Brie E Anderson is an Analytical Nerd with a Soft Spot for Strategy. She's spent the last 10 years helping businesses of all sizes execute data-driven strategies to increase ROI. Today Brie runs BEAST Analytics, a digital marketing analytics consultancy, and contributes to leading industry publications such as Moz and Search Engine Journal. She is also the author of the Data-Driven Strategy ebook.
“Digital marketing is always changing.” - Brie E. Anderson
Max Traylor:
That is the delightful sound of my handy dandy decanter glass for another off brand interview on Beers With Max, we won't be drinking beer today. I'll be drinking for the both of us. I look forward to sobriety later in life, but the show must go on for now, and I'm not out of this giant bottle of Maker's Mark. So here we are. And Brie Anderson, ladies and gentlemen, hold the applause. Hold the applause.
Brie Anderson:
I hear it. Yeah. I was going to say I hear it in my headphones. I don't know if they hear it in their heads, but I hear it in mine for sure.
Max Traylor:
Yeah. The paparazzi. It's tough. So it's water today for Brie. You gotta respect the H2O. I wish I drank more water today. I got a little bit of a headache, but we'll embrace the opposite direction. Brie, where are you coming from today?
Brie Anderson:
We are in Wichita, Kansas. We've got some sun today and I am stoked about that.
Max Traylor:
Wichita, Kansas. Wow. Are there a lot of tornadoes in Wichita, Kansas?
Brie Anderson:
Actually. No. So Wichita's pretty built up. The tornadoes generally happen on flatter land. And so Western Kentucky gets a lot of tornadoes. Oklahoma gets a lot of tornadoes. And we kind of just hide.
Max Traylor:
Yeah, I hide too. I hide in the Northeast.
Brie Anderson:
There you go.
Max Traylor:
But yeah, I would trade daily terror for 60 degrees right now. I'm jonesing, my golf vibes, I'm just all out. And I'm like shaking. You can hear it in my voice. I'm shaking because I need more golf. All right. Chin chin, [inaudible 00:01:57], cheers, whatever you hail to. And what do you do professionally?
Brie Anderson:
So professionally, I do marketing analytics and strategy, but the process of getting there was very long and complicated. So people know me for all sorts of things, depending on what stint of my life they kind of entered in. But today I focus mostly on yeah, marketing analytics, analysis, anything with numbers, what the people don't like to see or hear about a lot of the time, that's me.
Max Traylor:
Well, I mean, if you don't mind, I will mention that you are younger than most of my guests. And what I was so impressed with is how sure you are of what you're doing so early on in your career, because I find so many people that are, we'll call it more seasoned than you and I, they've been around the block for multiples of what we have, and their positioning has gone out the window. They are everything to everyone. And of course they can't charge price premiums. Nobody can repeat what they do to anybody else. And so this answer of, "I do marketing analytics." Do you think you found your thing? Do you think you found your calling? Or is this just a step in the journey, you think?
Brie Anderson:
So my focus last year, I really spent a lot of last year kind of reframing who I am to people. And I have a lot of that. I have to credit Brian Fanzo, so he's in my circle, he's a speaker and he's team no niche. Right? And he has been one of my mentors. I've done some work for him, and with him and stuff. And he was having this issue where he was like, "People don't know how to introduce me." One of his mentors, Jay Bear, said "If people can't introduce you correctly, then you've done something wrong." Right? And so he kind of went through and was very transparent and open with me about this process he was going through as, "I need to have a way for people to introduce me that's going to get me hired." Right?
Brie Anderson:
And so I was, at the time, starting to do more consulting, starting to work with more businesses. And at that point I was kind of a little bit of everything to everybody, and it was really, really frustrating. I never got paid what I wanted to get paid, and I found myself doing a lot of work I was not excited to do, quite frankly. And so I spent last year kind of going, 'Okay, I really enjoy the analytical side of what I do." And I've always enjoyed the analytical side of what I do. So I loved SEO because I could look at the numbers and see what was swaying the algorithm at that point. I loved social because it's the same thing, right? You have numbers with all of digital marketing. And so I really focused in on that.
