The Business Millennials Podcast

Do you have a good marketing strategy?

• Ashley Dreager & Safa Harris • Season 1 • Episode 15

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In this episode of the Business Millennials Podcast, hosts Safa Harris and Ashley Dreager, founders of Scale and Thrive Co., dive deep into the fundamentals of marketing, aiming to clear up common misunderstandings. They explore strategic insights for accelerating business growth, touching on topics like the importance of a holistic understanding of marketing beyond basic definitions, the pitfalls of one-size-fits-all solutions, and the balance between outsourcing and DIY approaches in business processes.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Marketing, in its simplest form, is communicating with people about your business through various channels such as social media, email, and SEO.
  2. One-size-fits-all solutions and templates rarely work in marketing, as each business has unique factors such as target audience, offers, and brand voice that require custom strategies.
  3. Authenticity is crucial in marketing and copying others' strategies without adapting them to your business can hinder relatability and trust with your audience.
  4. Business owners should strive to have a baseline understanding of marketing tasks, even when outsourcing, to effectively manage projects, allocate resources, and handle unexpected challenges.
  5. Outsourcing marketing tasks is not always the best solution, and business owners must consider factors such as budget, timeline, and their own willingness to learn when deciding whether to outsource or tackle tasks in-house.

Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome to the Business Millennials Podcast
00:59 Demystifying Marketing: What It Really Means
03:08 The Essence of Marketing and Its Misconceptions
09:08 Navigating the Complexities of Marketing Strategies
11:49 The Pitfalls of One-Size-Fits-All Solutions in Marketing
17:11 The Importance of Authenticity and Custom Solutions
36:17 Learning from Mistakes: A Case Study on Outsourcing

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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 longterm success. I'm Safa Harris, and I'm Ashley Drager. We're the founders of scale and thrive co a 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:

Yeah. What is marketing? That's a hot topic right now in Facebook groups.

Safa:

I know. I'm honestly, I'm really surprised. I don't know if it's just because one, we own a marketing agency, but like, also not my, like, I feel like I know enough in marketing and like, I'm good enough, but that's not my area of expertise. Like definitely tech ops systems, like. offer financial stuff is my thing. But like, I feel like I know what marketing actions are. Just like, as a business owner, I knew, I'm like, oh, I know I'm not spending time doing enough marketing. Like, I have a marketing click up folder. I know what things go in there, and those are marketing actions. And I feel like I never had to be like, define marketing on Google to know that. So, I'm just kind of surprised that there's conversations in Facebook groups being like, Oh, what is marketing? And like, the definitions are so different or being like, Oh, I'm doing X, Y, Z actions. I'm not really doing marketing, but like, That is marketing. So I feel a couple of different ways about why that's the case. Like, I think the Facebook group where it's like, Oh, it could be these 10 different things that falls into the bucket is not really understanding that like branding and sales and, funnels and all of that are very distinct things that need their own attention and strategy and pieces of the pie. And yeah, they might like if you're organizing a project management tool, you might put it in the marketing folder or someone in the marketing department might be helping with those things. But those aren't in and of itself marketing. It's like a

Ashley:

Oh,

Safa:

marketing, pure, simple is literally top of funnel brand awareness. Just getting visibility, getting out there, like bringing all that attention in. And I feel like It's gotten confused with all these other actions that you have to do that work together with with that part of marketing You know to bring in conversions and connect to the rest of the business of that like because you do need all of those things and they all have to work together So I think it's like the blurred lines kind of got it confused where they're like, oh, we'll do this as marketing Yeah, but no, but like essentially You This is what it is. And then I feel like maybe that also explains to people why They don't think where they're doing marketing because they're not doing all the other pieces, but they maybe are actually doing the part so don't know, but I think it explains a lot when we say you need marketing strategy and people are like

Ashley:

I hate that. I mean, I get it, but at the same time, it's like, you can't do all of the activities for your marketing without a marketing strategy or without a marketing plan. Like you, if you don't know what you're doing, you can't really be doing anything effectively. At least like just be thrown it all out there. Yeah.

