****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.****

Jessica Scott 0:00

Hi, I'm Jessica Scott and you're listening to A Shark's Perspective.

(Music - shark theme)

Kenneth Kinney 0:24

Welcome back, and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective. I'm Kenneth Kinney, but friends call me Shark. I'm a keynote speaker, a strategist, a shark diver, host of this show, and your Chief Shark Officer.

Kenneth Kinney 0:37

Every industry vertical has its own unique challenges and solutions, especially with the nuance of whether those verticals are small to medium sized businesses or not. But while many of the principles stay the same, much of the so called Best Practices go out the window. And that can cause businesses who want and need to grow more quickly to ride a roller coaster until they settle in on what works best to serve their customers. Oh no, that means using the same foundational principles to build your marketing and sales so that no one can huff and puff and blow that house down. After all, you're building a solution for your customers, and a home for your marketing.

Kenneth Kinney 1:15

Jessica Scott is the Director of Marketing at Bordner Home Solutions, a home services and remodeling company in Colorado, and she's the founder of her own Dragonfly Marketing and Consulting.

Kenneth Kinney 1:26

And on this episode, we will discuss marketing with SMBs home services and home building lead gen, owning what you're ultimately responsible for marketing needs versus once building trust and knowing your numbers, the role of a project manager working with other departments like sales, growing a team internally and with third party extensions, where to spend the winter tchotchkes at a conference wings versus shrimp marketing versus sales, and a lot lot more.

Kenneth Kinney 1:51

So let's tune into a home solutions marketer with an ocean solutions shark on this episode of A Shark's Perspective.

[music]

Kenneth Kinney 2:02

Jessica, welcome to A Shark's Perspective. Tell us if you will a little bit about your background and your career to date.

Jessica Scott 2:08

Oh, well, hello. Um, I would say, Gosh, a little bit about my background, I started in marketing, I don't know 25 years ago doing events and promotions for a restaurant that I worked for, I was actually going to college for psychology had a psychology teacher tell me, I would never make any money. And I should never go into psychology for that. So my mind shifted. And I really enjoyed the events and the promotions that I was doing. And so kind of dug in from there. Worked in a lot of different corporate companies and sponsorships, promotions, marketing areas, and lots of different areas of the marketing department per se, ended up opening my own consulting business where we focus mainly on printed merchandise, uniforming apparel, things of that nature. I've owned that company since 2008, right before the economy fell out, and 20 in 2008. And then, in about 2018, kind of started taking jobs for corporate America again, and worked for two of the top 25 home builders in the US as marketing director for them, and have recently transitioned over into a smaller construction business remodeling business where I am the director of marketing for just a family owned company here in Colorado. And I love it.

Kenneth Kinney 3:26

When you think of what you've learned in your two plus decades, working especially in home services and construction, a lot of the marketing that you've been taught that you read about but then when you go towards these companies that are say 10 to $100 million in size. A lot of that marketing teaching goes out the window. It's irrelevant.

Jessica Scott 3:54

Yeah. So I mean, I would say, Gosh, and I think as you know to from homebuilding, even to the remodeling industry is two totally different beasts from a marketing perspective. What I've learned working at my current organization, is it's interesting. So pay leads are such a big deal in this industry, which is not something that I've actually dealt with prior. I've never worked for an organization, nor did I ever use paid leads as a service. So when I came in originally, I thought, that's weird. Why would we ever do that we should do our own PPC, we should be doing our own display ads, we should be doing our own search and engine optimizations and things of that nature. Why would we pay somebody else to give us a lead that for other people are doing? But the reality is, is it's such a saturated market, that that costs for your own PPC and things like that, to really hit the marketplace. It's it's very difficult to compete as a smaller business with those 100 million or billion dollar companies. So just from a paid leads perspective, I would say it makes sense now that I'm you know, eight months into this industry and a newer company, that paid leads are kind of where it's at for them, but it's interesting to me because I still think that it's super important. We're doing all of our own PPC, all of our own, you know, website development display, search, and just, yeah, we just, we can't just depend on that. And as we're seeing the market shift, we're seeing the clients shift, and we're having to really change everything. So, you know, I opened my business in 2008, October one 2008. And the economy fell out, like, you know, October 25 2008. And I wasn't in it long enough to feel like I had to shift I just shifted, because that was the only thing I could do. You know. And I'm seeing similarities right now happening with how do we shift? How do we change our messaging to, to really help fill a need for people? Because right now, it's a need versus a want?

