brandon arvay + landscape of marketing right now

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

Podcast listeners hope everybody is safe and doing well. Really stoked to bring this episode to you all. The reason I'm so excited for this episode is I interviewed a longtime friend, Brandon Arvey. So Brandon and I, a little back story, a little peel behind the onion, if you will. Brandon and I met at the University of South Carolina on the drum line and he got 12,000 degrees in music and then now he is running his own digital media marketing company out of Lexington, Kentucky. And so this specific episode is centered around what his business can add value to right now to businesses, especially small businesses.

And we also talk about just the current state of marketing branding and really how businesses can can get up and running quickly during this time. So I really hope you enjoy this episode. Get some nuggets out of this podcast. And as always, please take time either right now or after the podcast to rate and review this in the App Store so others can find it. Also would love if you subscribe and listen consistently. If you need to reach me, shoot me an email, TaylorD as in David at bayco.com. If you want to follow me on Twitter at tdsntdesseyn, that would be awesome. Also, connect with me on LinkedIn.

I am putting out a ton of content in regards to finding a job right now on all those platforms. So I would love to be connected to you. Again, hope you all enjoy this podcast as much as I did a recording with Brandon. What's going on everybody? Thank you for tuning in to Guidance Council 2.0. This one is a special one for me because I am joined by my dear friend Brandon Arvey and Lexington, Kentucky. Brandon, thanks for hanging me in. I appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me on here. Absolutely. So for those of you who are listening, Brandon and I go way back.

We actually go back to band camp. So insert funny joke here. Brandon and I have never heard that joke before. No. So Brandon and I actually went to school, University of South Carolina together and a drum line together. Brandon taught me everything I know about drums back in the day. And he is now up in Lexington, Kentucky, and he has completely, I would say, 180 to your career trajectory. Yeah, you definitely agree. Yeah, so I guess, so give me a rundown, man. I mean, I guess give the listeners kind of your background, where you came from from a music perspective what caused you kind of the switch into what you do now?

Yeah, so Taylor, you and I, we met in what, oh, seven? Oh, seven, yep. Right, at South Carolina. So at that point, I think I was a junior at school. I was majoring in music education and percussion and performance. So I have three different degrees from three institutions, all in music. So yeah, went to South Carolina, then the Colorado State from masters in percussion performance. Colorado was really cool. Got to meet a lot of interesting people, totally different lifestyle than the South Carolina, you know, in the state kind of thing. And then left there, I was there for two years. And then I came to Lexington and got a doctorate in percussion performance from the University of Kentucky.

You know, as a musician, you're always marketing, you know, you're a solo prenour from the get. They still look for newer. Yeah. I bet. So it's like the moment that I left high school, I tried teaching private lessons and stuff to high school kids that were in school with me just the year before. And so you're always trying to market yourself, whether it's to get gigs, to go perform, to teach, compose, be in an orchestra, to be in a solo, or to be in a small ensemble, something of that nature. So yeah, it's always networking. It's always marketing yourself. It's always showing what you're doing, what projects you're working on, who it's with, and what venues you're doing that stuff in.

Of course, and it all comes down to having a North Star and what you're trying to make happen. The reason you get a doctorate in music is to teach at the college level. That's the only reason to really do that. And all that really means is I stood in the room for a long, long time practicing some instruments and memorized a lot of information and did well enough on tests anyway. But yeah, so like really the big reason to get a doctorate is to teach college. So I started that whole journey back in 2005 when I graduated high school and I started at South Carolina that fall.

And you know, 2008, the whole crisis happened. There's all sorts of things that have gone on throughout the world. You come on now, even 2008. So yeah, exactly, right? So like just all these things going on. I mean, even right now, like I'm doing this on my phone. You think you're on a desktop right now, maybe. You know, in 2007, the iPhone comes out and starts changing a lot of the stuff for music production and how music gets consumed through streaming. And anyway, so like the music world in it too, you know, whenever you spend so much time as a student, you're guarded from a lot of the real life situations of what like the landscape actually looks like as a pro.

You know, professors and teachers don't really do a great job of teaching you exactly what the real landscape looks like. I will say here at UK, I was given a pretty good look under the hood and given the keys to the car a little bit to just understand, you know, what it's like to teach. And then, yeah, so it's like I left being a student. I was teaching, I was an adjunct at a small liberal arts college here in Kentucky, Center College. I taught there for a few years. And one of the challenges there was like it's a liberal arts school, which has its own kind of curriculum that it's trying to push.