Safa:

is. Uh, so clearly there's a disconnect and hopefully maybe this episode can help. that because I definitely understand the power strategy you need it you need to understand it, but if you don't understand what is and the impact it has on your business. You're never gonna get to the point of understanding why I you need a strategy for it, right? If it's like, Oh, well, like I have branding. Oh, I have a funnel or like, I have a way for people to sign my contracts and things like that. Like, okay, cool. But that's not you're not going to get sales that way. Like you

Ashley:

Mm

Safa:

to do the upper part of the funnel marketing part to do that. And then it's like, Oh, those are what those things are. So I need to do media, emails, SEO, Those pieces are marketing. Then it's like, okay, well, are the pieces you need to do. Well, how are you going to do them? So we're

Ashley:

hmm.

Safa:

like, not knowing what marketing is, people are stuck at the what before they can even get to the, uh, the how like the why is usually whatever's not working. Yeah,

Ashley:

Whenever I'm trying to explain what marketing is to someone, the simplest way that I can explain it is that marketing is communicating with people about your business. It's just, it's a communication. It's a way of communicating. And then how you communicate that is through the marketing channels, which are things like social media, email marketing, SEO. Those are ways that you can put your message out there for people. To either find you or for you to intentionally put it in front of them, depending on what the channel is, right? There's paid and then there's organic. And then each of those are going to work differently to get your message across, but it's, it really isn't as simplest form communication. And then branding comes in for the visual element. So marketing is not branding. Branding is not specifically marketing, but they do work. Very closely together and they need to be aligned just like sales needs to work very closely with marketing, right? Like that Venn diagram, like there's all these pieces and then there is the overlap for sure, but they are separate. They have separate activities and separate strategies and separate things that need to happen for it to ultimately work in a very optimized way. You can

Safa:

all working to create together to create world but they're all parts and pieces of it. Um, so that we had an episode a while ago and You had made an analogy where you had said it was something about a text message and you weren't worried about your, how is my friend going to see this text message, but is the text message the right way to communicate with friend right now? Or is like a carrier pigeon going to be better? I don't see in what world it would be, but like you get the point. But so like, The text message would be the marketing channel, that would be the marketing tactic, and that's like the form of communication, which that's the marketing, it's the, the how of which like text message or carrier pigeon is better for your friend to get it is like the marketing strategy. So, received well, yeah. because communication is a two way street, ain't it?

Ashley:

be throwing stuff out there all the time, but if nobody wants to hear it, nobody's seeing it. Like, is that effective communication? No. Like,

Safa:

strategy comes in.

Ashley:

that's where the strategy comes in and data. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Safa:

what's actually working so you can change your strategy.

Ashley:

Yeah.

Safa:

I love

Ashley:

Yeah. one of the most common questions that I see, and this is ultimately what prompted the course to be developed, dude, where's my marketing plan, which

Safa:

I love

Ashley:

I think is such a fun name. Uh, because I was constantly seeing questions. From solopreneurs, early stage businesses saying, how do I connect with my customers? How do I connect with more customers? How do I get in front of more customers? It was quite literally the question that I was seeing all the time, mostly in my local Facebook networking groups, but nonetheless, it was the same question over and over and over. How do I get in front of my customers marketing? That's how you're going to get in front of your customers. And then you need to communicate with them. Why you, why your business, why should they care about your business? I mean, in this day and age, there's everything is saturated to a degree, right? Yes. There is new and innovative businesses and services and products that come out, but ultimately everything's already been done. So why you, why should they care about you? Right. And so, it all starts with your marketing plan. You know, whenever I would try to answer these questions in a Facebook thread, which is very difficult to do. Very difficult to do. The first question would be, what are you doing now? Because I could give you a million different ways that you could market your business, but if you're already doing them and it's not working, it's kind of a useless response for you. Right? Like that's not helpful. Just going to add to the overwhelm. Just going to add to the frustration. So we need to know what you are doing now that you think is not working. Two things to that. It could be the right channels. We just need to optimize them, or we need to change the content strategy, or you need to give it more time. It's usually one of the two that I see as being the issue if we're using the right channels.

