How Simplifying Marketing Strategies can Lead to Business Growth | RR266

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's

episode of relationships rule. My special guest today is

Caroline Crawford. Caroline is a marketer, a marketing and

communications expert. And she's coming to us from sunny Florida,

which I say that it's usually sunny there compared to where I

am. So welcome to the show, Caroline.

Thank you so much for having me, Janice. I'm

excited to be here. My pleasure. So I know

that you've been in this business for about 13 years or

so and basically, didn't think didn't know I'm not sure if you

got there by choice, or by chance you fell into it. But I

think that you love what you do from what I have gleaned in

conversations with you. And I am going to start by asking you a

Caroline is the owner of a company called cultivate

communications.com. And when I just say it, I think the word

cultivate. And when I look at it, I know you spell it

differently. And I'm curious to know why. I mean, I know it's,

it's, and I asked because I started to write it when I first

you know, wanted to know more. And of course, I just stopped

myself and look at what you had said. So was it by design? And

if so, is it a good thing? Or is it turning out to be

frustrating? And I do have to ask because I'm curious.

I appreciate the question. And not many

people, some people ask, and when they ask, they're like, Oh,

that makes so much sense. But no, it was intentional. I knew I

wanted a relatively neutral name for the company. But something

that was also not just like, some random word, I wanted it to

also be have some sort of meaning to it of what we are

really ultimately trying to accomplish. However, I also

wanted to make it personal. And so my initials are CEC. And so I

wanted so when I don't know the word cultivate came up, and I

realized that was something I could kind of manipulate a

little bit to make it unique, make it stand out a little bit

because there's there are other businesses with cultivate in it

and things like that. And so an eight is my favorite number. And

my birth month, so there are some there are some intention.

Yeah, personal little, like nuggets in there or easter eggs

in there as you if you will. But yeah, that's basically where it

came from. So

it wasn't like a marketing ploy, per se. No, no,

I

really wanted to be ever since started my

company, I wanted to be very intentional with it. And it

started with the name. Okay.

All right. Well, that's, that's good to know. And

I'm glad. And Carolyn has a podcast as well called the edge

effect. And I kind of liked that as well. But yeah, so just just

my curiosity. Okay, the other thing I was say comes out of

your, your bio, which I want to ask you, Caroline is on a

mission of supporting more business leaders to secure an

integrated marketing approach that goes beyond typical

marketing gimmicks. Alright, so. And I and the one thing I wanted

to say first, and didn't, you also let you want to address

challenges faced by businesses, such as limited resources, and

market pressures. So those things you you care about? And

you look for ways to help clients that are on a limited

budget? But what do you mean by an integrated marketing approach

that goes beyond the typical marketing gimmicks? Let's talk

about what you do and what was special about what you do?

Yeah, I, when I'm talking about an integrated

marketing approach, it is. I think when you look at the

industry and for anyone who's hired outside, particularly

outside marketing resources, obviously, because once they're

in house, they're way more integrated, of course, right.

But with outside marketing resources, there is a disconnect

that happens, understandably, so justifiably. So right, is

because it's a totally separate company, they have margins to

make, they have to apply what they do in a very structured

way. However, when you are working with a company that

potentially has limited in house marketing resources, even if

they have some, if it's not, if they don't have a dedicated

resource, for instance, and they're putting all their eggs

in, in this one agency basket, or even if they've got a couple,

it doesn't really matter at that point. But what starts to happen

is that there's a huge reliance on the internal team, to have

the agency truly support them in the way that they need to

because I think when when some when an agreement kind of first

comes into place. You know what you need, right? Like, that's

how you start the conversation with an agency, they're able to

tap into what you need. But when it comes to marketing, and I can

really only speak to marketing, of course, but I'm sure, maybe

it applies into some other bleeds into some other areas.

