Diving Deep Into Digital Marketing
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In this episode:
Join us in welcoming Rachel Williamson and Shelby Bank of Dive in Digital for Episode 3! The digital market experts are revealing the secrets of social media and making an impact on your business. For all those small business owners out there, tune in to find out how little you need to have to actually move miles.
Rachel and Shelby are the queens of survival and giving entrepreneurs a completely different perspective to meet their goals for any type of business in any industry. Check out their company, Dive in Digital, to see how they were able to leverage their narrative into a business in a unique way.
Is there a real strategy for social media? Should you be posting every day? These experts can provide you with those answers that will align with your individual business goals as well as be sustainable for long-term growth.
“Use social media to better connect with your passion, which is the reason that you started your business in the first place.”
TOPICS DISCUSSED:
Dive in Digital (2:10)
Vanity Method (7:16)
Client Examples (11:46)
Pain Points of Digital Marketing (13:37)
Rachel and Shelby’s Story (25:52)
Mentoring and Advice (28:30)
How to Support Host and Guest (39:38)
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Here at Brand Wolfe, we believe a business is the coolest thing that anyone can build. It's yours from the ground up. And there's a little piece of you in every last thing that your business touches and that's what makes your business and you, one of a kind welcome to Branding For The Rest Of Us, our new podcast from Brand Wolfe, where we also believe that every brand has a message and an intention that must be heard as we like to say, you can't read the label from inside the bottle, which simply means you have to get a different perspective to fully understand and appreciate your company. The conversation starts now here's Brand Wolfe founder and host of Branding For The Rest Of Us, Max Gerson.
Max Gerson (00:38):
Welcome to another quarantine edition of Branding For The Rest Of Us, where we promise to deliver big ideas to small businesses. Today on the show, we are blessed to have Rachel Williamson and Shelby Wolfe of Dive in Digital, Rachel and Shelby are digital marketing experts. And the way that they do it is really delightful. So if you're listening to the show, I hope that you're curious about how easy it can be to get started with your digital marketing. I hope you're curious to know really how little you need to have to make an impact on your business and to everyone else. That's listening. If you're curious about what it takes to go from being a worker, to being an entrepreneur, this show might really help you. We're also gonna get a different perspective on entrepreneurship. This is not Gary V. This is not about the hustle. Entrepreneurship is sometimes about survival and Shelby and Rachel have leveraged their narrative into their business in a really unique way. Shelby, Rachel, welcome to the show.
Shelby Bank (01:55):
Hello Max. Thank you for having us.
Rachel Williamson (01:58):
Hello. Thank you for that beautiful introduction.
Max Gerson (02:02):
Let's start off by just telling people a little bit about, you know, what you do, you know, what is, what is dive digital? What makes dive digital different than other marketing agencies?
Shelby Bank (02:16):
Yeah. So dive in digital, what we do at the highest level is we curate digital marketing strategies for businesses. So at the high level, that is, we work with business owners to identify what's for their time in investment and ways to measure that performance. Cause a lot of times, like you said, with digital marketing entrance is easy, but it also becomes exhausting much more quickly than other marketing efforts. So we also do tactical arms of that. So we implement for clients across email, social SEO, paid social. Those are kind of our four pillars. But we work with clients at kind of the highest strategic level. What makes us a bit different? I would say that other people in the space are, you know, over the past three to four years, especially the narrative on the internet has been, if you're not doing everything, then you're failing.
Shelby Bank (03:05):
So if you aren't having a podcast posting on Facebook, the best person on LinkedIn verified on Instagram, like you suck if you're failing. And you know, Rachel and I come from a media background where we had all those things and it didn't equate to success all the time. So we really help business owners establish sustainable processes for their digital marketing and focus on how we measure that result. So we don't believe in growth hacks or that vanity metrics equals success. We really focus in on what ROI means on these channels based on a business's goals. And I think, you know, the most obvious messaging difference between us is we aren't gonna promise you growth hacks. That's like something that makes us wanna curl and vomit. You know, we really lean into where are you? Where do you need to be? And how can we start in a way that's not going to be exhausting for you to remain consistent?
