314. Interview with Avery Sly, Co-Founder of Agency 8: This Is How You Put Yourself Out There to Grow Your Business

Susan Sly 00:00
Well, hey everyone, on today's show, you are going to learn some genius marketing tips. So whether you are thinking of starting your business, or you have a new business or you've got an existing business or you're a tech startup, there is something for you. My guest today is, well, I'm biased, of course, but she literally has an insight into marketing that is so multifaceted from utilizing AI to contemplating how founders really can be the face of their business even when they don't want to. So you're gonna learn some incredible tips today, you're gonna learn some marketing strategy. And I promise you, you're gonna have at least three things you can take away and get actionable on. So with that, let's get started with this episode of Raw and Real Entrepreneurship.

Susan Sly 00:54
This is Raw and Real Entrepreneurship, the show that brings the no nonsense truth of what is required to start, grow and scale your business. I am your host, Susan Sly.

Susan Sly 01:09
Well, what is up Raw and Real entrepreneurs wherever you are in the world, I hope you're having an amazing day. And firstly, thank you. The show is growing and growing and growing globally, our listening audience is up, I think, just from month to month over 30%. So thank you for sharing the show. If you do share the show on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on Facebook on X, as it's now called, please tag me, I would love that. And anything we talk about is available in the show notes on Susansly.com. And we're going to talk today about marketing your business because here's the thing, you fall into one of three buckets. One, you have some great marketing, in which case we're going to have a conversation today where we're going to talk about AI in your marketing, maybe enhancing it. Number two, you are hot and cold in marketing. Sometimes your marketing is working, sometimes it isn't or number three is you don't really have marketing. Either way, uur recurring guest and resident Raw and Real Entrepreneurship marketing expert is here and she's got some tips for you today. So with over 100 million views on her Instagram reels and over 400,000 followers on Tiktok, she knows her stuff. And when it comes to the social media world, she is someone who is becoming more and more in demand by business owners to help them navigate their social media deployment in terms of how they should create content that represents their brand. And candidly creating content that might be surprising because it's not traditional, but it's definitely effective. She graduated magna cum laude from the WP Carey School of Business at ASU. And since then she's worked as a marketing manager and director of brand development at Agency8, where she is also a co founder. And in her role, she works alongside clients to help them turn their marketing goals into reality. And on top of everything, in her other spare time, she graduated from MIT with a certificate in Artificial Intelligence and implications for business strategy. And she is also my daughter, the one and only Avery Sly. So Avery, welcome back to Raw and Real Entrepreneurship.

Avery Sly 03:23
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

Susan Sly 03:26
So Avery let's jump in, I'm going to, there's a lot of discussion about AI and the listeners know, I'm an AI, co CEO and a co founder and I speak on AI, you and I talk about AI all the time. And one of the ,one of the questions out there is, is AI going to replace people like social media marketing managers, or is it going to replace influencers? So what's your take on that?

Avery Sly 03:54
That's a wonderful question. And I think that there is so much buzz around AI and every single day we're seeing new innovations in the space. And basically every industry I think has been impacted by AI so far. Now in doing my research and doing my certificate at MIT, one of the things we looked at was how replaceable your job is by AI and it can be very overwhelming. But fortunately for marketing managers, the percentage was actually pretty low. So when it comes to social media management, I do believe there are elements that can be enhanced by AI. But I think that that human touch, that human aspect to it is really where we're going to add value. Myself, I'm a social media manager, and recently I've had an influx of people looking for my services specifically. They want me to manage their social media. Whereas I think in this AI driven world, if social media management was something that could be easily done by AI at this point in time, more people would be turning to that because you know, obviously AI is able to create things that are cost effective, efficient and data driven. When it comes to influence or work, now, it's actually very interesting because I saw an article in the Daily Mail, it's my guilty pleasure. And there's an influencer on Instagram and she is 100% AI generated and not shy about it. And she looks real. And all of her content is her in these beautiful places. And it really takes a trained eye to see, you know, oh, in this picture, she has an extra finger or you know, something is slightly off. Otherwise, she looks like a real person. So, when it comes to AI, I think there's an opportunity for the, or a new kind of horizon for AI influencers. However, I think that in this current marketplace, and it's hard to say, because, again, AI is innovating every day. So today, I might say, oh, yeah, social media managers and influencers are not going to be taken over by AI. And then, you know, a week from now, it's like a huge revelation happens. That being said, I think that with influencers, specifically, there's so much value in user generated content, that that is not something that can be easily taken over by AI. You can have aI edit your videos, you can have them add captions, you can have AI help you skim influencers to see which ones would be most impactful for your brand. There's definitely a role that AI can play in these things. But personally, I believe that social media influencers still have a role in this current marketplace.

