Outsourced marketing has become the norm as business owners are realizing the necessity that is digital marketing, and how diverse it is. This week’s guest takes it a step further and fully divulges into the role of her client’s outsourced CMO, internalizing goals and truly operating as if her client’s business was her own.

We are happy to welcome a Vendasta Partner, Stephanie Krummenacker of MediaBrush Marketing, on the Conquer Local Podcast with George Leith. It quickly becomes apparent in Stephanie’s discussion that MediaBrush Marketing’s doubling growth rate year over year, primarily on organic referrals, is no accident. She truly internalizes the notion of joining her client’s team, acting as an outsourced CMO. In this episode, expect a robust conversation about taking that step and starting your own agency, battling the “salesperson mentality”, what it means to become an in-house marketer for clients and its benefits, and recognizing when we need to “break up” with a client. If you are attempting to scale your business, increase your brand equity, or looking for a nudge to fully commit to your side-hustle, this is your episode.

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Introduction

George: Welcome to this episode of the Conquer Local podcast. One of our strategies for season four was to make sure that we brought you channel partners of the Vendasta ecosystem. Not to give you an ad because that’s not how I roll. What we want to do is get those channel partners and put them on the hot seat and ask questions about where they’re finding success or where they’re finding challenges. What are some of the things that you might be able to do in your business on a day-to-day basis based upon their learnings? Stephanie Krummenacker is our guest today. She’s the owner at Media Brush Marketing. She has a career in radio and television, broadcast sales and sales leadership. She worked for a number of large organizations. She’s going to tell a story of how she arrived to start her own organization. It’s a very interesting story. And then we’re going to talk a lot about how she’s running in the business. Where is she finding success? How does she grow her business? What are some of the challenges that she’s hearing about on the street? We’re going to get Stephanie to give us the inside track on how she is finding success as the owner at Media Brush Marketing. Stephanie Krummenacker is coming up next on this edition of the Conquer Local podcast. Conquer Local podcast and we’re going local. I love when I get a chance to talk to a Conqueror and somebody that is a channel partner of Vendasta that does it every single day. And today we have the pleasure of Stephanie Krummenacker joining us all the way from upstate New York. Hi, Stephanie, thanks for coming to the show.

Stephanie: Hi, thanks for having me.

George: Stephanie, what’s the name of your organization that you founded?

Stephanie: So I founded Media Brush Marketing in January of ’19. So we’ve been in business here in upstate New York for just over two and a half years.

George: Great. And when I was reading through the show notes and preparing for today’s episode, I was delighted to see that we have a lot of the same background because we started in the media business. Give us a brief overview of your career in media, and then what led you to open your own organization?

Stephanie: So I started in media and radio nearly 20 years ago, or just over 20 years ago. And honestly, I took a radio job because of an accounting degree and I couldn’t an accounting job. So I was, I needed to pay those student loans off and ended up loving my job. And so next thing you know, I’m working in radio and have the opportunity to move to television. And that’s really where I found my love for marketing and advertising and helping small businesses really determine what their message is and who their target is and had the opportunity to grow with that company across several markets and ended up in management roles for that company, and then moved to other companies. So really spent the last 13, 14 years in marketing broadcast television, managing teams, and helping sales team members learn how to help clients.

Adapting Traditional Marketing Channels to Digital

George: We’ve talked a lot about this on this show over the last four seasons, but what, what were a couple of the things that you learned during that time? Because you, you were doing the work, but then you started leading teams, as you mentioned, what would, what are some of the big challenges for traditional media reps as they move into this digital sphere?

Stephanie: I think the hardest thing for traditional media reps to wrap their head around is how their traditional media platform, whether it be radio, television, or newspaper, can marry nicely with digital. I think, you know, in the early days, especially those reps that are more tenured, it was kind of a conquer-all attitude. And so when these new digital products presented themselves and management started saying, okay, we need you to go out and sell both, they were like, wait a minute, this isn’t, this isn’t conquer all anymore. And so, you know, the idea, you know, as I managed those teams, I kept sharing with them, you know, our goal was to bring the best product services opportunity to our clients. So if that meant, you know, partnering a television schedule with this digital marketing element that would support each other, it was our job to do that. It was our job to share that information. And, you know, a lot of times the people who pushed back the most were those that ended up losing the client relationship because somebody else in the marketplace was willing to share that opportunity with the client. And they ended up owning the relationship with the client.