But then whenever you talk to the students, the students didn't want anything remotely close to that. And so what the professors and what the admin was trying to push and what the students actually wanted were two completely different things. And so of course, I always sympathize with the students because I'm thinking, man, you're paying $48,000 to come here each year. Now of course, a lot of them have big-time scholarships and it's not 48 grand in the pocket, but still in some sense, you're paying 48 grand a year. You should get what you want out of this. And so I sided with the students. I ask them every single day, even people that weren't my students directly and I just be like, hey, why aren't you in a program like what I do?

Okay, and what would get you back there? And I would listen to their answers and I would try to implement those things and sure enough I did, I grew the program to where I was essentially doing full-time work in adjunct pay, in no benefits or anything of course. I think I made six grand a semester teaching that stuff. And it was like 25 hours of students, 30 contact hours is full time at the university level. But I was teaching just five hours short of that. I had like 11 students and some of them were taking like double lessons and teaching percussion ensemble and some other stuff.

So anyway, I'm just trying to give as much context as possible in a short way to just let you see that like, people are out there busting butts in the adjunct kind of world and the adjunct thing is just massive. His son Minaj actually did a really great job recently on the Patriot Act on Netflix. If you happen to see that, just talk about what college landscape looks like right now. And that's a whole nother podcast. Cause like, yeah, Jackie and my wife and I've talked about like what does college look like in the next 20 years? And I mean, I don't think it's gonna be around, but that's just my two cents.

Oh, it's, yeah. I mean, I saw the writing on the wall long, long time ago, as a student where I'm just sitting in a room and I'm like, I don't understand why I feel this right now. Like, for example, I'd be in a classical music history class talking about classical music and Renaissance. And like everybody around me is nerding out on these books about these composers from, you know, 150 years ago to 250 years ago. And I wasn't feeling compelled to be nerdy about those same topics, you know what I mean? Like it was a drag for me. Like I would go to the bookstore and buy books because I was like, man, I'm supposed to like these.

I'd buy the book and I'd be excited because I'd now have it. I'd get home and start reading it. I'm like, I'm not passionate about this at all. So there was a little bit of that going on, which is like, you know, trying to figure out like, what am I supposed to do? What do I have to do? What can I like push to the side and not have to bother myself with? You know what I mean? So like discovering myself and my interests and also trying to figure out like what the actual landscape looks like. Again, like I was saying, I was teaching what felt like full time as an adjunct to the college.

I was teaching at a high school doing some stuff. I was teaching private lessons and I had a private studio. I was teaching youth orchestra program at night. I was composing and doing some writing and stuff like that. I was serving like the local Percussive Arts Society chapter. And I was, I still actually am on the education committee for the Percussive Arts Society, which is like the big international group that all percussionists around the world belong to, like people you hear on the radio and stuff. Anyway, I was doing all these things. I was teaching drum corps too. So I was like, I was checking all the boxes that as a student, you're like, man, I wish one day I could do that.

Like I was checking those boxes real fast, which was awesome. Which was also proving to me that it's like, I was doing stuff before I had the doctorate, that most people wait to have a doctorate to do. Like teaching college, like going out and publishing and writing and trying to do stuff. is mostly people think that you just have to fall online and do these certain things. And I've always been a pretty tenacious kind of person and going after it and trying to just make it happen. Not like blatantly in the face of tradition, but like just opportunities would come and people would ask me and I'd say, OK.

And at the time, I didn't necessarily know that that was the wrong way to do it by tradition's sake. And so I was figuring out there like, man, I don't like these certain things about music. Man, I'm seeing that college is expensive as crap, and students are being forced to do things they don't want to do. And the reason is, well, school has to make money to pay these people and like, here are the shortcuts they're trying to put in place. All these things. And then, yeah, it was like, man, this is just not fun. Like serving all these different places of lessons in high school and college and stuff and having no benefits and having to drive an hour to have to get to the next gig and spending all your money on gas in like Taco Bell because that's the budget, you know?

And it's like, at a certain point, you have to have a discussion with yourself, or at least I did, of like, okay, what are my actual values now that we're here? You know, like, when I was a kid, I really wanted to check the boxes while I'm checking. Now that we're here, like, let's have that talk with myself of like, am I actually happy with that though? And so like, no, it was a big answer, you know what I mean? which sucks whenever you spend that kind of time and money and commit yourself to three degrees and all that kind of stuff. Build your reputation in that space.