Rachel Williamson (03:59):
Another thing I think that sets us apart from other digital marketing agencies is not saying that other owners don't care about their clients, but we really do focus on the human and not just from a kumbaya standpoint, but we really believe that the most engaging, effective, impactful content that you can put on your digital marketing platforms is going to come from the stuff that lights you up. So a lot of our work, although we know the science and the strategy behind everything we implement, we really also focus on kind of inspiring people to get passionate about showing up on Instagram or sending out an email of how can you use digital marketing as a tool to better connect with your passion, which is the reason you started your business.
Max Gerson (04:53):
That's really cool. So I'm kind of picking up two threads here and one of them is informational and the other's emotional and you know, you guys talk a lot about vanity metrics, right? And I think that's a really powerful concept because unless you work in marketing, you don't care about marketing. And it's usually like this thing, it's a part of your business that like beats you up. You're paying two to five grand a month. You're getting these reports. And like, what who's this for? All I know is I'm annoyed because you're not talking to me in my language and I'm spending money and we're not making money. Right. So I think you guys are really experts at trimming the fat and focusing on outcomes. Right? And I think that's where, you know, Brand Wolfe and dive digital really aligns because we both yeah. Are outcomes based.
Max Gerson (05:52):
The other side of this is the emotional, right. It should be fun. Not all marketing's gonna go somewhere. So why not give yourself a creative outlet? And when I, when I first heard you guys talk about that, something for me really changed, right? Because we're out here podcasting my business coach, Jamie Roe of cultivated advisors asked me hard questions about why am I doing that? Where is it going? Yeah. And my last answer was like, I love this. It's so fun. I get to connect. I get to do the thing I want to do. So I think that's a way that people should approach their marketing. Like take it less seriously because first of all, unless you're working with dive digital, it's probably the fact that no one's listening, no one cares, you know, Mitch Hedberg, the lake, great comedian. One said he was being interviewed by Howard stern. And Howard said, you know, Mitch, it's okay. If you wanna swear on my show, we're on satellite radio. It's not FM. And Mitch said, well, no. You can swear in the woods too, cuz nobody can hear it.
Rachel Williamson (07:03):
Totally.
Max Gerson (07:06):
So I think that's really important. So talk to me a little bit more about vanity metrics. How, how do you connect your clients? How do you shift their thinking? How do you do the work in a way that moves beyond the vanity metrics?
Rachel Williamson (07:26):
I think to kick it off and Shelby, I think you articulate that, how we explain that to clients really well, but to kind of kick off more context of why we lead with that so much and bring that up is we, we kind of got scorned, you know, by, by Facebook and Instagram and to give you a little background I, I graduated in 2015 and got a job as a social media editor of this startup that was on its way to blow up. And what's crazy is actually four years ago today, the Facebook page, I managed hit a million followers which was huge and great day at the office great day. It was an incredible day. We hit a million, a million followers on Facebook and back then that was just massive. And it was before a really strong algorithm was in place.
Rachel Williamson (08:18):
So I call it the golden years of Facebook. And what that meant is we kind of got fast track too. We had tons of traffic. We got to be verified on Facebook which meant when they launched Facebook live a couple months later, we were one of, some of the only people that could even use it. And have a great story about like taking a shot on what was almost like live TV when thousands of people were tuning in. But all that to say, we had this incredible experience. We had tons of followers and then the algorithm and that faucet got turned off and what it really made us look at ourselves of like, why are people coming to our website when they're not, when it's not being forced down their face? Or they're not just easily finding it. And that became so important because at the end of the day you could have a million followers, but no one wants what you're selling.
Rachel Williamson (09:21):
And so for us, as we've moved outta media where like vanity metrics have a place, you know, for, for anyone who's going who, anyone who has a, like a true startup, who's going to get VC funding. That can be really important. But it's just, it's asking yourself why. But for this, you know, we, we saw as we moved into working with more e-com companies or service based companies, where at the end of the day conversion, other than website clicks needs to happen there has to be something behind why someone would follow you. It can't just be a follow.