But marketing in particular is an area within a business where

you can have kind of cut and dry tasks, but the implementation of

them, there's so much behind the scenes that happens, you know,

you have one social media post, like three social media posts a

week, but what you're not seeing behind is how are those social

media posts getting created, there's research involved,

there's creative involved, there's rounds, feedback,

rounds, all these things. It's just an example, right? And so

when you're working with an outside resource, they have to

stick to what's in that retainer, right. And there's not

that much wiggle room outside of those specific deliverables,

because they have to guarantee something. But so what starts to

happen is, as the company grows or just evolves, their

priorities shift their leaves a little room to truly expand the

scope in a way that works and is flexible enough, that doesn't

essentially have to have another conversation about revising the

complete agreement, things like that. Again, not there's ways to

do it, there's, you know, not to agencies have found a way. But

what starts to happen, in particular, when when talking

about an integrated marketing approach is that there it is,

siloed off. And so their job is focused on whatever you've hired

them for. But because they aren't in the aware of all the

happenings in between, unless you are communicating with them

specifically about these things, they can actually support you to

the best of their ability in the way that you actually need to be

supported. Because you don't know what they don't know it's

not second, it's not second nature to share with them all

the happenings going on because you don't know you don't want to

bombard them with things. So our approach is a little bit

different. And that we actually embed ourselves into as though

we're almost like an in house team. And so that's how we are,

that's how we integrate and basically create this integrated

marketing approach to where we treat us like as you would as

though you just hired an in house marketer. Because that

way, we at least our team thrives better, when we are more

aware of what's going on, even if we don't have to act on it,

right? Even if we know that if we know something's in the

pipeline, or we know the mindset, or we know how you're

working, even if just this is how that people communicate

amongst themselves. This is how you, you're communicating to the

client, as much visibility as we have to how they naturally

operate, the more we have the ability to cater our strategies

and the services that they need to truly deliver them in the way

that works for them without adding an extra layer of

responsibility to them. And I think that's what happens a lot

of time with more traditional marketing agencies or structures

is that it requires someone dedicated to manage that agency

and to truly be, exactly and to truly have that kind of

collaborative, dynamic. So

even you know, when I think because I'm just,

you know, a solopreneur, but when I think of times when, when

I have thought about having someone do social media posts

for me, I can't let go because it's, if I'm not going to do it,

and someone's going to do it for me, they're not me. And so it

takes the time to make them understand my voice for them to

do it, I might as well just do it myself. And so on a bigger

scale, I kind of see what you're saying in the sense that you

really have to understand the client and you have to be the

client really, to speak their, their words to to be that

company. Right. And yeah, and

I think to what again, why it's like, it's

a little bit different is because traditional agency

dynamic is they are siloed off, they have to focus on one the,

the areas that you hire them to so PR as an example, right,

they're focused on that thing, however, to for them to be able

to do their job better and even like beyond, you know, to really

have it be so, so effective in a way that especially when you're

working with company that has limited resources, they have to

really have more of an understanding of what's going on

the moment that there's kind of a disconnect with what's

happening in the company, to what they're doing. You start to

see this like fracture in the dynamic and it doesn't and

things start to be a little bit less proactive. It's a lot more

reactive because they all they can really do at the end of the

day is risk font to whatever you're delivering to them and

saying, so with an integrated approach, and I appreciate the

example you use with social media, it's like, yes, you have

to kind of train people to know how you operate to know what you

like. And they can kind of shape it and mold it as you go.

Sometimes it may just simply evolve. But when you are

integrated with marketing, especially with limited

resources, you can be so much more strategic in how things are

done, and also more realistic about adoption, too. So adoption

with marketing for certain processes, is really critical,

right, like so you can have a process with someone who's doing

your social media posts, where you set up a process where you

feel comfortable with the tone that they're extracting from you

the knowledge that they're extracting from you, but they're

still doing some of that legwork. There is a process that

can be set up. But if there's a certain part of the process that

you're like, well, this doesn't work for me, because you prefer

to handwrite notes versus writing it in like a project

management system. This is a simple example. Right? But that

also needs to be taken into account, because you can it

doesn't matter, the scope of process you deliver, it doesn't

matter, the strategy doesn't matter anything. If you can't

actually, if you if no one's willing to adopt this process to

execute it. It won't get done. And so how do you essentially

build strategies that are easily adopt a bowl? And how do you

build strategies that don't feel like you have to completely

shift your mindset, which again, make it harder to adopt that

change?