And then you're like, you know, that lifestyle just ain't me. You know? Because like, I got engaged and then we had a baby and got married and everything. And so then it was a discussion of like, OK, this isn't just a me thing, but now I've got to figure this out for a family. Like, do I want to move to the middle of Nebraska or the middle of somewhere I've never been able to move. because that's what it would have been. I mean, essentially, right? That's the game. Yeah, I mean, you base up the chase. It's kind of like playing college football on PlayStation back in the day.

You had to take over a really small college or soccer. Take over a really small club and you have to like, you know, game, you know, kind of move up the ranks. I mean, that's one thing I learned from you is, if you pursue that route, I mean, you have to go small to kind of go to a prestigious university teacher. Yeah. Yeah, usually that's kind of just how it works, you know, because you're talking about like going through committees and stuff, you know what I mean? It's not just like one person you convinced to hire you. So you got to play the game. So what do you do now?

So now I'm a full-time marketing person. Yeah, you are. Marketing person. Yeah, you are. You're a marketing person. On your resident. That is on your LinkedIn. Well, literally that's it. Brandon Arvey, marketing person. Marketing person. Yeah, so I do marketing here in Lexington. And not just for companies here in Lexington, I just happen to be outfitted here. I have my own agency that does some work with boutiques and retail. And then I also do some side work with that. Actually do work with you. Yeah, I'm about to give you a shout out. Maybe to, yeah, Brandon, for those of you listening, you've seen more videos kind of pop up on my feeds and kind of more social media strategy.

Brandon's really helped with that. So again, thank you for that. No, I'm super pumped that we get to do it. Yeah, absolutely. And then to finish that thought this real quick, I do have another company called Branded78. I'm one of three founders. We work with people all the way from healthcare to building and construction supplies and like cabinet or countertop installers and movers and the music products company out in California, somebody that's actually in an occupation kind of placed on Nashville. So we service a lot of different things. We do social media. we do email stuff, text message marketing. We'll go out, take photos, videos, do the editing, actually publish it to social form and all sorts of fun stuff.

That's awesome. So let's kind of dive into a little bit more tactical stuff. So essentially you and I were having this conversation kind of randomly, I think last week about businesses. Like what does it look like right now during COVID times where everybody's at home or everything's at high capacity. Like if there are people who are running small businesses right now who are like, I don't know how to get started. What do I do? You know, Brandon, you sound great on the eight minutes I've been listening to you. Like what would you say like, hey, listen, this is what you need to do. And what are your two cents on?

What does the really the marketing look like moving forward? So for personal brand or marketing a business? Both. Both. So I think for both, it's just open up your phone and start posting about what you're doing with no sort of consideration for production value. And that's hard for people. And that's hard for people. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Vanity plays a big role here. Permanence, you know, like you put it on your feed and it's like, oh my God, it's never gonna go away. And it's like, well, you can delete things, but anyway. Yeah, I think right now there's, you know, it's sad. We see a lot of friends and maybe family that are going through a hard time losing jobs or closing a business or getting furloughed or whatever that might be.

But also on the flip side of that is a lot of opportunity. You know, as sad as it is for people to leave business that kind of means that white space is opening up a little bit where those people have left, you know. And so if you're fortunate enough to survive what's going on right now, just being innovative in what you're doing there, taking advantage of this moment right now. So that's gonna last forever. Eventually we're gonna have vaccines, eventually we're gonna figure out how to just manage this stuff. Life might look totally different in a lot of different ways, but at least we're going to find some version of a new normal at some point.

You don't really know when that is, of course. But until then, I think there's a massive opportunity to make a name for yourself and to make a name for a business. And one of the biggest challenges right now is money. Consumers in a lot of ways they're out there buying, but sometimes they're not depending on what your vertical is. You're not really maybe interested in investing right now because volatility and other stuff, there's just a lot of stuff at play here. And so one of the things I think that's really important whether you're a personal brand or a business is really just finding collaborations. I was thinking about this this morning, like personal brand business, and we'll chalk it up to be the same thing.

It's all about associations and who you know. I mean, that's why networking is such a massive thing. You know what I mean? It's like we have two choices to build brand. We can either associate with people and brands that are similar to ours, as far as like context and size. What most people do whatever right or like if you're if you're building business startup today You have two choices, right? You can either like turn it out for the next 30 years and play that game or you can get VC funding and get like a Massive infusion today on the back of their money and off the back of their name because they're associated with the project, right?

And so it's kind of the same thing It's like you can either try to find a celebrity that you know or something that you can try to put you on the map because they're tweeting about you or posting with you or something, which of course, you know, one post from a famous person can really up your visibility and the things that you can do, you know what I mean? Or you could just go find the people that are around you. You know, now and virtually you can do that and just try to do that together and rise together, which takes a lot longer. So for those small businesses, and I think of my dad's restaurant, right?