Susan Sly 06:28
That's a, that's a great perspective on it, because I was, and I love that you said that. So I was backstage at an event. And I was having this conversation with a bunch of people who are in my gen X demographic. And I was saying, you know, we won't, in two to three years, have influencers as we know them today. Because the you know, there was a study that was done looking at human faces, true faces versus AI generated faces, and almost 80% of the time, people prefer the AI generated face. And so when you look at companies like large companies, and they say, Well, I could pay the influencer, I could deal with that, and then I could have someone checkup and see are they actually posting and what was the ROI on that, versus they create the AI and the AI has that engagement. So I, you and I are aligned as we often are, that that is going to be something that is not, that influencer marketing, as it exists now is not going to be there. And it still comes down to the prompts, right? Like even with GPT or GPT 4 which I talk about a lot, how I prompt it is so important. And here's a funny story Avery. So just for fun. I, you know, manners are very important, obviously. And so I'll say please, when I do the GPT for a query, and the way it responds to me is very polite. You're welcome. Thank you.

Avery Sly 07:57
Funny you say that because I do the exact same thing I'm always so polite to I'm like, may you please enter the or create this, this thread for me, or may you please write this Instagram caption, I'm always very friendly to it.

Susan Sly 08:11
Well, and that, like, the, it's a tool, right. And in its current form, AI is a tool. And the businesses that are using it, there was a McKinsey study done, they're showing their, you know, significantly more productive, they're more profitable, you have some businesses sitting on the sideline, getting ready to dip their toe in the AI water. And then there are some that are like, no, I'll be you know, I'm not even gonna be a fast follower, I'm gonna be like a delayed follower. I know with one of your clients that you are working with customers, essentially, who have a significant amount of data that is being generated. And you're helping them sort of sift through the data to find what's meaning for them, you know, talk about that as much as you're, you're able to, I guess, in terms of the value of the data that's being created and why businesses might want to consider using AI to generate more data.

Avery Sly 09:16
Sure. And that is where AI really does play a role is generating the data where I think humans still have a role, obviously, in addition to training the algorithms and all that is really pulling that data and then telling a story with it. It's one thing to say, okay, you know, this car was parked outside your store for 30 minutes. That's one thing, but then it's another thing to ask why that's not. The AI is not asking why it's just presenting you with a number. And I think that's where, you know, I'm able to add value because we're, we're giving these presentations to companies with an overwhelming amount of data. And it's one thing to Just tell them the data. It's another thing to say, here's what you can do with it. Here's how you can take actions on this data. Here's the story that this data is telling. And I think that really those AI human partnerships are where businesses are going to have the best impact. It's not saying, Okay, we need to just replace all of our people with AI, because then you're gonna have pitfalls there. And it's not saying, Okay, we only have people, we don't need any AI. That's, I think, two extremes where meeting in the middle and having a collaborative partnership between artificial intelligence and human intelligence is going to give you the best result at the end of the day in business, in marketing. And it's really just using humans to enhance AI and using AI to enhance humans as well.