Brie Anderson:
And lo and behold, it does actually make me more hireable. People do go, "Oh, if you need anything analytics that's Brie." Or, "Hey, this is Brie the analytics chick, data driven strategy. If you need that, you need to go to Brie." And I'm starting to reap the benefits. I would say like the turn of the new year, as cliche as that is, I've really started to reap those benefits. And it's exciting because I enjoy sitting down in front of my computer and doing the work that I do. I enjoy working with my clients, and I'm able to charge a lot more than I was charging last year. So that's always nice too.
Max Traylor:
Have you thought about legally changing your name to Brie Analytics?
Brie Anderson:
Brie Analytics?
Max Traylor:
Because that'll seal the deal. That'll seal the deal. No one will question what you do.
Brie Anderson:
That's true. And I would get to keep the initials BA, which truly who would want to get rid of those initials?
Max Traylor:
No, unless you're rocking MT. And then, because I can do the Tony Montana logo backwards. So that's good stuff. So you've been, in your short work career, solo consulting, then in the agency space, and now back in the solo consulting world. So how did that all go down? And we're talking to you right now in January, 2022. So it's not like it's been a smooth sailing world out there. So I'm wondering how much of it was COVID and how much of it was by design, your experiences in agency world versus solo consulting, and how you kind of see your career progressing, barring any world ending catastrophes in the next couple years.
Brie Anderson:
Fingers crossed. These days it's kind of like, "Hmm, you never know." So yeah. So I started actually working literally, I still have it. I wrote my first marketing plan for a band and their promotions agency when I was 16, because at that point I had already worked with other bands. I had just kind of this entrepreneurial spirit and they saw what I had done with some other bands and stuff. But I was 16. I was just stoked to be working with freaking bands and being able to go to shows for free. That's how I got paid.
Max Traylor:
And let me get this straight. So the first thing you did for them was the plan. They didn't say like, "Hey, come do this marketing for us." And then you're pushing buttons, because that's where most people start. Almost nobody starts with writing a plan that early in their career.
Brie Anderson:
So for them, I wrote a plan because it was almost a proposal. Right? And really shitty story, I was 16 years old. I handed them this plan, they never got back to me and they used the entire plan.
Max Traylor:
Yeah. Well that's what people do with proposals. Surprise.
Brie Anderson:
How rude.
Max Traylor:
"I didn't get the deal. It must not be what they want." It was exactly what they fucking wanted.
Brie Anderson:
Yeah. That's exactly what they wanted. And they've worked in this really fucking cool... Sorry, I don't know if I can say that-
Max Traylor:
I'm drinking Makers Mark. It's not PC America.
Brie Anderson:
Yeah. So they worked in this really cool, they made t-shirts and stuff and they had all this equipment. And I'm like 16 and I'm like, "If I can get a ticket to Warped Tour, because they're playing on the side stage, I'm going to be stoked." Right? A $45 ticket to Warped Tour. Hell yeah. Anyways. But before that I was just doing a lot of pushing buttons and whatever. But this was the first time they were like, "We want to talk to you, see your proposal and all that stuff." And then yeah, they just fucking took it and ran. Which, fine I guess.
Max Traylor:
So the way you identify is not lost on me. You said, and I have it in my notes here, "I'm an analytics nerd with a soft spot for strategy." So I get the analytics thing, Brie Analytics. I'm team Brie Analytics formally, by the way. But when did strategy become a part of the identity as well?
Brie Anderson:
So I think that strategy was actually there before analytics, because I mean, like I said, I wrote my first plan at 16 and handed that over. And then I don't think I made the connection to the numbers until probably two and a half years ago, that the reason that I enjoyed doing strategy was because of analytics. Now you just see Brie Analytics as to be known from here on out Brie Analytics. You see that because that was a very strategic move over the last two years. But from the beginning, it was strategy. Well, I didn't work with that band, but I worked with smaller bands and then I ended up going to college, and I played college soccer for a year. And during that time I was working with this startup that was trying to make a new social platform.