I mean, I think of my buddy's restaurant here in Nashville, who's a chef. Obviously, you're talking about partnering with people outside my industry, or some people can be like, I barely know how to work Instagram. I'm not going to go hit a famous person. Yeah, right. Yeah. Let me ask you this, and I must say this, I want to hear your thoughts, and feel free to I think social media, I think social media, you know, our favorite Gary Vaynerchuk. He said social media is the current state of the internet, right? So when I say social media marketing, right, I'm talking about all platforms, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, live TV, you know, TikTok, right?

And so if you're a small business, in my mind, you need to double down during this time more than ever on all those platforms. I want to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, I think you got in, you know, part of it comes into just a time thing in a bandwidth problem. You know, at this point, we have, I don't know, seven to 10, depending on how you count these things up platforms. You know, I mean, Instagram, Malone is feed stories, IG, TV, and live. That's what I think about that. I didn't even think about that. Then you have LinkedIn feed, LinkedIn stories here for some people, LinkedIn, like all these things have stories feed live.

And, you know, obviously there are strategies like you can repurpose things and blah, blah, blah, blah. But at the same time, it's like if you don't have a lot of bandwidth and you don't have a lot of money, you got to find like the really underpriced attention on the first like one or two platforms where your audience really is. You know what I mean? And then if you can branch out after that, and you have some more bandwidth or you have a strategy that can afford it, then go elsewhere. You know what I mean? So if you're doing like the B2B kind of thing, like LinkedIn obviously is super strong right now with organic.

So yeah, it's like if you're doing B2B, I would definitely be there. If you're doing something else, TikTok might be, like it could be number one if it's direct to consumer. You know, and let's get a little practical too, right? So what I call hand-to-hand combat. So let's say you're in the restaurant industry, all right? So let's give some good ideas right now. And I've told this to my dad. So this isn't anything I haven't already said. So if other people copy it, sorry, dad. But for me, I'm linked in. Actually, there is a huge amount of individuals on LinkedIn who don't know how to cook.

I will tell you that, I don't know how to cook. And if I was a chef, I would post one video of you cooking, a simple recipe for lunch, right? What'd I have for lunch today? I had a turkey sandwich for lunch today. What if I saw a video on LinkedIn of three ingredients that you made and I could make that for lunch, right? That's gonna increase awareness on you. You know, go ahead. And then we'll spin it to that audience, right? Sure. And so you talk about like road lawyers and people that are always on the road don't have time. People that are usually like a hello fresh kind of person, right?

Like here's how you don't need hello fresh and you can make a similar kind of thing with fresh stuff at home and show the math a little bit. Like it's 10% cheaper. It really doesn't take any culinary skill. Yeah and honestly I would do the exact same thing on TikTok, right? I think TikTok's kind of like this kid thing and what's crazy about TikTok for those of you and I've read up on a little bit is is that there's this algorithm essentially that makes TikTok so dangerous, and dangerous in a good way rather, where you can post something. And while there is hashtags, and you can like and follow, it's actually, it pulls up on other people's feeds just based off the content they engage in.

So you don't have to spend any ad money to get on someone's phone screen in California, which is crazy to me. And so, you know, if you're a chef, you're gonna have a lot of chef friends. That's why I'm going this way is that I would be posting three, five, seven videos a day and it doesn't have to be crazy, right? It can just be tips, right? Like don't microwave plastic. Didn't know that would have loved to know that, right? And like, I mean, you have to break this stuff down, but I think people aren't willing to kind of break it down on a microscopic level.

And that's what you have to do right now. So interest to your thoughts on that. Yeah, I mean, it's always trying to reverse engineer, like how can I actually do something that's going to catch the attention and provide some sort of help to the person that I'm trying to get to, right? So if you're doing the LinkedIn thing and you're talking to CEOs or small business owners that are just either they have no bandwidth at all or if they're always on the road or they're always in the office or like whatever that is. If you could talk, first of all, think about their lifestyle. And if you don't know anything, like go ask, go find some people, talk to them.

You know what I mean? And just figure out like, what are these people like? Are they sedentary? Are they actually physical? Are these people actually more prone to work out because they have more money and they have a trainer? And you know, like you can't just assume that because they're in the office, they're not working out. So maybe they are more prone to working out. And if they are working out, are they paying attention to nutrition? If they're paying attention to nutrition, Maybe now you have to balance, okay, these people are actually a little bit informed about like this stuff that's in food. And maybe you get into a little bit of the nutrients and talk about macros and other stuff, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Through the lens of a business person. Sure. I think, and so the people who are still listening to us at this point, all three of them. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you. So you're like, all right, great guys. I don't cook that, you know, I sell, you know, I'm in, I'm in retail or any of that, right? Everything you said was great. Give, just give me two platforms I need to focus on right now. I have my answer and I think I've shared this with you. But if I were to tell you, if you come to me and say, hey, you know what, there's a lot out there.