Safa:

So a couple things on that. So everybody's always like, oh, I need to make more sales. And it's like, okay. Yeah. There's like, that's why I'm not making more sales because not enough people are seeing me, which may very well be. the legit answer being like, yeah, maybe you do just need a lot of visibility, but like your replicable sales process, it does start in the marketing aspect of it. So it's like one, you need to see, you have to check to see is your marketing plan, right? Is it the right one? Are you doing all those things? Do you, are you doing the right things for your ideal client and like works for your buyer? then maybe you are doing all of that really well and you've like vetted that out and confirmed it because you have a plan you know where to look and you've tested things and you're like you know this performs so then you can like move down your funnel of conversion and see like okay where's the break but just focusing on like the marketing aspect of it i think This is where our biggest issue with like unethical marketing practices comes in where it's like if you're not getting sales If you're not doing that, this is your one solution Like you need to do this my proven framework like for this process. We'll get No, like you don't know that you cannot guarantee that you cannot say that because every business is different Every client is different every like how many people are on this earth and everybody Has different buying personas. They are different Ways they buy things and this business is focusing on one specific aspect of a person Community, whatever it may be but Like, it's never one size fits all. has to be holistic. You have to see where the starting point is. You have to dissect it and understand what it is. Find the gaps and find a custom solution. this is why we hate templates. Because

Ashley:

hmm.

Safa:

it's not one size fits all. It will never be one size fits all. All of it will never fit and work exactly the right way. So one, not being able to answer that question in a Facebook group. Yeah, I'm sure there's people on there be like, Oh, this is what you need. You need my email templates. I convert, but then you're like, Oh, well, hold on. Let's dig in. Let's investigate, see what's going on. Find out what all the solutions are and then

Ashley:

Mm hmm.

Safa:

something that actually works and you can't just plug and play it.

Ashley:

Most of the time I would see people just Shooting off the standard Most common marketing channels, but you need to be on social media. Well, you should be on tick tock. Well, you should do email Yeah, great. I would probably incorporate those into your marketing strategy, too They are very versatile and work for pretty much every business that we're gonna work with To some degree but then what? You grow your social media and then what? You have to be thinking about the entire funnel, the entire customer journey when you're doing that. And it's not even the way that you're using social media is going to vary. Even when you're talking to somebody within the same industry, it's not the exact same. And there are so many variables that are going to be different, causing you to use those marketing channels differently. For example, your budget, your capacity, your skill set, your confidence level, those four things right there are going to affect the way that your social media performs for the longest time. I would look at these well established business owners, these well established accounts, trying to take their advice, trying to learn from them.

Safa:

Mm

Ashley:

why it wasn't working for me the way that they said that it would or why it felt so much harder than they led on to for it to seem come to find out this one you know these businesses that would appear to be the sole face of the business actually had like 10 or 20 people working for them in the back end so solo me With two young kids at home wondering, why can't I do this? They say that I should be able to do this. They make it look so easy. They say it's easy. Well, they're only doing a 10th of it. And I'm doing the entire thing. Like it's different. It's not, it's never going to be an apples to apples comparison. Templates don't work and talking about brand voice, templates are never going to be in your brand voice. You're going to have to edit to fit your business. It's just, I hate templates.

Safa:

Yeah. And like, I think we, that's why when we did our template like that was what we wanted it to be something like, yeah, we're going to give you like a baseline to get started and then give the skillset to be able to customize it and make it your own. It's more of like, it's more of a training shop

Ashley:

Yeah.

Safa:

because a template is just, they might be a good place to get started, but you can't just plug and play it because all those factors you said, like about an individual business and like capacity and resources and things like that. Yeah, that's one aspect of it. But then it's also like, what's the offer? Who's the buyer? Like, what is this world that you've created? What is the brand? Like, it's all so different. And like you said, like those big name coaches, their ideal client is different than your ideal client. Their business is different than your business. Their offers are different than your And this is kind of comes back to the needing authenticity in business in your marketing in your social media Because if that's not there and that face of the business doesn't have that authenticity Like that brand doesn't feel authentic because you're like copying other things or trying to emulate things like that. It's to be a lot Harder for people to relate to you understand buy in get that like no trust whatever It is because you are trying to do something that doesn't work for you because you think it's the right thing to do

Ashley:

Or the easy way, the shortcut.

