Speaker 2: 0:30

Christina Hoffman Harmon and my business is the Stillwater Agency and it is a boutique marketing agency that does hyperlocal marketing and SEO for home services companies and architecture engineering construction companies. Wow, More on the luxury side of things.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Okay, wonderful, and I would like to ask can you share the journey that led you to establishing the Stillwater Agency?

Speaker 2: 0:55

Oh yeah, that's a good one. So where do I begin? So I majored in philosophy and religion, which is a far cry from what I'm doing now. I guess, depending on who you ask, If you want to get meta about it, it's the same thing. Wow. So philosophy and religion at JMU in Harrisonburg, Thought I was going to be a lawyer.

Speaker 2: 1:17

Graduated, did not want to be a lawyer and went to work for a wine company doing sales. So I was on the phone doing sales of luxury imported boutique wines to collectors in the United States. So not like restaurants, just people with my big wine cellars and things like that. I was very young. I did nothing about wine. I learned it all on the job and learned a lot on the job over seven years. That moved me from DC, when I was living downtown, to Southern California where their headquarters were, and we worked also up in Napa Valley a lot.

Speaker 2: 1:56

When I left that job, because it kind of just ran its course, I'm like, okay, what do I want to do? I was having like a crisis, Like I was there a long time, you know, spent most of my 20s there, and I'd always wanted to be in design. I always loved design. I wanted to work in design at the winery doing the labels that like never materialized. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna work in design. How do I get there? I don't want to go to design school for four years and spend $100,000. And then like, maybe it works out, Maybe it doesn't. Like what am I doing? Okay, so I had sales experience and the desire to work in design and so I was like, Okay, let me see if there's like a sales job in design here, maybe up in LA or something like that.

Speaker 2: 2:32

And I, there was a textile designer from Brooklyn that had moved to San Diego for family reasons, which was lucky for me because it was like a very well established New York City designer that needed a salesperson and they were in San Diego, which there's no like luxury designers in San Diego, that's all they. So I was lucky to have found that studio and went to work for her doing sales and learned a lot about physical material design and surface design and textile design. And while I was working there and got to go to a bunch of cool trade shows in New York City and High Point, North Carolina which, if you don't know that it's kind of a design hub weirdly very cool place Left there, decided I wanted to have my own design studio and established that in a neighborhood called Mission Hills in San Diego and it was not meant to be retail but, like the way our studio was positioned, it was on the ground level with a big, beautiful window right in like a walking district. So everyone kept coming in. Like what are you doing in here? Can I buy these things? I'm like I guess like, can you make that fabric that you're doing into a draper? I'm like sure.

Speaker 2: 3:39

So then we started doing interiors and retail and I started getting all these calls from Google Like, hey, your business listing isn't live and I had to do my own website. So I kind of started getting like a toe in marketing and digital marketing without intending to, just because I owned a small business. So then that small business moved to Virginia with my husband's work and all my family is here in Virginia and we were invited to show our own collection at High Point Market, which is kind of a big deal. So we had to like amp up all the branding and all the marketing and really do it. So we did it. I tried to be very noble and have everything made in the USA do it, so we did it. I tried to be very noble and have everything made in the USA, including our zippers, which are made in LA, but not sustainable, cost-wise at the time, I would love to figure that out one day but not sustainable cost-wise.

Speaker 2: 4:24

So I was like, okay, this is not going to work, even though I was selling to like major retailers. It was really fun, like we just weren't making a lot of enough money to do it. So, okay, I need money, you know, find somewhere to give me a paycheck. So, um, what do I know at this point? So it was then design and marketing and sales at that point. So I found a company in Tyson's Corner that was a digital marketing agency for home services companies like mostly roofers a roofing, siding, windows, doors, gutters, decks, all that kind of stuff. Got a position with them doing account management they call it a digital marketing strategist, but essentially account manager role. Got hired at a spot, dove right in, learned a ton about analytics, realized I was really into that, which surprised me because I have a math learning disability, so I never imagined that I would be into numbers or being able to conceptualize numbers in that way. But turns out I can and it's not related to arithmetic, so I don't struggle with it and really loved the analytics side of that job and also just helping small, other small businesses succeed. Found my passion for sure, like found my place. So that was like six or almost seven years ago now, anyway.