One, it is and it's a full-time job. But two, hence why Brandon has a job. So go consult him because it is a full time job. But two, if you were to focus on two platforms, what would they be? Brandon, I'm interested in your thoughts because I don't know if I know that. I feel like this changes a little bit sometimes. Every day. Yeah, and there's no like reason for change other than like my internal discussions with myself. I almost think it's like TikTok and Twitter because I think one massive vulnerability social media stuff and marketers for that nature or for that matter. They don't really talk back.

Community management is such a poorly managed component of marketing. You know, brands are getting messages every day. If you're a retail business, people want to know like, well, what's the sizing on this? Or I've got this kind of bodies hype. Is this the thing? Or where some people are really environmentally conscious and they wanna know like, well, where's this actually sourced? Where's this cotton from? Or, you know, so people are asking questions all the time whether it's in DMs or if it's in comments or even if you get into the weeds and you follow shares, like you get on Facebook and it shows you like somebody shares your posts, go find that share, because there are comments on that thing that people wanna know about your business that you didn't get a notification about.

So you gotta put the work in. And talking back to the customers and being part of the community and just being a human being is all they want. They just want to know that you care. And one of those things providing value, knowing that you care, these things are like nebulous terms that nobody seems to really define. We hear it all the time in marketing, but we don't really know what that actually means. And I think for the most part, it's because the people spill in and out don't actually know what they, with how to do it. You know what I mean? There's stuff in the high level and can't get into the weeds.

And so, yeah, it's community management. The reason I talk about Twitter being one of those two platforms is that it's all Twitter is. I mean, Shopify is built, it's entire ecosystem of customer support. Shopify support is the handle. Is it real? I didn't know that. Yeah, almost every single day, I'm at Shopify support looking for help. They do some authentication kind of stuff where they say like, hey, we're going to send an email to the account, or the email account associated with your website. So there's like safety stuff built in. It's not just arbitrary, you know? But they get in a DM and they respond.

And you know, they do all their support that way. We see a lot of negative support too, or a lot of negative community stuff. You want to see that go look at spectrum, which used to be Time Warner. Cable companies are terrible. I mean, if you just search for a cable company, Comcast, Xfinity, whoever, you're gonna see a lot of negative stuff people complaining about services just being bad, you know? And if that was your brand, then people are out there just saying that stuff. You can either let it just sit there for people to have no context on and just take that at place value, or you can engage with it.

The other thing too is, I mean, things are happening real time on Twitter. I mean, everything going on right now in politics, everything that's going on with protest and other movements, it's all being played out on Twitter. That's where is happening. And so obviously, you don't, maybe you don't wanna engage with those particular things. But all that means is that that's where the world is actually hanging out and discussing real time as stuff is happening. And that's where your brand should be as well, for the community aspect. And then TikTok just real quick is like, TikTok organic reach is crazy. I mean, we don't have platforms out there really that are like this by default, it shows you the for you page, not the following page.

The following page you have to swipe to in the following pages, the people that you actually follow. So it actually puts the less emphasis it puts the less emphasis on followers. Yeah, which is crazy. Yeah, for me it's almost like, well, why follow people if you're just gonna serve it up? But obviously people you follow end up being served in your 4U page. But yeah, the 4U page, what I'm talking about for anybody that doesn't know, to what you said a moment ago, it's the algorithm is trying to figure out things that you like and trying to help amplify content that's going to be great because TikTok and any other platform out there, the algorithms are there for both parties.

TikTok is in the business of your attention. So the more that you're on there, than the more that they make off of advertising with everything else. But the only reason you're gonna stay there is because you're having a great experience with content you actually wanna see. So they're not sitting there guessing at content that you wanna see, you're proving it for your actions. And this is on all platforms for that matter. They're sitting there going, how long did you look at this post? If it's a video or whatever. How did you engage? Did you share? Did you like it? Did you follow that person? Did you look at the comments?

like they're looking at everything that you're doing. And so every action you perform or moments where you're not doing anything are actually actions. Inaction is an action. So you're teaching these platforms in TikTok. Yeah, to your point, you can have zero followers and you can have a million views. It just matters if it's good. It's a craziest thing. So my two cents, so up until this week, I would have said LinkedIn and Twitter. I still would say LinkedIn and Twitter, if the idea of doing the video scares you, I understand why TikTok may not be your cup of tea. But I also think I'm gonna say this, I think video is the most effective way during this time where everybody's at home to really showcase who you are and your personality.