Safa:

way and it's a lot easier to just go on there and be you. I think like for us. Like this podcast allowed us to be a lot more authentic and it was easier and things like that It's like yeah, I could do all of the other things and still kind of bring this Air to my marketing and social channels and stuff like that But it was a lot heavier of a lift for me to get there because of the steps it took But then having this podcast and being able to repurpose the video and do all of that was a lot easier Easier to get the same results. So

Ashley:

hmm.

Safa:

we're not going to say, Hey, this video podcast is great for everybody, but for certain people, this is the way that's going to shortcut them to get there. And you have to find what that is. And nobody's going to be able to tell it to you other than giving you ideas and then working and checking the data and then figuring it out and putting it all out there.

Ashley:

Yeah. And sometimes the amount of time and effort and mental load, trying to make a template or a shortcut work for your business is worse than if you just did it originally on your own.

Safa:

Oh, yeah, for sure. We can say that with, uh, websites.

Ashley:

But the amount of learning that has come from it, but yeah, that's, that's another thing though. Like the, the amount of skillset that you need to have as a business owner. To do it yourself. So a little insight to our business, I've been working on our websites, on our landing pages, on our sales pages. And there are a few things that I'm getting very stuck on, like very stuck on that seems so small, so little should really not take that much time. But tech is not working for me the way that I want tech to work for me. And so I went to, uh, A couple of Facebook groups asking for. Learning resources, a course, something to teach me how to do this because I'm already doing it 90 percent of the way. Like, let me just finish it instead of trying to find it, find one of their team members that has the availability that can turn it around and the turnaround time that I want it done in, you know, like not trying to be like a, a mean boss or anything, but just like. Like it's a, there are other things that depend on this getting done to keep the projects moving along and I'm already sitting at the desk doing everything else. Like I just need help with this one thing. And the number of people that we're trying to pitch, just outsourcing it completely. I was shocked with, I mean, I guess I shouldn't have been, I shouldn't be that surprised, but there is a time and place for outsourcing. There's also a time and place for you to have base knowledge yourself as the business owner.

Safa:

Yeah, I think for where our level of business, it helps sometimes, especially because we're like working with contractors and things like that. And like to get things like out real quick. So sometimes it's just like, it's, it's not a matter of like, Oh, We don't know how to delegate or we don't know how to let it go or whatever like that. It would be easy enough to us be like, hey xyz on the team like care of this, but I also know we need to give her a week to do it. But we're like, I just want this done tomorrow. And you can't necessarily that. And we're not in a space of business where we can pay for same day for someone. And Be in that space. So it helps to like have the knowledge just to do it yourself to get it out It's not that we're unopposed to outsourcing it. We have an issue with letting go and be like well They just it's just easier for me to do it myself just because we want it done fast

Ashley:

Yeah.

Safa:

That's

Ashley:

Right.

Safa:

for me to get it done.

Ashley:

Yeah.

Safa:

It was, I feel like the responses you got, like you asked a very specific question, and we talked about this about in our Facebook groups episode,

Ashley:

Surprisingly, these posts didn't get. Declined initially though,

Safa:

good.

Ashley:

I was happy about that.

Safa:

So you asked for a very specific question for a very specific reason, and I know these people don't know that we have an agency that's full service and that we can pull the capability to do XYZ. But we're choosing not to for a very specific reason. One, I don't think you have to, you should need to explain your full strategic reason for wanting to learn and do all of this. But you got more, I feel like the answers you got were like, oh, well, you don't need a course. You can just YouTube it. And it's like, well, don't you think I was YouTubing it? Or it's like, oh, well, don't worry about it. You don't need to know how to do any of that. You can pay me to do it. It's like, if I wanted to pay someone, I would have already paid someone. What?

