Paul Konrardy:
[0:16] Hey, everybody. Welcome to Monsters of Curiosity. This is your podcast of things that we've come up with.
Paul Konrardy:
[0:23] I don't know what to say about this stuff. But basically, we're really curious about stuff. And we think that our curiosity is what leads to conversations that you probably would never think to have. But those rabbit holes are actually where all the good stuff is. So we're going to go about explaining who we are, talk about an intro thing piece, and then we're going to talk about a little thing that we had last time we tried to do this, where it led to some very choice words. Anyway, I'm Paul Kinardi. I am a small business owner. I have been with myself for about 13, 14 years. Prior to that, I was in the aviation industry for 20 years. So I've been all over the world, and I've met a ton of people, and I love talking about the various things that we run into as we go through this life being a human being. And my two folks are, I'm going to just hand it over to Jenny so she can talk about it herself.
Jenny Evans:
[1:21] I love it that you've been with yourself for such a long time. That's a beautiful partnership. I've also been with myself for a long time. So I'm Jenny Evans. I am a speaker. I'm a coach. I'm an author. I love all things humanness. My background is exercise physiology. I've always had a curiosity about how the brain works, how the body works. I also have a background in performance psychology of, I love figuring out how we can up-level ourselves professionally, personally, to really just like enjoy life more and for me to make more of an impact. So I'm excited to talk about the things that matter and also the things that are just fun to talk about
Susan Evans:
[2:16] Excellent i'm going to go it's not going to be as cool as you guys so just i'll be the one they go oh isn't that matter of opinion yeah they'll say it's so nice that they have her there just how kind of them uh my name is susan i ran a company for a while um i also love to speak which may be a problem going forward um, I ran a company where we did a lot of communication on multiple platforms, a lot of data analysis, but my true love is crisis, crisis communications, prep, recovery, responding. Did that for 25 some odd years and realized that I loved it because it was a super fast problem solve, which I always found fascinating. And we always knew, as we said in the company, as I always say now, there's an answer to everything. We just haven't found it yet. It's like, there's an answer. We are not the only people to have confronted this ever. Otherwise, there'd be lots of books written about us. So I always said there's an answer for everything. And with this, I'm really excited about this because I think when you do crisis and business, and as Paul has been with himself for 13, 14 years, I've been with myself much less time than that. I've just recently found myself.
Susan Evans:
[3:43] And as Jen is out there, I think the thing that ties us together is the curiosity where we are like, I can't believe that's happening. I have to find out more about that. And that's the fun piece. And I think that's the thread that ties us all together is the, I think we'll bounce around a lot because it's so cool.
Paul Konrardy:
[4:03] Well, I think it's kind of cool that we all have a background where we've worked with each other in different ways. And I think that's pretty cool because I know with Jenny, I've utilized her wonderful services and I've sort of helped her in some of the things that she's been doing for her business. And I know I've worked for Susan and I've also hired Susan. So we have these interesting interplays. I know that Jenny and Susan have something as well, but, you know, that's up to them to disclose if they want to. But bottom line is, we've all found each other in this world. And the conversations we've run into have been so wide breadth of topics and our experiences have really gelled into something that I think can be very helpful,
Paul Konrardy:
[4:49] but also really interesting. And along the way we laugh and carry on and even have a little arguments which kind of leads us into the topic of today to talk about okay how did we how did we go from where we started to that place where we had to go through some darkness to get to where we are now and i don't want to put it as like we were fisticuffs or anything but it is something that we went through that i think is kind of interesting so who wants to touch that third rail all
Jenny Evans:
[5:18] Right i'll go i didn't come to fisticuffs because we're not in the same location. I don't know. I was passionate about my perspective.
Susan Evans:
[5:24] I don't think you would have. It is geographically impossible.
Jenny Evans:
[5:28] So yeah. So the topic for today, the question is, how do I know if my agency or marketing team is actually doing things that are going to move my business forward. And again, Paul saying that we've all worked with each other in different ways, so I'm The fight that we got into when we were talking about whose responsibility is this, or we all just had different perspectives that I found to be very interesting. So as an entrepreneur who has hired many agencies and teams to help me do the things that I can't do, especially with the marketing and the PR, my thinking was always, well, I don't know how to do this. I don't have time to do this. I want to offload this, which is why I'm hiring you. So here you go. You go do your thing. And I'm just going to sit back and watch my business magically transform. And then also be irritated when I was like, what's what's happening? I feel like nothing's happening. So that was my perspective.