I would say now that I was able to get on the community text app application that a lot of big names use. I put in my application four or five months ago and finally got on. Text messaging is really the next email. I mean, it's crazy. So, for those of you who are like, great Taylor, well, I'm not gonna put in an application, like how can I do text messaging now? Like send it from your number. I mean, literally like, first off, if you're worried about people text messaging you, I'm sorry, but if people want to hack you or email you bad things or text you bad things, it would have already happened, whether you gave your number out or not, right?

But like honestly, if I was a restaurant, I would have a text messaging app. Like I would personally love to hear from my favorite chef once a week. I would love to hear from my favorite restaurant any specials they're putting out. I would love to get interviews about the servers, right? If one server did a interview and sent a video to me and I went and have a video through text message, I'd be like, I wanna go in and have dinner with Susan tonight. And like, but it builds like, I don't know about you, but I read every text message still. Well, text messages are the 95% open rate It's not 15 minutes of receipt.

Yeah, we don't have anything else that's like that. I mean, email marketing right now is 12% on average with like a 2% click. Say that again. Say that again. Emails right now are like 12% And what's text message? The 12%, 95. Yep. So obviously with text messaging, most platforms are set up to be like, they charge you a penny protects, something about nature, something like that. So you don't want to go all willy-nilly. Sure. Yeah. The community app, of course. Oh, no, no, no. So like the community app is great because they just do, you know, 99 a month and it's unlimited for an unlimited number of people.

And, you know, most things are set up right now, whether it's SMS or MMS, where it's like charge per email or per text. And then on top of that, oh, you want to put a video or a photo, you know, it's three cents or like, you know, or whatever that breaks down to be. So a little bit of cost consciousness has to come in, I think. But like that, I would definitely use that to retarget my people. The same people you're like retargeting with Facebook ads and some sort of retargeting campaign there or retargeting. or abandoned cart kind of thing on email is exactly who I would plug into a text message app right now.

For sure. So you brought up something good. And again, I want to hear your thoughts on this. You know, you bring up ad spend, right? I mean, you and I both are very familiar with ad spend and people are like, well, I don't have any money to spend, guys. It's COVID right now. I'm broke. My business is gonna shut down. That's fine. You don't need to spend money on ads, but what do you need to do? And you kind of covered on that brain and with engaging, but I'm kind of, do you have any more thoughts? I have a little bit more thoughts on that, but I want to give it to you first on what else people should do right now during this time.

So I think we're seeing a lot of people trying to get scrappy. One thing that I think is real positive. Obviously, I'm not trying to make light of anything that's been going on in the last two, three months between COVID-19 and protests and all sorts of other heavy, heavy stuff. But if there is any positive stuff in a business world, it would be that we're getting down to what's actually needed and necessary. The fluff is kind of gone. We've had a real soft time for a long time. And now it's about survival. And so instead of like not paying attention to P&Ls, instead of just kind of throwing some money away and just feeling your way through life, Now people are getting dead serious.

And not only are they dead serious with that stuff, they're also experimenting and trying stuff that make them uncomfortable. And I think that that's the right thing. So for people that have been uncomfortable with social media, I think they're trying in a lot of ways. People that have been, there's one guy here in town that has a really high-end restaurant that has been like no curbside, no discounts, none of that stuff. Guess what he does now? all of it, because you either do it or you die, like when you want, you know? So the fluff is kind of gone, and I think we're getting really tactical and practical, which is great.

And what was your question? No, no, you're good. No, so I mean, like- What? No, you're fine. I mean, I think you answered it. It's because there aren't, because there aren't, there isn't money right now, And because we tell you ad spend and you're like, Hey, listen, I don't want to spend money on ads. I mean, you said it best, right? Like you have to pivot. You have to innovate. You have to provide services. You know, for me, I would say, and I've gotten really bullish and I give props to brain and for this because he and I've had so many conversations in the last three weeks, four weeks of working together where.

And this sounds crazy to say because for me, like this wasn't, I'm going to be honest with you. This social media stuff and this video content was not even on my radar in March. And what I'm about to say is crazy to me that it's changing three months. This is the only way to market and do business moving forward. Yeah. I mean, you know, and it's crazy for me, right? So, you know, for those of you who do know me, I'm in the staffing industry. The way we do business is one-to-one handshake, nice to meet you, let me help you 15, 30 minutes every day.