Speaker 2: 5:39

So then pandemic came. Right before the pandemic came, I was recruited back into design for a company called Charter Furniture, which, again North Carolina. They make all of the soft decorative accessory and seating for Marriott and all their subsidiaries globally Very nice, yeah. So I was the account manager for Marriott and all their subsidiaries globally Very nice, yeah. So I was the account manager for Marriott and had not even reported to my office at the Marriott headquarters one time before the pandemic happened. So I left this job that I love to be recruited back into design, only to never have it happen. So then I was in my apartment and resting with my husband like okay, wow, I'm furloughed. I just left my awesome job that I loved, and what are we doing here? And then clients started calling people from the agency that you know. Of course I couldn't solicit them, but they were like reaching out, like where did you go Like?

Speaker 2: 6:28

you know help. I'm like this isn't going well. You know, when you leave, you have an account manager that you're used to and that really knows your business and really does care. And also for me, having that small business experience as an owner myself, I think people really appreciate that because you're very careful with their money, because you know how hard it is to make that money Versus somebody that's just like spit out of college and becomes an account manager, like they don't really get it, so anyway. So the client started calling and I took a couple of them on part time and then they started giving me referrals and it really blossomed from there. So at first it was just like at the agency they were for all roofing contractors and home services companies like that, and then we started getting more remodeling through referral and then over the last, you know, almost six years now, that has become luxury design build, residential remodeling firms. So that's really our niche now and that's how we got there. So kind of a wild ride. Yeah, yeah, wild ride.

Speaker 1: 7:26

Super expensive, but it makes sense. When you lay it out it does Like it took you all these steps to get to where you are.

Speaker 2: 7:31

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:31

Learning from each job, taking like some nuggets from each one.

Speaker 2: 7:39

Yeah, the design aspect is huge. Marketing isn't just like the technical aspect. Especially when you're working with a luxury residential remodeling type of client, the aesthetics really matter. So having a lot of history in that department helps. And then also you know obviously the marketing chops. You know like shops for marketing at the agency helps a lot.

Speaker 1: 8:02

Yes, love it. And then, what inspired your focus on luxury design and marketing?

Speaker 2: 8:07

Well, all of that really. First and foremost, I care about working with small and medium business owners. So when I say that, I mean like less than 50 million a year. So most of our clients are, you know, five to you know, 50 at the most million a year. So not like teeny businesses, but small enough where it's going to impact someone's family if things don't go well. So when you work with that kind of customer, or when I do, I really care about what's happening there and I get to help people in a way that they can't really help themselves. And so it inspires itself as you go and you see a business kind of growing and they go from having no trucks to two trucks, to a fleet. You know that's all that's really fun to watch. Or they start going on more vacations with his family, you know, or people start getting promoted on their team, or they go from having no staff to like 15 people, you know, through your work with them, um, it's all very uh. Again, it inspires itself as you go. Absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:07

Speaking of staff, how many people do you have on your team? None, it's me Whoa Talk to me about that.

Speaker 2: 9:12

Well, okay, that's not the right way of saying that actually. So I have a large team of people to help me with. They're all subcontractors, um, so nobody is an employee except for me, and that's by design, and I really like that, because all of the people that work on the accounts with Informy also work with other people in other industries around, and I think one thing that a lot of home services companies struggle with is trends in digital marketing and having educational resources and things like if you hire somebody as a marketing director and they only work for you, um, they don't have outside influence, they don't have outside knowledge. The beauty of working in an agency the thing I miss the most about working in a big agency is, like that buzz of knowledge and ideas and things like that. So by having a team of subcontractors that don't work exclusively for me, I think it's a big benefit to our clients because they can pull knowledge from all over what's working over here, what's working in this area, what's working with that other?

Speaker 1: 10:09

business. What's going on yeah?

Speaker 2: 10:10

That's a big advantage. That has stopped me from hiring people full time I could have, and I hesitated because I'm like we're going to lose that hive mind, I think, unless our agency gets to be very big, which is really not what I want.

Speaker 1: 10:24

So Okay.

Speaker 2: 10:25

Yeah, Cool, Thanks for sharing. I was going to say we have people all over Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. We have somebody there, Chandler, Arizona, San Diego. People in New York City, people locally that work Nationwide.