Paul Konrardy:
[6:48] Totally good i wish that were that way i really do i wish i wish we could i wish we could find that magic easy button to push just like in the commercials where it just magically happens but it doesn't and unfortunately i'm my working with myself is in marketing technology but also as a
Paul Konrardy:
[7:12] Yeah, I'm very adjacent to marketing for folks, and I can't do my job if it's all handed over to me because I don't own your business. And I don't have all of the information that's necessary in order for me to do a job that is going to be that magic. It gets easier over time as we both get to know each other. But that's kind of where we came to loggerheads is different perspectives. Because there's a lot of information that's in an entrepreneur's head that nobody else knows. Nobody else knows that. Case in point, I was talking to a client this morning, in fact, and they relayed news that I did not know that they are going to be launching e-commerce in like three weeks. Well, they never told me about this. So our entire campaign plan was based on something else that we thought was their big business goals, but they didn't share this until this. And so now we're scrambling to figure out, okay, well, we have to readjust everything, campaign strategy, budgets, everything from a marketing perspective to accommodate something that's going to be very successful. Them i'm very excited for them but without them sharing this news in a timely manner or giving me a seed of that i can't prepare for that so that's i think where we ran into uh You know, a difference of opinion.
Jenny Evans:
[8:38] Yeah. And Susan really had a difference of opinion.
Susan Evans:
[8:42] Yeah. Well, and I think it's not one or the other's responsibility. It's both. And I would say it's interesting to hear you guys talk about it because when I was doing crisis work, it's the same thing. It's like, who's going to fix the problem? It's like, well, it's not me and it's not you. It's both of us. And so we would i would go in and we'd have depending on what the issue was and sometimes it's executive malfeasance sometimes it's a violent act it could be so many different things but invariably you go in and say you gotta tell me everything literally everything because this one act can mushroom and spread into a hundred other things and the best laid plan we have.
Susan Evans:
[9:30] Is going to get goofed up by people or a fact we didn't know or something. It's like, so there has to be a two-way communication, something that it's not unlike all the British police procedurals I see where they say, tell me everything, even the smallest detail may make a difference. It's that same thing where the e-commerce wasn't thought up yesterday at lunch, but it didn't dawn on them because that's not marketing, but it impacts marketing, but it's a different channel of thought. So I'm not going to think to tell you that until I'm ready to tell you that, because I don't understand you need a two-month lead time.
Susan Evans:
[10:08] So it's not anybody's fault. It's just you have to constantly ask questions. Got anything coming up in the next 12 months that's going to change your revenue stream? An agency should ask that. The owner should also think to tell somebody that, And somehow in there you'll get it But I do think it's a 50-50, 60-40, 30-70 Depending on what's going on.
Susan Evans:
[10:34] Because we would have to ask You got to tell me everything that somebody can take you down on, depending what the situation was, especially executive malfeasance, because our job was to save the company, not the person, which sounds harsh, but I can't have, you know, a Fortune 500 company go down the tubes because I'm trying to save, you know, some. But that borderlines on.
Paul Konrardy:
[10:58] It does borderline on the fact of how much is going to be disclosed, how closely do you want to be aligned, and what's an embarrassing thing to ask when maybe you haven't understood what a certain terminology or process worked from the get-go, and you've kind of laid it out there, you kind of did. So now you have to ask the question that's kind of embarrassing. And that's on both sides, actually. Because, you know, you're right, Susan, with this example about the e-commerce. Yeah, that should have been something that was, like, on the radar to ask a long time ago. Well, it was a new location. You know, there's all kinds of different reasons why. Right. But at the same time, you're right. That is, to your point, how can you tell if your agency is doing what it needs to do for your bottom line? That is an agency ask, is to say that very question. What do you have on your 12-month plan or whatever that could impact your business, you know, generation of income? So I think it does boil down, though, too, is that relationship that's built. Is that relationship built in a way that you can ask those embarrassing questions or ask those questions that you just aren't certain of without it shedding on you as though you're an ignoramus or something?
Susan Evans:
[12:19] I think one of the questions, one of the things I learned, like the first two weeks of a job I had, this was really lucky. There was this huge presentation. I was at a PR firm, my first job out of college. And it's, They were doing this huge presentation to a national horse racetrack. I mean, it was a big deal. Everyone was thrilled, had the account. It was going to get more money out of it.
Susan Evans:
[12:47] And been working on it for like three weeks, and they were going to show the CEO. CEO walks in, and we're all sitting there. And I got to sit in on this. There was no reason I was in the room other than the person that I reported to said, you should come in because you'll learn a lot. And we go in and about a third of the way through this presentation the ceo stands up and she says i have no idea what you guys are talking about and i thought holy shit it's like if she doesn't know it's her company her thing she brought the account in what the hell are we all doing here but i thought she had the guts to stand up and say, I don't know what the hell's going on here. And I thought, oh, anybody can ask a question. Because my thought was the higher up you get, the smarter you are and you ask no questions.
