Incorporating Personal Passions into Your Brand | Amy Singleton

PROFITABLE TALKS....

Amy Singleton of Hite Digital discusses her journey from being a registered nurse to starting a digital marketing agency. She emphasizes the importance of understanding the business side of marketing and the need for a solid foundation in areas like operations and customer experience. Amy's passion is bringing hope and purpose to people who have experienced failure, and she incorporates this into her personal brand. She explains how creativity and practicality can intersect to turn passion into profit, and she describes it as a symbiotic relationship. In this conversation, Amy Singleton and Christian Brim discuss the concept of a lifestyle brand and how it relates to business and branding. They explore the importance of community and creating a common language and symbols to build a strong brand. They also delve into the power of branding and how it can influence consumer behavior. They touch on the challenges of hiring and pricing in business, as well as the need for clear expectations and value pricing. Overall, the conversation highlights the importance of building a strong brand and providing a great client experience.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Understanding the business side of marketing is crucial for success.
• A solid foundation in areas like operations and customer experience is necessary for effective marketing.
• Incorporating personal passions into your brand can attract the right audience.
• Creativity and practicality can intersect to turn passion into profit.
• A symbiotic relationship between creativity and practicality is key to success. A lifestyle brand is a way of looking at life and business, and it involves creating a community and a common language among customers.
• Branding has the power to influence consumer behavior and create emotional connections with customers.
• Hiring can be challenging for business owners, but being clear on expectations and using a scorecard approach can help find the right fit.
• Raising prices can be difficult, but it is important to charge what you are worth and provide a quality product or service.
• Building a strong brand and providing a great client experience are key to success in business.

Ready to turn your PASSION into PROFIT?!? Let's get CREATIVE ➡️
https://www.coregroupus.com/profit-first-for-creatives

Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.666)
Welcome to another edition of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim, and joining me today is Amy Singleton of Height Digital. Welcome, Amy.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (00:17.563)
Hello, thank you for having me, Mr. Brim. Excited to be here? Yes. Yes, you're looking very debonair in your whole setup here with the podcast. I'm excited for you. Looks good.

Christian Brim (00:19.899)
Mr. Brim, it's gone formal now. Yes, I am very excited.

Christian Brim (00:29.486)
I'm excited to have you on. So give us the Reader's Digest. You're old enough that I can say Reader's Digest and you know what I'm talking about. Give us the Reader's Digest version of what you do and how you got here.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (00:38.491)
Yup.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (00:44.985)
Okay, well, my husband and partner Joseph and I own a digital marketing agency that is full scope.

creative and digital agencies. So we do everything from logos, branding, brand messaging, website development and design, as well as those things that get the leads in the door, like search engine optimization and ads, paid advertising, Google ads, social media ads. The way that we got here is that, so I am a registered nurse by my background. I did open heart surgeries for over a decade. And over the course of that career and a lot of life happening to me,

As you said, I'm old enough to know what a Reader's Diagest is, so there's been a few decades of life lived here. But throughout that life living, I had to stop being a nurse back in 2012. Between 2012 and 2014, my life was...

a lot of pain and a lot of personal growth and development after that. But then I met my husband and partner now eight years ago and he was the serial entrepreneur. He had owned multiple businesses, always been self -employed or owned a business from the time he was young, a teenager.

Christian Brim (01:41.246)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (01:57.521)
We were looking for ways and when I met him, he was working out of state, like 12, eight to 12 hours away all the time, loads of responsibility in this consulting job he was doing for himself, but far away. And I was starting to feel better. I knew I was probably not physically gonna be going back to nursing anymore, but I thought, you know, there's some way I can serve this community. Where's the hole? What's the problem that we really are gonna solve for people here in Oklahoma?

And we were just talking one day and he said the four words that started our business. He said, we can do better. Like business owners deserve better marketing. deserve, he said, the person I paid the most money to throughout all of the different businesses I've owned, whether it be home service or consulting or in professional areas, he was like, I've paid so much money to people like home advisor, Angie's list, GoDaddy, web designers or marketers.