I have had these conversations, I think Brandon with you, but also my wife and my friends. I don't know, and I say this, this is a little extreme, this little Gary V. Extremism here. I say, I don't know if I'm ever gonna have a lunch again with somebody because the ROI on one person for two hours is not as good as me spending two hours putting out thoughtful content on all platforms. Now, that being said, I'm not overlooking the importance of shaking hands of breaking bread with people. That, so again, that was a little extreme and I understand that and I'm interested to hear your thoughts, but I really truly think no matter what industry you're in, if you are not spending all of your waking moment trying to build your community and network within social media platforms, every day you're falling behind.

Yeah, and again, with no money, and innovation kind of being the only way forward, I think collaborations are one of the big ways. Again, we talked about what I said earlier, was associations are massive in who we know. We all know this, we go to networking events and everything else to meet people. And so trying to find interesting ways to collaborate with businesses that are within your industry or maybe not even within it. And just- Give me one example. Give me one example. Let's just stay in a restaurant. Okay, so for a restaurant, I don't know, maybe if you're in a really cheap and posh looking place and this is beautiful that you walk into and people are like, man, this is like an Instagram where they want restaurant right now.

Somebody decorated that and whoever decorated that could actually be doing interior design content You know what I mean on your restaurant I love that as top of the funnel to what you're doing and people would be like well Why wouldn't I just post the pictures of food? It's like There are those people that will log in and only want to see pictures of food But in between meal times You know like what else can you do to help people stay within? what you're doing. For example, one of our clients is a moving company. You're not moving every single day. So like, why in the world would you pay attention to a moving company?

Well, for the same kind of thing, maybe it's real estate agents that we partner with and collaborate with. Maybe it's interior designers and on a quarterly basis, you do a collaboration when they come in at the change of the seasons to help you understand, you know, for a 12-day stint on your Instagram or or your TikTok or something, they make content on what to do whenever you are setting up your house. And they do it through the lens of a new house because it's associated to your moving company. And maybe you do something with a real estate agent. And the real estate agent is partly helping people need your moving company, but they're also kind of the mayor in town that just happens to know everybody because that's their business is people.

So getting the real estate agent to maybe come on and make some content, you know what I mean? So just finding these things that are not new, they aren't your business, but they are in the ecosystem of people that needs things like you. Well, and, you know, kind of going into the software space, because that's where I focus on, I always talk about free work, right? And that is a very divisive thing. If you get on tech Twitter, and you post anything about free work with internships is a very divisive subject, right? Most people go, no, never. I'm on the sense of you should, especially if you have, if you have no work right now, what's the difference of taking on work for free to get more exposure?

I'm not saying leave your day job to take on free work. I'm saying if you have nothing in the hopper right now, take on some work to get exposure. My side hustle with this podcast, Unicorn Finders, like I sent out a text, Hey, listen, I need a few free unpaid interns for some graphic design work and some video editing. I had a few people hit me up and they've done a great job. And it's like now I'm tagging them whenever I post with our following right now. And so, for me, I'm kind of like, listen, like if you're a restaurant, I would go to the closest like boutique wine store.

And I would say, hey, listen, any of your customers come shop here, give them a 10% discount to my restaurant. Yeah, just tell them to bring the receipt over. Yeah, just bring the receipt. Doesn't matter what you bought. Yeah, just bring the receipt. Yeah. I mean, that biz dev thing is a massive deal, you know? It's like, if you're a restaurant, why not? Why aren't you taking some appetizers? Something that's really easy has a long shelf life. It's somewhat of a room temperature over to the, over to the like stylus that's next door or something like that. You know what I mean? So you can always just look around who's in your neighborhood and figure out what can we do together?

How can we partner together and get my customers to see them, their customers see me? This is what we were talking about earlier about finding people that are similar to you in your neighborhood and you both just sort of rise together. And it doesn't have to be just the people on the same strip mall that your business is located because now we're in this virtual environment. If it's something that can actually be done in a virtual way, then do it. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Maybe there could even be like some really radical thing for restaurants where it's like, if you do catering, maybe you are partnering with somebody in California or Illinois because, I mean, for example, you're a Nashville.

Nashville is a destination for a lot of people. It's a beautiful part of the country, between country music and all the other cultural things that are there, a lot of people like to go there. So it doesn't just have to be people in your zip code that you partner with to do catering, but it's like somebody in Chicago or in California or somewhere else maybe has some clients that fly to Tennessee to do certain things, to handle business. That's interesting. You know what I mean? like this referral service kind of thing can happen. You just kind of find that right network to kind of tap into and be the preferred vendor for something like that.