Susan Sly 10:47
Yeah, and that's, that's so powerful, because it's that piece of, AI is the first piece of technology that is there to truly, truly enhance us, you know, when you think about when the automobile was created, that was created to move humans from one place to another, which was convenient for us. And the same thing with airplanes, it was convenient, the internet is convenient, AI can absolutely enhance us. And that is something to really contemplate. I know that it, I have to estimate that AI saves me, I would say currently, I'm not even using it to its fullest capacity, at least four hours a week, which is great. And it also, tasks that would normally take me longer, it's able to do in a shorter period of time for me, so I'm able to, my productivity output, you know, is which equates to money, is a lot higher because of it. So which is which is huge. So let's step back a bit. And I think talking about AI is fun and I know the show goes, right now we're, you know, in I don't know, over 140 countries all over the world. And the concept of being an entrepreneur or what a startup is, is not just specific to technology, because you work with a variety of startups. And so when you're thinking about could you firstly define how you define a startup? And then the second thing is when you're working with a startup, What are those initial first steps they need to take in terms of beginning to build their marketing for their business?

Avery Sly 12:28
100%, Yes, I think when many people think of a startup, they think of this, you know, clean, white, modern, Googly looking office in Silicon Valley. And to me, my definition of startup I think is a little bit more broad. You can be a startup and be founding a business in your backyard, you can be a startup and you know, launching your small business on Tiktok. To me, startup is anyone that's in that initial phase of launching their business with the intent of taking it to the next level, promoting it, helping people, they have a product or service. And now they want to implement that product and service and take it to the bigger marketplace. For example, one of my clients, they own a beautiful property. And they're starting to, it's actually a well known wedding property. But now they want to transition it to also be events and private retreats, and you know, corporate stuff as well. So I would say that they're almost in that startup phase too, because they are established, and they're known for weddings, but now they're expanding their offerings. So I think that startup has a more broad definition than we tend to give it. I know, a lot of your listeners are small business owners, business owners, startup founders, but I would say that everyone is a founderm if you have a business, you know, it's a, it all comes with its challenges. And startups are amazing. I would say to answer the second part of your question, in terms of marketing, as you mentioned, in the beginning, there are people that are listening to the show, right now we're gonna fall into one of three buckets, either, you know, you're unsure about marketing, and you haven't really dipped your toe in the waters yet, or you know, you're in between, you're trying some things but nothing's really working, or three is you've established yourself and maybe now you're looking for some ways to expand. I think that the biggest thing that startups need to do that sometimes gets overlooked, especially in those early stages, is really identify and understand your target audience. I feel like a broken record because I do say this a lot. But you need to know who you're selling to. And you need to know them on a deep level. You need to know their pain points. You need to know what it's, there's that famous quote where it's, you know, don't sell the product you have, sell the problem you solve. So what problem are you solving for your target audience, how is your product going to make their lives better? For example, at Agency8, we use a tool called Jasper AI, and their whole marketing and they're a startup and they're very successful, they recently had a pretty big valuation, their whole marketing is centered around how they can help you optimize your time by creating excellent copy. And I think they've really positioned themselves well in that market. So that's something you really need to consider is who you're helping, why you're helping them. And then really make that person, the core of your business, come up with a buyer persona, and literally put it on the wall. I know some of the biggest companies out there, they have that in their head office as a guiding force. And I think that that's something that sometimes gets overlooked, but is really at the core of your business. If you focus just on profits, you're going to forget your people. And your people are what makes everything work at the end of the day.

Susan Sly 15:57
Absolutely. I love that. And that buyer persona, si I've been in companies where they they physically have the name, like you said, and it's up on the wall. And if someone's just starting their business, and they're in their home, create the buyer persona, put it you know, really take that time to do it. I think it's so funny, you know, we'll think about, we'll make a list in terms of like, who our ideal partner is, or, you know, when someone's dating, let's say they're online dating, it's like, oh, you know, I'm like, this is the ideal kind of person that I want to attract, and there are so descriptive, but then they go into business, they don't think about it like that. And Frank Kern said, if you try and sell to everyone, you sell to no one. And so from that perspective, knowing who it is, because there, it's Raw and Real Entrepreneurship, there are going to be times when you are frustrated, there are going to be wall kicking moments, there gonna be times when you feel like quitting. And at the end of the day, if you're not excited about serving that person, then that's a problem. And you know, you can always change who it is over time, but knowing in that clarity. So we're in a very interesting economy right now, Avery. So we've got, you know, the interest rates, inflation, depending on when someone's listening to this. We've got student loan repayments about to hit again, in the United States, we've got you know, there's so many things in Canada, depending on your tax rate, it just went up again, it's over, I think it's going to 54%. I know I'm probably, someone's gonna write in and give me the precise percentage, it depends on your household income. But either way, it's a very strange time because consumers are still spending. So not every entrepreneur is cash poor. You know, we think about, to your point these college kids starting a business around their coffee table, it's the next big tech company. But there are companies also, the former CEO of Cisco came out, he raised close to $175 million to create, as you know, to create his company. So there's still money being spent, there's still startups with money. So I want to start with this question. If you're a startup, and you have a budget for marketing, what are the fundamental things you need? And why would you, instead of trying to do everything yourself, Why do you bring in someone to help you? Or do you? What's your take on that? I mean, obviously, you're like, Yeah, bring in someone to help you. But we've also seen things done really, really poorly. You and I, as a sidebar, Avery and I googled the top 10 startups in a particular area, and we looked at their websites, and there were broken links. There were videos that didn't play. And, yeah, anyway,