Brie Anderson:
And I was doing more community management, again because I had experience, I was talking to band members and trying to get them onboarded onto this new social platform and explaining what the functionalities of the platform should be to the owner and all this stuff. And one day they were like, "Yo, you should quit college and come do this whole time." And I was like, "The first problem is you're not paying me. So I absolutely cannot do that. Second problem is my parents would literally kill me like that. That's not an option."
Brie Anderson:
But at that point, the light bulb really went off and I went, "Oh yeah, people pay good money for this. You know what I mean?" And I was on my own, so I realized that money was a necessary thing. So I actually transferred colleges, quit playing soccer, and went all in on digital. At the time it was social, because social media for bands is really fun. And then you get hired by an agency to do social media. And I was doing social media for Blast resistant buildings and storage containers. And I was like, "This is awful. I hate this. Nothing about this is fun."
Max Traylor:
So is that, what turned you off in the agency world? It was just that you couldn't... Looking back, I think there's a lot of benefits and a lot of distinct challenges about doing your own thing. But the one thing that you get that you can't get anywhere else is you get to choose who you work with.
Brie Anderson:
Absolutely. Yes.
Max Traylor:
And that's, hm is that priceless?
Brie Anderson:
100%. Right. So when I went to the agent, I was at that point 19 and I was interning. So I just loved to learn. I had five internships over the course of my college career, but so I went to the agency and they were really the ones that took a chance on me. And they were like, "Here's $2,000, go do Google Ads." And I was like, "Cool." But $2,000 to someone who's making $8 an hour is a lot of money, so I wanted to be very meticulous about what happened with that $2,000. And that's when I really dove into like Google Analytics and doing all that.
Brie Anderson:
And I ended up working with that agency and one other agency for two and a half years in college, and then went into the agency full-time right after college, because it was easy, I already had the job. But eventually what it came down to was I didn't love the fact that in the agency world, a lot of times you're paying somebody to do something and they're actually just paying somebody else to do it for you, or they're not sharing your data. There's a whole bunch of things that happen in an agency when you are not the owner, that get decided for you and they don't necessarily match with what you want to do, or what you want for clients, or for people in general.
Brie Anderson:
So there was an opportunity for me to step away and still be secure. I worked, and something that I'm working on right now is I've played from... I literally made this realization yesterday. I've always played on the defensive when it's come to my career up until this point. I've played scared. Right? I need to make sure I have healthcare. I need to make sure that I have a steady salary coming in, and whatever. And that's because that's what you're taught. Right?
Brie Anderson:
And it hasn't been until the last couple weeks that I've realized playing scared, and from this sense of like, "I have to be secure, I have to be stable. There's no whatever." I was a goalkeeper for 14 years. I was diving into people's feet head first. And it was always, "If you play scared, if you hesitate for a second, that's when you get hurt." And when you try and have your own business, if you play scared, that's when you're going to get burned. And so that's kind of what I've been working on now, that I was able to make the transition into being off on my own, finally, for real.
Max Traylor:
Yeah. Well, was there something that gave you the confidence to do that? Or did you just wake up in the middle of the night and say, "Oh yeah, I get hurt when I play scared"? I don't know. Sometimes people have life change... They go through a divorce or they have a near death experience, and that's the only thing that gets them to change this mentality.
Brie Anderson:
Yeah. So for me, I left the agency, like I said, I was able to leave the agency with a clear mind because I got a position as the director of the digital marketing program at the local tech school here. So one, that title is awesome. I can put it on my resume and people are like, 'Hell yeah." Two, I'm really, really passionate about education, specifically hands-on education and that's exactly what I got to do there. And I did that for about 18 months while I was building my consulting on the side. Right? So by the time I left, I was making more doing consulting than I was at the school. But then naturally as soon as I put in my two weeks and left, I lost the client. That's how that works.
Max Traylor:
Why couldn't you build your consulting business on the side while you were doing agency stuff?
Brie Anderson:
I have a very guilty conscience, and I always felt like it would seem like I was trying to be in competition with them and all that kind of stuff.
Max Traylor:
I see. But when you're client side, you're not in competition, you're just scratching your creative itch.