I like that. So as we wrap up here, and again, Brandon, thanks for joining me. I really appreciate it. It's pretty cool to go from bandcamp to this. So for small businesses that are still listening, small business owners, What, and I want you to sell kind of what you do, right? So we're gonna finish this off by giving you a little shameless self-plug. Why should small businesses in Kentucky, or why should small businesses across the country? Because again, we're all virtual now. Why should they use you? And I have my thought that I'm gonna say, but I want you to kind of give your own shameless self-plug right now.

Well, I think we're in this spot, Like we've said throughout this episode together, business owners are in the position right now of wearing many, many hats. And in a lot of ways, people are trying to come inward and they're trying to protect the business and they're trying to hoard cash or whatever it might be. And just for the existential like, well, I don't know what the future is gonna be. And in a lot of ways, I think, you know, Investing is maybe like the biggest thing you could do right now. In expertise in certain areas, I think, are massive importance right now, especially for your example of a restaurant.

I mean, everybody's pivoting and trying to do curbside pickup while you're in Tennessee. So you guys have been open for a little bit and like dine in service. But everybody's vying for the same customers right now and saying the same things. Hey, we have curbside. It's like, well, yeah, everybody does right now. So like those things don't really stand out. So I think now tripling down the brand and a reason to go with you is a massive deal and getting your story out there in the context for why you is super important. And there are professionals like me and others and my company branded 78, but that's what we do.

We help to tell your story and amplify it in the right places at the right time to get your message out there to the people that need you. And because we're a third party, we're not emotionally invested like you and your business. We're able to be much more objective and offer new ideas that maybe you didn't think about or maybe we can help just defend and you've been thinking about but haven't pulled the trigger on it and we can be the thing to really help you do that. I think that's maybe my big pitch right there. especially because we have the bandwidth too. Like I was saying, business owners have a lot of hats to wear right now and don't really have bandwidth all the time, which in some respects is great because you can just open up the camera and post and talk about what's literally happening today.

Hey, I'm here at the shop right now. It's 8.30 in the morning. You guys see over there, it's still closed, whatever. Hey, we're making our specialty dressing today. And here's Thomas, our chef. He's doing it. And here's the basil. And here's this. And then hey, our first customers are here today, you know what I mean? And here, we're locking, like literally documenting what's happening in the restaurant, just as opening up the camera. However, that does take work too, you know what I mean? And so that's all inbound stuff anyway, especially whenever you need outbound kind of stuff. I think that's something that we can really specialize in and help you get your message in front of people that don't get the who you are.

I love that. I love that. I also tell individuals this to, you know, from a price perspective, you know, one of the reasons why I went with Brandon and he and I talked about this. And so this isn't something that's foreign to him. I mean, I think you undercut a lot of agencies out there. I mean, I think that's your, I think that's your go to, right? And the services are great. I mean, obviously you and I are dear friends and that's why you are helping me, which I appreciate. And also, you know, I think you and I think very similarly, but I think from a business perspective, I mean, if you're like, how weird is start, I don't know where to start, just hit a brand in.

I mean, I think from a cost perspective, everybody's penny pinching right now. And I think Brandon will work with you because they're so small and they're so boutiquey. I don't know, that's not a word, but they'll be willing to work with you. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, I wasn't going down that route. But yeah, absolutely. There are other agencies here in Lexington that charge four eggs, four, yeah, three to four times the amount four less than we provide. You know, we're doing one post a week, one video, sorry, one post a day, one video a week. So you get 30 posts and four of those are videos.

And you know, those video posts, we haven't really put a max time on those, to be honest with you. Yeah, and since one of those things where it's like there's nobody in town that's doing that. People are coming out, I'm guaranteeing somebody Nashville is charging 1500 to 3 grand a month to give you one post a week, no videos at all. And that's it. And they're not doing community service or community management where they're like intercepting messages or anything. We're not really doing that right now, we can. You know what I mean? Sure. But my point is like there are a lot of marketers out in the world that are trying to make their nut off of you, off of like one to two people and we don't want to do that.

Like we're actually priced for small business. Yeah, so we're definitely here to provide value and help. We usually do way more than we initially sign up for, you know what I mean? Yeah, I will. I'll say that to you. Brain has done way more for me than I think you originally signed up for. So, well man, thanks again for hanging out with me. I really, really appreciate it. And obviously, I'm sure we will talk soon. Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me on. All right, buddy.