Ashley:

Right, like, don't you think that I would love?

Safa:

squid set

Ashley:

Yeah.

Safa:

to just do it real quick.

Ashley:

But like you said, like, of course I would love to hand everything off in the business and then I can just sit back and answer client questions, lean into the strategy, into the management, into the consulting and be like, yeah, all this other stuff that I don't really care for myself. I don't personally enjoy it. Yeah. I would love to do that. But there's a budget for a reason. Right. Like going back to our last episode, talking about like personal budgets and grocery budgets and stuff like that. Like, yes, there is, there is a cost to convenience, right? Like, you know, you've run out of milk. You could run to the corner market and get a gallon of milk, but you're going to pay way more than if you just waited an extra day to go to your regular grocery store. And that's the, this is, that's the decision that you need to make. Do you want to pay for this convenience to get this done this much faster? Or are you going to come up with a substitute and find a different way to do it on your own? Or for bread, make the bread on your own instead of going to buy a loaf.

Safa:

From the

Ashley:

You know, like you got to make, it's a balance. It's a balance. And I know every business is going to have that same dilemma at some point. Do I pay for this or do I do it on my own? Mm

Safa:

for us, it's a, we are very in tune with our financial strategy, and it, all of our, all, like, not, I say this in the most humble way possible, all of our strategies do really work well together and inform each other. We are in a very blessed position that we are able to bring all of that expertise together to be able to do that. Like our marketing works with our operations and it all, both of those work with our financial strategy and then all of that informs like the branding and the branding informs all of that. Like it all works together but Our delegation strategy is informed by our operation strategy of like when we want things to go out and when we want it to go out, like, like, we can plan things out, like, six months ahead of time, and there's still going to be things being like, Oh, because we have to do workload management, being like, well, we can only delegate X, Y, and Z up to this capacity. We have to fill this gap to hit this timeline, which is not a ridiculous timeline. We gave it plenty of time. But, we cannot add. more capacity for two reasons. One, this person may not have it. Do we really want to hire someone additional for that

Ashley:

hmm. Mm

Safa:

or do we have the money to pay that operationally and add in that resource? Or are we just not going to delegate and outsource it? Not because we have a problem delegating that we have don't have we have a problem outsourcing is that the smartest business decision in this moment given all of these factors and We honestly I can honestly say We do factor in all of those pieces when we're making every single decision

Ashley:

hmm. And to add another layer to that, We also have the conversation of, are we willing to learn this on our own? Like, do we have the time, do we have the capability and are we just throwing an adult tantrum of, I just don't want to do this.

Safa:

which we do sometimes, but then we are just like, oh fine, I'll suck it up and I'll do it.

Ashley:

Cause I mean, yeah, cause realistically that is something that we have to face a lot. Right? Unless we have a billion dollar budget, there's going to be things that we have to do to make the business run that we just have to suck it up and do it. Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh. Mm

Safa:

business we're at. it might be the reality for a long term just because that's kind of where we're gonna stay and where things will be. And I think. A lot of people I'll see online be like, Oh my gosh, I'm so burnt out. I'm so all of this from my business. I, I don't want to do X, Y, Z anymore and all of that. So I'm going to pull back on my business. Okay. Yeah, cool. You can do that to get things off of your plate, but guess what? If you ever want more money, you're going to be back in that space to do it. Or an alternative is grow your business. To get it off of your plate, which I feel like people forget is an option

Ashley:

hm. Heh, heh, heh, heh.

Safa:

be able to get all of these things off our plate in the quickest timeline and the way we want it But while we get there there are gonna be moments like this and there's nothing wrong that and it was almost as if you were being shamed for not it and wanting to learn it and figure it out on your own. Because you got people telling you to go to YouTube. Like, oh, you don't need, you don't need a course. Um, which it has a lot of great resources. Like, don't get me wrong, YouTube is a great resource. You will learn a lot and get out a lot out of that. They asked you if you were trying to start a web design business. Or you were like, well, I already have that offer. then it was like, oh, let us just do it.