Christian Brim (02:31.47)
Mmm.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (02:54.001)
that promised me the world. I didn't know even enough about the subject to know if I was asking the right questions. And I never felt like I got a good ROI or at least had a good relationship with those people to be moving my business forward. And so that's what we started to do back in 2019. And since then, you know, have partnered with some other business partners and grown this thing and are serving.

know, hundreds of clients nationwide and especially our passion here is for the business owner in Oklahoma that is really great at what they do. You know, like whether it be painting houses or doing HVAC or doing accounting or whatever that is that they're great at. They're not so great sometimes at the marketing piece, getting the word out about that, especially in today's digital age.

Christian Brim (03:42.166)
They probably refer to it as I do, is wizardry and sorcery. I, yes, yes. No, it's not. And I, know, it's fascinating that you say that because I would agree with you, no offense to any of the listeners that there is a dearth of good marketing people, right?

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (03:47.853)
Yeah, get a lot of sorcery. That that new internet thing's never going to catch on, right? No.

Christian Brim (04:11.2)
And that doesn't really mean that they're not good at their skills, but rather offering a solution. And that was my experience with multiple agencies in the past is kind of connecting the dots and seeing that return on investment. And it...

It just came down to, I think, a fundamental lack of understanding of the marketing people, of the economics of what we do. And you said you didn't even know enough, or I guess you were quoting your husband, didn't even know enough to ask the right questions. And I think that's the root of it.

marketing people traditionally that serve small businesses, my experience is they don't know enough about the business side of it, right? And then the business owners that are not in creative spaces don't understand the creative aspects of it. So it's like this two blind guys stumbling around in a closet, like, you know, that's what it felt like.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (05:31.471)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. It's all integrated, you know, and I did not realize the extent.

that my seat would shift when I'm sitting next to a business owner or across from a business owner talking to them about their marketing. So often they come to me and say, I need Facebook ads or I need social media management or I need this thing. And then I have to start digging in and say, okay, let's talk about why you think you need those things. Let's talk about...

you know, tell me more about your business, tell me more about your goals. I ask about revenue, because all of these are key indicators that are gonna tell me what is this person's tolerance for risk? What have they tried before? What's worked and not worked? And how much runway do we have to try things out? Because marketing is not like algebra. does not always, A plus B does not always equal C. So much is contingent upon...

you know, I'm finding myself sitting in like a business coach seat so often going, okay, tell me about how you answer your phone, who answers the phone, how quickly are you getting back? How are you calling the leads? What happens next? What happens next? What happens next? And a lot of business owners don't know because they don't, they either, it's all in their head or it's in the salesperson's head or it's in, you know, when we're in small business, truly starting from the ground up.

Christian Brim (06:33.293)
Yes.

Christian Brim (06:47.789)
Now.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (06:56.018)
Sometimes that's only three people running the whole show and there aren't any documented processes in order to help you scale. depending on those answers I get throughout discovery, that's gonna tell me whether or not our marketing is gonna work. Because I can send you 100 leads a day if you don't answer your phone, you don't follow up on them or you treat them, your customer experience is crappy. You're gonna think I did a terrible job because you didn't make any sales, right?

Christian Brim (07:21.016)
Right. Right. Yeah. And I guess the assumption that every marketer has to come to the table is that you're trying to increase sales, right? I mean, you're not working on Coca -Cola branding, know, just awareness kind of stuff. So yeah, how are you going to move the needle of sales? And there are so many components of that. marketing in a lot of ways is

is like the last thing that a business needs, you know, to make sure that they're successful because, know, you have to make sure one, that your product is a fit, right? Your product or service, like you can actually perform a solution that solves the customer's problem, right? Okay. That's first thing. And some business owners never get past that, right?

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (08:10.203)
Yeah.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (08:13.827)
Yeah, and being obsessed with the quality of that product or service.