Speaker 1: 10:37

All over.

Speaker 2: 10:38

Yeah, just like our clients, that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 10:40

That is so good to have all those perspectives and see what's going on.

Speaker 2: 10:43

Perspectives, that's the word. Yes.

Speaker 1: 10:45

Love it. How does your background in luxury design influence your approach to marketing strategies?

Speaker 2: 10:50

for the clients. Simplicity for sure. So keeping it simple, using common sense, not overdoing it and restraining yourself and editing is really important for good marketing and good design when you're talking about luxury.

Speaker 1: 11:05

And then, what unique challenges and opportunities do you encounter when crafting marketing campaigns for luxury brands compared to non-luxury brands?

Speaker 2: 11:14

Unique challenges is. The biggest one is how are we communicating how this client is different from their competitors? That's the number one thing. When we onboard a new design build, customer is like, okay, what's your pain point, what's your biggest pain point? They're like people don't understand what we do. They don't understand that design build is not just remodeling, it's not just construction. We have a staff of people that are on salary, we have dedicated installers, we have designers that we employ. We all work together all the time and you have a completely dedicated team on your project. So people often really struggle with that and communicating that Almost everybody. So we solve that problem. We're really good at that for that very particular niche of design build residential construction.

Speaker 1: 11:59

What was the second part of the question and compared to the non-luxury brands.

Speaker 2: 12:02

Okay, so non-luxury brands, like we work with a lot of roofing contractors and there's only which. I love those. I love them, but there's only so many ways you could talk about roofing and the biggest differentiators there are going to be factory certifications, training, warranties, you know things that they're able to offer through factory certifications. Essentially and it's just not as much of a challenge to communicate that with smaller brands or more everyday level brands I suppose you could say the big differentiator is who's running the business. What certifications do they have? How long have they been in business? How financially stable are they? All that kind of stuff With the luxury design build, it's like the very nature of what they do. That's challenging for people to understand.

Speaker 1: 12:48

Okay, and then what brings you excitement and joy about your job and what are some memorable-.

Speaker 2: 12:54

Helping people. Period With a blank.

Speaker 1: 12:56

I love helping people, oh my gosh, have you always been a people?

Speaker 2: 12:58

person Always, yeah, and I love being able to work in luxury, work in design, kind of scratch that itch every day, yeah, but also talk to my clients. I text my clients. We laugh all the time. You know, I know what's going on with their kids, I know what's going on with their families and them personally and I really love, love, helping people build their life and change their life. And also, our clients are really good at what they do. They're really good.

Speaker 1: 13:28

It's because you help them.

Speaker 2: 13:30

Well, no, but like I mean in terms of like physical construction, like mitering, the cut exactly right and choosing, you know, the exact right flooring installation. They're so good at it and typically before they found us, that's not been communicated visually properly. And when we do it and it's exciting for them and it's exciting for me, like it's just, it's the best, so I love it yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:50

And then, how are you keeping up with the latest trends and things that are going on in your industry? What do you like to use?

Speaker 2: 13:55

Books, social media, seminars social media is a big one, so I'm in a lot of groups on Facebook and we chatter and develop a relationship. So we all talk to each other on Slack. I'm sure you guys are on Slack, so I'm in a whole bunch of Slack spaces and rooms and chats and Facebook groups talking about trends. Plus, like our group of subcontractors, we all know each other, we meet, beautiful, we talk all the time.

Speaker 1: 14:20

Okay, yeah, I love it. And then part of your marketing what do you like to do to get your name out there and what are you doing for yourself? It's a good question.

Speaker 2: 14:29

So, marketers, like Achilles heel is doing your own marketing. So I didn't even. I had like a I don't know five page Squarespace website for five years, like we didn't need to market for ourselves because it was word of mouth, and I'm like, okay, do I want to hire employees? Like if I'm going to hire which I do soon, I think and if we want to do that, we probably need to have more steady incoming lead flow. Right, rather than you know a couple of months, we want to have, you know, a couple of weeks that are coming in. And so I was like, okay, we better do our own website. So we finally did that recently, did our rebrand. That was like in the making for years that we just kind of never had time for. So that's now complete. And if we want to run ads for our own business, we can now Nice. But yeah, the marketer's curse is you never have time to work in your own marketing because you're too busy With everybody else, with everybody else.

