The Business Millennials Podcast

Growth Marketing for Small Businesses [Part 1]

• Ashley Dreager & Safa Harris • Season 1 • Episode 1

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In this episode of The Business Millennials podcast, co-hosts Safa and Ashley kick off a three-part series on growth marketing. They define growth marketing as focusing on the sustainable expansion of a business to achieve long-term goals around things like revenue, company structure, and the owner's vision. Growth marketing tactics may include developing new revenue streams, restructuring teams, or optimizing operations to better support scaling up. This differs from "maintenance marketing" which aims just to sustain a business's current level of performance. Effective growth marketing starts with identifying the business owner's "why" and specific goals for wanting to grow. It also requires laying the right operational foundation and structures first, before ramping up marketing activities. Otherwise ramping up marketing without the operational capacity to handle increased demand can actually hurt quality, customer satisfaction, word of mouth and overall sustainability.

Key Topics:

  • 0:58 Parenting Lessons
  • 8:23 Defining Growth Marketing
  • 11:08 Difference Between Growth and Maintenance Marketing
  • 14:33 Importance of Vision and Goals
  • 17:02 Operational Capacity is Key
  • 18:43 Avoiding Common Pitfalls

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Welcome to the Business Millennials podcast. This show brings you strategic insights through raw and unfiltered, real-world advice to accelerate your business growth. For long-term success, I'm Safa Harris. And I'm Ashley Drager. We are the founders of Scale and Thrive Co. Of Full-service marketing and business development firm. Helping visionary companies scale sustainably expect us to have the uncomfortable conversations that no one else is having. We'll break down what it really takes to grow and scale your business beyond six. Seven or even eight figures, as well as inspiring interviews with diverse leaders across marketing, product development, sales, and more via fly on the wall as we conduct strategy sessions with business owners, experiencing issues such as plateaued income, burnout, and generally dropping the ball, giving you the tools and resources to break through your own roadblocks, but also personal development methods to grow you as a balanced conscious leader amidst business growth. Let's jump into this week's episode.

Ashley:

Okay, so anytime Addison is Not happy with me for, I don't know, whatever the reason is for a toddler she'll give me options, right? So she'll say something like, if you keep, if you keep talking like that, like she's referencing my tone of voice when I get frustrated or irritated, if you keep talking like that, then I'm going to take all your clothes and I'm going to give them away so you're not going to have any more clothes or just something like ridiculous and I'm like, Addison, that's not how this is going to work because

Safa:

she'll take

Ashley:

some like, yeah, she'll take like a, a consequence of, you know, I don't know. She's, she's in this. Phase of wanting to play baby all the time. So she wants these baby clothes. And so we would, had said at one point, you know, we're, we're going to have to gift the baby clothes away. You know, if I don't, I don't remember the exact thing, but there was a time where we were going to have to donate the old clothes. And so she had retained that and she was going to get rid of all of my clothes because she wasn't happy with. How I was talking.

Safa:

Yeah. So she's literally like, you know, you give toddlers options. It's like, Oh, you can do a or B and they're both options you're okay with. So she's just taking those lessons and applying them to you. That's hilarious. But, it makes a lot of sense because it's learned through our example and everything like that. So the actions we're doing, she's like, Oh, well, I'm unhappy with what's happening here. How do I exact change in this environment. She's like, I know how my mom does it.

Ashley:

That's exactly what she's doing, which is nice that she's listening in those situations, but it's hard when you're toddlers. Talking back and starts giving you attitude. And then it's a self reflection moment of do I have too much attitude because she's picking up on a lot of things.

Safa:

I know it's really hard. So, how do you correct your child, but still set that example of how to. not be short or anything like that. Cause I know at the end of the day, I get really short cause I'm tired. My, my patience is razor thin. And so then. So, Walee's 8 and Zaid's 18 months, so, I have to ask Walee I need you to keep it together, because, your brother is, losing his mind, and then, but it's always, he'll ask me something benign or something that's, like Oh, can you answer my question? I'm barely keeping it together and I'll be like, well, they can you just stop or snap or whatever. And I know that that's not okay. And then I've seen it in him getting really frustrated and being like that. I was like, I need to be better because I know why I'm acting that way, but he's not really understanding that. And it kind of like, Correcting that way, but I feel like it's really hard to not have those human moments with your kids in hopes that you're setting a better example. Oh,

Ashley:

for sure. And that could be a whole spinoff episode that we do around society and family structures and things like that because it is very overstimulating. And I always try to tell Addison because she really doesn't like when I get frustrated or upset. And I try to really keep. My tone in check and the things that I'm saying really try to be very conscious of it But I have never been very good at hiding my emotions Like ever so it's very clear when I'm upset about something Even when I'm trying to be very neutral if that makes sense and so I always try to tell her that you know, it's okay for me to be frustrated because When people treat you a certain way over and over, when they're behaving a certain way over and over, it can be frustrating, and being frustrated is bad, it's just another emotion, but it's how people treat you when they're frustrated, and so it's okay for me to express frustration with my voice, just the same way that you express your, you know, you know, That kind of thing. That's not quite sitting with her yet. She doesn't really understand it, but I've been trying to be consistent with the emotions aren't bad.