George: Well, we hear that all the time. It’s what happened to that client? It’s like, oh, well, we lost it to so-and-so because they were able to solve this problem. I was speaking to a radio sales leader in Montana last week and they told me that exact same story has been happening to them where an organization that is able to solve that problem is not just getting the digital component, they got the whole budget and…

Stephanie: Exactly.

George: .. you know over my career- and yours, you and I probably have both done this, in our times leading teams, it’s like, hey, did you get more than our fair share of the budget? I’ve said that.

Stephanie: Right.

George: I stood in front of a team. I’ve actually said that that was what success looked like. Did we get more than our fair share of the budget?

Stephanie: Yes.

George: So that, I love the way that you put that the conquer all mentality does not allow you, to split it up and do the right thing for the customer at the end of the day.

Stephanie: Exactly.

When is it Time to Start Your Own Agency?

George: So you make the plunge to start your own organization. And we hear this a lot, and that’s why I was very excited to see your bio before the show because I talked to lots of folks that were in traditional media and then took the plunge. What, what was the moment? What was the catalyst? What happened for you to do that, Stephanie?

Stephanie: You know, it really was a family decision. So my husband’s also in broadcast television and we were working in two markets and it was one of those moments of if we’re going to work in the same market, somebody kind of has to get out of that traditional broadcast TV management role. And so I had an opportunity to go work for a digital marketing agency that was owned by a broadcast company and did that for nearly two years before I opened my own business. But in that time, what was supposed to be kind of managed remotely. So before COVID and before Zoom was so, you know, prevalent in everyday life, it was supposed to be kind of that concept of managing remotely. Ended up on a plane every week, flying to Minnesota and Illinois and, you know, places throughout the Midwest from New York and thought, you know, there are a lot of businesses right here locally who need access to the same products and services. And I could do that right here in our backyard without getting on a plane every week. So I took the plunge in January of ’19, opened my own agency, which really primarily it was a digital marketing agency. Mirrored very much what I had been doing with my previous company, but just with the mentality that I was going to do it right here in my local marketplace. And then a year later COVID hit and the local marketplace became, you know, wherever Zoom could go, frankly.

George: Mhm.

Stephanie: And so now we have clients all throughout the U.S., really because people have become comfortable with doing business remotely. It’s not it, you know, you can still develop a relationship via phone, email, and now with the capability of seeing each other face-to-face, you know, with these different technologies.

George: It’s interesting that you bring that up and I would love to interrogate that a little bit more. What I think I heard you say was the market is more accepting now…

Stephanie: Yes.

George: So you can go further a field to deal with customers. Now they have to kind of know you don’t they? They are somebody that you have a relationship with?

Stephanie: Of course. I mean, those out-of-market relationships are developed either through a connection from my previous career in the broadcast television world or frankly from, you know, from referrals of clients that are right here in my local community. You know?

George: Right.

Stephanie: I work with a local dental implant doctor who’s a part of a larger network of doctors who collaborate and work together. And, you know, we did a really great job for him. He was very impressed with the number of cases that we were delivering to his practice. And he shared that with a colleague, and you know, that kind of news catches on, people want to be a part of that opportunity.

George: Well it’s, I’m glad you brought that up because it’s interesting I hear this more and more where I go out to a local that I know very well, because you were embedded in the local marketplace. Maybe even…

Stephanie: Mhm.

George: …kids play soccer together, or, you know, something like… let’s say hockey.

Stephanie: Right.

George: And then you start to solve their problems and you learn about their business and you understand the nuances of that. And then they go to a convention or they go to a mastermind on a Friday and they talk to the group and tell them how they’re outperforming the last six months of their business.

Stephanie: Mhm.

Word of Mouth Referrals Driven by Quality Services

George: And everybody goes, well, how the heck are you doing that? And they go, oh, I have Stephanie.

Stephanie: Mhm.

George: And they go, well, how do I get a Stephanie? And then you’re able to help those folks. And that’s where you’re getting your new leads from is by doing a great job for the existing customer.