Kenneth Kinney 5:53

And who is that went to you? Not that long ago?

Jessica Scott 5:56

Yeah. I mean, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's definitely a conversation we've been having. And we're seeing it, you know, 100%, we're seeing it across the board. People are not willing to spend money on wants right now. But they will spend money on things that they need. And so we just have to cater our messaging and understand that our buyers are in a different place today than they were a year ago, two years ago, or even six months ago. I mean, I would even go as far as to say, three to four months ago, that we're in a completely different spot than they are today. So it's just interesting to see the dynamic of how people change, marketing changes constantly, and just kind of learning how to ebb and flow and kind of Dodge and go. Go with it as you as you find something that works stick with it.

Kenneth Kinney 6:40

Well, and I think it's fascinating, because sometimes when the economy though, when you're pressured to find more, for this quarter, you don't have six months to wait on your content to crawl. And that messaging can shift quickly with wants versus needs. And that's the way people respond differently. And I think, you know, it's unfortunate, but it is, especially that we're staring at an economy that changes. But when you start looking at how to drive growth, you've also got to sort of think about just the pressures going on in the world. So when you also think about building this, and you came into the role six plus months ago, roughly, when you get to where you're starting to assemble the pieces, what did you start thinking about, as far as the cataloguing of all the things and the assets and the agencies and all those things? Where do you start thinking through that as part of how to put that together?

Jessica Scott 7:31

Sure. I mean, I think it's interesting what I thought, because, you know, I came into this role knowing I was obviously taking this role. And in my head, I thought it was gonna go one direction, you know, I thought, I'm gonna get in there. And I'm going to optimize the lead size. And I'm going to make some great blogs. And we're going to do better on social media. And we're going to, you know, make sure the CRM is hitting like it should. And I unfortunately stepped into this role and was turned kind of in a different direction, because of certain things that needed to be fixed here in within this organization. So I didn't get to get to that until really the last couple of months. But I would really say, I mean, really, you've got to first figure out who owns your stuff, right? I've kind of learned that through some of this process. And unfortunately, in my current role, the predecessors before me never really owned all of the things, they had hired all these agencies across the board, and basically gave them complete control of all of our digital assets, all any kind of asset that we had, unfortunately, we've now had to start reaching out and just gaining ownership of those pieces. So that sure they can use them. And they're great that we have them on the website, and that we're using them out in the social media worlds and things of that nature, but when we don't own them, and I can't get into them, and check them and see them, or reuse them for something else, or just simply have access for them to them. And that's a problem. So gaining all of that and bringing it in house is I would say probably your number one thing to do.

Kenneth Kinney 9:01

Well, I always do. My own three key takeaways already know, going into this because we've had this conversation. Many times I've had this especially while working with you and with a lot of different people. I see this over and over again, to your point, somebody will come in, but you won't have all of the assets like your social content, the images, or who owns the URL, you know, who actually registered it with GoDaddy or whoever the domain provider is and things like that. It it's hard, you kind of get in the mix of the day to day and you forget what happens if this agency decides they don't want to work with us anymore. And so it's not meant to cause an adversarial relationship. It's just some things the brand has to learn to own and what happens with so many businesses, I don't care if it's in the technology industry or if it's a homebuilder or it's trucking, a truck with a lawn care business. Somebody started the business and they grew it because they either installed the bathtub well, they created a cool technology He, they were able to build a great landscape business. And as that grew, they turned over a lot of stuff to agencies and contractors and so forth until they could scale it and hire their own people. And then it becomes trying to track down where did everything get stored. So when you get there, and your business has grown to be pretty healthy, what did you see that you needed to do to gain the trust from a small to medium sized business owner to be able to start owning it, if you will, to owning an air quotes? Owning all the things that go into your marketing role that have been in the hands of 50? Different others? Yeah, um, gosh, what did i What did you bribe him with? Yeah.