Speaker 2: 15:20

And all the referrals that are coming in. That's not a bad problem to have at all. We've had that problem for years. Yeah, it's a good problem.

Speaker 1: 15:25

It's a great problem. Yes, and then the Stillwater agency emphasizes building strong client relationships. How do you measure the success of these relationships and can you share an example where a strong relationship led to exceptional results?

Speaker 2: 15:39

Oh yeah, how do I measure the this? How long are they with you? How panicked is this client? A lot of times, because a lot of times they come to us they're panicked. You know this is their business. It's not gone. Well, they don't come to you because they're thrilled with our marketing agency. They come to you because they're in a place and they need a lot of help and this is their whole life and they're trusting you.

Speaker 2: 15:57

They're trusting you. So once they start to calm down, maybe you start to hear from them less Every time you talk to them, their phone's ringing in the background, like those are measures of success that I really like. Or when there starts to be time for things like clients doing things like what I'm doing here with you today, like they start to do those types of things, they start to get press. They become a little less worried, or actually significantly less worried, I should say, about the state of their business and lead flow and they start saying what else can you do for me? They go from worrying about every dollar they're spending to like how much can I give you and what can you do with it? That's always a good conversation. Yeah, very, very good conversation.

Speaker 2: 16:35

Our churn rates are low, very, very low. So I think in really any type of client relationship management like you're kind of lucky to have them a couple of years Our clients have been with us the entire time we've been in business Wow, almost all of them. What would you say is the secret to that Caring like really caring about your clients? And I think the history that I have with owning my own small business and being that a very caring person who's very concerned about other people just you can't train that.

Speaker 1: 17:09

That's kind of just how you are, yeah, um, so they can feel that and they know, and it shows through too the way you talk about it and the way you always care. You say, you text them and you guys go out like hello, actually we didn't claim this weekend her.

Speaker 2: 17:16

Her daughter plays for um softball for, uh, west Point, which is really cool, and she's having a game locally. So I'm like, okay, let's, I'm going to come up there, we're going to have dinner, like so. But she's from Florida, so being able to meet her and being able to connect in that way is incredible.

Speaker 1: 17:35

Not a lot of people have that, I guess, personality or that, that care. Like you said, you can't train the care.

Speaker 2: 17:41

It has to come from within right, it's um, it's real yeah. I really do like that about you, thank you.

Speaker 1: 17:48

I want to ask where do you see yourself in the next five years as a person and with your business. Okay.

Speaker 2: 17:52

So I have a toddler who's my world. He's two, he'll be three in May, so I will be his mom, obviously, and we're here, local and known home locally that we love, and I kind of see myself getting into gardening. I and own home locally that we love, and I kind of see myself getting into gardening. I think people are often surprised at how much I care about like homemaking and cooking and like I'm very into all that stuff, even though I own a business and I'm, you know, doing that whole thing, girl bossing it Right. I was going to say that I'm like, eh, I don't want to say that. Yeah, oh, I at her, she's hilarious. I love that Instagram account, shout out, by the way, big fan. But yeah, so being his mother having our home, being a good wife and mother growing the business. I would like to have employees, but I'm going to have to hire quite a lot of them to maintain the hive mind thing that really benefits our clients.

Speaker 2: 18:51

So, but I'm going to have to hire quite a lot of them to maintain the hive mind thing that really benefits our clients. Um. So within the next five years that should be a thing um having a physical office, um doing more work with you guys. Yeah, referring clients to you guys for your headshot services, all that stuff your?

Speaker 2: 18:58

social media services amazing, um, the video stuff that you guys do. I I would like to to do more of that. Uh, traveling a lot more now that my son's older. We just got back from the Dominican. We had a great family trip. That was our first international trip as a family. We've done some domestic travel, but international travel as a family we have friends all over that we want to visit, and he's old enough now, so doing a lot more of that.

Speaker 1: 19:22

How did you like it going out of the States?

Speaker 2: 19:24

It was great. I mean, it was only a three and a half hour flight, so I'm more worried about, like you know, 10 hour flights That'll be coming up here soon, um, when we're we're going to go visit some friends in France and maybe do an Italian thing.