Stephanie: Exactly. Clients can tell, you know, I shared this recently with a colleague who was considering opening, a former colleague, who was considering opening their own agency, you know, that clients can tell when you care about their business. And really our goal as an agency is to be as much a part of the local business as possible. We want to be your in-house marketing despite the fact that we’re not in-house. So how can we be as much a part of a team as possible? And clients can tell when you care about what’s truly happening versus just trying to talk over their head and share the newest, shiniest object in the corner and make it sound really amazing. And, and, you know, unfortunately there, you know, we’re kind of battling this former digital salesperson mentality of, oh, let me talk about your ad and make it sound really cool. And you think you have to have it because it’s the latest and greatest, right? But clients, they like to learn about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. And so I have client after client say to me, I really love that you walked in here and explained to me not only what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, but how you anticipate it will impact the bottom line based on your experience. So they, they liked to understand the details of those digital products.

George: You know, when, I’d love to get your take on this when you sit down on a Friday and you and your husband are there and you’re looking at the week and you know, it was a pretty good week. Is it been a pretty good week because you went out and brought on a whole bunch of new customers? Or is it a pretty good week because you solved more problems of your existing bench of clients?

Stephanie: You know what? It honestly is the latter. I mean, the, my husband can tell when I’ve had a great conversation with a local client or with again, local clients mean all across the country now, but the days that I get to talk to clients and hear what’s going on in their business and brainstorm great ideas with them are the days… I come home and my husband’s like, ope, I can tell we had a really good day today, we had a really great week this week. So obviously, you know, growing our business, my business is, is important to me as well. But back to your original point, you know, we do that are just doing really great work.

George: Well, it’s an interesting lesson for new folks that are getting into this industry. It’s like, I’m going to go out there, I’m going to put a thousand leads into an engine and money’s just going to rain out of it. And I’m like, okay, yes, you do have to do a little bit of prospecting.

Stephanie: Exactly.

George: But number two, if you just focus on running a really good business and making the cust…

Stephanie: Right.

George: …customer base that you have happy, the prospecting usually kind of takes care of itself. If you’re open to referrals. This is a question I have, do you have to ask for the referral or does it just get given to you?

Stephanie: They come my way. I have not made a cold call in 18 months. So I don’t, I’m not cold calling businesses. I’m not reaching out and trying to, you know, drive our lead number because the net, the, just the networking and the work that we do delivers those leads to us.

George: If you had advice to give somebody that’s just getting into this space, on how they get that referral engine running, is there, is there any tactics there outside of, of course running a great business as part of it, but are, you know, when do you layer in that you might be interested in talking to another doctor or might be interested in bringing on another, another client? Is that something that, that is purposeful or again, does it just happen organically because of the organization you built?

Stephanie: Honestly, it just happens organically. People will say, “Hey, I have a client or a friend or a colleague that I know in this other area…” or whatever the case may be “…and I think they could use a little help. Would you like to have a conversation with them?” And, and again, those kinds of connections I appreciate because number one, they’re putting, you know, when a business owner is referring, you, they’re putting their reputation on the line a little bit, right? So that’s a huge trust factor for them to be able to trust me enough to say, you know what? I’m going to give your name to this person that that is a part of my life in some other way. So it’s, those are the kinds of relationships and new clients that I’m looking for, that we want to build our business on. We frankly don’t want to be, you know, a thousand clients, churn and burn. That’s just not who we are.

When to “Break Up” With a Customer

George: Right. And it isn’t a good business model at the end of the day. One, one question that I, I’ve been thinking about here that I wanted to ask is, is there a customer that you would walk away from, is there a customer that you would break up with?