Shelby Bank (09:59):
Yeah. And I think more on like the tactical side is when social media first came to be right for a lot of current entrepreneurs compared to mainly gen Z, some millennials on the latter end of that, how you established success was well, how big is you're following? And really it's been the last two to three years where the analytics have sophisticated. Everything has sophisticated. So post measurement can go beyond just how many people follow you. And to echo what Rachel was saying regarding the algorithm, you know, most likely 10 to 15, maybe a really engaged post we're gonna see closer to 30 to 50% of your audience is going to see whatever you're putting on the internet. So for us, when we look at our clients, if a client says to me, I need a thousand followers, that's never the question we start with. We ask what could start happening for your business.
Shelby Bank (10:50):
That would change it, right? So we've had clients who will respond to that and say, I need to sell 10 more dresses a month. So I don't need a thousand followers. I need 10 people who are gonna buy 10 dresses and that's not the same measurement. So for us, when we're really communicating with our clients, it's, let's drop audience size for a minute and just see how we can make this thing work because we've experienced where we had, you know, by my time ending at this media company, we had 2.4 million people who liked this Facebook page and our engagement was really low. So we had this number that just looked phenomenal. And like Rachel said, there's validity to that, especially in the VC space. But I think that narrative's changing too, right? Cause it's no longer equal, like one plus one equals 50 million it's one plus one could equal literally nothing in the social space.
Shelby Bank (11:40):
So with our clients, we really refine social success based on what their conversion is. Now we have some clients, right? I worked with a band audience size was really important, but what a band has, right, that econ business might not have is plethora of content, the same way a media company, what a media company does is they curate content and how we built that audience, which says off viral videos. So for a econ business that needs to sell 10 more dresses, that doesn't have thousands of dollars to start making video content or other content that can hit the internet and really generate following it's. We need people to buy a dress. So we're gonna leverage social to find those people and to maximize that conversion. So when we're speaking about vanity metrics, it's just dropping the idea that how many followers you have is gonna correlate to a change in your business. And instead focusing the conversation off of metrics that don't change whether or not social media exists or not, which is how much money is landing in our bank account based on our marketing efforts.
Max Gerson (12:43):
Thanks for breaking down those vanity metrics. I think you guys raised a number of good points today on Branding For The Rest Of Us. We have Shelby Wolfe, Rachel Williamson. They have a great message to business owners who are annoyed, confused, or disappointed with their marketing. So what we've been talking about is vanity metrics. And we did talk about why vanity metrics, where vanity metrics kind of matter. But most business owners don't care about marketing. It's a pain point. It's something that is not great for them. It should be a profit center. It never has been in your message to them is let's focus on the outcome, right? Let's start the conversation there and then work backwards. Right?
Shelby Bank (13:38):
Yeah. And I think, especially with digital, something that exhausts business owners a lot about it is it's really, it's much more frequent right back in the day when it was just ad campaigns or you know, more old school marketing metrics. It's like you come up with a campaign that campaign might last two to six months. You know, there's a lot of time for that campaign where in internet it's immediate, which means it needs more frequent attention, which for business owner who maybe has a team of themselves for three other people, they just don't have the time to do it. Running someone, social media, being on social media or any digital platform it's severely intimate, right? Because it's most of the time where people are gonna find you, whether it's reading your website for the first time or they find you on social, they find you on LinkedIn.
Shelby Bank (14:22):
It's very intimate conversation to be the voice on the other side of that. So it's also, reinstilling obviously the metrics of, we want these things to turn and make you money, but it's also trying to really instill that idea of even if we don't make money here tomorrow, what we say and being present here really matters. So we can tell you how Anta expectations regarding when we should start seeing tactical results here. But it's also having the conversation about what you say here matters, cuz whether or not you like it, this is how people are gonna engage with you for the first time.