Speaker 1: 19:36

Oh, you're busy, I hope.

Speaker 2: 19:39

Um, I loved it, though. It was great. Gabriel, my son his name is Gabriel he had like the time of his life splashing around.

Speaker 1: 19:46

Shout out, gabriel, we love you, buddy, he's a good kid. And then I want to ask how do you balance that as a mom and as a business owner? Do you set boundaries for yourself?

Speaker 2: 19:56

Oh yeah, I don't work at night.

Speaker 2: 19:58

I don't work in front of my kid. He knows that I have a job. He knows my office is new, working Like. He's seen me on my computer a couple of times and it's really important that I'm present with him and I don't scroll my phone. I don't uh, he doesn't have screens around him all the time, like he does a little TV and stuff, but he's not like a tablet kid and even though I work in tech technically, um, that's not everywhere through our house. Yeah, uh, yeah. So if it's like after five or before nine, like I'll work a little on my phone but like not really in front of him, I definitely have good boundaries with that. Yeah, yeah, I love that type of discipline that you have Cause.

Speaker 1: 20:30

I feel like that can be so challenging and hard, especially when you want to just like no, this is, I'm just going to take this one call it's fine. Just this one time, it's okay, and I like how disciplined you are.

Speaker 2: 20:42

I started that early, unless it for clients too, because it stops them too. Um, but Slack again. Big fan of Slack. Um, most of my clients are on it and they're on workspaces and you can brain dump in there and then we'll all get to it in the morning, whereas, like with the text, um, there's no way to remind yourself. You're going to forget it. You know, uh, technology like Slack is very helpful for for late night brain dumping, that you can kind of get to the next day, yeah, late night brain dumping that you can kind of get to the next day, yeah, yeah, I love it.

Speaker 1: 21:08

And then, um, what current trends in luxury marketing do you find most impactful, and how is the Stillwater agency adapting to these trends?

Speaker 2: 21:15

Oh well, video is a big one, obviously, um authenticity. So people want testimonials, they want walkthroughs of job sites. So we develop really good relationships with we have clients all over the place and we have good relationships with local photography and video studios to actually send out to get that content. That's a big challenge for our clients, so that's something that we do for them. Other trends websites are becoming simpler All the fancy bells and the whistles and the chatbots. People are tired of that stuff so we're eliminating some of that, which is kind of nice it is. We're integrating online booking with almost every anyone that will allow me to. We're doing it, I want them doing it, and they all say, gosh, why didn't we do this sooner? They're all afraid of online booking and having people have access to their calendar, but, like once they do it, they're like oh, Wonderful and do you guys have any misconception Like?

Speaker 1: 22:08

do your clients have misconceptions sometimes coming in? Can you talk to me about those?

Speaker 2: 22:12

About working with us yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:13

Working with you and just marketing in general.

Speaker 2: 22:16

Yeah. So when you own an agency, especially with a client that may have had a marketing director in the past or something, they kind of think you're taking that role and you're not. I offer separately FCMO services. So if somebody wants to hire me as sort of like a part-time, fractional CMO, I can do that. But that's not the same as hiring an agency and you have to help them along while also balancing their demands of your time, which is difficult In the beginning. I kind of just like I'm just going to give you what you need for at least a month.

Speaker 2: 22:50

You know, call me as much as you need. You know let's get you on board. But then after that it is a little bit tricky to navigate the time element and what they expect of you. That's always been a bit of a challenge, but you know we've overcome that successfully with everybody, so that's been okay. What else? Oh, expectations about SEO.

Speaker 2: 23:12

I think by the time some people think about, hey, we better worry about this because we have no leads, like they think they're just going to build a website and it's going to turn out to not work like that. Okay, you need time. Seo takes time. Advertising different story.

Speaker 2: 23:22

But even with advertising, if you haven't done the branding work and your community isn't aware of your brand and they don't recognize it, that's not going to work either. You can't just turn it on, especially if you have, like, a review problem, like you have bad reviews or you have no reviews. You know you can't just flick it on and have it work. You have to think about this stuff in advance. That being said, if you're in a crisis, call me Please. But yeah, I think that's a misconception is like well, we built the website. Where are the leads? Yeah, you know like well, it takes time. Google has to index in other search engines Google's king. We all know that. Google has to index your site, rank it, understand it against your competitors. You know all of those. And then we have to tweak it as we go through our learnings about what you're ranking for. Yeah, people say they understand that, but when it comes down to it, I think you have to experience it.