Jessica Scott 10:42

You know, I would just say, from my perspective, in gaining trust with the owner of this organization is really just showing up honestly, like, lit and I don't just mean like showing up to work, but showing up ready to push the needle, you know, there was, there was a total kind of rehab of my department whenever I came on board. And the sense of my department consists of several different kinds of arms or legs. And those both had to be cleaned up. And I focused and jumped right in, I didn't ask questions. My owner knows that when he asked me for something to do that I'm going to do it, I always do it, he never feels like he's asked me to do something that I'm not doing. But I would also say that, the reality is, is I kind of got lucky in the sense of the gentleman who owns my organization, even though has been burned by several people prior to me, told me when he hired me, I wouldn't hire you if I didn't trust you to do this job. And, and he's really empowered me to just own it and own the decisions and on the direction. And we've made significant growth since I've been here, it's visible, and we can see it. And honestly, they're still I feel like I have barely like literally like chipped the paint off the surface, like just a little bit, there's a lot of work to be done. But the exciting piece of that is there's a lot of growth to be made there. And he just trust that I'm driving and pushing the department and the company and, you know, a growth pattern.

Kenneth Kinney 12:07

Well, and I think you know, you and I've talked about this several times before about owning the numbers, I found it very often that a lot of marketing directors generally know the numbers, but really, really know the numbers. Once you really really start to know the intricacies of the numbers behind the business, it makes a lot of the non number a more fluffy stuff plausible, if you can read, answer and reflect what's actually the numbers that drive the growth to people that are responsible for the actual money that pays for to keep the lights on and all those good things.

Jessica Scott 12:39

And to point and to that point, honestly, it's not even just the overall numbers. But what numbers are the most important? Exactly. It's from the marketing perspective, we see tons of numbers, but not all of them really matter to us. You need to know which key which key numbers, which key metrics are that drive the organization,

Kenneth Kinney 12:57

agree completely. So one of the things I love about your size business, and I know we've talked about before, as well as the fact that not everybody, especially in larger corporations, people often forget what it's like to work heavily with a sales team and heavily with a call center team. And especially in the vertical in home services in any form of home services call center becomes a real intricate part. But we talk often about sales enablement and making sure that the sales team has what they need. But when you think through that mix of the people you work with to drive growth, including with the events team, which is a whole other, you know, animal on its own, where do you sort of think about how to position yourself working well, and cohesively with all these kind of different business units that are part of the wheel and part of the engine, if you will.

Jessica Scott 13:46

So I would say really, I mean, I know my titles as marketing director, or if it's not my business CEO, whatever. The the bottom line is, I feel like I'm genuinely a project manager. And I feel that way because I think it is my job as the marketing director to always be in communications with every single lead department, or lead in each department. Right? So one thing I have found in the marketing world or when I'm working with sales and marketing in one space, is typically the two don't get along they butt heads, right? It's like industry standard that you shouldn't have a sales and marketing director that actually like, like each other. The thing that makes me feel so incredibly fortunate in my current role is my sales director and I are like, I mean, we call each other besties you know, like he and I get along well, we fight. We argue we don't always agree on things, but we work it out. And we're always we always I know he will never undermine me and tell his team something that I told him the opposite to do. He and I are always on the same page. It's like a marriage except for it's just a work Barrett you know, like he knows he and I always have to have each other's back no matter what. And that's how we ride we ride together at Everybody knows, like George and Jessica are always going to be together. And so we just have to follow suit. So as long as he and I are always communicating well, which we do, we find that the teams work really well together as well. I think another thing that I find that helps is making I mean, honestly, we've set up people's pay in a way that they understand, like everybody's part, helps everybody else make money. So we are one team, we're not at five different employees, I mean, everything that I do affects not only my pay, but somebody else's pay, too. And everything they do affects my pay, as well as everybody else's to so we're in this as a team. And so that is always from my perspective, one of the things that you'll hear me say over and over again to this team is, we are one company, one team, we're not 15 different departments and, and all of us on different teams, we're one team, and we have to manage, and we have to focus on that. If we all aren't working together, the pieces fall, whether it be customer service, production, call center events, canvassing, sales, it doesn't matter, we all have to be in communication with each other or the pieces fall. So communication is key and and my sales director and I just having a solid, strong relationship and understanding what we're not always going to agree. But we're always going to work it out, and we're going to come up with a good solution is really key for us.