Avery Sly 18:48
I love this question. I think there are so many things that startups can do with a marketing budget. But I think at the core of all of it is, to answer your first question about whether or not to outsource. If you are going to outsource you need to work with an agency or an individual that is going to take the time to intimately understand your business, understand your core values, and understand those people that we just talked about in the previous question. Who are you helping and they need to understand that on an intimate level. Where I see kind of shortfalls happen is when people work with, you know, agencies or individuals where they just kind of plug and play and they do the exact same thing for every client. Now that's really great if that agency is super niche down and you know, they figured out a formula for that specific niche. However, if you are diversified in who you're helping, like we are, we take a, we make it a point where honestly we have you know, at least three calls or meetings in person with our clients, to get to know them and to understand their business because especially with social media, and again playing on that AI element, the thing that makes the humans different is we can really Speak in your tone of voice. So when it comes to marketing, you need to have someone that is going to represent your company well in every facet. I someone finds out you're working with certain agency, and they go to that agency's website, they should recognize the professionalism of it, it should be a good brand fit. So that would be really at the core of everything. If you're going to spend money to outsource, make sure that person or that agency you're working with is a cultural fit, and that they're taking the time to get to know you and your customers, so they can represent you. Next up, I would have to agree with the website. I think that websites are often overlooked. Just as a funny aside, if anyone out there has ever gone to buy a cat or a dog from a breeder, I have a running joke with one of my friends that the worse the website is, the better quality of the pet. And that is so true, I got both of my pets from one of them has a site and you know, it's got 10 pages and five of them work. It's very interesting, and it doesn't look like they've updated it since like 2006.

Susan Sly 21:07
But to your point, people only care about the photos of the puppies and kittens. Right. Like, and that, you know, as a total aside, where we got our cat, the website doesn't exist anymore, I think it was like a, it was almost like you know how they have pop up stores, I think it was like a pop up catery.