Christian Brim (08:16.968)
Exactly. it's, okay, is your product or service the right fit? Then can you make any money off of it? mean, right? And then, you know, the whole customer experience is that nailed down tight. Because if you throw marketing on top of that and none of the one of those things isn't working, it's like

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (08:26.277)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (08:44.12)
putting a bigger engine in a car with three wheels. It's, it's not going to work.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (08:47.429)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I do this little thing when I'm giving talks, you know, like at the Chamber of Commerce and I'm, finally figured out how to spin the thing on my finger. And I'm like, these are all the, know, when you're at the ground, when you're on the ground and, you're doing something like, you know, you're trying to balance all these different areas of your business, whether that be the marketing, whether that be the operations, whether that be the sales, whether that be the people in the team, it's easy to balance it all when you're on the ground floor, like we're not growing, but as you grow, if you don't grow,

grow those areas equally. If you don't have a solid foundation under one or the other, the ball's just gonna tip off of the spinning plate. then, yeah, you're absolutely right. If you have a really great product, if you're an amazing roofer and your shingles are the best shingles ever, but you give a bad experience and you leave nails everywhere and your guys are throwing cigarette butts down, well, your customer experience is crap. So...

Christian Brim (09:23.874)
Yes.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (09:48.727)
It doesn't matter if your product is great. Why would you even market a product like that? You know, blah, blah, blah. And downhill it goes.

Christian Brim (09:53.036)
Right.

I think what you're saying is reading between the lines that entrepreneurship is difficult. That's what I hear.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (10:01.595)
Yeah, yeah, I'm hearing difficult, picking up difficult vibes. Yes, it's all uphill.

Christian Brim (10:04.268)
Yes. Yes. It's not, it's not for the faint of heart. That's for sure. And, you know, I think that you, you can, get to a point in business where, you know, you don't have to go any further. Like, you know, growth is, is not a business strategy and it shouldn't be a business strategy. It, you know, like you, you can reach a point in your business where

It's profitable and you're making the money you want and you're getting your shit done. And you know, you have time to do what you want and, growing beyond that, is just going to open up another set of headaches. I know personally from my experience, the last six years, were harder for me as a business owner than the startup.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (10:38.512)
Mm

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (10:45.231)
Yes.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (11:01.263)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (11:02.115)
by far. And it was making that transition because I had to change so that the company could change and pretty much everything changed. You know, it's that old axiom of what got you from point A to point B is not going to get you to point C. And, you know, the idea that just throwing more fuel on the fire is going to keep you on the path. That's a bad analogy. Anyway, you...

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (11:18.683)
Mm -mm.

Christian Brim (11:30.734)
you can't just keep doing the same things at a certain point. You have to change entirely what you're doing, and it's a lot of work.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (11:40.037)
Yeah, absolutely.

You know, and to your point, know, more is not always better. Absolutely not always better. You know, what the two of the businesses my husband has had in the past were paint contracting companies. One of those companies had 125 employees, 10 % of the new housing market. You know, they painted so many houses, $10 million in revenue. And let me tell you how much went in his pocket compared to the 10 employee, three crew, you know, couple million dollars.

Christian Brim (11:46.549)
No.

Christian Brim (11:58.412)
Oof.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (12:11.811)
Same amount went in his pocket. Let me tell you which one was a bigger pain in his ass. The 125 people and all of those projects and all, mean, more is not always better. like to your point, you better have a strategy. You better know where you're going and where you wanna go and what your goals truly are or else sometimes you're dealing with something bigger than you ever really planned for it to be trading dollars for time.

Christian Brim (12:13.856)
Yeah, exactly egg egg egg

Christian Brim (12:22.689)
No.

Christian Brim (12:37.434)
That's not a good plan. Not a good plan. One of our favorite topics on here is the theme of the show, turning passion into profit. So what is your passion and how do you turn it into profit? What wakes you up in the morning and motivates you?

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (12:39.901)
Not a good plan.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (12:59.461)
Yeah. So for me personally, my entire life's purpose and my passion is bringing hope and purpose to other people who have failed, who have lived through failure, whether that be failure in their business, failure in their personal life, whether they've been failed by others. I have been between that nursing career and my marketing career.