Max Gerson (14:59):
I think one of the big takeaways here is if your marketing vendors or partners aren't talking to you about desired outcomes, maybe they should be. And if they're not having that conversation go to them, what, what are some things that, you know, business owners could say to whoever's doing their marketing that can provoke them to maybe think differently about, about their marketing and about getting to outcomes?
Rachel Williamson (15:28):
Well, I think you just hit on a great point because honestly, a lot of times when we're first meeting with people, we, we get that first is, you know, digital marketers are selling snake oil. Like this doesn't work, I just spent thousands of dollars and it wasn't worth it, you know? And what that can really create is this feeling of I need results now. And so I think for, I, I will answer your question of like what questions they can ask, but I think it comes like both sides need to come into it of it's sometimes things can turn overnight. I mean, we've had like, we turn on an email campaign and there's thousands more dollars of revenue, or we really hit something, the nail on the head. But most of the time you're gonna be, I would say like a really a general benchmark is give it three months, at least then start asking these questions to get more feedback.
Rachel Williamson (16:21):
And I would even press it of like six months to a year is really when you're gonna feel like, oh, things have changed and things are happening. So I think if you're looking for more feedback from the person that's handling your digital marketing, you know, Google list of metrics on social media and Google analytics, and then have them walk you through that of what's this, you know, how much webs, how much traffic is my website getting what's the engagement, what's the reach? What does that mean? Why does your posting cadence match up to, you know, my goals? And like you can get really, you should pick 'em apart because they should be able to answer that pretty quickly.
Max Gerson (17:03):
My takeaway from that is here's the truth. Like if you want better results tomorrow, you need to start yesterday, right? It just takes time. That has to be the expectation. It's never gonna work as quickly as you want. So don't wait until the 11th hour stopping your marketing to save money is like taking the batteries out of your watch to save time. It doesn't work that way.
Rachel Williamson (17:33):
Absolutely
Max Gerson (17:34):
It just like every other part of your business, it's really important that you trust who you're working with because it's not always gonna be fun. You're not every session isn't going to be a home run and you need to stay in it for the long game. So that means that you have to be able to communicate. You have to be able to tell the truth and you really need to know that your flight path is gonna take you where it needs to go. I mean, how do planes fly? Never in a straight line they're constantly course correcting. So it's just really important to work with someone that's standing shoulder to shoulder with you in pursuit of that common goal. And that you're both pretty realistic about how things work.
Shelby Bank (18:18):
I think for us too, something, a narrative in the digital world that I think we kind of rebel against as like angsty kids trying to get at it is the idea that there's golden rules about any of this that you need to be posting. Like oftentimes you'll have a client that says, you know, was working with someone previously and they say need to be posting seven times a week on Instagram and our oh, first question is, can you afford to be posting seven times a week on Instagram? Where's your content coming from? You know, how, what kind of, what kind of products do you sell? There is no golden rule because every business is different. There's just best practices. And the number one best practice is consistency. So for us, I think we really push of, maybe you sell a product that is sold to 40 year old women who have three kids, right?
Shelby Bank (19:07):
A lot of digital marketers would be like Facebook, ignore everything else. Like you need to be on Facebook, right. Where Rachel and I come in with our clients is what do you like to do? Cause a lot of our clients, we're just coaching them through the process of them creating their own sustainable strategies, right? So we're bringing the science and the formulation, but guiding them through practical steps to see sustainable results. So if we have a client who naturally is super inclined to post on Instagram, hates Facebook, we're not gonna say, well, Suzy, Q only lives on Facebook. It's, let's really lean into how creative you are on Instagram. And let's get really good at that. And when we start seeing results there, then we can see how we transfer this to different platforms in a way that excites you and is not just exhausting because you've already got this like the back of your hands.