Avery Sly 21:25
So funny. But you know, to that point, websites are something that a lot of people overlook. And if you're not in the business of puppies and kittens, even if you are, there's really no excuse, you can update your website, because I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna purchase an animal from you if you only have a Facebook page. To me, that's a little bit suspicious. So I think having a website and having a functional website, go in, use your website yourself, use your website, when you have a poor Wi Fi connection, check it out on mobile, click on links, like you know, we don't want to find broken links. And you know, especially your customers do not want to find broken links. Call the phone number you have on your website, make sure your logo describes who you are, these are all very important things at the core, because people are going to go and they are going to check out your website after they meet you at a conference or after they find you on LinkedIn. To that second point, I think that social media, if you do not have the time for it yourself, outsourcing social media is great. And also, if you are in the bucket, where you maybe don't have a huge bucket, or sorry, don't have a huge budget. Social media is a great option as well. For startups specifically, unless you really are like a small business selling products, I would kind of stay away from Instagram and Tiktok to get started. I think that for startups that are maybe selling services and stuff like that, or they're really tied to their founder in terms of their brand reputation, LinkedIn is really the place to go. There are, 91% of executives use LinkedIn. And so it's really a great place to be, especially if you're in the b2b market, really, it's B2C that benefits, in my opinion from Instagram, and Tiktok and those platforms. Another thing I would, I think that is worth the budget, because I've seen massive success, we had a client come to us. And we actually did a whole website rebrand for them, completely took their old website that I don't even know when it was made. And we completely redid it. And then we also coupled it with search engine optimization and search engine marketing. And they have seen a massive increase in how many inquiries they're getting through their website. So if you're going to build a website, make sure that you're also going to put in a little bit of money to enhance the search engine optimization, that means those keywords, backlinks, all kinds of that stuff. The SEO world is one where I would really outsource because there is AI that is on the rise, they can do it for you for less. But I do think, I do believe in hiring people more than hiring AI at this present time. And I think that people can really do SEO a little bit better than where the AI is at because it's kind of in its early stages. And SEO is going to help you increase those Google search rankings. So when people look up your website, or maybe someone forgets your website, so they look up your company name or your name after they meet you. Having those higher search rankings is going to lead to better conversions. And then of course, when they land on this beautiful website, then they're like, oh, yeah, I want to inquire, I want to learn more about what they're doing. So we've had massive success with a recent client who went through that entire process literally went from the ground up. They had no SEO, no search engine marketing, and now they've seen a massive increase as a result because they've invested in. So I would say those are my three key things that startups can benefit from in the way of marketing

Susan Sly 25:00
Yeah, I think that's fantastic. And it's, one of the things we talk about a lot on the show is raising money, like a Series A, a seed round, the VC, whatever. And when you are going through that process as a tech startup, they want to know what your marketing budget is, and they don't want that number to be low. And if you are a, especially like in a, just a beginning startup, you do have to allocate budget for it. And it's been my experience that investors want to see that you have a professional marketing plan. There are a lot of amazing products out there that never get sold, there are a lot of amazing founders out there that no one even knows their name, because they couldn't market themselves. And this is my my last question. So there's a whole piece around the face of the founder. And it's really, it's fascinating to me, because I've received several people who've, you know, said I wish my founder would do videos for LinkedIn, I wish my founder would do videos on Instagram, and I'll, it's Raw and Real entrepreneurship. I mean, at the day of this recording, I had a massive surgery last week, I'm tired. I don't, I went to her for my post op, Avery, yesterday, I said to my surgeon, I'm like, I'm so tired. It's like it's normal, it's gonna come in waves. And I'm a very energetic person. And I'm still swollen. And I'm like, the last thing I want to do is create content for Instagram, is the very last thing I want to do. And so what I did is I had an idea in my head, and I'm like, I've got to create content, I've got to create content. So I have the idea, just the concept. And I went into GPT 4 and I said write a script for an Instagram video, that's 50 seconds with this concept, in the words of me. And it did. And then I sat there and I put my phone on a tripod. I shot the video, and I did it. And so let me ask you this question like, do you think it's important for founders to have a face for their company? And what do you say to them as a part B, what if they just don't feel like doing it?