Kenneth Kinney 16:24

With all the changes, especially for a small to medium sized business, it's tough, because there's so many changes that even big companies have a hard enough time keeping up with I mean, massive companies are trying to figure out what to do with Chet GPT. Next, okay. But when you think about a small, medium sized business, finding the right kind of team that external to your company, consultants like me, how do you go about finding that person or those people that helps fit the mix of the problems that you're trying to solve for your end customers, because you aren't a 500 bazillion dollar company, you can't hire 500 internal marketing and call center and sales people and technology and all that stuff. But you started thinking about a lot of this becomes external third party services. How do you sort of think through who were the people that you're going to continue to work with in whatever third party role?

Jessica Scott 17:17

Sure. I mean, I think from like a consultant perspective, most of the time, those have been given to us via referrals from some of our manufacturers and some of our other partners that we utilize. So I'd say that's kind of where we typically find them. And, and then we do our own research and conversations and decide if that's a good fit for for us. We've hit it big in some places, and we haven't and others, but at

Kenneth Kinney 17:40

least admit that you've hit it big with me.

Jessica Scott 17:42

Absolutely. Thank you. So total when. And then, you know, when it comes to other like agencies or partners that we work with? I mean, from my perspective, I can't speak as to why they've been chosen prior, I would say, Well, I can't, I think chosen prior once again, they were referrals from some of our manufacturers, they were kind of the easy route in some cases, which is great. It made it got us to where we are. But I think now that we're really looking into the nitty gritty of the marketing, and what's really happening here, what I'm looking for in partners or partners that will communicate with each other, that will communicate well with me, and that are really showing us their value. I'm I'm kind of to a point where I'm really sick of vendor partners that give me half, you know, half the numbers or half of the information that they need to give me and they think it's okay, because I might not ask him any questions. I mean, at this point, I'm almost testing them by not asking questions to see how much they're willing to tell me or really share with me. And I'm finding that they're not always as honest as they should be. Because in my opinion, we need to have partners that can be open, honest and have direct and real conversations. And if it's not working, I want to talk about it. And if it is working, I want to I want to applaud you for it. But either way, we need to always have open and direct communications, and always open and direct communications with their with my other partners, right, because I need my website partner, to work with my social media partner to work with my SEO partner to work, they all need to be talking together, we all need to be talking as a group as to what we can do better as a group to make things better. But also for me, right now the importance is putting the right people in the right seats, meaning the right partners in the right seats. So that way, whenever I am to a point where I'm ready to build my own internal team, it's an easy takeover from this perspective. Exactly. Because if if we were about to do that six months ago, there is no way I could have immediately hired on a few people and they would just know what was going on because everything was essentially taken over by vendors and organizations outside of this company. So bringing it all in and getting us ready to be able to grow our own internal marketing team is also really important for me, right?

Kenneth Kinney 19:57

Yeah, and I you know, it's why I've often complain about the phrase and extension of your team? I don't think they understand the true power of those words very often. Well, Jessica, I asked everybody this who appears on the show? What is your favorite kind of shark? And why? Oh, my.