Brie Anderson:
Well, when I was at the school, I was teaching. So I wasn't even doing their marketing. Yeah. So I was the director of the digital marketing program, overseeing the curriculum, creating curriculum, teaching students.
Max Traylor:
Thought you meant you were doing marketing for the school.
Brie Anderson:
Yeah, no.
Max Traylor:
Got it. Well, what a gig to develop your methodology and develop your systems, because that's what curriculum is.
Brie Anderson:
Absolutely. Yeah.
Max Traylor:
And then people are just paying you to deliver it instead of sitting in their seats, not listening.
Brie Anderson:
Correct. Yeah. Yeah.
Max Traylor:
It's like a professorship that pays.
Brie Anderson:
Yeah. So I did that, and then COVID hit. My wife and I were starting to try and have a family. And we had been saving like crazy because we knew we were trying to have a family. And I personally am a hypochondriac, I was terrified of COVID, did not want to go back into a classroom. Loved my students, did not trust them with my health and my family's safety. So I taught a semester of hybrid when they were rolling back out, showing up in classrooms. And I had a couple clients and my wife was like, "Listen, if you're going to take the chance of going out on your own, you should probably do it before we have a screaming newborn in our house and we need the healthcare and we need all these things."
Brie Anderson:
And so for me, I'm just very fortunate that I have a partner that always understood from the beginning that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and pushes me to do so, which I know a lot of people don't get. So I'm very, very fortunate in that aspect, but it was really just a lot of things lining up. We had a nice little nest egg, I had a couple clients, and I really did not want to go back into a classroom if I didn't have to. So then I took the leap.
Max Traylor:
It's an interesting motivation because a lot of people stick with their "cushy job" for their family. And in my experience, the thing that got me out was I wanted to be there for my kids. When it clicked that I was actually hanging out with my future wife, and I knew I wanted kids, I did not want to be a dad that was never around. So now I'm a dad that's in a closed office all day, but I can still hear them smashing on the glass door outside.
Brie Anderson:
Yeah. And if they needed to go to the ER, you're there and you could go.
Max Traylor:
Yeah. I'm there, and that's all I wanted. So I'm very lucky, but if there were financial struggles in my life, at least I am a success at being here. And so I just think it's interesting that it's the same motivation, but for some people it keeps them in a job that they're miserable at, and for some people it's the motivation to like, "Hey, while I'm young, while I have the energy, I'm going to develop these skills to make it on my own." Because making it in corporate and making it on your own requires skill, just different skills. So you'll be successful at either one. There's no more or less risk. COVID taught us that. And 2008 taught us that.
Brie Anderson:
I was in seventh grade, by the way, in 2008.
Max Traylor:
Yeah. Right. Well, it was kind of wild. It was wild. Yeah. Good times. So Beast Analytics is the company name, soon to be Brie Analytics. You're welcome. But I'm a huge fan of people that can, to your point about, they can introduce you. It doesn't matter that they understand all of what you do or what makes you unique. They first have to be able to introduce you to somebody else, or they have to be able to remember you. You're the beast of analytics. Got it. I'm clear. Same thing goes for when the conversation shifts to, "Well, what makes you different than all the other analytics people?" And that's where methodologies, that's where systems, your definite point of view, comes into play. And so you've developed some intellectual property already. You've got Beast, and it's an acronym, stands for something. So my question for you is: What's your unique approach to solving analytics challenges? What is Beast?
Brie Anderson:
Yeah. So Beast is a framework for testing. In digital marketing, the one thing that's always true is that it's changing. Every day, every second it's always changing. And so in order to be successful at digital marketing, which nobody understood at the beginning, and I would say 70% of people still don't understand, is that if digital marketing is always changing then setting and forgetting is never going to work, right? You have to constantly be testing.
Brie Anderson:
And so Beast is a framework to kind of help people not be so afraid of testing, and to have a really clear understanding of what testing should look like in their organization from a marketing standpoint. So Beast stands for benchmark, explore, analyze, strategize, test. So benchmarking is something that some people can do, some people can't do, but everything's a learning curve, right? So the first thing we do is benchmark. What are the things that you need to happen in order to call your marketing or whatever a success? And if you can't measure that, we know our first plan of action needs to be got to set up ways to measure this. Right?