Avery Sly 27:16
Sure, I really think that founders should absolutely have a presence. And I think, also to build on that, you were extremely humble. I just want to take a moment to edify you, because you are someone who creates such amazing content on LinkedIn. And even though I've seen your calendar, I don't even know how you have time for these interviews. And you take the time to go and not just create video content, but you are creating content that is educational and informative. You're not just informing about your startup, you're informing about the marketplace or trends. And I think that that is really important because it's setting yourself apart from everyone else. And I know without saying too much or revealing too much, I know you've had lots of people reach out to you for various opportunities because of what they've seen on your LinkedIn. So yes, 100%, especially if you are just starting out, having a charismatic founder like, people are going to buy from you if they know, like, and trust you. And one of the best ways to do that in our digital marketplace, aside from you know, obviously meeting people in person is to create video content. Video content gets more engagement on every single platform, especially LinkedIn, for example, like you get five times more engagement on a LinkedIn video. I was able to, with one simple video on Instagram reels, I got over 92 million views. So people are consuming video content. And if you're putting yourself out there and putting yourself in front of the camera, a fun fact, actually is that over 70% of b2b marketers saw a return on investment in their video marketing. So really, why aren't you doing it? It's where you're gonna get an ROI. Now the caveat, you may say, Avery, and I get this a lot. You may say, Avery, I don't like being on camera. I'm not good at it. I don't, I've just, I don't know, the camera comes to my face and I don't know what to do. Well, I have two solutions for you. Number one, is get over it. You know, my mom and I we both have this thing where we wear our pointy shoes. And do you think that overnight, her and I just figured out how to be amazing in front of an iPhone? Absolutely not. We've had moments where we've been filming each other and we've stumbled over our words. We've giggled, we made jokes. We've had dogs up here in the background, things are gonna happen. It's not always going to be perfect, but the beauty of having an iPhone or a phone is that you can film in your camera roll. It's not like you have to go direct and go straight to live streaming your videos. You can film in your camera roll and mess up as many times as you want. Practice is a huge element of this. You are going to get better with time. And honestly stop having limiting beliefs about it. Because do you want that ROI? Do you want people to buy your products and services? Okay, then get in front of the camera, it's not that hard. The second thing is, okay, for example, in the past, I had a client, and he was very charismatic, however, he had a speech impediment. So in that case, when, you know, the news came to us, and they said, Hey, we want to, we want to give you a story. This was during the pandemic, and we were doing some things for the community as a way to give back. What they did was they hired me, they asked me to do it, and you can have a brand representative. If you can't do it as the CEO, I understand that you have many hats, then 100%, having someone, again, that intimately knows your company, your values, and your target audience, representing you is always an option as well. I've represented many brands in many different spaces, from restaurants to car dealerships. And that's okay to have a representative. But it's valuable to have that be someone again, that knows your brand voice and is going to represent you well. Going back to the videos, I do believe though that the best way, I have another client just as an aside, she does, she makes custom clothing. And she goes on video every week, and shares information about a product, a new product that we just got in stock or, you know, tell us why we wanted to do, why she created her business. And I see messages all the time, people love her videos, they love seeing the face of the person that founded the company. And every single time that we create a video, because I work with her, I film and edit the videos for her. When we work together, she will send me a DM sometimes within 24 hours and be like, Oh my gosh, we just sold, you know, 10 of these or we just sold a bunch of these. This is amazing. So she is actually seeing a direct ROI from putting her face on the video. So I think if you can't hire a representative, 100% just get off your high horse, get in front of the camera. Practice makes perfect and you can do it. It's not that hard. You just have to get over your ego, put yourself out there and you're gonna see amazing results from video I guarantee it.

Susan Sly 32:20
I think those tips are are so tangible too because there's a psychology around it and the ego around it like Oh, I'm gonna be judged. You're gonna be judged anyway. Millionaires are judged harder than six figure earners and multimillionaires are judged harder than millionaires and billionaires are judged harder, right? So celebrities are judged. And you know, most people look at celebrities and they say, Well, I want that life. I you know, and celebrities are putting themselves out there all the time. And no, it isn't easy. Les Brown said, if you do what is easy, your life will be hard and if you do what is hard, your life will be easy. And to your point Avery that, you know putting yourself out there, just do the videos. I kne you have a client, Barbara Kane, Lady Kane sweets, you know, there's Barbara, who you know, she is, she's amazing, older, putting herself out there on camera, learning social media, and then she had so much demand for her business. She couldn't even keep up with the, you know, the supply. And I think that that is so poignant, especially for early stage startups, solopreneurs and people doing a rebrand. There's got to be a face behind it. And I think the other thing I'll say is that with AI, with what is happening, people do want to know the person behind the brand. And I think it's massive. Last question I have for you is, someone maybe listening and say, I really want to work with Avery or I've got a company. So who is your ideal client right now and what does a process look like if someone's interested in working with you?