Stephanie: Yes, I have had to do that just a couple of times, but I have had to do that. You know, I, I will share with my clients when I present to them an idea, a concept, a marketing plan for the year, that I am sharing with them, I’m sending the money, I’m proposing that you spend the money the way I would spend the money. So I, you know, I’ve put together a solid plan here. And when, when you know, the natural inclination is, especially if somebody hasn’t marketed before, if they’re new to the marketing space, the inclination is how can we bring that investment down, right? Like, can we just get her a little bit cheaper? And I always say that, look, I could do cheaper work, but it’s not going to deliver the results you want. And the catch 22 for me is, it’d be real easy to say, sure, let’s take this $5,000 a month budget and make it $2,500 a month. But in six months, you’re gonna tell me it didn’t work. And I don’t want to have that conversation with you. So if you’re not prepared to make the investment today that we need to make to deliver the results that you want, I would rather not take your money. You know? And honestly, most people respect that and end up finding a way to make the investment that they need to make. But there have been a couple of times, I’ve just said, you know, what? If you can’t do this, maybe we’re not the right agency because sometimes clients, you know, a couple of times, you know, clients have wanted to argue with me about it. “Well, let’s just start small and get bigger.” Again, the problem is with that, I’ve done all the research. I’ve done all the homework. I know what we need to do to deliver the results that you expect. And so if you’re not willing to take that leap with me, I, again, I don’t want to, I don’t want to take your money, I don’t want to steal your money, because that’s what you’re going to think at the end is that I stole your money.

Avoiding Your Client’s Competitors, as They Are Now Your Competitors

George: Well, and your, and your reputation then, because they’re going to go to coffee row in your hometown and tell them that they spent a bunch of money with you and it didn’t deliver. Did, have you ever had this happen, Stephanie and I, I am starting to get the feeling that your clients love you, and they see you as a competitive advantage. Have you ever had a customer say to you, please don’t work with my competitor? Like, what you’re doing with me is so important. Will you promise me that you won’t work with Joe down the street?

Stephanie: So I, that happened often when I was a media rep. It has not happened since I’ve owned my business. However, I will tell you that if I was presented with that situation, it might be difficult for me to do that. Because again, I want to be the in-house marketing arm and how can a customer or a client trust me to be their in-house marketing arm if I’m using the same strategies, research, and information for the guy across town, who’s selling the same products and services? So when I was at, when, I was a TV rep, that would happen quite often. And thankfully, again, that was early in my career, I had managers who kind of got me out of that situation. But as a business owner, you know, again, the way we’ve positioned ourselves is that we want to be a part of a team. And it’s hard to be a part of the team if you’re a part of, you know, an identical team across town.

George: And, you know, correct me if I’m wrong, how you’ve solved that then is you’ve said, “okay, well, I’m not going to go sell to that dentist then. I’m going to work with my existing dental customer and see if they could introduce me to other dentists that they don’t compete with.”

Stephanie: That are in other communities. So again, we work with, right now we work with 10 dental implant doctors across the country. But none of them have service areas that overlap. So again, we’re able to take the lessons learned from one market and apply it to another market. Not that everybody’s the same, this isn’t McDonald’s. So we’re, we’re not doing all exactly the same, but there are lessons to be learned from community to community that we can, again, it’s, it’s a competitive advantage for them to know that we’ve already executed a successful plan elsewhere that we know will deliver results.

George: Have you ever done a webinar where you bring all of those folks into like a mastermind group or something like that?

Stephanie: Not yet. Not yet, but there’s conversations about things like that in the future.

George: You know I was talking to one of our channel partners that has been deploying that tactic for the last four or five months, and they had a lot of anxiety over bringing it up, and I pointed them towards Dealer 20 groups. And, you know, being in the media business, you know exactly what I’m talking about. In the automotive space, there are these companies that get 20 auto…

Stephanie: Right.

George: …dealers together that are in different, like-size markets, maybe even the same brand, and they get together on a regular cadence and go through all their metrics and, and have a look at what good looks like. And maybe once a month you have to bring your new marketing concept or something like that. So they, they look to that model and started to bring up this idea of a one-to-many mastermind. And they were blown away by the response from the customers like you would do that? You would put that group together? And they then share best practices, and what it actually turned… and this was the channel partner now telling me after the fact, if you’re doing a really good job for those customers, they get together and they kind of convince each other that they’re making the right decision. So it helps with the, you know, the renewal. And maybe if you’re trying to broach a new idea, you can say, “Hey, Stephanie’s trying this, Stephanie, tell them how it’s working for you.” And it actually helps to, to solve more problems by having that proof point.