Susan Evans:
[13:42] And what I have found is the opposite is true, is that the higher up you are, the more questions you ask. Because you cannot afford to make a mistake. And you can't assume that when I say e-commerce is rolling out, it's like, what does e-commerce mean to you? Is this Etsy or is this Target? It's like, define these words by your terms and what it means to your business, because what I think it means from the businesses I've worked with may be something completely different. So I always say, I'm going to ask a hundred questions to make sure I don't misunderstand what seems obvious to you, but is hidden to me. I always said that at the very beginning of anything, because I thought, But I can't pretend I know everything no matter how long I've been doing this. I hope I don't know everything. How depressing would that be? But I think that that was the lesson I learned when she asked that. I don't know what we're talking about here. And the silence that hit the room. I was like, this is really interesting.
Paul Konrardy:
[14:43] That's such a misfire and that happens more often than not.
Susan Evans:
[14:46] Yeah.
Jenny Evans:
[14:47] Well, I think the reason.
Jenny Evans:
[14:48] Why these things happen repeatedly over and over. I mean, ultimately, we're talking about communication and communication is hard. But when a business owner is hiring an agency, that is really stressful because you're paying for a lot of money for results that you can't see right away. You're not controlling the timeline.
Jenny Evans:
[15:16] And without proactive and consistent communication, it creates these neurological gaps in our brain where we're like, we don't know what's going on. And so we don't like that ambiguity. So we'll start just like filling it in with all kinds of different assumptions or, you know, it puts it triggers the stress response. And then instead of being logical and proactive of like, okay, let's actually ask the right questions. Let's make sure we are fostering a relationship where we're creating safety, psychological safety, where I feel like I can ask anything or I can tell you
Jenny Evans:
[15:59] information that's uncomfortable. Um it just i think it this is why it's such a common thing in that it's just highly stressful and it changes what parts of your brain come online and we become very reactive instead of being proactive right
Susan Evans:
[16:23] Well said and i think, What I would tell an agency and a business owner is have a list of 10 questions and go to any one of your favorite LLMs and come up with them if you don't know what they are. But ask and say.
Jenny Evans:
[16:45] Wait, what's an LLM? I'm dead serious. What's an LLM?
Susan Evans:
[16:49] It's it's um it's large language model and it's what chat flawed perplexity gemini got it all of the video everything is go there and say i'm hiring the local agency to do these seven things what should i ask them about what they charge who's working on it what the process is what's the timeline i should expect from the technologies i'm asking them to use google facebook tiktok whatever it is um what is that and then am i set up correctly to leverage these do they have the expertise to figure out if i'm set up correctly to leverage these um.
Paul Konrardy:
[17:30] Well and the flip side of that is actually this is the other side of it is the agency should be doing that as well yes so that you're you're coming into it with the same level of in um investment that you need to learn that's where curiosity comes into it you need to know and how do you find that out but asking questions so have your questions lined up and ready yeah you know don't shoot from the hip come in with you know a little bit understanding of what they do for a living or what they try to make happen if it's a non-profit um you know try to figure that piece out beforehand so that you're a little more prepared so
Jenny Evans:
[18:09] I think... Oh, sorry. We've talked about like being curious and not just asking questions, but learning how do we ask better questions? I'm even thinking that we need to amend the first question that we're even asking, which is, how can I know my agency and marketing team is actually doing work that supports my business? We need to broaden this to what's my part or how do I know I'm being an active player in helping my team or agency help me move the business forward? What's my role in this, even though I'm technically outsourcing it? I can't just shirk responsibility. You know, I have to be an active player.
Susan Evans:
[19:06] I would say you have to, if you're, anytime you outsource, I learned this early on the hard way, outsourcing doesn't mean pay and forget. Outsourcing is like, I just hired you as a company. I know.
Susan Evans:
[19:20] I hired a lot of employees where I was like, I cannot pay and forget you're here. because I was like, I have to work with you every day so you understand the level and the reason and the goal behind this. And because I tell you on day one, it's gonna change by day 47 because our business changed. And a lot of times people, business owners forget that when their business changed, the ripple effect, not only hits employees and HR, all of those other things, but everybody you outsource to. And that was really interesting. So whenever I had anyone as an outsource and it was legal, it was HR, it was, I would outsource writers. I, uh, I'd outs, I got anything we did. I would outsource it depending on what it was or the expertise needed, but it was never a one and done. When I was talking to the lawyers, it's like, okay, what about this and this? I'm going to call you back in an hour because something just changed for me. And I would tell them, I'm going to be calling you because this is fluid and this is going on. And it was my job to own it. And I think as a business owner, the pay and forget or hire, it's like, that'll be taken care of. As my business changes, it's on me to tell them that the business is changing. Now, I may not realize I should have told them, but that's a learning as a business owner. And that happened a lot too. It's like, you needed to know that, didn't you? Well, I didn't tell you that. Surprise for all of us.