Shelby Bank (19:55):
So I think we really try to focus in on that mindset of, there is no digital marketer who should come to your business and say, yep, this is exactly what you need to do based off your first conversation. Cause that's impossible. Exactly what you said. You need a partner who's intimately becoming aware of your business, of your goals, of how you operate, how your team is made up so that when they're recommending strategies, they're sustainable. We often find that people are exhausted by digital marketing help. Cuz someone comes in like everyone needs to be dropping everything and you need to be doing all of this when their business is not set up to do all of that. So I think we really come in with that mindset of, we don't want this to exhaust you. We wanna find a solution that you're actually gonna keep because it works.
Shelby Bank (20:42):
And then we can grow off that. You know, how any business sustainably grows is you get the turn going. And once it's a well oiled machine, then we add on another wheel. So yeah, I don't think there's one, all one size fits all solutions. And I think if someone finds themselves in, you know, a situation where someone comes them on day one is like, well, you're only posting once a week on Instagram, so that's wrong. They haven't taken a look at your analytics. You don't know anything about your business. You know, that's where we really say our first questions with clients rarely is, you know, how many times are you posting or tell us about what you're currently doing on social. It's like, why do you do this? Yeah. You know, like what are the goals of your business outside of this? What's your biggest hurdle right now? Period in, in marketing or not because if they're like my biggest hurdle right now is my sales people aren't selling anything. Now we know our conversation with how we're gonna support their marketing efforts is entirely different. So I think that there is level of customization in digital that has kind of lost its footing of it. Because people can find templated approaches online.
Max Gerson (21:44):
We're here on the Brand Wolfe podcast, Branding For The Rest Of Us, with digital marketing experts, Shelby Wolfe and Rachel Williamson. And what we're talking about is a very basic principle of you won't get results unless you create habits, right? This is Patrick of cultivated advisors. Talk to me about this. Tell me a story about the thing that has like unlocked success. And he's like, you have to just, habitualized the most valuable business activities. And that doesn't mean every day. But what I'm hearing from you guys is you're not like shoving tactics and methods in, in strategy, down their throat. You don't have to do everything. Let's find the thing that you're most likely going to be able to turn into a habit and let's start there if you feel good when people, I mean, let's just say it, we like likes, right? If you put something on Instagram and it get a, gets a bunch of likes and you feel good about that, that's okay.
Max Gerson (22:55):
That's a vanity metric that we're okay with because really what we need you to do is just keep creating content and posting it and sharing it and communicating and selling. So this is what I love about dive digital is that they're not shoving this perfect playbook down your throat. Nothing works that way. They're going to line up next to you, understand what matters most, they're gonna help you to understand what you're capable of doing. And they want to focus on an outcomes based strategy that starts with where you are today. And this is also just a great marketing message, right? It's not about us. It's not about our product. It's not about this perfect thing. We just have to communicate with that other person. We have to manage the difference. Right. So I think that's awesome. But you know, Shelby, I think you described yourselves as like these angst, you and Rachel as angsty young kids. Rachel, are you cool with that?
Rachel Williamson (23:58):
Oh, well one, yes. We can say whatever we want about ourselves. For sure. It's really funny because basically Shelby and I have, so something we've encountered is we've encountered a lot of stuff about our age. So there's times where we're really we make it a point to and just for, for the audience, you know, we're, I'm, I'm like, how old am I? I'm 27. Shelby's 26. And you know, we're doing a lot of things and also Shelby and I look like we're 13. I mean, I just got carted on an airplane last year and for being in an exit row and you have to be 16, like this was a real story that happened.
Max Gerson (24:41):
Oh my God, that's amazing.
Rachel Williamson (24:43):
Yeah. So this is just a part of our lives. We understand this. And a lot of times we're pretty against it. So if people will bring up our age in pitches, sometimes when we walk into a room, we see that. And we really we really focus on that. Just not being a part of the equation, like the second we, and something that Shelby has kind of coined is when someone asks us our age, our responses, once you see what I've repaired, it won't matter how old I am. But that being said, there is a part of, I think we also love, we love our, we love who we are. We love our age. And there's something really funny about kind of leaning into that idea that we're young because we're in this kind of sweet spot where we're actually like closer to our thirties, but the truth is, is all of the massive events that have happened, especially on social media and digital marketing has they've happened in the last 10 years. And they've happened even more specifically in the last five when we were in the workforce. And so for us, we had this like really wild trajectory of our careers, where we entered as fledging when social media was in its infancy as well. And now we've like sophisticated with it. And so when you're asking, like who's an expert about digital marketing and of social media, like that's just our whole career.