Avery Sly 34:05
Sure, excuse me. It's funny that we talk about this because you know, going back to, to be raw and real, going back to what we talked about earlier, you write out the list of your dream partner and stuff like that. And that's actually something that I've been working on, especially recently with so many people coming to us for different opportunities, I think, or, you know, looking to have us help them with our marketing. There are a few things that you know, we look for in our clients. One is that you're friendly and you're a good person like ,we are a woman run ,woman lead agency, we're female founded. We absolutely love female business owners and male business owners. You know, we've got clients on both sides. But at the end of the day, we just think that you just have to be a good person. We always bring so much energy to all of our clients meetings, and even if you're having a wall kicking moment or a bad day, we will be there with a smile on our face. That's something that we always like to deliver. So, you know, we just, we like when our clients are good people. The next thing is an understanding that there is a need for a budget for marketing. If you come to us, and you say, okay, my, my budget is $3,000, what can we do? We will help you put together a package that says, okay, with your budget, here's what we can do that's going to be the most impactful. But it does have to be, we do you require sort of a minimum budget. You know, we don't, we are very talented at what we do. But we can't, we can't always, it's got to be within reason, basically. I think we can work with, we've worked with small business owners with budgets of, you know, $750 a month, all the way up to business owners with a budget of 20,000 plus a month. So we do work with a wide range, and we can help people. But if you come to us and say, hey, my budget is $100 a month, I'm going to tell you with love that my best recommendation is to get on social media and start filming videos and build your brand to the point where you do have a budget. And finally, I think, you know, just a mutual understanding and a commitment to communication. We are very communicative at our agency. As I said, we're female founded, and we, you know, we love to talk in the best way possible. We really love communicating with our clients. So we go above and beyond by providing monthly reports. And we do bi weekly monthly calls, we do calls all the time with our clients on a regular cadence so we can stay in the loop and make sure that we're continuing to emulate your brand in a way that you are proud of. We want it to look like it came from you. We don't want it to look like it was outsourced. So in my opinion, those are kind of our three things. And I think, to your point, just circling back really quick about the video because I was just reading about this this morning, I'm reading Dr. John Delony's book. And he made a point, this goes back to video, he made a point where everyone is sharing on their social media. And he was a professor at school. And he and his students do an exercise where they went, they had to go up to people in person, and they couldn't tell them it was for an assignment. And they had to ask them all these personal questions about you know, things that they would post on social media. So for example, what's your cat's name? Where do you live? Where do you work out at the gym? Like, what is your political stance? Why did you vote for this person? Are you a vegan, like going up and asking them all these really deep questions. And then basically, the experiment was to realize, okay, we share a lot of information on our social media that we're not even making in person. We're not even having these conversations in person with people, like, you know, people that follow me on social media would know, where I work out, for example, or my dog and cat's name. But that's not something you're having with a random person on the street. So everyone is posting information on social media, why not post information and share content that's going to get you an ROI and help to grow your business at the end of the day. So and that's what we work with as well at Agency8. We help people get over that fear. We tackle the video editing, we have a very talented video editor. So really, there's no more excuse. And I think that's great. I love getting rid of people's excuses. Because then you can't say no.

Susan Sly 38:26
I love that Avery. And it's a great perspective. I didn't really think about that, you know, it's like, you wouldn't tell a random stranger things but you'll post those things, you know, on online and people post a lot of stuff online. It's really incredible. Well, thank you so much for being here on the show. If you do want to connect with Avery, go to triple www.agency8.com. All of, everything she's provided will be in the show notes. You can hit up Susansly.com. If today's episode has been helpful, which I know it has, we'd love a five star review. So go ahead and do that. And then share on social and you can tag myself, Susan Sly or Avery Sly on whatever your platform is of choice. So with that, God bless. Go rock your day. And I will see you in the next episode.

Susan Sly 39:13
Hey, this is Susan and thanks so much for listening to this episode on Raw and Real Entrepreneurship. If this episode or any episode has been helpful to you, you've gotten at least one solid tip from myself or my guests, I would love it if you would leave a five star review wherever you listen to podcast. After you leave your review go ahead and email reviews@Susansly.com. Let us know where you left the review. And if I read your review on the air, you could get a $50 amazon gift card and we would so appreciate it because reviews do help boost the show and get this message all over the world. If you're interested in any of the resources we discussed on the show, go to Susansly.com that's where all the show notes live. And with that, go out there, rock your day. God bless and I will see you in the next episode.

Susan Sly 40:07
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