Ashley:

Yeah, right, exactly. Well, the reason that the YouTube suggestions bothered me so much is because it's just like, you don't think that I've been trying to DIY it myself. Like, you don't think that was one of the first thing, like, I've been watching YouTube videos. I've been googling it. I'm building a website. Like, my base knowledge for tech resources available is not brand new. you know what I mean?

Safa:

And like, this is

Ashley:

thank you.

Safa:

one I've DIY'd. Thank you.

Ashley:

Like it's fine. It's like a very, very tech specific issue that I am running into. Like I've already been troubleshooting it and I've gotten to the point of, okay, now I'm ready to pay because this isn't working on my own. Like I've gone through the, let me just try to figure it out, all of that kind of stuff. Um, but yeah, it's, I mean, it really is a prioritization of resources and resource allocation. So

Safa:

Which, back to the original point of like, what is marketing? Guess what? Your website is a part of marketing, but it's not the answer to all of your stuff. But, like, website also has its own strategy. So it's just like, all of these pieces, like, make up your business. All of the pieces. make up your marketing, your website being one of them, but your branding also makes up your, oh, your website, your, uh, client delivery makes up your website. All of those pieces work together. So I guess, I think the most distinct way would be define it as how you said it was like, it's just a form of communication. But also remember, whenever anybody says that XYZ is like, firm and final on anything, that's not the case.

Ashley:

But I had already forgotten that that's how we started out this episode. I was like, Oh yeah, that is how we started this out.

Safa:

I had to, no, no, no, I, while you were talking I was like, what was this episode about again? Mm hmm.

Ashley:

Uh, yeah, I think the, the last thing that I wanted to just kind of like Wrap this up with is that there, there is a time and a place for outsourcing. There is a time and a place for doing it on your own. There is also benefit for understanding that it is not black or white with that either. Like there is going to be times where it overlaps of, yeah, you may have somebody on your team to do this for you, but you still may need to step in and do something. Just because they're out right now, they already have a full workload on their plate. You don't have the butt and the wiggle room and the budget to add on this extra one time thing to their already ongoing retainer. There's it's, there are so many variables and there's just a lot of benefit to you having base knowledge and understanding of what goes into it, how to do the basics, because at the end of the day, the responsibility falls on you as the business owner. Like, You, you can't outsource blame when things don't go right. Like it sucks. Like we have these conversations too internally, like,

Safa:

Yeah.

Ashley:

you know, it's, it's just what comes along with it. But we have spent the time learning how to do things on our own. If somebody drops the ball, we can pick it up. Right? Like, no, that's not necessarily going to be the case for everything a hundred percent of the time, but the majority of the time to at least keep things moving along, we can do that.

Safa:

And I think that speaks a lot to good and effective and like human centered management I firmly believe that's good at, like, managing work, this is sep management is separate than leadership. Two different things, but, like, if you are good at management, you can literally manage anything. Like, I used to manage engineering. I do not have an engineering degree, like, at all. Like, that's not nope. But was good at managing the work, but I spent time to understand and knew what went into every facet of it. Like, I was able to answer technical engineering questions because I spent the time to learn enough. Like, I should not be doing the work, but I can be like, I know what goes on here. Like, I know how they get to that answer, and all of these things need to happen. So one, I can understand their workload, and what it takes for them to get the work done, and put myself in their shoes. Two, give them enough time to make it happen, and know when to push back to my management. And in this case, in business, it's pushed back to myself to be like, no, that's not a reasonable timeline. We can't make that happen. I'm not putting that on my team and push back. And because I know what all it takes and spending that time to learn that is going to make you a better person. manager and create better processes and support the team that's actually getting the work done in a better, more effective way because you know what it takes. And I feel like anybody can manage anything, yes, but they need to spend the time to learn and understand what what it takes to do it, what all goes into it, and the people that are doing it. That's oftentimes, that's why it works out better when someone's like done the work and then they become a manager into it because they get it. But if you got placed into a management role and you've never done the job, spend the time to learn the job. At least enough, you don't have to like physically know how to do it. Like,, I just keep coming back to this electrical engineering thing because it's just like so like out of the scope of like my skill set, my degree, and everything like that. knew they had to do calculations for transformers to figure out how many you need every house, right? Like, I knew that that had to happen, and I knew that they used this calculator to do it, and this is how long it took. And I generally knew like seven houses or five houses. I don't even remember the stats anymore. Takes one transformer, but you still have to confirm the mileage and all of that kind of stuff. And I knew that's how long it takes. I could I do it? Absolutely not. Do you want me doing it? No, you do not. Something's going to catch on fire. But did I know, Oh, we found this gap. Oh no, we need to get this done. I need to give. Johnny and Sandra, three days to get it done, based on wherever it needs to fall in their priority gap. Because I understood the process and the work and the effort that it took to put into it. But if I didn't take the time to understand that and what it all meant and the ramifications, I couldn't.