Susan Evans:
[20:45] And then I'm behind the eight ball, as is my agency that I hired. Now I'm like, okay, shit, what do you need to know? And if they did not have the right questions, the learning curve, took longer. Again, learned that early on. So my goal was to hire people way smarter than I was in what I was asking for, because they would have the right questions. And you can tell by the questions if those folks know what they're doing or not. And I was always, I just learned so much from two or three people early on that their questions and how they manage the questions and the people, it was all to get to the end of, here's, I got to see if you understand where we're going. So I'm going to ask you six questions. I'm going to ask you this to see if you have the experience understanding anything because they wanted it to be successful. Sometimes people wanted to learn and sometimes they didn't have time to learn. So it all depends If your business is like, I've got two months to turn this around, you're not going to hire a newbie. You're going to hire somebody that's going to be more expensive, but they will help you turn it around. If you've got all the money in the world and long runway, go for it. Go for it.
Paul Konrardy:
[22:08] Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry to end each other's questions or statements. We've been working together a long time. um let's get back i'd like to get back to the question at hand the first one and see if we're even getting closer to the answer without getting into a fight um are how how what are some of the things you could do let's get this a little more granular what are some of the things you can do as a business owner that would allow you to know that your marketing team agency is helping you towards your bottom line or your business goals that you have in place what are some of those techniques.
Paul Konrardy:
[22:46] And I'm going to ask you, Jenny, just to see if you have any thoughts on what was helpful to you to see if an agency is doing the job. What are the things that help you feel like you're getting your money's worth?
Jenny Evans:
[23:01] For me, again, it was a painful process to realize that I can't just outsource this. I think one of the favorite teams that I worked with was really good about having a set of questions that they asked me every month. Because there were so many things that I was forgetting to tell them about. Um so them forcing me to take the time to really think through this month for my business what are my events upcoming is this are we still focusing on the same things but also I just found and we've talked about this before like the seductive nature of the vanity metrics versus
Jenny Evans:
[23:58] What's are you really accomplishing what you're trying to accomplish in the business and you have to put aside those vanity things like how many likes did I get how many shares did I get how many comments did I get of like who cares if that's not accomplishing what it is that you're trying to do it doesn't matter but again just this idea that I'm giving you a lot of money and I'm really hoping for some great results, but I'm not seeing how the sausage is being made. And so I'm just sitting over here, more likely assuming the worst and just being like, I need to know results. So what are the results that I understand? Well, this didn't get very many likes.
Paul Konrardy:
[24:44] So it was not easy to understand. They're easy to understand in a concept, but not as to how it translates into a business goal. Yeah. Or how does it make you money? And oftentimes what, what I see agencies do or marketing teams do, they go for the, what's the easy data pull. You know, it's easy to pull all the impressions that you're getting from your multiple channels and just saying, oh, I've got so many people looking at this stuff. Well, great. That's nice. That's because it's easy. You have to dig deeper in order to find out what's actually going to resonate in a business a sense what's going to make make you money and from an owner's perspective i think that's you you're kind of you're you're putting your finger on that because really it's kind of easy to understand what a like is it's kind of easy to understand what a what a comment is but it's not easy to see how those things contribute as a signal or something that can be helpful to figuring out what is that conversion or that sale that's going to be made as a result of those engagements i
Susan Evans:
[25:48] Think there's an important point here that if you hire somebody to do marketing, it's not sales. They are essentially putting up a billboard. And saying, you should walk into the store and I can get 100 people into the store. But if you have crap salespeople, that is not my problem. And I think there's a real disconnect with small business owners and small business. What is that number? It's like a billion trillion and under or something like that.
Susan Evans:
[26:19] But I would say understanding how to get the sale. If I bring you, if 400 people read the blog and three sign up to get it again, it's like, okay, now I got you. I got a fish on the hook. I don't have a sale. So how do you then get those three or four people interested? Now, that's a discussion between business owner and agency, which would then lead into my second question of what's the decision time for people to hire you, buy you, or reach out? If it's 18 months, you're going to have to spend money for 18 months because it's not good. So if that decision for your customers, if you ask them and a business owner should know this, how long does it, how long did it take to decide to hire you? And in my case, when it was a normal run of business, I. There were usually two or three things. They didn't like the agency they were with, and we were less expensive and better, which is like, that's like buying cashmere for $10. You're like, this is great.