Christian Brim (13:10.563)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (13:22.414)
Sure.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (13:23.921)
I've experienced a lot of failure and I've been failed by others. You know, I went through a divorce that was completely out of my control. I failed my own body in my health. I at one time weighed almost 300 pounds. I was at one time very suicidally depressed and addicted to alcohol. I've been on in my sobriety journey since April 1st of 2018 and so

Christian Brim (13:28.162)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (13:50.043)
Throughout all of those things that happened to me, I felt so hopeless, like so alone, like there wasn't anybody else standing up and as an example of resilience, as an example of anti -fragility even, know, like that concept where you actually do get stronger and you're fortified through what you go through. There just weren't enough people standing up saying, I'm what this recovery and living through this thing looked like. And I think that,

Christian Brim (13:54.285)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (14:19.613)
We're kind of in this weird vibe of sensationalizing trauma yet living in the victimhood of that And so, you know helping people through that that hopeless time those failures And I I get so much joy by by seeing it done in businesses by seeing people Not just get their business life together, but like get their whole

Christian Brim (14:27.448)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (14:44.719)
you know, this life work life balance thing together and then they really start to see the fruits of the things that they started off wanting in the first place.

I didn't have an example really of entrepreneurship in my life and my family other than my grandfather that died when I was five. But I feel his spirit in me. As a young girl, I just knew that I was bound for stages and you know, a podcast and acting or singing or dancing or performance and leadership in some way. And I just really never could find my way. I found some leadership in my nursing career, but that was really

Christian Brim (15:16.813)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (15:23.001)
all born out of fear going into healthcare. All of that was born out of fear of not being the right look, not feeling the right feeling and getting the right support I needed to be on a stage, be spreading a message of hope and overcoming. And it's kind of ironic how everything's all come back to come back to my original passions of communication and leadership and hope. But.

But it's a joy to do it. It's a joy to see people's lives turn around for the better.

Christian Brim (15:54.062)
I can tell your passion from your voice and your mannerisms is something that really deeply resonates with you. I think that there's not a lot of difference in being a nurse and being a marketer in the sense that you're helping them. You're just doing different things for them, right? And sometimes people hear words like that, like, want to provide hope.

for people and they say to themselves, well, how is that a business? Like that doesn't, that doesn't, that doesn't seem to jive, you know, or, or, or, you should do those things altruistically, right? You shouldn't be compensated for that because you're just being a good person. Right? Right. So

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (16:47.995)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (16:49.774)
How did you take that passion and justify making money with it?

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (16:55.749)
You know, it's funny that we're talking a little bit about branding and marketing today because all of those things I just said are a part of my brand. They're a part of Amy's personal brand. The fact that I'm in recovery, the fact that I'm half covered in tattoos, the fact that I wear this red lipstick, which is a little different shade today, but it's typically like this bright blue red lip, right? Dressing a little funky, a little quirky.

Christian Brim (17:08.215)
Right?

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (17:25.613)
All of these things are like icons that are attached to the brand of Amy. People, anybody who knows me knows that I love Jesus. I support the LGBTQ community. I support the recovery community. I'm in recovery myself. I have a great big giant, great Dane. I love to bake. And also she does marketing. know, also she hosts a podcast for women leaders. Also she's, she's incoming president for the board of a recovery center in Norman. because that's part of her brand. That's part of

who she is, right? And, you know, not to compare myself to Coca -Cola, but people who buy Coke aren't buying it because they just need another brown soda and 200 calories worth of sugar. They buy it because they align with what that brand stands for, that pop, that fizz, that feeling, that cold summer day, you know, that the fact that grandma always had it in the icebox every time they visited. Man, I just want to Coke. It reminds me of my childhood.

we're not buying the product. I mean, we are, I'm providing solutions for people that want their websites to rank and Coke is helping people who are thirsty, right? Or maybe need extra calories in their day, I don't know, but we're all providing something and that's encompassed around that brand. So the things that I do, the things I'm passionate about.

or I'm not getting paid for, I'm not getting paid to do board service, especially if I'm speaking in a non -marketing, if I'm speaking at a marketing conference or something, it might be a message of hope that I might be getting paid for that. But if I'm speaking at a church or to a women's group or leading a class at the Chamber of Commerce, I don't get paid for any of those things. I only get paid when, to be quite frank with you, the 5 % of the people in the room who are qualified to,

Christian Brim (18:50.915)
Right?