Max Traylor:
You got to have a foundation that you can call yes or no at the end.
Brie Anderson:
Absolutely. So for some people that's: Are we collecting leads from our website? Are we making sales? Are we getting people to watch this video to the 15th second, because that's where our proposition is? Whatever that might be. Right? So we have to be able to benchmark. And if it is set up, then we can take the numbers like, "Okay, well, right now we're bringing in 10 leads a month. We need to be somewhere else better than that." Right? So we take down either the things that we need to fix in order to truly be able to capture our KPIs, key performance indicators, or we go ahead and take down the numbers that we already have.
Brie Anderson:
And then we get into exploring, exploring the platforms, right? That we're using to try and hit these numbers. So is it TikTok? What's working on TikTok? What isn't working on TikTok right now? What has worked for us? What changes is TikTok going to be bringing soon? Why is that? All these kind of fun things. Then we analyze. So we analyze what has affected our numbers. What have other people said are affecting their numbers? What are these changes? What do they really, really mean? Right? The step that people always forget is that explore step. They always go straight into analyzing, but you are one piece of a massive, massive puzzle that is whatever platform you're working with, or on. Some people literally just get paid to stay educated. Media buyers are paid to be educated on, "Okay, now responsive search ads are going away. So now we have to have whatever this next thing is." Right? You have to know those in order to be successful. So a lot of people skip that and they go straight into that analyzing.
Brie Anderson:
That, I usually don't have to explain to people. Most people just don't want to do it. They don't want to get in and mess with the numbers. That's the part that really scares them. So, we analyze, whether that's we teach you to analyze, or we do some analysis and bring it back to you. And from that analysis, now we can start to strategize. Okay, we know we are here right now. We know these things are happening with your platform. This is what's affected your presence on that platform recently. This is what's moved the needle maybe in the past.
Brie Anderson:
And in strategizing, we use a three bucket method. So the three buckets are start, scale, and stop. Maybe we found that something has worked really well for somebody else that could potentially work very well for you, or maybe we found that you've been doing something unintentionally, you never had to plan to do, but is working very well for you just by looking at the numbers. For some people that could be, you didn't realize that you've talked about this one specific topic five times, and every time you talk about that topic, it hits, it does exactly what we need it to do. Right? So those are things that you would start doing. You make a plan for, or a test for, create a strategy around.
Max Traylor:
What I like is, I don't think there's not enough stop out there in the world. I think there's way too much, "Let's jump on the band..." There's still people blogging. It's still happening. And for some reason, look, fine. All right. they're on the number one page of Google. You hit it at the right time. Congratulations. Everyone else is out, if you're starting a blog, you are in trouble. Yeah, that just was a trigger for me. That's probably the most important thing in any particular strategy. It's more about what you shouldn't do and finding the one thing that's going to be most impactful, than regurgitating what you can read on the internet and saying, "Oh yeah, here are the eight things you should do." No, you can't. You have to stop seven of those.
Brie Anderson:
Right. And two, it's going to be different for everyone, right? In every organization, in every objective, it's always going to be different. So all of these numbers are based on that benchmark. And how are we going to move that benchmark in the way we need it to move? For a lot of people, ROI is going to be the massive benchmark at the end of all of this. And if it's not moving the needle, you're not getting a return on investment, you cannot keep wasting time and money and effort and all of that on a strategy that's simply not performing for you.
Max Traylor:
So, it's interesting because you come from the sports world as well. I was a hockey player my whole life. I played professional paintball for 20 years. That's for another conversation. The pay grade is below skipping rocks.
Brie Anderson:
Which has been on ESPN, by the way.
Max Traylor:
I know. Guess what hasn't been.
Brie Anderson:
Paintball?
Max Traylor:
Exactly. They say it's violent. You ever watch a football game?
Brie Anderson:
Oh yeah. I played rugby in college too.
Max Traylor:
Yeah. We're not ripping people's heads... Anyway, I digress. More triggers. I digress. Oh shit. What was I talking about?