Susan Evans:
[27:26] Or it was a business cycle, and depending on when their fiscals were, I knew that if we started talking in October and their fiscal was July, July, I had a shot. If we started talking on october and their fiscals were the calendar year ah man i would make it by the skin of my teeth if we got in because they're making decisions in august and i had to know that about the new business cycle and we would always ask uh our clients what's the timeline for the different industries the different divisions where you're going what are you doing because there's an expectation of if i hire you tomorrow i'm making money. It's like, well, if that hasn't happened in your business before, I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen now. But you're saying there's a chance.
Jenny Evans:
[28:12] Yeah.
Paul Konrardy:
[28:14] That investment piece is a huge component of those conversations because that leads to expectations and that leads to whether you can really move the needle fast enough. So, you know, that is so difficult. And each industry is a little bit different in that way, but the concept is still the same, as you just said. There are some known timeframes in which you then can think about how do you budget for that investment. Because marketing, aside from anything else, is an investment. It's not as tangible as a capital asset, but it is definitely what can move the needle to make you more profitable. And in some cases, make you survive. But,
Paul Konrardy:
[29:02] When it comes to hiring a team or hiring an agency that is going to give you what you need to know that they're making them towards their business goals, I'm going to say they understand your business well enough to say, okay, if you put in $100 towards marketing, you're going to get a result that could lead to X amount of dollars. And in order for that to be calculated, that's where the business owner really has to work with the agency in order for them to understand how much they could make from certain activities or business or customer behaviors, because there's a lot of things that flow into that. And that's where that investment piece comes in, because depending on where your business is in its open phase, you know, are you brand new? Have you been around in a couple of months? Have you been around a year, 10 years? What are we up against are you even having to reinvent yourself and pivot to what you're offering those are all very legitimate things to talk through so that you can understand how long you're going to have to make an investment before it turns into an actual return and you know from that's why it's a hard question to answer with one simple answer and
Paul Konrardy:
[30:17] An agency will help you towards that business goal if they know about it and if they're not getting you where they if they're not helping you get where you want to be within a finite period of time then there may not be the right team for you so you both have more insight into that as your own experiences but um i i can't get beyond i can't let us drop the idea that It is an investment, and that investment is both in what you're going to spend on your ads, per se, or how much time you're going to spend educating and coming up with strategies that are helpful to each other.
Susan Evans:
[30:59] And I think those questions at the beginning that the agency asks and owner asks are critical to that and understanding that that roadmap is going to change. What I talked about six, eight months ago is nowhere near what is reality now because of geopolitical issues. I mean, it's like everything that made sense six months ago doesn't make sense
Susan Evans:
[31:23] anymore. We've had to adjust completely because of that. And so I expect that to change. And if I don't bring it up, I will bring it up. I will ask the business owner or I would expect my agency to ask me. It's like, has anything changed? The yes or no. And it depends on if you're online, if you're physical, if you're both, if whatever it is, however you structure your business, you have to understand that.
Susan Evans:
[31:53] That marketing will bring the people to the door. If you're online, then it's like, great, I got you. I'm clicking in. I'm in the cart. And that's a different song and dance. If it's a B2B, is that you really got to, you can bring 400 people to the door and those salespeople better understand how to close. Because marketing has done its job then. I brought 400 people to you. If you have no idea how to close them, give me another job and I'll close them for you. But that will cost you more money now. So I think there has to be a real clear delineation for an agency and an owner to understand how do you make money? It's like because if somebody if I have to talk to somebody.
Susan Evans:
[32:43] If a business owner says, oh, yeah, they walk in the store, it's like, I'm going to tell you where marketing stops then unless you're giving me the store and complete control over the employees. That is not a marketing job. If you're trying to bring traffic to a store, you can create awareness and create a buzz. But to get somebody off their ass in Minnesota right now where it's sleeting and raining to get to an event probably is not going to happen like it would on a sunny day. And so there's so many things that you just don't know that will shift or change what marketing can do that you have to have these discussions with people and say, how do you make money?
Paul Konrardy:
[33:26] Yeah, we could have the contingency conversation.
Susan Evans:
[33:29] Yeah, well, and you have to have those. Otherwise, any business owner is going to think that marketing equals money. Sometimes it does, but it depends on the industry. is like, well, I just hired you so much to be rolling in in the next 30 days.