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (19:16.049)
do business with my company, those are the people that I, you my brand attracts because when I'm in a group of a hundred, you know, we work best with companies that are, you know, at least a million dollars in revenue, typically more like three to 15, you know, and then in Oklahoma, especially a lot of people don't consider that a small business. They consider that a big business. It's not, but you know, so like for the solopreneur for the two to 10 person team, that's just really trying to make it, I give away the farm.

Christian Brim (19:31.223)
Right?

Christian Brim (19:36.972)
Right.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (19:45.603)
I wanna help educate and teach and then because they're gonna know someone who is qualified, who is ready for SEO, ready for paid advertising, who's like, you know who's been really helpful to me? You who really knows her stuff? That Amy girl, the one with the red lips. Let's call her, yeah.

Christian Brim (19:58.71)
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I, you, you mentioned something, and it's spurred this thought. We, we just had our, leadership quarterly meeting, yesterday and we, we actually went off, on a not none of the, I'm the marketing person in this group. Okay. So I'm dealing with other accountants.

And, we, and we ended up on an hour long discussion around essentially branding, right? And, what, what became clear to me and it, it, it, it's something that, know, when I wrote my book, started writing my book a year ago, through all the podcasts I've been on or making, you know, I've been talking about it, thinking about it, writing about it. It really just coalesced into this idea.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (20:40.895)
you

Christian Brim (20:56.814)
And the idea is that it's your creative brain and your practical brain don't always work together, right? But they do overlap and that's where the secret sauce is. You can do something out of a passion, your creativity,

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (21:12.879)
Right? Definitely not.

Christian Brim (21:26.83)
that absolutely has no commercial intent. There's never going to be a dime from it, right? Great. You can be practical all day long, you know, doing what you think needs to do to produce the outcome that you want and never involve creativity in it, right? But the beauty of it is when you can build that bridge between the two, when you can connect the two.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (21:47.857)
Mm

Christian Brim (21:56.726)
And that's where you turn passion into profit, right? So we are working on rebranding our service offerings, And so I'm intrigued to see how this, I said Bridge, I'll get some free advice here. To me, it was a connection. So Bridge sounded right.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (22:16.379)
Do it.

Christian Brim (22:24.75)
but not exactly right. So how would you describe that synergy or that connection or what I'm trying to describe here? What words would you use?

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (22:39.375)
Hmm. No, you know, one of my favorite words, symbiotic.

Christian Brim (22:41.708)
putting you on the spot.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (22:48.761)
symbiosis, know, like when I, the first time I went to a cloud forest in Nicaragua on the side of a volcano, the tour guide was telling us how all of these plants and animals live. And it's like a synergy, it's synergistic with one another, but they are literally interdependent upon one another. And so their lives are symbiotic in the fact that if this little cup doesn't collect rain,

Christian Brim (23:05.442)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Hmm.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (23:15.341)
And also if this tiny frog doesn't live in the rain cup, then the thing next to them doesn't survive and none of them survive without, you know, that synergy or that symbiotic relationship with one another. But if you're speaking about forward -facing branding, I don't know that everyone's gonna know what symbiosis means.

Christian Brim (23:22.231)
Mm -hmm.

Christian Brim (23:32.952)
Yeah, no. What I was thinking as you were describing that is we're actually thinking about making Core a lifestyle brand. And when my marketing team came up with that, I'm like, that's interesting because I can't tell you any lifestyle brands that are services.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (23:49.478)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (24:02.126)
I mean, usually when you think lifestyle brand, you think products, right? But as we talked about it and we worked through it, I'm like, you know, that actually does resonate, that it's a way of looking at life. It's a way of looking at business. It's a way of looking at, you know, these two parts of your brain. So I'll be interested to see how it turns out.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (24:07.291)
Yeah.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (24:22.437)
Yeah.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (24:26.201)
No, I love that. mean, that's a that'll be that would be really interesting because, part of what really creates those those massive brands is and you and I were having a conversation about GMC versus Chevy on the phone the other day, you know, it's a community. It's a it's someone to be for and with and it's someone to be against, you know, those lazy.

