actually does, uh whether good or bad. Uh what advice would you have for entrepreneurs that have had that experience or maybe have that that that perspective?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh Craig, do you mind? Yeah. Okay, so um typically uh I would say almost half of our business has come from people that had bad experiences. And so we initially start everything with an evaluation, see where you are, and do that assessment. I liken that to similar, like when you go to a doctor's office and well, they need to see your labs, they need to see that baseline. Then from that baseline, we're able to develop whether it's metrics, a scorecard, whatever you want to call that. And then we can then start putting in the lines and saying these are the things that are important. So I'll I'll give you an example, and I'm not knocking anyone individually or company-wise at all. It's just been the habit. But if you look at, say, an SEO company and they're saying, hey, you're ranking, well, that's great, you're ranking, but for keywords that mean nothing, that's not bringing you business. And so those metrics need to be important towards what your goals are. So if your goals are to get leads, it's to build your revenue, ranking for ranking sake doesn't matter. You know? Um, and so that's that's where we found um developing things in in in in unison with the company's goals is what matters the most.
SPEAKER_02So if my goal, so taking this this hypothetical that we've been talking about, um, you know, my I'm at two and a half million today and I want to be at 10 million. Um what if my goal is to create valuation, what metrics are important? So it's not rankings, right? What what should I be looking at? What should I be measuring?
SPEAKER_00Sure. One, we definitely look at your sales and business development-wise, what are you offering? Is it month monthly recurring revenue? Is it product sales and whatever that may be? We have to look at the revenue and what's actively coming in. Simplify that messaging out there to say, hey, customers, this is what I offer. Doesn't match what you're looking for, I can help you. I mean, really simplifying things. Oftentimes, as business owners, I know we like to kind of muck things up a little bit because we're so in the weeds. We like to take a step back and saying, A plus B equals C, let's that's it. Let's make it simple. Let's make it simple because if they have to think too much, they're going to somebody else. They really are. We we've all done it. We have to think too much, and I don't understand it. I'm leaving, I'm going to someone else who can clarify it for me. And so, as a business owner, that's really what we try to do is simplify the sales numbers and then utilize those numbers to develop a marketing strategy. And in that marketing strategy, we hit those numbers on a honestly, it could be on a on a bi-weekly, weekly, monthly basis to make sure that we're following that path. And so I'll give you an example. It could be like, hey, we want to get um, you know, a hundred views on our website um per week. And now we're already hitting a thousand per week. So you're going to need to adjust those numbers. But even though it's a thousand, are you now hitting the same lead numbers that you're trying to get to? And if you're not, then there needs to be an adjustment there. So it's it's a few different things at once.
SPEAKER_01Something that I would add to that mix as well, and where we kind of come in from a strategy perspective, is a lot of times some of the clients that we're dealing with, because they're used to looking at what we call vanity numbers, what happens is that they don't see the kind of the diamond in the rough that allows that number to kind of grow exponentially. So for instance, if they know their lifetime value of a client and they know that that lifetime value number isn't quite hitting, you could almost hit the the smaller lifetime value client more often. And that's where the data kind of helps drive you in that direction. If a client who's, let's say, for those lack of information and numbers and so forth, is bringing you $5,000 a year, okay. Right, you could do the numbers exponentially, increase the numbers of that $5,000, $50,000, $100,000 of lifetime value of the client and double it, which may not be complicated, but it might just be lower in fruit that you're really not seeing. And so part of the marketing will bring that out. So now when you're talking about increasing the revenue, it might be uh we work on a rabbit, deer, elephant concept, which I know you I know you know of Bernard and so forth. But if you can increase if you can move that lower end person up to a more consistent number, your numbers will go up through the roof regardless. And what we try to do, and what Amelia references in terms of keeping things simple, sometimes the messaging is all wrong in terms of just hitting that low-end fruit.
Clarity Beats Vanity Metrics
SPEAKER_01So, for instance, and I use this a lot. Um, would you ever buy sushi from a gas station?
SPEAKER_02Never again, right?