Paul Konrardy:
[33:44] But there's a level of efficiency that comes with the optimization you can do when you know how you make money. And that's a different conversation. So I do want to give it back to Jenny, but some of her experiences that led
Paul Konrardy:
[34:00] to our little disagreement.
Jenny Evans:
[34:02] Okay, well, I think this is begging the question. And I know that I'm not the only person that struggles with this, But how much time should I realistically give an agency to help me accomplish my goals?
Susan Evans:
[34:20] And that is the perfect question to ask because their answers will all be different depending on how much they understand how you make money and how you get your business in. So that would be a question I would ask every single time. You know, what should I expect in terms of time? And if they say, oh, in two weeks, it'll be no problem. I'd be suspect of that.
Paul Konrardy:
[34:45] I would be highly suspect of that. But I think there's a couple parts to that answer, Jenny, is one of them is.
Paul Konrardy:
[34:50] The technology that we are living in now has so many um there's a lot of time that has to be done in order for the optimization to be done as well as it can be the days of it being able to flip on an ad digitally in particular and have it produce the results you want they're gone there's just no way that that happens if it ever did happen now you have to budget in time for machine learning to happen and so an agency that tells you two weeks it is not putting the technology requirements of the type of ads that they're going to be running into the equation i think they're going to tell you i think they'd tell you that to make you feel good about yourself um but if they're if they're any salt you've got to give them a runway and you got a budget accordingly so that you can find that out so what if you know depending on like i said earlier where is this business at is it an established business that has good name recognition if there's brand awareness that's a different strategy and you probably can see results faster but you still have to put the machine learning time period into the equation so that you can start to see the needle move potentially six weeks eight weeks realistically and frankly for some of these campaigns it probably can take up to six months to get as much data as you need to make some good substantial effort towards the goal that you're trying to reach.
Paul Konrardy:
[36:19] Does that help? Does that tell you something?
Jenny Evans:
[36:21] I mean, I know that it varies depending on your business and what you're trying to accomplish. But even like other speakers and entrepreneurs that I know, again, it's a very stressful thing because it's a big investment. You're not sure about the outcome. If I'm hearing you correctly, would it be safe to say that within six months, if you're not happy with what's happening, then you need to make some different decisions?
Susan Evans:
[36:54] I would say if you waited six months to be unhappy, you've waited too long. Quite honestly I would because as an owner I would set up benchmarks and say tell me where we've been give me two months rolling every single month that's what I would do and say and so you'd get the questions of has anything changed are you noticing anything in your business I mean I would always ask that it's like what do you guys see and you live it I don't I'm just screaming at the rooftops for you or I'm recovering something for you or we're trying to repair a reputation that's whatever it's like but what do you hear? And so I would ask questions like that. I being royal, I, everybody should. But as a business owner, I wouldn't wait six months. One of the things we instituted was, here's what just happened and here's what the next two months look like. And we'd roll that. So everyone knew where we were. And I would say, if this doesn't make sense to you or something has changed, you got to let us know. Because otherwise it's on you, not me, because I just told you everything i know and i would also be really clear at the very beginning i would always ask and these are all things i not that i thought of but i just watched really smart people it's like in in uh so say say you've hired us what is what do you think is tell me what's going well in two months six months and a year.
Susan Evans:
[38:18] How has your business changed and improved? And that would usually tell me what they did and did not understand about what they were hiring us for. It's like, well, I'd like to be at the moon and back. It's like, that's NASA. That's not us. You know, it's like, and that was a real clear understanding of what they thought was going to happen versus reality. Or I would say, I can do 10 times more than that for this price wait a minute i can do more you know for what we're talking about so it depends on if i would go in and do it that way and ask those questions um or ask the agency that tell me what you think looks good what are you guys going to be doing in two months six months and 12 months what does success look like for you i would it's a it's a two-sided question i would have both sides it.
Paul Konrardy:
[39:08] Is and the reason i mentioned i'm always going to approach it on the technical side of things, because in order for things to run as smoothly as possible, you have to understand how the technology works. And in this case, when I say six months, it's based on The changes that are going to happen throughout the time in machine learning starting over. So that's where that time frame comes in. But Jen, you're asking after six months, should you reconsider? I think you could, absolutely. But if you haven't been keeping up along the way to understand what's changed along the way and the learnings that have come of it, then six months is...
Susan Evans:
[39:51] Too long.