Stephanie: Right. And what a great resource for them too, right? Outside of marketing, they have so many other needs. They have, you know, needs to make sure that their practice is operating efficiently. They have needs to find the right financiers depending on the type of procedure that they’re offering. You know, so what a great resource for them to be able to compare those notes outside of the marketing space.

When to Hire Your First Salesperson

George: Stephanie, how many people are in your organization?

Stephanie: So I have three full-time employees right now, and then we have entrepreneurial partners that we partner with in, in various aspects as well. So a couple of companies that again, have become a part of our team, despite the fact that they’re a separate company.

George: I get asked this all the time by founders, I do some mentor work in the tech space with tech startups, and founders asked me this question, when do I make my first sales hire? So I’d like to ask you that question because you’re a founder of your own organization. When did you decide to add that first employee and what, what role was it?

Stephanie: So we are set up in that the first employee I hired was really a person to help me keep all of the, all of the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed. So, you know, I sometimes fail a little bit at keeping some of the paperwork as filed as it should be, let’s just say. So that really was my first person. As, as I entered other markets, I knew that we need to make sure that our record-keeping was on point, not really from a business perspective, but more of a, again, there’s so much data available for all that we’re doing for our clients and what lessons can we learn so that we can maximize those lessons for, for our future clients. And so that was my, so she’s our operations coordinator. And she, we do joke that she is the organizer of chaos. And then we have a social content coordinator who focuses on all of our social storytelling. That’s a big piece of what we do for our clients. And so she is, she’s focused in that space and she knows a lot about, she knows a lot about a lot of businesses, but again, just based on the fact that we continue to grow in the dental implant space, she knows a lot about dental implants. And then we have a digital marketing coordinator who again, is our, she’s our data storyteller. So she digs in to all of the campaigns that we’re doing from an SEO perspective, from a, from an ad words, perspective, Google analytics, and puts all that data together to help us make sure that we are, you know, delivering the right stories to the right people, to make sure that we’re creating the results our clients expect.

George: It’s interesting to me, when I speak to folks like you that are running similar organizations, I love asking that question because it, it seemed to me, as you were telling the story, that there was a problem that needed to be solved, and that was the catalyst for adding the individual. So the first one was, I need to keep everything together and organized, and I’m making promises to customers, I need somebody to help make sure that comes true. Number two, the social content, because you’re, you know, you’re inside a very focused vertical. You need somebody that’s really close to it to write that content. You can’t just go to Fiverr or Upwork and find somebody that’s an expert in dental implants. So finding somebody that could learn it as they go.

Stephanie: Exactly.

George: And then on the coordination of social, I believe that what I heard from you that’s because that’s what you’re doing. That’s a big part of the components that are making up the solution set. So you needed somebody to coordinate that. What I found interesting though, you haven’t hired a sales rep yet, and I’d love to know why.

Stephanie: So when you asked the question initially about hiring a salesperson, I kind of laughed to myself. That is, that is honestly because it’s my first love. So it’s a little hard to walk away from that. And the idea of I’m not selling my own company and putting in the hands of another. It is a point of conversation that, again, as we grow, will have to be a part of our path, and I know that. But, but selfishly it’s a little bit, because I really love the aspect of learning these clients’ businesses from, from day one, from the first meeting them at first conversation really is me asking them to paint a picture about who they are. Don’t tell me the stats you think I need to hear of we target adults 25 to 64. Tell me really about why this business started, why it continues generations later, you know, what is it that draws you to, to this business every day? What makes you excited to get up and come to work? And you know, how can we make sure that it continues for whoever you want to pass it off to in the next generation of your family?

George: I love that you, that you brought that up, because people are like, well, how do you, how do you go in and sell a customer? And how do you, you know, deliver value for the client and everything else? And what you, what you came back to was our job at the end of the day, is to help that business owner build value in their organization. So they either have something to sell at the end of the day, or they have something to leave to their kids. But it’s about the value of the entire organization is really what we do when we walk in and help them with the problems they have around, you know, I’m going to solve this marketing problem. No, it’s bigger than that. And what I love about 2021 or whatever time it is that you’re listening, it’s a great time to be alive because it’s easier for us to solve those problems. When…

Stephanie: Absolutely.