SPEAKER_01So that's confusing messages, right? Ultimately. If I'm selling gas and I'm selling sushi, the messaging is wrong. So we've gone actually to the point of talking with our client to go, let's simplify the message. You just sell gas. Maybe that's what draws us the door.
SPEAKER_02So here's my pushback it's a small business owner. Uh I do sell sushi and I and I do sell gas. Uh, and if I don't tell people that I sell sushi, nobody's gonna buy my sushi. And if I don't tell people that I buy gas, nobody's gonna buy my gas. Therefore, I have to tell everyone that uh that I have both sushi and gas.
SPEAKER_01So then I would that's where we would push back in terms of the revenue you're actually generating. And is it if you're trying to hit the numbers, the confusion in the market. And the internet is that you're selling sushi and gas. That's two different opposite ends of respect.
SPEAKER_00Right. So you technically same location, but two different strategies. I sell sushi. You don't sell gas. I sell sushi. I sell gas. It could be at the same location, but you have to have two different streams. You can't say sushi and gas together.
SPEAKER_02Different brand, different websites, different correct. All the stuff.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Correct. Because then it gets confusing. Like if you look up, I mean, imagine this you're Googling saying gas near me because you're running out of gas and it shows up sushi. You're like, wait, what? I need gas. I'm running out of gas. And vice versa. I'm really hungry. I'm looking for this. Why are you showing me a gas station? So it has to be two different ones. That's just obviously as an example for that. You know, if your convenience market, all of that fun stuff then goes in with it. And the the big brand that does that and has done it well is Royal Farms. They are known for their fried chicken. You go up and down the East Coast, they are known for their fried chicken and they have their gas. And because of the brand that separated them with their Royal Farms fried chicken meals, they it it can live together in the same place. So you can imagine it's I can get both, but it's separate. It's not saying this and this together, it's the same company, but with those two messages.
SPEAKER_02That's a great example. Um so uh so I so I want to go back to this concept of you know quadrupling my my revenue using these marketing strategies. And you talked a lot about clarifying the the message and positioning and that mixed last sense. You talked about um chasing the the right metrics. Uh Craig, you use the term vanity metrics. Can you can you expand on what vanity metrics are?
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna I'm gonna admit it. I stole that from Amelia. So Amelia, if you want to explain that one.
SPEAKER_00Um think vanity, it makes me feel good knowing these information. That looks amazing. Look at this. And it's just like it doesn't matter. If that number looks good for you, but it's not actively attributing to supporting your bottom line, then it was it was literally to boost your own ego. Oh, so many people love me, so many people follow me, so many people this, that, and the other. That's great. How many of those people actually bought from you? And so the ones who have mastered this, people may not like to follow them. They do follow them, they see it. But on the business side, think of the Kardashians. It's a business empire that they have, they utilize their influence to support their business initiatives. And so, yes, you can have vanity metrics, you can have a podcast and your social media and whatnot, because you're trying to get your information out there, which is perfect. But if it's only for the purpose of boosting your own personal versus your business, then your brand, your personal brand is your business. Right, right. But in your case, you have a law firm, we have a marketing agency, or whomever our rest of our clients are that we service, there is a purpose we're trying to get behind. So whatever's being done needs to support those business goals, not your personal vanity goals. So that's that's where that balance comes in. And I actually had one more thing, Craig. If you could explain to the folks what is LTV, your long uh lifetime value of the client, because some folks actually don't even think of it that way.
SPEAKER_01So the way the way I was taught in terms of lifetime value is the revenue that a particular client is bringing your business for the course of the year, right? So one year, right? And that's an important metric for us because and and for MA realistically, right? Because when you're trying to show the increase in revenue, one client who can bring you $50,000 to $100,000 a year, or then we would say, from our perspective, from a marketing perspective, how do we repeat that formula? Because then if I bring in 10 clients at $100,000 a year, which seems like it's just 10 people, 10 clients, but their revenue over the course of a year is what the real value is in terms of merger and acquisitions, because now that value can be took can be brought over to whoever the new buyer is. And if it's just 10 clients, oh my goodness, what happens if we brought 20? What happens if you expand your market across the country versus just in a local area? Those are the type of things that we kind of mac move around about.