Speaker 1: 24:05

For them to really understand what you mean. That's right, and you touched on something here that I'm curious about just myself. Maybe a little bit off topic or a weird question, okay, but have you ever helped a company maybe that has like bad reviews and they're trying to turn that around? What is that process like on your end Reputation management is what that's called.

Speaker 2: 24:25

Luckily, our clients don't often have reputation management issues Because of the level of client we work with. If you're not doing a good business, you're not going to get in the many tens of millions of dollars in revenue range, you just don't. So we don't deal with that a lot. But when we do, we have processes in place for flagging those reviews, trying to get them removed, um, if they are invalid and that's a tough conversation to have with a client because sometimes they get reviews that are clearly not real right, it's just a competitor hiring somebody to trash them or some angry like I had a customer. Um, I have a customer who installed a window for somebody like just for free as part of like a bigger renovation project, and then, like a lawnmower threw a rock and it broke the window and then they wouldn't replace it for free. So the customer gave him a bad review like people can be ridiculous that is crazy.

Speaker 2: 25:16

one thing on the topic of reviews that is pertinent is the FTC ruling less than a year ago ruled fake reviews to be illegal, so it's not just frowned upon, it's illegal with hefty fines. I did not know that.

Speaker 1: 25:29

Most people don't know that.

Speaker 2: 25:30

Just yesterday I was at my kid's school and they had his daycare, rather and they had a sign like hey, give us a five-star review and here's a cure card. That's illegal. You can't ask for five-star reviews, you can't suppress negative reviews, you can't coerce somebody in any way or motivate them in any way to give you a bad one, give you a good one or take down a bad one, like it's tricky. So when people come to us and they have a reputation management problem, we have a system in place, but there's a lot of regulations that you have to think about that even agencies aren't aware of.

Speaker 1: 26:00

Yeah, no, gotta be careful, yeah no, this is great insight right here. And, like I was not aware of that and I didn't even know that was a thing, that people were like, oh, let's go give them a bad review.

Speaker 2: 26:09

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:10

I did, I swear, I did not know that was a thing.

Speaker 2: 26:12

Oh, not only do they flood their own profile with hundreds of fake five-star reviews, but they'll give competitors one star, two star, and then Google's rating system is weighted. People don't understand that either, oftentimes. So that's one thing we're doing. That's interesting. We're building this tool. It should be out in just a few weeks on our website, where you can simulate your Google reviews.

Speaker 2: 26:34

So if you get a five-star review and a one-star review, those don't balance each other out. The one-star review has significantly more weight. So if I have a Google business profile and I have 40 reviews and a 4.6 star, which in my view is low, you need 4.8 or higher. Okay, that should be your goal.

Speaker 2: 26:51

That's just how people perceive it. If you have less than that, they just think that you're not doing a good business and be a five star if they don't think you're real. So that's not a goal either. 4.7, 4.8, 4.9. That's good, but anyway. So if I have that many reviews and I get one one-star review and I plummet to a 4.3, I think, oh, let me just get a five-star, it'll balance it out. No, you need like 55-star reviews to counteract the one. People don't know that. So reputation management obviously is a topic I could go on about for some time.

Speaker 1: 27:18

No, this is great. I'm glad I asked yeah, good question. Yeah, oh my goodness. And then, as a leader, how do you foster creativity and innovation within your well, I don't want to say team.

Speaker 2: 27:30

Team is fine yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:32

To ensure they deliver exceptional results.

Speaker 2: 27:34

You don't micromanage them. You can't do the creative work for a creative person. You just have to make them comfortable, give them money, let them take their time. Work at night if you want to work in the middle of the night, early in the morning, I don't care, just get it done their time. Work at night if you want to work in the middle of the night, early in the morning, I don't care, just get it done. Get it done in your way, which is another beauty of having subcontractors Like legally, you can't tell them how to do their job or on what tools. You just kind of pay them and let them. You know, and that works really well for creative people. You can't rush it and you can get like almost like writers get writer's block, you get creativity block if I get it. You know, if there's like this pressure to perform, I'm like I can't. I got to step away and come back.