Right. Okay, that makes sense. So you? How would

you say that sometimes you want to cut your marketing your

marketing efforts in half. And that can actually lead to

increased engagement and new leads. And it's funny, because I

think you're talking about some, I don't know if it's just social

media that you're talking about. But I just saw something

recently, because you know that I'm, I'm a LinkedIn trainer. So

I talked to people specifically about LinkedIn, not about the

other. I have nothing. I've no expertise in the other social

media platforms. But what I do understand is that on LinkedIn,

I find newbies will come over and they'll post post, post post

post, and it's ridiculous. But they haven't got their profile

up to snuff, and so on. But they think that more is better. And

it isn't necessarily, and I think this is maybe what you're

talking about, but maybe not so can you

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's along

the it's definitely along those lines. So what happens and

that's a great example, that's just in the realm of social

media. But what happens often, and social media is a perfect

example of this. But just speaking generally. So often,

when people are trying to go be aggressive with their marketing,

they just put themselves everywhere, they take advantage

of every single channel. So a lot, that's why like, often

you'll see companies with like, all the different social media

buttons at the end of their emails, or websites or whatever,

right? And then you go and you see you're like, Oh, that's

interesting. Or maybe their Twitter is lacking or their

LinkedIn, you know, it's just not, they're just copying and

pasting the things or not actually paying attention to the

actual platform. Again, just using that example on on

LinkedIn. Right? This happens a lot like and so I had this I

have one example where I had a client where she came to me, she

was so burnt out with marketing, she had no idea she was just so

frustrated. She was like, nothing's working, I'm doing

everything I'm doing all the things and she took all the

advice from all these other marketers and she just did

exactly that. And so what we started to do was really peel

back to the core of what is right for her business

obviously, set aside set aside the what's right for your

client, what is right for her business, what is and that means

what is right for her, she was solopreneur so in this sense, we

really scaled back about okay, well, these channels are not

performing well. However, let's just say okay, Twitter was not

performing well, but Facebook was doing okay, an email you

know, email is unnecessary channel but it wasn't performing

well. She was doing YouTube videos she was doing a blog or

article right all of the thing that's a lot. I like that's a

mouthful, right? And nothing was doing it and I and so I kept

asking her and drilling in like, what do you like doing? The only

thing she liked doing was writing those articles. So I

said stop everything. And basically, we essentially She

took the articles that she the one thing she likes doing,

that's where she puts the most time and energy into. And she

enjoys it. So it doesn't feel like a heavy lift, right. And I

taught her how to repurpose what she's doing and spread it into

intentional channels. So scale back the number of platforms she

was on, she wasn't even really on Twitter, she never logged

into it, she just had an automated service kind of

reposting links that were not necessary. So you're not

actually taking advantage of the platform itself, and being

social on social media. And that shows. And so it is along those

lines of if you are not paying attention to what you are

actually doing, if you're just doing it for the sake of doing

it, stop doing it, like there's no point you're not going to

less you put energy into it, you're not going to make it

perform better. So what she did was she readjusted her emails,

she adjust, she's scaled back on whatever social media platform

she just worked, did not feel natural to her. And we're not

overly aligned for the business that she was in. She focused on

the blogs and use that as sort of this driver to dictate, okay,

where should the blogs go? Right. And she did that within a

month, she cut her marketing efforts at an at least by 50%.

And she said she started to see more results. So that's an

incredible transformation. And she's happier about doing it,

of course. And there's so much actually in that

that example. So the first thing, and I didn't hear you ask

this question, but it has to be it was suddenly in there. So

first of all, you asked her what she liked to do best. And that's

so important. And and, you know, where do you feel most

comfortable is what I asked my clients? Or, you know, a great

question, where do you feel most comfortable? But the second

question, I think that's that's really important is because it

might mean a shift is where are your clients, your or your

prospects? Right? There's no point hanging out on Twitter, if

your clients are on are on Tik Tok. I mean, it doesn't make

sense to me. However, I think, you know, we all have a range of

clients and types of clients. But if we aren't comfortable on

that platform, there's no point that's the first thing. And so I

think that was the smartest thing to say to her. Then the

other thing that you said, I love that you then taught her

how to repurpose the blog posts and use snippets of them in

different ways that say, and that makes a lot of sense. And

then the third piece, it just rings true to me and actually

goes back to what you were talking about earlier, and I

wanted to ask you about is when but I'll start with here, where

she was doing. She was starting to get more traction, but she

said to you, none of it's working. I'm not you know, this

platform isn't working, the platform doesn't do anything,

you have to do the work. And so it's the work of posting, but

it's also and more importantly, the world of engaging right now

are you you're like you, you did mention putting up the things

and then nobody looks at them to engage to see she was obviously

looking originally because she wasn't getting any engagement.