Jessica Scott 20:17

Oh, that's a tough one. I don't know, I would almost say great whites. And I feel like that's really like almost a cop out, right. But at the same time, they're just such massive, beautiful creatures. And I do want to dive with them one day, but not like you do. I want to dive in a cage with a great one. I want to do it safely. But I was obsessed with jobs. When I was a kid, I was a big movie back then. And I can remember like, you know, they played it every couple times a year on the TV, and it was a big deal in the house. And I just think back then I'm like, I would love to be up close and personal was such like an incredible creature, but you know, safely.

Kenneth Kinney 20:55

Well, in Great Whites are the one exception I make to telling somebody to do cage or not because they are uniquely different in the waters that they swim in are not always the clearest. And so doing it in a cage is fine. Some of the others, though, like I've seen people scared of Nurse sharks, I'm like, What are you worried about them sucking your toe? You know, some people get freaked out about them all. We'll just get that special time in the show. Are you ready for the five most interesting and important questions that you're going to be asked today?

Jessica Scott 21:26

I guess I'm a little nervous. But let's do it.

Kenneth Kinney 21:29

So I know that you lived in Oklahoma, and now you're in Colorado, which would you rather than the season in the winters in Oklahoma, or the summers in Colorado? It would be hard to say the summers in Oklahoma and winters in Colorado. But if you had to pick between winters in Oklahoma, where summers in Colorado, which would it be?

Jessica Scott 21:49

I mean, to be honest, I would tell you, I would much rather pick both in Colorado than in Oklahoma.

Kenneth Kinney 21:56

Really, you'd rather have winter in Colorado than winter in Oklahoma?

Jessica Scott 21:59

It's far colder in in Oklahoma than it does here in Colorado. And it's windier. And the ice is horrible. Yes, I mean, all day. I mean, it's beautiful outside right now it's windy, we have 55 mile an hour winds and it's like 50 degrees. But I mean, we really

Kenneth Kinney 22:15

had to warm up your car the other day when it was 75 for me, and it was 24 for you.

Jessica Scott 22:21

But in Colorado Springs, we have over 300 days of sunshine a year. So it's very, very rare that it's really too cold or icky to not want to like go outside mornings are cold. Yeah, it's cold, but you know, you put on more clothes.

Kenneth Kinney 22:35

So number two, because you also have this business and you do some tchotchkes and things like that. Favorite tchotchkes for an event stressful or mints?

Jessica Scott 22:53

not mints. I would say stress balls because I used to I used to get those sometimes and use them you can toss them at people and use them for engagement. Now if you said chocolate I might say chocolate just because they put it in their mouth and then it's hard for them to talk if it's like it Hershey's kiss or something so you can get them to talk to you a little bit longer. But I'll go with a stress reliever.

Kenneth Kinney 23:12

Hand Sanitizer became my favorites. I don't need any more pins.

Jessica Scott 23:16

Yeah, and Colorado net right now our big one our big giveaway are the tote bags because you have to have a bag. When you go to the store like any store here. They charge you 10 cents per bag. So now we're just giving them away at our events and people love that. So now we got people walking around for dinner bags everywhere.

Kenneth Kinney 23:33

Number three, we've talked about Hooters before Oh my I want to ask you which would you rather order? Okay, Hooters wings or Hooters shrimp. Oh, there's buffalo shrimp or

Jessica Scott 23:48

Buffalo shrimp all day long Give it to me hi are three mile.

Kenneth Kinney 23:52

Their shrimp are fantastic. The wings are what they're known for. But I love their shrimp for sure. I don't remember how we got to that a long time ago. But number four, sales numbers are not where you want them to be. revenue numbers are not where you want them to be. Is it the quality of the lead? And that's the fault or is it the sales and closure rate and that's the fault

Jessica Scott 24:18

you know, that changes all the time. But I would say currently right now we're struggling with closing the sale.

Kenneth Kinney 24:25

Okay. It's the politically correct answer at the moment. So it changes.

Jessica Scott 24:31

It does change and it has been the leads in the past so absolutely in the market. As the market shifts, everything shifts and we just have to move with it.

Kenneth Kinney 24:40

Agreed number five and the most important question that you're going to be asked today, biscuits or cornbread?

Jessica Scott 24:48

I don't eat corn or bread.