George: …I started at this. And you, you know, you’re not as old as I am, but you were doing it for a while, we had one thing that we could deploy. So regardless of how much we cared, we could just say, “Hey, well, when you’re talking to your newspaper rep, maybe you don’t need a full page, maybe you could just do a junior page and give me a little bit of that budget and we can now deploy some other tactics.” Now we live in a, in a time where I can, I can run this for you. I can do… I can put in store WiFi and capture the user. Like there’s so many more things that we can offer because the tech is democratized.

Stephanie: Right.

Doubling Business Growth Year Over Year

George: And it it’s pretty cool time. I really appreciate you joining us today, Stephanie, and congratulations on the success that you’re having. I do have one question. It’s okay if you don’t want to answer, but I do have one question. What’s your, what’s your growth rate? How, what percentage is your business growing year over year since you’ve started?

Stephanie: We have doubled year over year since we’ve started. So it’s, it’s, you know, we had one week at the beginning of the pandemic, being in New York, we shut down before the rest of the country. And so I’ll never forget, our last out to dinner meal was Friday the 13th, March, 2020. And we were making jokes about, oh, it’d be like a two-week vacation, no big deal. And then as the weekend progressed, we realized that this wasn’t going to be a two-week vacation. And so Monday and Tuesday of the following week, I spend a lot of time on the phone with clients trying to figure out what they were going to do if their front door couldn’t be open. And then by Thursday and Friday, I was on the phone with them talking about what we could do with their digital front door. And so the conversation shifted to, oh, what are we going to do? To how quickly can we do this? And so again, we had about one week there was a little nervous and it turned into just exponential growth for our business. And then again, just the ability of people to communicate and the familiarity to communicate through technologies versus face-to-face has really opened up, you know, the opportunity that we have to help clients throughout the country.

George: I remember, I remember that shutdown like it was yesterday and yet the, the nuances are a bit of a blur, but here’s what I think I kind of remember was, we were on the phone pretty much 24/7 talking to customers because they wanted to talk and everybody was searching for answers. And, you know, our, our lens may be a little bit different because we were talking to our channel partners and they were trying to figure out what the next play might be. Like, imagine that I have one channel partner that has 3,800 restaurants on their platform. Their concern was quite high.

Stephanie: Of course.

George: If those 3,800 restaurants were closing their doors. But the, the thing I found to be very interesting is the majority of those business people were trying to find out a way through, they were trying to figure out how they would adapt. And we’ve been out there preaching this gospel of you need to be online. You need to have a digital footprint. And guess what? Everybody wanted to have that conversation.

Stephanie: Absolutely.

George: From that moment forward. So it’s, it’s really interesting. I appreciate that. And congratulations on the doubling year over year. That’s amazing. So I guess the other question I have then is, Stephanie and Mr. Krummenacker are pretty happy that you guys did this and started your own agency.

Stephanie: We are very happy. Again, it’s created, you know, since you’re in the media world you know I loved working for major broadcast companies. There was so much opportunity to work for them. And so much that I learned and such great training that I received. However, at the end of the day, you know, when I left, after a 12-hour day, it was for someone else. And so when I leave after a 12-hour day now, it’s, it’s for our family. It’s for our future. You know, just like I have those conversations with business owners of “what are you building and who are you building it for?” I now get to think about those things for myself.

George: Well, congratulations on your success and thanks for your partnership over the last few years, and we’re looking forward to helping you grow in any way that we can. And thanks for all the learnings that you’ve given to our listeners today, this is right in the wheelhouse of what we wanted to be talking about, so we appreciate that as well.

Stephanie: Thank you for that opportunity.