But you it's very important that you in my estimation, whatever

you're doing that you pay attention, right, so that if

somebody doesn't engage, you start and continue that

conversation. That's how business happens through

building relationships, which is what I'm all about. Right? But

when you know, Jose gonna say, oh, when when you have a team

that goes to somebody as business and starts to do their

marketing and learn who they are and and build out the content

for them, let's say? Do you take the responsibility of teaching

them how to respond? How to engage? Or do you just assume

that they'll take that part over?

I think it is definitely dependent on the

client and the dynamic. The reason being is because you may

if let's just say you're engaging with someone who is a

social media community engagement expert, you want to

hear their advice, right? You may not know the best way,

right? So I think in that instance, it depends. However,

most importantly, it has to feel like you and kind of going back

to what you mentioned before of like, in sort of reiterating of

like there has to be this intention behind the things that

you do and that's with everything with marketing,

however, and that's why I asked what do you like doing because

you can make the argument that you could kind of justify

anything that the quote unquote clients will want, right? It's

like, oh, well, the clients are on Twitter. Yeah, okay. You're

gonna get some clients Who are on Twitter? Because that's just

the way the world works masters, right? So there is definitely

this balance. But when it comes to like actually engaging, you

have to think about what's actually realistic for you. And

again, it kind of goes back. So it does matter. How are your

clients engaging in the platform, for instance? So in

the case of LinkedIn, how do you how does your ideal client

engage on LinkedIn? Are they engaging on LinkedIn, because

that's also telling, but also, like, there are some CEOs, right

that don't even touch LinkedIn, they're on it, but they don't

touch it. They it's like a ghost town. So I know I can't, my

content isn't really going to reach them on LinkedIn, I have

to find for what, right? So I think when it comes to actually

hiring someone and getting someone on board and saying, how

do you engage, you still have to train them to say, this is how I

naturally operate, they should be looking at, and you should be

sending them emails about how you communicate with clients, I

actually always ask my clients send me sample emails, when

you're talking to clients, I want to know your tone, I want

to know how you're signing off, I want to know if there's, you

know, if there is always any improvement to be made to

certain communications, but I don't, at a certain point, you

don't want to mess with the natural flow, it's not going to,

you're not going to be able to adopt that. And so when it comes

to sort of, again, scaling back and and when you do hire, if you

do hire a team, it no matter what you're doing, you still

have to pay attention to what feels most natural to me. And

how do I interact with the clients, because if there's a

disconnect, that's going to be shown in the sales process, and

that could potentially rescue the sale or rescue a client who

signed on if there is a disconnect. So you want to keep

it and that's what develops a brand, right? People know me,

and they know that, who I am online, who I am on podcast, who

I am with in my client meetings, my family, all the things, it

actually does not change. Obviously, there's tone, there's

professional, you know, professionalism, but it doesn't

change. And so that's why I like keeping that consistency is so

important. And the more you can train someone else who's doing

it on your behalf, to learn you to know you to also believe in

you. And I think that's why that the agency or outsourced

relationship is just so important to nurture, and

develop that rapport. And the only way I know how to do it is

to like, like I said, just be all up in their business. And

that's really good. And it makes me think of

something though, because Okay, so the give me like three

examples, if you can of companies that you work with

just an example, it doesn't have to be the name of the company,

but like a solopreneur that does this or, you know, a company

that's, you know, that sells candles or like, just give me

three different examples. I just curious about something I'm

always curious

of, of how they

know, just just the three different types of

companies that are your best clients.

Gotcha. Okay. So we work with companies, we're

actually not, we don't, the verticals don't totally matter.

However, we are our like bread and butter service base, or

software as a service, essentially, anything that

really like relationships are have a heavy part of the

process. versus, you know, direct to consumer product, we

that's not necessarily our specialty, but when it comes to

who we serve, or types of companies that this is really

what the structure look like, looks like they either our need

to invest in marketing, but have no idea where to start, like the

questions are always around marketing, and they're either

lack of awareness, potentially, or just analysis paralysis. When

it comes to marketing we work

with why don't we do that? Get my products or to

get my exactly, so

they don't do anything? Yeah, exactly. So and

then it's companies that need more visibility on marketing or

are working with marketing, but it's just not working the way

that they want. And so that's why the actual industry or

specialty doesn't really matter. We really are focused on that

developing and optimizing that marketing function. Okay,

so would you say that the people that you work

with range in age like from, you know, millennials to Baby

Boomers or, you know, like, are they do they run the gamut?