Safa:

Yeah. Cause that's also a lie and be like, this is really human. I am human. I'm not perfect. And so what I've started doing is being really intentional with apologizing to him. Be like, Hey, this is where I am right now. And I'm sorry, I acted that way. And I know it's not okay. And I, I appreciate you understanding me like he's eight. So there's a little bit more. That I can have the conversation with him there. So that's kind of the approach I've been taking right now because I'm like, hey, bud, I get it. And you understand it too, because you get that way too. So this is what I need you to understand. And I'm sorry. And I, I'm trying to be better is so that's kind of I'm like, okay, well, maybe that's the way I take it. But I feel like it's such. Trial and error and so many elements you have to figure out and find the way to do it It's just it's just what whatever vibes you're getting is parenting

Ashley:

No, it is really hard and I think the apologies are Addison is foreign Ellie is too so I don't have Adult kids to go back and reflect on, but I think that the apology stuff is going to go a lot further than maybe we're giving it credit for. I don't remember getting apologized to very frequently from the adults in my life growing up, and I think there's a lot that got internalized about that, but trying to teach kids. That their behavior affects how other people act, too. It's hard, because I don't, I don't want her to think that she needs to behave a certain way to get accepted. But at the same time, like, if somebody was ignoring you all the time, yelling at you all the time, you know, that kind of, they're not going to be happy. They're not going to want to be around you. that's something, I think that's an important lesson. To learn to write. So, yeah,

Safa:

no, it's a hard balance between all of those things making them independent and confident and all of that and be able to make their own choices and not being people pleasing and feel loved and feel accepted and all of that kind of stuff. But then also being like, you need to be a kind person. you need to think about other people's feelings, and not be self centered. Right! And then also understand, empathy, and everything. I'm like, Walee, I need you to empathize with everything I'm dealing with right now. As we go through this and it's hard, but I, I know that Addison is four and as they get older, I feel like it's easier to have harder conversations and kind of bring in the nuance of it. So I think it's just like. Every little bit of trying kind of build on that, which, isn't that like. All we always talk about is just building those foundations and building upon them and continuous improvement over time. It's the same thing with parenting.

Ashley:

Yes, oh my gosh, maybe we need to have our own little, we need to have a parenting podcast too. Yeah.

Safa:

Parenting lessons. This was my terror, my trial and error, this is what I learned.

Ashley:

This is how the last eight years have gone.

Safa:

Okay.

Ashley:

Should we jump into the first topic that we have outlined? Okay. So we're going to be doing we're going to be talking about defining growth marketing and how it differs from traditional marketing.

Safa:

Yeah, so growth marketing. I feel. For us kind of came to us very organically just based on our 2 strings coming together between business development and growth and then marketing for that growth and development growth marketing really focuses on. Sustainable expansion of a business and looking at what the bigger goals are for the business may be it revenue, just company structure even an owner's desires for their business and how they want to be functioning in their role and all of those kinds of things looking at those longer term outlooks of the business and. Coming up with different initiatives to achieve those, and some of those may be developing new revenue streams, restructuring the business as far as team, changing delivery systems and all of those things of how it will grow and expand, bring in more revenue and work in a way that's more optimized and function better and all of that, While also increase the amount of, sales and revenue that's coming in to align with all of that together. So, and that's part where the marketing comes in. It's like, oh, you have this foundational business, you're growing, you're expanding, and you're changing these things to move it further to your business goals. And then you're doing a whole lot of marketing into that to bring that more revenue, bring those smaller sales in, and either to the new revenue streams. Into the restructured operations that are more efficient, more scalable, anything like that, and really just ramping it up from there. So it's a lot more holistically looking at the business goals for a longer term vision, and then really using marketing to bring the attention in and having more targeted acquisition and more targeted top level. Leads coming in to a business that's ready to accept that and churn that out that delivery of the product or the service or whatever it may be in a way that just exponentially allows the business to grow and kind of bringing those 2 parts together. And that's kind of what we've. We organically got to to the point where that's where we're at with our agency. Yeah, so

Ashley:

something that I want to clarify on that with growth marketing. It is a different style and effort that gets put into the business than what I typically call is maintenance marketing. So when I am looking at a business or I'm talking to a client, understanding what their goals are is huge because like you said, you know, are we expanding products services? If you're brick and mortar, are we going to be looking at ultimately opening new locations? There's lots of different ways that you can grow a business. With the revenue, but if that's not the immediate goal, or that's not something that you're wanting to do long term, we can look at just. Maintaining the growth that you've had, right? So that's just maintaining the digital presence, maintaining your email list, maintaining the communication, all of those aspects of marketing. However, most clients that we come in contact with want to grow, they want more money. They want to expand. They want to increase their reach. They want to make a bigger impact, which then we're like, okay, great. We're going to go into growth mode. Which is where we can look at all of those different expansion options, reorganization, optimization, et cetera. You said

it

Safa:

really, it starts with the goals and the, the goals start with the why. It's why are we looking at growth is the why I want to step into more of a CEO. I want to be out of the day to day. Okay. So how do you do that? You grow your business. You bring in your team members. You bring in that stuff. Oh, no. Well, I'm ready to make an impact into this other side of town. I want to be involved in this community. I'm opening up a new location or it's hey, I want to have A second foundational piece of income. I have this income that's going and I'm maintaining that with the maintenance marketing and it's going and it's turning, but I'm ready to bring in this other foundational income. If that 1st foundational income goes away or lessons or anything, like anything can happen in the market. Right? So I'm looking. I'm ready for that. Or it's like, I'm ready to scale this thing that I already have this foundational income, how can I create space in my business to be able to accommodate sales at scale? And then that is also growth. It's the growth before you scale. So it's figuring out the why you want to do it. And then you figure out what from this pool of all these options that I just went over, which ones work for what your why is, that's your goal. And then. We have to work on the business to create that foundation and those structures and all of those things within the business to be able to accommodate and achieve those goals and then having the growth marketing coming in, once that foundations there to really be able to ramp it up and then achieve the goal. So it's really this. The structure where it has to work together because and I know you can speak to this a little bit more. It's like, okay, yeah, well, I'm ready to grow. Let's ramp up our marketing. And then it comes in and it's just like, oh my gosh, I, it's not sustainable. It's not maintainable at all. And I'm just inundated with all the, all this marketing that's going on.

Ashley:

Yeah, exactly. And I, I just wanted to add about the. The why and the goals really quick, because I know that it can sound so cliche, right? Especially if you're in the online space, you hear it all the time, vision, goals, what's your why? But there really is a, a true business best practice to having them. It's not there. They aren't just buzzwords. They aren't just you know, this is something to talk about. Yeah, I mean, we've because we've had it with past clients before that didn't have a very clear vision or specific goals, and it made. Establishing the strategy, the product suite, et cetera, much more complicated than if they knew exactly what they wanted to be doing with and with the business and within the business and what specifically they wanted to be going after. Right? Because We can come up with ideas all day, right? But if that's not aligned with you and that's not something that, if that's not the direction that you want to go, because in your mind, you're envisioning something else. We just haven't articulated it. That's going to, we're going to be doing lots of twists and turns to get to ultimately where you want to be. Right? So having that, why having your vision, having your goals is really going to narrow down all of those other options to give us. a handful of options to be working with and kind of process of elimination through, you know, what, what the process is for our strategy development. Right. But yeah, I mean, marketing is a time consuming task, right? that's why businesses have full marketing teams. It's a full department because it's not just 15 minutes to put out a couple of posts and you're set. Right. It's It is time consuming to come up with a strategy, come up with a content calendar, develop the copy, develop the creative to go with it, the approval process, gathering the necessary information, because as the business owner, you're the subject matter expert. I can, I can get to a certain point based on my experiences and knowledge. Or the copywriter can do that, for example, but ultimately, you know, your business in and out, you know, all of the nitty gritty details of what you want to be talking about. And we need to gather that information so that we can make the magic happen on the back end. Do you know? Yeah,

Safa:

no, it totally is all of that. And then the impacts of that on your business, if it's done well, is it could completely kill your business. Because everybody's always like, oh my gosh, I want to make more money. I need to do better marketing. I need more leads. I need 100 leads. And I know this is completely outrageous. But what if you convert all 100 of those leads? What are you going to do? Yeah, you're, you're going, your work quality is going to drop. You're not going to be able to give everybody what they want, what you've sold them. That's, that's bordering on unethical business practices. Oh, when you are selling something and then you can't deliver on it because you don't have the structure to be able to really deliver that. That's an unethical business practice. And even though that that was not your intention, that's what's happening here. And then. Your word of mouth is not going to be good. You're not going to get those testimonials. You're not going to get those referrals. You're not going to get that. If you are a brick and mortar business, you're not going to get that. You see, you're going to have the bad reviews. All of that's going to happen because you cannot deliver. So you did all that work for your marketing. You got the traffic you wanted, but now everybody's like, oh. This is actually kind of trash and then you can't deliver and then it kind of starts falling apart and then you're back into a structure where you're not getting the money in because you're not getting the lead no matter the volume of marketing you put out because the experience isn't there and people are going to stop coming and your cash is going to dry up and you're going

Ashley:

to be frustrated overwhelmed and burnt

Safa:

out. All, all the bad things that could happen to you as a business owner are going to happen.

Ashley:

And obviously that's not what we want, which is why we're talking about this. All right. That wraps up this week's episode. Come back next week to check out part two.

And that wraps up another episode of the Business Millennials podcast. We hope you found this conversation, thought provoking, inspirational, and helps you make a larger impact with your business. Growth is not just about profits or revenue. It's a journey of personal development, contribution, and bettering ourselves in society. Our challenge for you. Take at least one key lesson from our time together today that you can apply not just to your business. But your relationships, creative expression, well-being and personal evolution too. We appreciate you tuning in. If you enjoyed this show, we invite you to pay it forward. Share it with an entrepreneur, creative student or community leader who needs an infusion of insight or inspiration right now. And make sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen so you never miss a single episode. And if you like what you heard, leave us a five-star review. See you next week.