Shelby Bank (26:14):
And I think even when I got my first job outta college, which Rachel was my first boss so, and I told my family, I'm like, I'm gonna get paid to post on social media right now people go to college and get communication degrees that specialize in social media. Right? So like, especially when I'm saying like, we're these angsty kids, it's like, cuz we are, and we were, and like, we're the ones that who had our feet on the ground who made this thing profitable enough that now tons people have jobs in it, right. There was this crew of us in the first couple of years of that, that created that element of the workforce and showcasing how these platforms, you know, deserve full time employee help. So it's a great flag max, because I think it is true. It is this double edged sword for us where you know, marketing, like I kind of touched on before, is this intimate investment of like, who am I gonna trust to like talk about my product on a mass level, you know?
Shelby Bank (27:13):
But that's my favorite time in the world is when we're presenting to a client and like, you know, I just have to ask how old you are. And I'm like, if I make you tons of money, doesn't matter. And the answer is always no. And I also say there's this element of like the energy we bring to the table in something that people are exhausted by typically I think makes us really fun to work with. And obviously the idea here is what happens when you get older. you know, like what happens when you're not, you know, 26 and 27 and there's this like shock factor when you walk into a room of all like 40 year old white men. But then it's just like where the kids who did it and you know, where we are then is something different. But I think there is exactly to speak on what Rachel said of, we were the first generation to grow, grow up amongst this and to understand it at a fundamental level of what it was at its bare bones and specialization in particular platforms where people now they enter the world and there's like 50 different social media platforms. So yeah, I think it's fair that we're rebellious young kids out here.
Max Gerson (28:18):
We're here on Branding For The Rest Of Us, the Brand Wolfe podcast, another quarantine edition with Shelby and Rachel and Shelby. What is the message that you want to send to your mentees? Imagine that you're talking specifically to a young woman that you're mentoring, what do you need to tell them today?
Shelby Bank (28:41):
You know, I think our main message period, and just to kind of echo max, you were saying, I grew up with entrepreneurial parents. So for me it was so modeled. And then we worked for two women whose ages were 24 and they were selling a business for 10 million over 10 million at the age of 24. So when we're around young women that we're mentoring, the main message is nothing happens by accident and you, if you don't ask, you will never receive. And I think for a lot of young women, they haven't had the exposure we have had to women who have no problem asking. And I think what I learned from our experience in New York and what I really try to pass on to girls that I get to surround myself with that I choose to surround myself with, who don't have that same kind of cultural capital at all is you have to go out there.
Shelby Bank (29:34):
People are so willing to help, but people are also have their blinders on. So I used to be under this operation that you just naturally got raises that people who became CEOs that was just like their experience in the corporate ladder. So it's really about advocating for yourself and finding out what do you need? What do you need to get there? How can we make a plan to get there? And then who do we need to ask for help? You know, I think there's this whole mindset around, you know, obviously we believe in being self-sufficient to the fullest extent, but we can't get there alone. And how do we surround ourselves with community who we can look to to give us that support? So I think the best and strongest storytelling I do whenever we're mentoring is how do you think you're gonna get there?
Shelby Bank (30:26):
If we don't ask somebody for help, because someone isn't just gonna swoop in. I mean, no matter how great of a manager you are, you know, someone's doing like a really good job. It's not likely you're gonna be like, naturally that person deserves a promotion. That person deserves a raise. Everyone. I know who's really, you know, gotten themselves in a position to succeed has had to ask to get there has had to say, Hey, I really want this. I want X. It doesn't just happen. And we can't sit in the mindset that these things are just gonna come to me. We have to put the energy out there to receive it. And I think that's really powerful and a message that I think Rachel and I both learned the hard way in our career was that you have to ask and that's really scary.