They say they do, I think we look at marketing

readiness, right? So if someone's not ready to actually

invest, there's, when you first start a business, this is

particularly the case of service based businesses, you do have to

do a lot of the legwork yourself in the sense of building those

relationships and I know you can speak deeply on this right. And

with your episode coming out a little bit coming out soon you

will you everyone here can hear it. But that said you do so

there is this kind of balance and I think that is oh Is the

balanced SERPs based businesses. However, eventually you want

your marketing to start working for you. And that's where you

need to start thinking about how do I want to invest in it? How

do I really want to, like be guided? And so when it comes to

the age range, I don't, it doesn't really matter, the ages

in particular, the specific age of the individuals, but moreso,

the age of their marketing. Okay, I've worked with companies

that have been around for 1530 years, and have never really

gone all in on their marketing, you know, okay,

well, I'm leading up to something here. So what

I'm looking at is, you're young, I know, you're you say you're

older than you look, because you look really young. But you know,

I'm gonna great skincare. It's all good. It's all good. But you

probably have some younger employees as well. Yes. Okay.

Yes. So I guess I've been into watching something lately that's

been doing the divide between the Gen Z then the, what is

next? What comes with?

I've lost track? Yeah. Baby Boomers.

Gen Y, I think millennials. There's, and then

Gen Z.

And then I think I thought Gen Y was there.

I don't know.

So my question, though, is, when you get someone

that that works for you, who's young? And even, like, you know,

totally brought up on on social media. Sure. And don't have

necessarily the same social skills. The older people have.

Yeah, I'm saying everybody that's older has social skills.

Don't get me wrong. But you're in the you're in the field of

marketing, you're sending a team of people into learn about

someone's business. So you got to find the right people. Am I

right? That can Oh, yeah, that can brought draw them out. And

so I would imagine, there's training involved in younger

people being able to do this, because it's not a natural

thing. I don't know, I just feel that like, I trained a young man

the other day on LinkedIn, who is a videographer, and he's just

come out of university, and he's starting his business. And a

friend asked me if I would help them. And you know, I have a

soft spot for students. And so I did. But I feel as though it's

difficult for that young person to talk to somebody who's

experienced, but not in video. Sure, he's got the video thing,

but it's just the conversation. It's the relationship again. So

it's just something that came to me. And I just wonder if you can

speak to that, if you know what I'm talking about.