Conclusion

George: Well, where do I start? Takeaways. There’s so many of them and sometimes the plan just comes together. You just couldn’t ask Stephanie to give us better takeaways than that. The one referrals, if you do a great job, they just take care of themselves because you’ve got a satisfied customer and they become that raving fan or that advocate, and they tell other people about your brand. One of the big challenges we have in a small market is you have that competitive nature. And if you’re really going to be the trusted expert, you heard what Stephanie said, how could she go work for the competitor down the street? She is being hired to be the trusted expert for that client. So where she found success was going outside of the market to people that were actually peers of that customer, dental implants happened to be the space, and that’s where she’s finding referrals. And she doesn’t even have to ask for them. They just offer them up. The other thing was the lifestyle choice. So their lifestyle choice was both of them worked in the television business and it was starting to become a bit of a conflict. Plus they wanted to be able to not travel as much and be closer to the home base. And that’s what this was able to do for them. They were able to take the exact same things that they were doing in their previous role and just put them in front of the customers that no one loved them in that market, and then have, you know, I love the line, I could work 12 hours over here for somebody else, or I could work 12… and she’s probably working 14, but anyways, I could work 12 or 14 hours here, and it’s all for my family. That is an amazing story. And I’m telling you right now, I know this for a fact, without having done the research. If you were to talk to one of Stephanie’s customers, they would rave about how important she is to their day-to-day operations. And that’s when people come to me, they say, yeah, I’m going to sell the 500 customers and just put them on autopilot. I’m like, your churn will be 35%. Right? Because it just doesn’t work that way. If you’re going to be the trusted local expert, you need to be available. You need to be at their beck and call and yes, that’s expensive. But at the same time, if you’re solving a lot of problems for them, you can demand a larger cost because of that level of service. You can just hear that come out in everything that Stephanie talks about. She wants to become their in-house marketing. I’ve been hearing this thing of outsourced CMO or outsourced Chief Revenue Officer. How about, how about that? How about that way of positioning of it? I’m going to be on your staff, and you’re going to pay me through these packages or these solution bundles. That’s how I get paid, but I am a member of your team. I understand everything about your business. And then I can take my team. And you, the other thing that I thought was incredible was I hear, you know, when do I hire my salesforce? She’s not going to give that up, because that is a big part of her brand is that Stephanie is the brand and Stephanie is the customer-facing part of the organization. She went and solved other problems. You heard her say, “well, I’m not all that good at paperwork.” Yep. Pretty common thing amongst salespeople. But she’s really good at giving a s— and caring about her customers. So she’s going to do that herself. And then she’s going to have an administrative person that comes in and makes it all come true. She knew she needed somebody really close to the social media because probably she got a call from one of the dental implant companies saying, yeah, this copy that you wrote, it isn’t even close to the mark. Oh, I need to bring in somebody that’s a really good writer and is a good student to learn about exactly what they’re looking for there to hit the mark on the content side. And then when we got to the social media piece, I hear this all the time, I brought somebody in just to control all of the social media components because there’s a billion of them. There’s a new platform being built all the time. And you need somebody that can coordinate all of that. If that’s a big part of what you’re, you’re selling as part of your solution set. Couldn’t have asked for better answers because I could just playback about 32 calls I’ve been on in the last 30 days. And that’s what I’m hearing from channel partners all over the world. We talked a few times throughout that last few minutes with Stephanie about the ideal customer. And then I asked that question around, tell me a story about when you broke up with somebody. And it’s a question that actually Janice Christopher talked about when she was on the show a few months back. It’s, it’s the same thing. It’s the customer that believes I want this level of service, but I only want to pay this money. And I’m not even talking about a 10% difference. They want to pay like 75% less. And that’s the one that you have to really work on, setting proper expectations. I could do this, but what will happen is you won’t be happy in six months. And then what’ll happen is you’ll probably go downtown and tell people about it and that’ll hurt my reputation. So I’m not prepared to do that. I’m not prepared to take your money at all costs. I want to make sure that what you are paying me for is going to deliver the result that you want. In fact, inside what we’re thinking is, I want to outperform what I told you. You know, that under-promise and over-deliver. So it was great to hear that from Stephanie, that it, you know, that’s when she breaks up with somebody, is when they’re trying to grind it down to a point where she just can’t deliver at the dollars that they’re prepared to invest. Stephanie Krummenacker it is like a 101 as to how to create a successful digital marketing organization. And she’s been living this journey for the past three years and what an outcome, doubling her revenue year over year, building a great lifestyle business, her and her husband get together on Fridays and have a glass of champagne and celebrate that choice they made that day when they started their own organization. Thanks for joining me this week on the Conquer Local podcast. My name is George Leith. I’ll see you when I see you.