Shelby Bank (31:10):
And so in wherever we're mentoring girls, it's giving them the confidence to go in there and sit down and have the conversation they need to have with someone in a way that I think a lot of people are scared of coming, especially women as coming off as aggressive or, you know, needy or whiny or becoming the squeaky wheel. But the truth of the matter is, you know, you just have to put yourself in a position to receive the things you want. And oftentimes that requires uncomfortable conversations. And I think men naturally get that mentorship a bit more than women do. In terms of how do I talk to my boss? How do I talk to my friends about money or what manage, what my management experience should be like? So that's really the lens I always try to take. That's always, my first kind of point of transaction is, you know, what do we want and who do we need to talk to, to help you get there? And how do we ask the right questions at the right time? And how can I make you feel confident about asking them? Cause really the worst thing anyone can say is no,
Max Gerson (32:13):
Yeah, I love that answer. You know, what's happening right now, the great lockdown, this whole bag of nails, right? As a society, we're making decisions about survival store shelves. Aren't empty because we're making banquets for our neighbors. They're empty because we're buying the things we need to not die. And I think your guys' approach to entrepreneurship isn't about the hustle. It's about survival.
Rachel Williamson (32:43):
Yeah
Max Gerson (32:44):
No one else is responsible for your happiness. No one else is responsible for your survival. These are things that we're all responsible for. And I think, you know, that's a lesson in and of itself, but you know, if you are a young woman and you care about entrepreneurship, don't think about it as the hustle. Think about it the same way you think about being able to pump your own gas, change your own tire, do your own taxes, whatever that means to you and know that you deserve help and know that you just have to ask for it. And sometimes asking is hard for me because I don't have great optics on like what I need all the time. right. I'm good at asking for help when I know what the problem is, but most of the time I'm experiencing symptoms, but what's the root cause.
Rachel Williamson (33:37):
Mm-Hmm
Max Gerson (33:39):
Right. Rachel, what, what thoughts do you have about what, what can you say to your mentees today?
Rachel Williamson (33:46):
I think it's a great question. I think, you know, something you said of what are my needs and sometimes I dunno what my needs are. And I think that is like, that's my number one focus right now. And my personal growth is because, you know, I've started to check a lot of boxes in my 27 years. You know, I'm in a relationship I'm happy with. I have a job. I love that I have awesome friends, you know, so, but so when I get in these moments where I'm really upset, I'm like, what, what's next? Like what, what do I do? What's wrong? What's wrong with me? And I think it's just getting really curious about what do you need? Like, do you, do you need to be inspired? Do you need to have fun? Do you need to, do you need to be able to turn off, you know, all of these things?
Rachel Williamson (34:33):
I think it's really just making a list of imagining E especially if you're kind of in this like, eh, like me place can sometimes even be more debilitating when things are on fire because you feel really stuck. And so I think it's just getting curious about all the things that could be better or could light you up. And maybe this is a roundabout way of answering this question, but something that like drives Shelby and I through the roof is we know a huge thing. A lot of our peers struggle with is they hate their jobs and I totally understand the traditional thinking of, you know, my job's not my life. I it's the way I make money. I clock in, I clock out. But I think there is room to ask if that's what you really, if that's how you really feel.
Rachel Williamson (35:34):
Because I think for humans, you know, we have needs and wants. And honestly, sometimes they're, those are the same <laugh> and, you know, you wanna feel fulfilled and you need to feel fulfilled. And if you're going to a job that you are really disappointed in and that's like draining you, you know, at the end of the day, that's kind of like what we've said so many times, we're like, it's on you and it's not in like an aggressive way, but it, your happiness and your fulfillment and your career is totally on you. So I think the way that I, I would try to, you know, more happily and lovingly inspire my mentees is, you know, your ability to have a job that you love is completely in your control. And something I was told so much ages 20 and under is I would never get a job because I loved creative things. And I just wanna call total. And it's at the end of the day, like your success is on you. And that doesn't have to be a scary thing to prove to anyone else, but it's like, Hey, this is the, the biggest benefits of me having a job I love and a successful at are gonna come back to me. So I think, I think that's where the inspiration lies. Is that be inspired to make a better life for you?