That is to such a fabulous point. And no

one has ever asked that. And I And actually, I was just talking

about it today with a mentor who, essentially, when it comes

just to answer the first part of your question, but if you don't

mind, I have some more speak on it. The when it comes to

training the team, I've I'm very particular with how I

communicate. Because I, obviously my bread and butter is

communications, which is fair, but I, there is a level of

communication that I cater to, because that's how I built my

reputation while I was in house, and I let that bleed into my

business because I felt that it allowed it built a lot of trust

in the relationships I have with my clients and the people I

worked with, so that I had to train my team, you have to be

responsive. Obviously, this is we're all human, right? We're we

all have life, things to do. There is reason here. But you

have to be responsive, you have to be extremely respectful. And

you also even in my job descriptions, I put you have to

be compassionate and empathetic. Because people you don't know

what people are going through the clients that have come to

you I know when my client is basically taking out her stress

on us. And or, you know, it could be with any clients. And I

think because I dealt with that, while I was in house, I was able

to see, I was dealing with a lot of different personalities. So I

had to kind of adapt. And I think that's something that I

do, I've just always kind of been able to do just for my

life. But I think I've had to, I've had to take those who are

younger in their careers and say, and kind of teach them

essentially basic human principles in my mind, and at

least the way that I naturally operate. And then, you know, and

I did this at the beginning, and I do think it helped because I

never had to do it again is I'd see a response to something and

I'd say this is how we can take it to the next level in terms of

how we cater to our clients and really elevating that customer

experience. So how we just communicate in general. So I

think there was a lot, there definitely was a certain level

of training. I wasn't like so nitpicky, but I was like pay

attention, like when how I learned was I paid attention to

everyone who was communicating around me. And especially those

the bosses I had, and how did they communicate? How did you

know? Some were better than others? And things like that,

right? So I just absorbed and I also had to find my own way to

speak to because because there is that level of, you know, yes,

you want people to be individuals. But if especially

with a team, you have to have some sort of cohesive, dynamic,

right. And so there's a little bit of a balance there. But I

think that's incredibly important. And I think for

people, especially if you're reaching out to external just to

speak a little bit broadly, not just team related, related to

the team, but within this applies to client to audience

segmentation, essentially, you have to speak in the language

that people understand. So how I speak to marketers it, or

solopreneurs, for instance, who are younger, and their business

is very different than how I'm going to speak to the 30 plus

year old business see, right? If they and I look at how are what

are they going through? What's kind of Top of Mind what's sort

of their purview? So solopreneurs don't have as much

knowledge, and they're not thinking and it's diff in a

certain way that, for instance, that 30 plus year old business

CEO would think that's not to say either one is better than

the other. Excuse me, it's just different. So just to put it in

a concrete example, talking to someone who's in corporate, you

have to think what did they love the most, they love data, they

love logical explanations, you can't think in a, it's the

person, not the personal stuff, the emotional stuff is taken out

of it. Whereas when I'm speaking to a solopreneur, I'm a lot more

empathetic, I'm a lot more speaking to their person, like,

what they may be going through personally, I'm still infusing

that data and that logic, and vice versa, I still apply my

empathy to that other CEO that has, you know, has been in

business for 30 plus years. But I just apply it differently. And

so how I approach them is different, it's a little bit

more formal or sophisticated, or maybe it's a little bit more of

it that is totally dependent on the specific person. But I think

I hope that answers your question in the sense of there

is this, it doesn't matter the age you are now it matters who

you're speaking to. And it's always about that sort of client

first mindset of yes, it won. Can I speak to that person at

that level? There are some that like, they're like, I don't I

know, people who are like, I want nothing to do with

corporate. And they want, they don't talk that way. And that's

totally okay. And they don't also offer services for that.

Right. So I think it's just finding that balance and, and

seeing how can I infuse my personality and still

communicate authentically, but in a way that they do understand

in a way that they they can I can find that sort of common

ground with them. And again, I think, to what you do, right,

you your focus is helping people see how they can find common

ground with others. And I think that's so so incredible.

Yeah. And, you know, I think the reason that I

that I was drawn to you off the bat, Caroline, when we first

spoke is that you that you're you do come across as a really

good communicator, you're a good listener, you listen, and then

you explain Are you you know, you reiterate what someone has

said, and I think that as a leader, as a boss, for the

people on your team, that's a really good trait. And I think

that I'm just concerned that when I talk to a young person

who's grown up in this world of looking at their phone, they

don't look at anyone in the eye, and they don't really know how

to communicate, and I'm generalizing, I get that, but I

just thought that, that it was something do you as a, as a

boss, look at those traits and whether they'll work for you to

for that to send them out as your, you know, your

representative of a good communicator, right, because

they have to finance so I love that. Thank you so much. Okay,

last question about your business. If you could change

one thing about the marketing industry, what would it be and

why? Ooh,

that's a great question. I think more

people need to say no to clients, I think and that's a

hard one because obviously they want the money. I I've, I've

been caught in this, this is not I'm like, I'm throwing myself in

the fire with them. Right? It's so every business owner, I think

can relate to that sort of sentiment. But the thing that I

have realized is that marketing, the businesses don't know what

they don't know. And so they lean on the marketers, and the

marketers are really good at marketing. And so they may be

able to accomplish what the business thinks that they need.