Christian Brim (24:42.572)
Yes. Yes.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (24:52.461)
nine to five years or whoever it is that aren't the entrepreneur pushing their core to do everything they can and be, you know, like crushing it in every area of their life because they want the most out of life. But having that, like a creation story of well, it all just started in Christian's living room or in the boardroom one day over it, you know, over here, and we were talking about the book and you've got the story. And then you've got like a common language among you like you've got

you've got rituals, you've got those icons that stand for something, that everyone wears the same hat or we got tattoos or lipstick or whatever that thing is, you you begin to really create a symbiosis not only among, you know, people's brains individually with that creative and passionate part, but amongst each other.

and amongst your peeps. It's like all of a sudden, know, we're Jeep peeps, we're leaving everybody a duck, whatever, I don't even know what that means, but like they've created something there,

Christian Brim (25:43.756)
John.

Christian Brim (25:53.528)
Yeah. Yeah. I, I, you know, I talking about branding and you know, that previous conversation you mentioned, you know, I know that I'm affected by branding and this is where I get into the sorcery and witchcraft definition because I'm like, but I don't understand how it works. Right. And I don't understand. I know it affects me, but I can't see it. and you know, maybe, maybe it is easier to see branding.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (26:11.739)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (26:23.77)
on products that you don't identify with. Like it might be easier than brands you do identify

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (26:33.957)
Hmm, very possible. You know, after we had that conversation about GMC versus Chevy, was a couple of weeks after that, I heard just like a commercial, I think it was at the movie theater they're showing regular commercials at the movie theater now, which is weird to me. But it came across GMC professional grade. That's their...

Christian Brim (26:48.514)
Right.

Christian Brim (26:55.01)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (26:57.029)
That's their tagline, like that little credo, right? And I was like, okay, that confirms what we were saying. Chevy was like the farm dirt truck, this and that, but the older, the professional guy, the one willing to pay a little bit more, the professional grade guy drives the GMC versus the Chevrolet. I wasn't even thinking of that tagline when we were talking about that.

Christian Brim (27:18.026)
Yes, and I...

When you described it to me, I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. But it wasn't obvious to me when I was trying to say, why do I like GMC? And why have I always purchased GMC over Chevy? I couldn't define that for myself. And I think to me, it ties into that irrational part of our brain, right? Because

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (27:31.205)
Yeah.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (27:47.172)
out.

Christian Brim (27:47.668)
I can tell you that the vehicles are the same. They've got the same engines. They got the same transmission, everything, right? And yeah, there may be some interior differences, but does it justify the price difference? But the analysis never plays into it. You never get to that point because subconsciously your emotions are engaged and you don't even realize it. And that's, guess that's the wizardry and witchcraft thing. get, you know, yeah. Yeah.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (27:53.457)
Yep. Yep.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (28:08.187)
Yeah.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (28:11.589)
Yeah.

It is. That's the Harry Potter stuff. wait, how'd you do that? Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Brim (28:17.838)
Yeah, 100%. And, you know, to a certain extent, I think in my marketing journey, what I've felt like is that marketers don't really know how it works either, but they just have more experience with it, right?

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (28:38.213)
Yeah, yeah, they can just point it out. They see it quicker. Yeah.

Christian Brim (28:41.62)
Right, right. And so I'm always like, hold on a second. You guys don't know. I mean, you don't know how this works either. No, we don't know how works, but we've seen it work a lot more.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (28:51.793)
There are definitely some key aspects to, you know, make sure you cover, but far and wide, it's just like, it's luck. It's like, who's going to catch on to this? Who's going to fall in love with it? Who's going to resonate? Is it going to resonate? Sometimes it hits and sometimes it misses, but when it hits, there's usually some commonalities that you can see that, that they, you know, Hey, they definitely got that piece right. You know,

Christian Brim (29:17.324)
Yeah, it's not so formulaic that you can just say, okay, I've got these ingredients. I'm to put it in the pot and out comes gumbo. It's not that, but there are certain things that you know you want in gumbo, right? And some things you don't want, right? Gumbo is a good analogy. just pulled that, know, because gumbo, I mean, people make gumbo different ways. I mean, some people put seafood in it. I read about, I did not though this even existed,

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (29:24.651)
Mm -mm. Right.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (29:32.867)
Right, exactly, Mm -hmm, for sure. That's a great analogy. That's a great analogy. I like that. Right.