Shelby Bank (36:58):
Yeah. I think an antidote that has always stuck with me that I got from my mom where she mentored me in this way. Right. She was a female who owned a company. Was she worked for Anne Taylor, the retail store for like 15, like some crazy amount of time. Like she started working there and she was 13 until, you know, she met my dad at 21 and she was always employee number one, like the best girl in the retail store selling their clothes. And she used to ask herself, well, how do I become the manager? Like how does someone become the manager, even if I'm the best retail person? Like, how do you get there? And it wasn't, you know, she fell in line with people along the way who helped her ask, Hey, I wanna be a manager. What do I need me to do to get there?
Shelby Bank (37:43):
And I think it's just the exposure. I genuinely believe you can't be what you can't see. And Rachel and I have been really fortunate that we have seen young women do it across different industries, across different practices. And we feel really motivated that if we're now that our biggest responsibility besides putting money in our personal pockets is making sure other women, maybe other women, younger women who don't have that exposure now can see us. So we really try to put ourselves in positions to make ourselves presentable. And I always think back with my mom, even as what, if someone didn't tell her, Hey, you can just ask about what it means to become a manager.
Max Gerson (38:25):
So we've been here talking with the ladies of dive digital, Rachel and Shelby dive in digital is a digital marketing brand here in Denver, Colorado. And we've learned a lot of really interesting things, right? We've learned how to ask better questions in general in life. We've learned what questions we can ask of our marketing partners that we have today that maybe are disappointing us. Right? Let's focus on outcomes. Let's focus on making sure we're looking at things the right way, right? What is the thing that is going to have the biggest impact for your business and work backwards from there? We've learned a lot about health and survival. You know, Rachel Shelby, you guys have, have given us tips and stories about how you can take care of yourself when things are hard, when there's a problem, how you can motivate both the people above you, your bosses, right? The people you're responsible to, but also, you know, the people that are beneath you that you're mentoring that you're, you want to pull with you on your journey. And I think all of that's just really helpful, especially right now. Where can we find dive digital today?
Rachel Williamson (39:44):
That's a great question. You can find dive digital on most social media platforms. We do have an Instagram and Facebook. You can find us at, at dive in digital. And then our website is let's dive in digital.com and we have a newsletter for digital marketing tips if you'd like to receive those every month. And yeah, we're pretty, we like to think we're pretty fun on Instagram. So come hang out with us.
Max Gerson (40:09):
So if you're out there listening and you wanna find dive in digital, go to let's, dive in digital.com, sign up for their newsletter, get tips from people that have grown up in the sea of digital marketing and actually
care about you and care about healthy, sustainable, realistic outcomes based marketing. If anyone's listening in and they're curious, and they wanna work with you guys, you know, are you willing to do anything special or unique for our audience?
Shelby Bank (40:39):
Now we are offering free hour consultations. So if you get on our calendars free hour, talk for us to walk through some strategy, tidbits off what we can get from you from there. And you know, we offered that amongst COVID as well. And those have been some of our most impactful conversations. So yeah, pick our brains for an hour on us, not on you,
Max Gerson (41:01):
If you don't have any digital marketing and you know, you need it. If you're starting to feel curious about it, get in touch with Rachel, get in touch with Shelby, go to let's, dive in digital.com. And they'll give you an hour of strategy and advice and questions and answers. If you currently have digital marketing, but it's just disappointing. You it's frustrating. You it's not hitting give them a call, reach out to them. They're here to help. They've got a great method. We know that it works, and we know that they care about meeting you where you are at today. So Rachel and Shelby, thanks so much for being on the show. This was amazing. This was fun. And I also think it was just really helpful for business owners that know the lights are gonna come back on and it's time to start thinking about how we're going to position what we need from our sales to our online audience. So thank you so much. Thank you