But what happens so often is that when they need it something

or like their needs evolve, or the second you start doing it,

some other things on earth, and that's, that's the natural

evolution. But what starts to happen is you end up becoming in

this kind of rigid, dynamic, and like I said, if there's a

disconnect between the company and the agency, a riff starts to

happen. And so but and I think a lot of the times, it happens

because the company was not ready for what the agency can

provide. And so because it mark, a lot of people look at

marketing, so siloed off, which, again, is why I take that

integrated approach, because we look at marketing from an entire

systemic level, we're looking at everything, we're teetering on

the lines of operations at that point, right. And so, but what

happens is that you hire an agency that, again, is siloed

off, they can handle several different services and call

themselves for full service, there are still gaps in what

they provide, because they're not looking at it from a sales

standpoint, they're not looking at it from an operations

standpoint, how it's impacting the internal team. And I think

they don't, they don't know, they don't know until they know,

and neither does the agency sometimes, right? Like they all

they can do is respond to potential need that they are

qualified to serve. Respect. Like, again, not, this is the

situation, but there is a gap in the way support, marketing

support is delivered. But there's also a gap in the way

businesses view marketing, they see it siloed off, they see it

as the bottom of the barrel source for the allocation for

budget, they have a mistrust in marketing. They just they just

don't see the value of it, or they don't also see the

challenge behind

it's like a bottomless pit for some people,

right. Yes, yes.

And so you get and that's what starts to

happen, right? They, they I think you get ad agencies who,

again, they want the revenue, that person saying, Okay, I'm

comfortable spending 8k on ads. There's not one sale that came

from those ads, because that company was not ready. But the

agency was not saying no to that company. Right.

Right. And I'm appalled at how much it costs

for, like, online ads and things like that these days. Yes. Yeah.

And on that no two ads are now becoming more

accessible. However, you still have to manage the ads. So

therefore, you have to pay someone to actually do the

strategy, manage the ads, update the budgets, all of things. But

then again, what happens is that marketing is very expensive,

because there's so much that goes into it so many resources.

You it's very hard to find generalists who can kind of do a

bunch of different things and mold things together and have it

be you know, and have it all be connected, which is why it's so

siloed off. But that is the problem in the industry. And

that's not what you do. You like to read

everything and take everything into Yes. Love it. Well, okay,

so just a couple of quick questions before so one is if

today, what's your favorite way to get information? Do you

listen to podcasts? Do you read real books? Do you listen to

audiobooks? Do you watch videos? What do you do?

Oh my gosh, I absorb it all I am. I am someone

that I'm a big self development junkie. So I'll read self

develop development books and kind of any of that type of

stuff. I listened I do listen to podcasts, some of which are more

entertaining than others. Each and then yeah, right but your

favorite right now I'm I'm really into the here to help pod

it's it's more of a parody podcast for free advice, but I

also love smartlace and armchair experts. Those are my favorites.

So smartlace and one that you may not be ready

for but my other favorite is wiser than me with Julia Louis

Dreyfus.

Oh, no. Okay. Yes, they do know. Yes, of

course. She

interviews women who are wiser than her and older

than her. Okay, so there's two seasons she's in second season

the first season she starts with Jane Fonda. It's like brilliant.

Oh,

amazing. Oh my gosh. Okay. Yeah, I'll

definitely check that out. So yeah, I love all those podcasts,

some of which I liked some more entertaining ones which is the

word of help once it's not a very serious either way, but I

do absorb when I'm on social media I'm I follow accounts that

I can learn from. I also am very observed and just try to absorb

all the things around me. So I, a lot of the times when I'm

creating strategies for clients and even for myself, I look for

inspiration at actually, for companies that are not at all in

the industry that the client is in but I look to see how I can

apply it you know, some principles that they do you or

just kind of study that and stuff like that. So I'm,

honestly the world is basically how I learn things. And I'm also

a chronic signer upper a free trial. So I always like to like,

see what what's happening. What tools can be syndrome

a little bit like me a little bit of the squirrel

syndrome, right?

Yes, exactly.

Because there's so much out there to learn and

know so much out there. You just don't know. You just have

sometimes have to stop. That's all. But anyway, so this has

been a delight. Thank you so much for the edge effect is

Caroline's podcast, you can find it on everywhere you guys. Yep.

And cultivate communications. It will be in the show notes. So

pay attention to how it's spelled. And go and visit her on

her website. Anything else you want to add last words?

I just want to say thank you so much for

having me if anyone is like I said, struggling with their

marketing and just has no idea where to start. Come to us. We

know exactly how to kind of get you out of that. Overwhelmed,

stuck feeling. So

sounds good. Thank you so much, Caroline. And

to my listeners. Thank you again for being here and remember to

stay connected and be remembered.

Thank you Janice.

You're welcome.