Brie Anderson:
Coming from the sports world.
Max Traylor:
Yeah. Yeah. Coming from the sports world, we understand the function of a coach. It's the strategist. They got a clipboard. It's their job to think. They're not the ones going out there scoring the goals because if they were, no one would be thinking. And so I tend not to get a lot of argument or pushback around the viability of a business role for thinking and for planning. A lot of people that maybe don't have that sports background will go, "Well, what do you mean? I am worth nothing if I can't actually do the work, if I can't actually write the content that's a part of that strategy, if I can't actually wave the magic marketing wand or whatever the hell I think is going to move the needle." Where do you stop? Where do you start saying no to things so that you can focus on your strategy work?
Brie Anderson:
I think I try, for digital marketing it's pretty easy to say, "I'm not going in platform. I'm not going to go into your website and do stuff for you. I'm not going to go into Facebook and post for you, create posts for you, comment back to people, reach out." I'm not going to go... Oh, my wife just got home.
Max Traylor:
Yeah. So there might be... That's a tiny dog bark. Okey dokey. We're back from our first intermission brought to you by three dogs barking from people coming home. It's good to know that we're all human beings out there in the world of dogs barking and kids smashing into office windows. Anyhow.
Brie Anderson:
Absolutely.
Max Traylor:
My question was: Where do you stop? Where do you stop on the implementation? And you're talking about, "I don't go into things." Is it a blanket statement that you don't push the buttons? Or are there things that you do find that you like to get into?
Brie Anderson:
That's been a big thing for me, because it's hard because I do enjoy doing some things, but I've realized the thing that I enjoy the most is going in and messing with people's data, which sounds bad, but looking at their data.
Max Traylor:
You're looking for answers. You're asking questions and you're looking for answers.
Brie Anderson:
Right. Now I guess, so the exception to that rule, to your point, is if it comes to Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics. Those platforms, if there needs to be a change, depending on the client, there are times where I will do that. But I try really hard not to.
Max Traylor:
Yeah. Right. So I mean, look, if you understand the platforms and you need the information you need, yeah you might be making small tweaks. Let's say that you've got a client that doesn't have those things set up. Are you bidding on implementation projects where you'll set it up from the ground up? Or do you have some partners that do that, that can have the heavy lifting of an install?
Brie Anderson:
Yeah. It depends on what their tech stack is. If it's going to be super simple and I know it's going to take me like an hour and a half, two hours to do, I'll just put a bid out for that and say, "Hey, I can do this for you at this cost." But if we're talking about something where they have e-commerce on one platform and a blog on another platform and we need to set up ecommerce tracking and we need to set up all these things, that generally I'll work with a partner to get that.
Max Traylor:
Yeah. I mean, you have embraced the coaching role, the strategist role. I was playing hockey, in practice the coach would show us up every now and then. He'd be like, "Move aside you little squirt. This is how you do it." And you're like, "Damn, this guy actually knows what he's freaking do." So sometimes you got to-
Brie Anderson:
And those are the ones that you respected, right? Because I also remember having high school coaches that definitely could not run around the field once. There was no way.
Max Traylor:
There was no way.
Brie Anderson:
And we were always like, "Now really, I want to see you kick the ball you think the way we should be doing it." You know what I mean? And I think that's why personally, I'm more comfortable. I had the same issues with my professors in college. They were teaching digital marketing, but had been a professor for 20 years. You did not do digital marketing. I know that for a fact. And so what you are teaching me... It was really hard for me. And that might just be a personal thing that maybe I need to work on. Understandable.
Max Traylor:
No, no. You should ask, "When was the last time you got paid for this?" That's a good question for anyone. I think that's a breakthrough statement right there. If somebody's teaching you something, the question is: When was the last time you got paid for this? Not to teach it. When was the last time you got paid to do it?
Brie Anderson:
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm very aware of that too, which is why I have other businesses and things that I work on so that I can get the experience of... I have my own TikTok channel so I know how TikTok works. I have my own this and that and that. And again, I thrive off of learning new things. So I'm constantly trying to figure out how things work.