SPEAKER_02So you want to think about not just expanding your number of clients, but also the expanding the lifetime value of each of those right.
SPEAKER_00So I'll give you an example real quick.
SPEAKER_01Going back to that gas station sushi situation, if then we sit back and go, okay, we're expanding the gas space by offering more convenience, it wouldn't just be sushi, right? It would be other things that would increase the lifetime value of a visitor to the gas station. And so the initial thought, which is gas stationing sushi, can expand from a marketing perspective, but we would have to have the right messaging to have that work out.
SPEAKER_00And the same reason why you see it on there, ice cold drinks. On a hot day, yeah, I'll stop at this gas station, get my gas, get the drinks. It's it's it's things that we already know. But now when you start looking at it, like, okay, well, how do I add this to my marketing framework? And and for the most part, most small businesses are not out here getting $100,000 a year per client. Now, let's look at it in the terms of, say, for example, pest control or hair salon or whatnot. They're probably spending on average, just for math's sake, say it's $100 a month. So they're really their lifetime value for the year, like obviously it depends on the letter, but for the year, it's about $1,200. Okay. Now is and I'll use in the example of what we did with the pest control company. Okay, let's break it down. How can we make this simpler? What are your packages? What's included in the packages? Let's give the client options so that way it's easier for them to convert from a prospect to a lead to a closed sale to get them into your field route. Do you know what I mean? And now on the operation side, we work with them and saying, let's optimize that field route. So, okay, within this, you know, I don't know, for math's sake, let's 10 mile square radius here. How many, not radius, that's the wrong word, but the 10 square miles or blocks, how many can we get in that area? And that's where you start to beat that down. And so then you start expanding. So now operationally, you're saving a lot of money because you can send one tech out to do that whole entire area over the span of the week. Your your operating costs drive down significantly, but your marketing dollar attribution skyrockets because anything that you put towards that area, you were just able to really grow exponentially. Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Uh central. So um, so as as both of you know, the the title of this podcast is How Science Folks would know that. Uh, and it's um it's really an opportunity for for us as entrepreneurs to have a safe space to share our own lessons learned and to uh hear from the lessons learned of others. Uh so I'd love to ask each of you the same question. Uh Amelia, Craig? Yes, and uh and in in your experience working with small companies, did you see them make any mistakes that they regretted? Uh or have you seen any horror stories that maybe our our audience can learn from today?
SPEAKER_00Yes, and
AI Risks Compliance And Legal Traps
SPEAKER_00actually, Craig, I really need to jump in on this. I actually wrote notes in prepping for this. People don't realize um the amount of lawsuits that we helped to stop from moving forward is because you need to do your due diligence before you post or do anything. Number one, everyone thinks AI is so easy to do and easy to use. Absolutely it is. It's been wonderful. We've been using AI for daggone near what, seven, eight years now, if not more. It's it's wonderful. However, did it purge off of somebody else's brand? And now you got to be careful because you really don't know if you are now utilizing some graphics or some footage or some videos or some images or whatnot that it actually purged from something else.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00And now they can contact you and say there's a cease and desist letter, and now you're gonna have to pay X, Y, and Z because you just did that. Are you following brand guidelines? Say, for instance, if if you are a franchise or and you're using a brand that now you really contorted it, and now they're coming after you because you were supposed to follow brand guidelines and know that's the wrong color, the wrong font, the wrong this, that, and the other. And then two more things specifically terms and use. So you got privacy policy, which you have to update. You have to look at that every year. Has there been changes going on in the marketing world or or whatever the case may be, that you need to update your terms of use and your privacy policy? Every year we got to update that and look at that.