Kenneth Kinney 24:51

Well, OK. Let's say this is a vegan or vegetarian.

Jessica Scott 24:57

I would say if I had to choose I chose either one best gets all day long. I'm not a cornbread person.

Kenneth Kinney 25:01

Okay. All right. So Jessica, where can people find out more about you keep up with what you're doing and more about the company and all those good things.

Jessica Scott 25:09

Yeah, I would say LinkedIn, dragonfly marketing consultant is my or consulting, I apologize is my business, you can find me Jessica Scott on LinkedIn as well. And then yeah, if you get on LinkedIn, you'll see who I'm working for. And you can see us from there.

Kenneth Kinney 25:24

And please don't send her moronic messages, say in 15 minutes for a virtual coffee so that they can sell you something later because yeah, I'm not buying anything. Exactly, exactly.

Jessica Scott 25:36

We know what we're going with. Don't call me. All right.

Kenneth Kinney 25:39

Jessica, thank you again for being with us today on A Shark's Perspective.

Jessica Scott 25:42

Thank you.

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Kenneth Kinney 25:49

So there was my conversation with Jessica Scott, the Director of Marketing at Bordner Home Solutions, a home services and remodeling company in Colorado, and she's the founder of her own Dragonfly Marketing and Consulting. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from a conversation with her.

Kenneth Kinney 26:04

First housekeeping, you can have 1000 goals coming into a new job or even 1000 duties daily years into the job. But a painful exercise for many is getting the house in order and owning and air quotes, what is yours. Some people give ownership away to agencies and some people even just stick their heads in the sand. But whether you manage a third party agency or a consultant, or even team members who sit down the hall have ownership of what is yours. And that's the tools the logins, the assets, spreadsheets, contacts, budgets, and all the things that you need, should that agency consultant or team member Lee, this is going to set up the company for future success. And stuff happens over time, but when you need it, and you likely will, you don't want to be codependent on an extension of your team when it's your neck on the line.

Kenneth Kinney 26:50

Second, we've spoken about this many times before, but I want to lean into a powerful tool that will help you grow your business with internal support. If you want to build trust, then know your numbers, whether that's revenue, spin leads, costs, etc. Knowing the numbers that are most important and affect the ones that are driving the business. That's generally the smartest person in the room in a meeting. For a lot of businesses big and small. Ask yourself how many leads do we get yesterday or last week last month or even last year? And know those numbers? What was the revenue for the quarter of the year? How much did you spend last month in marketing, whatever the numbers are, that your CEO, CFO and so on care about the know those like they're tattooed on your skin? executives want to know that you have a command of what numbers matter to them.

Kenneth Kinney 27:34

Third, love the conversation about being in a project manager role and working closely with other departments. One of the benefits to take advantage of with SMBs is how you can cross train stick with me here. Sometimes we get to specialize on a certain discipline lover job. What you know about Google Analytics is extremely important what you may know about billing or sales or whatever the role is extremely needed. But it's important to remember to consider the lens of the customer. Customers rarely like never break down. Whether or not the accounting department at XYZ brand is great, but the customer service sucks. ABC Corp sales team is awesome, but their marketing sucks. No customers don't break these things apart to measure their experience with your brand and they should. So one aspect to leverage that you can pull off better with SMBs is cross training or cross understanding if you will, where everyone wearing more hats and better understanding what each role does and how they represent part of the marketing of your brand. The more that you're outstanding specific roles better integrate with all the other roles that others have, the better the outcome for the customer. It doesn't mean sharing roles or duties. It means sharing understanding. And it's rare that big corporations ever get to truly enjoy that level of conversation and understanding across departments.

Kenneth Kinney 28:46

Got a question? Send me an email to Kenneth at a shark's perspective.com.

Kenneth Kinney 28:51

Thank you again for the privilege of your time and I'm so thankful to everyone who listens.

Kenneth Kinney 28:55

It's time to build something like what we're building and you can call this your home. So join us on the next episode of A Shark's Perspective.

(Music - shark theme)