Max Traylor:
Well then here's a question because you have not ceased to impress through all these questions in your identity, and the staying away from implementation, and what it means as a strategist or as a consultant. It's the first thing my dad said when I said I wanted to become a consultant. All that means is you charge whatever you want. That's the entire definition of a consultant. It's the only thing that's consistent across all consultants, is we make it up. Why? Because we're not actually doing the things. And the doing of the things is the commoditized stuff. It's competitive based pricing, but Brie Analytics is priceless. So the next question when you are a strategist is: Who will pay you the most? How far down that path have you gotten?
Brie Anderson:
Not very. No.
Max Traylor:
So '21 was the year of the Brie, and now it's like, "Okay, now that I'm here, now that I've arrived, which one of y'all wants to kick me?"
Brie Anderson:
Right. Right. Well, because two, in analytics, or because what I do is data driven strategy, I'm working on the numbers, I'm working with your actual numbers and your team to understand and utilize the numbers in the best way possible, there is still a lot of time dedicated to, I'm getting into Google analytics and seeing: Why is this happening? I just spent an hour and a half before we got on this call looking into something and I cannot figure it out, and it's driving me nuts. And I probably should have abandoned it a while ago, but I really want to know, this client is asking me a question, why is this happening? And I really want to be able to answer it. So I'm still working on that. So there is still a lot of time in there, which is where I always go back and forth on this: Do we do retainers? Do we do hourly? Do we do whatever? Because there are a lot of things that I can get done in like 15 minutes because I've done it a million times, that most people can't do in a day.
Max Traylor:
Yeah. But that's not the second most important question.
Brie Anderson:
Okay. What's the second most important question?
Max Traylor:
The second most important question is: Who will pay you the most. Because I guarantee if somebody cut you a check for a hundred grand, you wouldn't give a shit about that hour you just spent.
Brie Anderson:
Yeah. Oh, 100%.
Max Traylor:
That's fun. Just like, "I don't know." So yeah. Well, with all the people that you've worked with in the past, typically you start with your best client, you just go, "Well, my experience to date is, here was the best one." Financially and personally you felt most aligned with it. And then my grandfather always said, "You have to know the territory." A lot of people are like, "Oh, I should pick a niche," and they go start doing research. Your niche can't be someone that you haven't worked with before, because the question a client is going to ask you is: What have you done for someone like me lately? That's the number one buying yes or no is, "Show me someone else that looks like me that you've done this before." So your best client. Industry, size, what does it look like today?
Brie Anderson:
Right now, I would say the best client is a small web development, SEO-focused web dev company. It's probably about five people, but they bring in about two and a half million a year, probably.
Max Traylor:
So super high revenue per FTE, service organizations?
Brie Anderson:
Specifically... Yeah.
Max Traylor:
Marketing agencies. So you're in the subcontractor of agency space.
Brie Anderson:
Currently.
Max Traylor:
Yeah. Well, I mean that makes it easier on the business development side. As your personal brand grows, you won't need to rely on the market credibility or the pipelines of those people doing it. But yeah, it's a great way of getting the experience and it allows you to develop a lot of your systems and really figure it out without having to split your time in business development, and building your own stuff. Lightning round. So if you could make a decision on the companies that you work with, new to marketing or super mature?
Brie Anderson:
I would say more mature, because I'm going to have more of an impact, right?
Max Traylor:
Cool. Maybe they are rhetorical questions. I don't do lightning rounds a lot. More money or less money being spent on marketing?
Brie Anderson:
More money.
Max Traylor:
Do they have an analytics team in house?
Brie Anderson:
Team? Probably not. They probably have someone, maybe one or two people. Right?
Max Traylor:
Well then why would they work with you?
Brie Anderson:
Training.
Max Traylor:
I like talking to you.
Brie Anderson:
I like talking to you.
Max Traylor:
Thank you. It's my show. Of course you would say that. But early on in my career, I was selling marketing stuff and I said, "Well, people are going to need marketing services if they don't have marketing people." And the big shift was when 20 companies came to me all at once, or I was introduced to 20 companies all at once, and they all had marketing people. They all had the software. They all had the content. And what did they need me for? Because they had all of it and they were getting shitty results. So they needed me to create a plan, to figure out why it was all broken.