SPEAKER_02And Emilia, you're you're talking about those um those little uh policies that are on the website, uh fine print and that galaxy at the bottom of the page and nobody ever goes to.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Every year we got to look at that. Every year. And and not to kick it back over to you, Bernard, but that's literally what's so important because we as marketers, we don't necessarily know every aspect of your business and what you're doing. If it's in alignment, as long as we ask you and say, hey, take a look at this, if this is appropriate, you're signing off on it, fine. But there's some companies that you have to follow. HIPAA compliance, you have to follow any other type of compliance. I mean, HIPAA is obviously healthcare. Um, I tend to work a lot with with uh law and healthcare that you have to be very regulated. The forms, what are they coming into? It can't go to your personal. If you're if you're in healthcare, it has to go to a company one because you have to be careful. It doesn't get like it. There's just certain protocols you have to follow. So there's a lot of little things that they're like, well, why do I have to do that? It just went to my Yahoo. It's not a your or Gmail or whatever email they use. No, it has to go to your business email um to follow compliance. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, you you are speaking my language, Amelia. I'm not I appreciate you putting all those issues to like in your app, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and people don't pay attention to it because it's just marketing. That's no.
SPEAKER_01Marketing's one of those taboo words, right? Can be, can be. From a marketing perspective, I would say um a couple things. Marketing is not the fix-all to everything, right? It's really a trial and error, a testing ground. Um, and my favorite term uh is data, data, data, right? So you have to learn to correct what is working and what is not working. So a lot of times people will come to us and say, hey, you know, I need to, I need, I need to increase my business and do XYZ. I think marketing can help me do it. And we have to warn them and let them know it's it's a process, right? We need to learn because Google's learning, Yahoo's learning, all of this learning all the time. And and AI is a is a great tool to the to Amelia's point, but it's even learning. So you have to be able to adjust your marketing to what's working to increase the revenue in in your business. Uh, that's the one part. Part two, kind of piggyback on Amelia's point. You know, one of the things I've heard a lot is um, you know, AI, I can do XYZ and AI. Yes, correct. You can. Um, but is it hitting the marketing messages the right way? Because the the difference in a Coca-Cola using AI, they're going to make sure that they follow everything that their brand represents. And I implore small to medium-sized businesses as well, have the same ability to do the same thing. They just don't follow it because of the need for speed. And if you don't have a good strategy, a good positioning, a good brand in place, you're going to confuse the audience. And the key to the game is simple clarity and answer their pain problems. Right? Amelia kind of alluded to it. I got I got a cease and desist letter the other day. They're probably calling you, right, Bernard? And you're gonna go, where did this come from? How did this happen? Right? And so a lot of times the the way we drive marketing is answering the pains that people are naturally asking online. And if you can answer those problems, you're gonna probably succeed in some way.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02This has been this has been very, very helpful. This is I've enjoyed this conversation. Uh before I let you go, uh, does the holder agency have anything exciting coming up? Any
Training Program And Where To Find Them
SPEAKER_02any any any news or or programs to any initiatives coming up you want to let us know about?
SPEAKER_00Yes. So um I'm really excited that starting in Q3, I'm actually going to be starting a training program. Uh, a lot of small businesses still want to do marketing themselves, as they should. You need to be involved. But I'm going to be um teaching the frameworks that we utilize so that way they can also implement it for themselves. And so utilizing us as a resource, um, whether they choose to use us to do all of their marketing or they're saying, just train me, just teach me so I know I'm doing it in the right way. I'm I'm excited for that. I'm excited to really get started on teaching folks the um it's best practices is really what it is. And if you don't know, how would you? You know, it's like if I if I wasn't a hairdresser, I wouldn't be able to do my I don't know how to do it. I go to a hairdresser. So um I'm excited to teach.
SPEAKER_02That's great. Uh well, my best of luck with that. I look look forward to hearing more about it. Uh if anybody would like to learn more information or contact you or follow up with any questions, what would be the best way to reach?
unknownCraig.
SPEAKER_01Uh you can go to beholderagcy.com, in which we are actually relaunching our own brand. Uh, it's time for an update after all these years. Uh, our business has evolved and we see the data and we can see how it changes. And on there will also be the training that Amelia's gonna offer and everything else.
SPEAKER_02I look forward to checking that out. Uh, Amelia, Craig, it's been a pleasure. Uh, thanks so much. Uh, my name is Rick Looms. Uh, this has been another episode of How's I Supposed to Know That's