Paul Konrardy:
[39:53] Probably too long but you need to be part of this and i'm thinking of a real example um yesterday i was talking to a new location that i work with and they had they've been uh yeah i've been advertising for them they had a grand opening about three months ago and it's a brick and mortar and so right now we're at the point after three months two and a half months actually where we're able to then relook at how we've structured their, say, a search campaign on Google ads to reach certain types of keywords and phrases that people are looking for for this business. Now, when I start a project, you go wide with all kinds of things because you really don't know what people are going to look for in order to find what you're selling. And now we're at a point, two and a half months in where we can make good data driven decisions because we now know these keywords and phrases work and these don't, these are kind of in the middle. We're going to keep an eye on them for a little while longer, but it takes that long for the machine learning to give you the data and the number of people to react to these, you know, to provide that data, because if it's new.
Paul Konrardy:
[41:07] They don't have a clue. They don't know the brand, et cetera, et cetera. Now, let's just say that I go work with a company who's been open for two years. They likely have good brand recognition. It's not going to take two and a half months to figure that out. We're going to run it for a month, take a look at that. So you've got different needs at different phases in a business's trajectory or tenure that have to be factored into this. So, you know, if you're if you're brand new location, you've got to give it some time. If you are changing your agency for whatever reason, you do have to give it a lot some time. But, you know, that's based on where you are and how much information the two of you have shared and what are the ideas that they give you and how quickly do they respond to that? So i hope that i don't want to say six months is a hard and fast rule but you definitely based on where you are in tenure like for you jen you've been around for quite a while that six months is quite a bit that's quite a lot if you're not being if you aren't being brought along with proper reporting and inquiries from the agency definitely six months is too long because you got to get stuff coming back to you on a frequent enough basis so that you can see the value of your investment.
Susan Evans:
[42:24] And see where to ask questions and how to direct them. The other thing with six months or whatever number it is, it could be two months, whatever, one of the caveats that we always had to say was, here's what we think the plan is, but if your systems, meaning Google, anything from Meta, any email, any phone call, tracking, any of that, all the text, if these are not set up correctly, We'll probably uncover it, and that's going to stall things. It's kind of like, I just bought a new car. I'm really excited about it. Oh, I just discovered there's no backseat.
Susan Evans:
[43:00] Well, my Uber business is going to fail now. So it's like, no, I'm going to have to go get a backseat. I didn't know that. And the guy I bought the car from, you know, it's like, and that's the kind of thing in technology where you start to go forward and you go, oh, shit, this isn't in here. And so I can't measure what's working and what isn't. So I can't tell you where your money's going because your system was never set up correctly. Or it was set up partially. Or you're on defaults. Or this was connected onto one side and that's why the brakes only work when you turn left in the car. You're just like, what the hell? you and that that was a caveat we always said because we never knew who the last it person agency or whatever we never knew how they set it up until we went in there and went this is great or we have a few things to fix or.
Susan Evans:
[43:56] You're kind of screwed for a while. So, and if that's the case, it was, we will help. We can do this much, but I don't want to take your money and do this because this would be a lie.
Paul Konrardy:
[44:08] Okay. Can I share a little story about that very thing that has happened the last week? One of my clients got an infection from the QuickFix malware. So their site literally was when people would visit their site the first thing came up was the click fix stuff which which looks very much like a validation of we want to make sure it's safe for you to come to this site
Susan Evans:
[44:36] Yeah are you a robot or not you click it.
Paul Konrardy:
[44:38] Yeah so it was it was uh quite devastating and it got caught by their ad agency who discovered that anything they were any traffic they were sending there was going to, you know, come up against this malware thing. So in the ensuing process, it became very clear that this owner did not have a clue who owned what in their business, which vendor did what, which vendor did this. And so as we were coming through to clean it up.
Paul Konrardy:
[45:11] It was a, oh, I got to talk to this person. Okay, they can give a clue as to who this person could get me to the hosting, and this person can get me to the Google Tag Manager. And all these different things were not pulled together. So because they were not infrastructurally sound with their digital marketing and digital presence online, it turned it into an audit situation that is going to reap a positive at the end, but it slowed the response time. So they couldn't run ads for themselves any longer because they don't have that fully unbaked. I mean, they have to clean this site up big time.
Paul Konrardy:
[45:53] And this particular malware was very insidious. It left a couple of ways for it to get back in. So they had two reinfections along the way. And a couple more people got added as users without anybody on the owner's side knowing who they were. So it was like a little hand-to-hand combat for a while. It was quite exciting. But the bottom line is that they didn't have their infrastructure in place, that their ad agency is the one who actually brought this to light, that their site was infected. So it was really quite fascinating the role that marketing plays in many of these situations because you run down a situation of Well, marketing, digital marketing in particular, you have to know what everything's connected and how you're going to track this stuff. And if you don't have that set up, you put yourself at risk. So I only share that because it does tell you how marketing plays a role that often isn't just getting people to buy your product. It's also how are you running your business? And those are the audits that marketing does in ways without there being real value placed on that. But that is an important role.