Max Traylor:
And so it's funny because when you're doing planning or when you're doing strategy, all of a sudden those big investments in people and content and analytics, they still get the bad results. So those are the people with the deep pains. Those are the people that understand it. Those are the people that are looking for, "If you're telling me that you can maximize the performance of my people, do you know what I have to pay them? I can't fire them. I'll be sued." So they're stuck.
Brie Anderson:
Well, and think of it, if I can increase your ROI, or the suggestions that I make can help you increase your ROI by 2%, 2% on a million dollars is a lot more than 2% on a hundred bucks, right?
Max Traylor:
So like an insurance policy.
Brie Anderson:
Nobody steal this, dammit. I have this keynote that I really want to work on, of the value of perspective, right? The same way you were talking about a coach. There's a reason that we have coaches that are on the sidelines that can see everything and give us suggestions. Because when you are in the moment, when you have been working on the same account every day for 365 days, you're going to miss something because you've been the one doing it. You've been doing the small little changes every day. Maybe you do a big change and you still don't know really what it is. But if you get a fresh pair of eyes, I don't care how good of a marketer you are, I don't care how long you've been doing this, a fresh pair of eyes is always going to see something different than you because they have different experiences.
Max Traylor:
So they're paying you to be the only fresh pair of eyes in the company. That's your job. "Hey, I'd love to do the website for you, but then I wouldn't be the only fresh pair of eyes around here." Someone's got to keep their eye on the horizon while the other guys row the boat.
Brie Anderson:
Yeah. And if you're so focused on... It's the same thing with people that are like, "Oh, my only competition as someone that sells t-shirts to marketers is this other one company that sells t-shirts to marketers?" Well, have you heard of Amazon? Have you heard of this marketing tool that's also taking money out of your pocket? Have you also heard of... Sometimes people get so caught in their blinders, and I just think it would be so valuable, I don't understand how this isn't a thing yet, where people would once a quarter, I just come in and review their accounts for them. Imagine going to a client and being like, "I want you to succeed so badly that we hire someone once a quarter to come in and tell us all the things that have worked and all the things that haven't worked so that we have a fresh perspective going into the next quarter." That seems invaluable.
Max Traylor:
You could just call it perspective. How much would you charge?
Brie Anderson:
Me? Don't know yet.
Max Traylor:
Yeah. It depends on your perspective. Look, pricing is a complete game. If they say yes, you're not charging enough. It's a trick question of mine. I apologize. It's a moving target, but do you think about it correctly? The question is: What is the value of your perspective to that organization? That's why the most important question is: Who will pay you the most? Because Joe will pay $10 and Brian a will pay you 10,000 and Kim somewhere runs around out there with a million dollar check waiting for you. I've seen a million dollar strategy. It was shitty.
Brie Anderson:
Isn't that wild? When I worked at the agency, the people that called me the most for the ones running $300 a month campaigns and the person that was running a million dollar a month campaign? Heard from twice a year. Twice a year. They had to spend on marketing. That was the budget. They don't know what it's doing, but as long as it's spent.
Max Traylor:
Yeah, my favorite spot to be is when clients ask you where they should spend the money. That's the coolest seat. You want to hold that seat. You don't want to get up. "I'm the guy you call. I'll tell you where to spend the money." Good.
Brie Anderson:
Yeah. That's me right here.
Max Traylor:
Well, look, this has been amazing. I can't tell you how many people I'm going to send this to that I think are going to look to you as an inspiration, as I do. And congratulations for not having to spend and be so miserable for so long as so many people have. I mean, people have been miserable for decades, and we're really fortunate. We only had a few years that we were just like, "This doesn't make any goddamn sense."
Brie Anderson:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Max Traylor:
So cheers to that. Thank you for your contributions. For those of you listening, yeah if you're stuck at home, you're not operating any heavy machinery, go ahead and binge on Beers With Max, pick your poison and we'll see you next time.
Brie Anderson:
See you.