Ashley:

As you were telling this story, it reminded me of the video that you sent me on TikTok about the graphic design agency. Do you remember that one?

Safa:

yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Ashley:

Because, okay, so because we're not going to link the video in the show notes, basically, she hired a graphic design agency to do, to build her website. I think it was, I think it was a transfer. I think it was a transfer and a rebuild. I think she already had something up and some, uh, email marketing newsletters going to focus on the website piece of it. The agency put in that this website was going to take five months to build five Months, granted it's because they put in there that they were going to be taking a paternity leave. Uh, what?

Safa:

Which, no issue with them taking the paternity leave.

Ashley:

No. Yeah.

Safa:

of contract to build that in for them to take that leave and extend the turnaround time on

Ashley:

And the, the timeline on this project, yeah, she spent 18, 000. I think that included a couple email newsletters, which by the way, they charged a thousand dollars a piece for.

Safa:

Which. Email lose the others one in MailChimp,

Ashley:

Yeah, this is, this is male, this is not like,

Safa:

do. It was like graphic image, all custom coding. So she couldn't do it herself of just it's MailChimp. You can drag and drop. We all know that.

Ashley:

yeah,

Safa:

then her, the integrations and the tech on it didn't work. And the website they gave her was like, fine. It was definitely not a five month thing. website and they charged her 18, 000,

Ashley:

but it's just the,

Safa:

sure they're like, yes, you can have website bills that are 18, 000. But from what she was showing us, like she literally did screen records and it was just not

Ashley:

so it's not an advanced website like with a lot of moving pieces and.

Safa:

custom.

Ashley:

This is, yeah,

Safa:

and

Ashley:

this is look like a very average website, which I'm not knocking, but for that price point and the customer service that came with it and the turnaround time, and she still can't do any of it on her own.

Safa:

Yeah.

Ashley:

Like she's still dependent on somebody else doing things. So what happens when she has to change a product? Or she adds a product or she changes the price point on a product or the ingredients change because I think this is like skincare brand. Um, I think it was consumer, but anyways, there is so much benefit to having a baseline understanding of you being able to do it on your own so that you can also manage it. You know, when something isn't going well and you can stand up for yourself and your business, like there's just, there's really no downsides to it.

Safa:

Before, if you are going to be hiring project based, there is a benefit in going on YouTube and like figuring out what all actually needs to be done to get the results you need and doing some market research on pricing, all of that kind of stuff and doing that baseline education. So you. know what you need to be paying for, what you need, and so you're able to effectively ask for that as well.

Ashley:

Yeah. You know what questions to ask when to ask questions. I mean, 18,

Safa:

end up in this situation that she did. Because now she can't even send out an email newsletter, and apparently the The opt in's not working so none of her people can subscribe and she spent all this money to host like a giveaway for her launch and it just didn't work because we all know launch tech always breaks like a disclaimer there but like she should have been able to know how to fix her opt in to fix her launch tech because she is a solopreneur was it was just her and it sounded like she was like early on so she didn't really just have all this cash

Ashley:

000 to drop on a project like that.

Safa:

early on oh

Ashley:

I just, yeah.

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, wellbeing, and personal evolution to, 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.