Paul Konrardy:
[47:06] Sorry, Jen. What were you supposed to say?
Jenny Evans:
[47:07] So my takeaway from this episode is I think a really effective way to know if your agency is doing the work that's moving your business forward is communication has to be the top priority going in both directions. And actually not even both directions, the three directions between the agency, the person behind the scenes who's actually, you know, doing all the technology between you and yourself. And I'm like, well, duh, any relationship can gauge its healthiness on the effectiveness of communication, you know, of like. So my big takeaway is, yes, this has to be a partnership. You can't just outsource it. You still have a responsibility to, you know, show up. PR is not the same as sales. Your agency really needs to understand what your goals are, but ultimately it is about the quantity and quality of communication, with the majority of it being proactive communication, not reactive.
Susan Evans:
[48:33] Yep.
Susan Evans:
[48:35] I would. That's perfectly summarized. And I think if you hire an agency, just pretend you're hiring an employee. You wouldn't pay them and let them lock the door in the office and never speak to them again. You just wouldn't. I mean, I hope you wouldn't. But I think it is.
Jenny Evans:
[48:49] I know somebody that maybe did. I don't know. I don't know. You know, because people are so, especially as a business owner, I am so overwhelmed and overloaded with even just like delivering of the content. And it is that response of just, I need to hot potato some of this shit. But it is embracing that different mindset of this is not outsourcing. This is you're adding a new relationship to the business and relationships only thrive when they're being nurtured.
Susan Evans:
[49:26] Yep. And essentially, it's that relationship. And I'd go back to the hiring. What's the job description of that agency? How often are you checking in with them? What are the questions you're going to ask them to make sure? I mean, you do weekly check-ins with new employees, then it goes bi-weekly. Why is this any different? I mean, it's the understanding of here's how I make money and here's what my tell is going to be. When I get, right now, nobody's coming to the door. I got a shot if 100 people come to the door because I can get two of them in and sell them. That's me as a business owner. It's like, give me 100. I know I can turn 10% of it, which then tells the agency every month I got to get 100 new people. Okay. And then once I have 100 new people, can I repeat some customers after that? Okay, now there's a whole different discussion because the business has grown. And it's that mindset of, You're growing the business or expanding the business or recovering the business, but it's not just a, I'm going to hire an agency and make some money. And that's kind of the second grade. Yeah, and I'm slamming business owners. That's the second grade look at hiring an agency. It's like, it cannot be that. Not anymore. I think it used to be that way before there were websites. It was a little easier.
Susan Evans:
[50:47] But we don't live there anymore. And, you know, we live in an AI world now.
Jenny Evans:
[50:51] So and Susan, we actually have a list of questions that you can ask your agency, correct?
Susan Evans:
[50:59] Yep.
Jenny Evans:
[50:59] OK, so that's in the show notes. So listeners, make sure you you check those out. That's a good way to start that communication process.
Susan Evans:
[51:09] Mm hmm. And for business owners to ask, and then if an agency doesn't have the questions, we have agency questions in there, and the business owner can print those and hand them to the agency and have the agency ask it to them. And so it's like not only what the business owner can ask, but what the agency should ask.
Jenny Evans:
[51:30] Cool.
Susan Evans:
[51:32] They're starting questions.
Paul Konrardy:
[51:33] No fighting today.
Jenny Evans:
[51:35] Well, because we had the fight on the planning call.
Paul Konrardy:
[51:38] This is the makeup conversation, right?
Jenny Evans:
[51:41] This is.
Jenny Evans:
[51:45] All right.
Jenny Evans:
[51:46] This was awesome. Yeah, we'll see if the next episode creates another fight. So stay tuned and click and subscribe and see what happens.
Paul Konrardy:
[52:00] I like that link. That was good.
Paul Konrardy:
[52:02] Great. Bye.
Paul Konrardy:
[52:04] God, we love to talk.
Susan Evans:
[52:05] Bye.
[52:06] Before you go, a friendly reminder that the people on this podcast are curious, not certified. Nothing you just heard is professional legal, financial, or business advice. It was a conversation, a good one, but still just a conversation. And if something they said makes you want to rethink your entire business model, maybe you should sleep on it first and then call someone with a license. The hosts bring the ideas and you bring the judgment. And if it all works out, they'd love to hear about it. If it doesn't, well,
[52:36] Then they've never met you.
[52:38] All content is copyright monsters of curiosity and may not be reproduced or distributed without permission.