Speaker 2: 28:11

I feel, that, and then, when I'm feeling inspired, have at it. You know, hammer it out. So inspiring creativity in my team means stepping back. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, giving them tools, giving them money. Stepping back yeah, I like that. Yeah, giving them tools, giving them money stepping back.

Speaker 1: 28:27

Yeah, that's a good one. And then what are your aspirations for the Stillwater Agency for the future?

Speaker 2: 28:37

Any new services or anything in the works. No, our services are pretty solid, pretty well thought out. Yeah, we're just going to keep doing what we're doing, but at scale.

Speaker 1: 28:48

Yeah, I love it, get bigger. Yeah, keep growing, keep going.

Speaker 2: 28:51

We're doing what works and we're just doing it for more people.

Speaker 1: 28:53

Yeah, Love it. And then, what advice would you give to individuals aspiring to enter the luxury marketing industry?

Speaker 2: 28:59

Take your time, get experience. Work for an agency that's a big one. A lot of people think, oh, I'm just going to go from being a marketing director to just owning my own business. Like you should, work for an agency. You get a lot of experience of what not to do, which is really important, and what to do, and exposure to a lot of people and ideas and client types and system ideas and things like that. If you're just going to be a consultant, sure just go on your own. But otherwise, if you want to transition, I would go work for an agency first. That's great advice.

Speaker 1: 29:30

Is there anything that I have not touched on that maybe you want to share? Get out there, Maybe anything that's close and dear to your heart, maybe about yourself personally, your industry.

Speaker 2: 29:42

I'm really passionate about animal welfare, Ooh let's get into it.

Speaker 2: 29:45

I'm very passionate about that I would like to share. My friend, chelsea, has an organization in Oaksville called Equine Connection Center Horses, horses. So oftentimes people are like, oh you know, horse therapy is riding horses. No, it's grooming horses, it's feeding them, it's walking them around. So she does equine-assisted learning EAL grooming horses, it's feeding them, it's walking them around. So she does equine assisted learning EAL. Um, and I keep wanting to share whenever, like I, I have the opportunity. But, like, if I'm in an article, it's like that section doesn't get picked up. So if you could feature her, that'd be great. Uh, chelsea is a wonderful person. Equine connection center in Nokesville big, awesome thank you um in growing and they're kind of new.

Speaker 2: 30:23

Um, she's a good person. Do you ride horses? I mean not like an equestrian person. I mean I grew up in horse country, um, went to high school out in middleburg and you know, have have roots there, uh. But no, I'm not like a fancy horse girl. Yeah, no, horse girl that's a whole.

Speaker 1: 30:38

Other, yeah, another story.

Speaker 2: 30:39

That's a whole other thing like the law. Yeah, um, a horse girl from school? No, um, I do like riding horses, but I wouldn't consider myself like an equestrian Gotcha.

Speaker 1: 30:49

But no, that's beautiful and I think that's awesome that you just plugged her in there, so hopefully, yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:54

I wanted to. I keep trying.

Speaker 1: 30:55

No, you did so hopefully you guys will watch that.

Speaker 2: 30:58

Yeah. I promise you have my promise, give her a backlink.

Speaker 1: 31:01

Yeah, thank you. And then my final question do you have a quote saying or a mantra that has inspired you in any way? Or maybe somebody told you something that resonated?

Speaker 2: 31:10

Would you?

Speaker 1: 31:10

mind sharing that.

Speaker 2: 31:11

Okay, I don't remember what classroom this was in and what grade, but I always remember the quote attitude is everything. I think about that all the time. It was on a poster on a wall, probably in elementary school or something, I don't know who said it. But attitude is everything. I really believe that Sometimes my attitude is not the best. I'll be in a bad mood or negative about something which is fine.

Speaker 2: 31:32

You got to process stuff, but attitude is everything when it comes to success in business and for our clients. Like having a positive outlook, not in a toxic way. Toxic positivity is a thing Not into that, but a belief that you can do it or a belief that the people you've hired can do it, empowering them. That attitude really is the crux of all of it.

Speaker 1: 31:54

That's a good one. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Speaker 2: 31:56

Thank you, I really appreciate it, yeah, anytime, thank you.