Christian Brim (29:47.692)
There's a gumbo they serve down in Texas that does not have a roux. It's not roux based. It's like a soup, right? And I'm like, that sounds awful. I mean, like that's not gumbo. But there's a big debate among gumbo people that, know, well, that's gumbo.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (29:53.195)
wow.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (29:58.863)
Yeah

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (30:05.197)
I reckon the people from Louisiana would have something to say about that gumbo.

Christian Brim (30:08.802)
you'd think. I've never seen anything in Louisiana that looked like a soup for gumbo. It's always a stew. It's always got that consistency. Okay, so let's pivot here for a second. Sorry. I love making it. So where have you struggled financially in the business?

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (30:16.389)
Mm, no.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (30:20.187)
For sure. I like gumbo.

Christian Brim (30:38.207)
What have been some of the financial challenges that you've had as a business owner?

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (30:44.875)
you know, of course, early on, it's like, like when you're the first few hires, like, I need to hire, but I don't have enough revenue to hire. But if I don't hire, I'm never going to get more revenue. So, you know, I think that that's part of the growing pains of, of any business that's trying to grow and scale. You know, also, honestly, just

Christian Brim (30:52.738)
Mm -hmm.

Christian Brim (30:59.724)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (31:12.501)
as the business grew and I was no longer the one doing the hands on stuff, building the websites. know, now there are designers and developers that do that, you know, running the ads, whatever, whatever it was. I charged one price then and I charge a different price now and

Christian Brim (31:30.04)
Yes.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (31:33.177)
I think coming into my confidence enough to charge what it really takes for us to be profitable, for me to pay people well, that was really hard to wrap my brain around, raising my prices to the point that we were getting what we earned, what we deserved and what we were worth, while still providing a quality product to the client. So we went through a period

Christian Brim (31:42.594)
Yes.

Christian Brim (31:54.477)
Yes.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (32:02.371)
over the last couple of years where we had a massive amount of growth in a really short period of time. And so we were just hiring people, know, just stacking on to the top to try and fulfill that. And it was like this ball of yarn that we're chasing, right? Like.

Christian Brim (32:11.063)
Right.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (32:19.055)
to your point, like how much are you making, are you really making any more as you grow in scale? So we really, you we actually brought in some strategic leadership facilitators and really took a look at everything and decided that we were going to do a few things. We were going to institute a new system of kind of grading for employees and like a bonus structure for them. We naturally let some people fall out. We help some other people find more jobs

Christian Brim (32:22.274)
Right.

Christian Brim (32:47.118)
Mm

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (32:48.979)
we cut our staff by about two thirds and paid the ones who stayed and the ones that were doing really well more. In combination with that, then we have upped our prices and upped the...

Christian Brim (32:56.685)
Yes.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (33:06.405)
basically the threshold of where a business needs to be in order to work with us because of the patterns we were seeing in age of business, revenue, top line revenue of business, number of salesmen, things like that. We were seeing more success with certain niches and in certain, when they got to a certain level in business as far as operations and systems and stuff. So now we're only onboarding three clients a month. And so all of those things were really,

really difficult financially to try and figure out, know, not only in those early stages of like, God, when can I hire? What can they do that I can do just as good? Who's gonna be better at what I can do? You know, all of that's hard, but then being able to go with that one equals three.

as far as talent goes has been really impactful. And now we had to go back a little ways to then go forward and provide a much, we're able to provide a much better client experience too now, which helps with, you you'd work with a lot of agencies with churn rate. You know, most agencies churn is between eight and 15%. You know, we maintain less than 3 % churn rate on clients because of that excellent experience that we're providing.

Christian Brim (33:52.131)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (34:21.719)
every time, but it took some strain to get there.

Christian Brim (34:25.186)
You mentioned two things that I think I want to highlight. One is the hiring. And I don't know about you, I had never hired anybody before I started my business. And I don't think I'm unusual in that. I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't have a lot of hiring experience, right? And the thing that really helped me

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (34:45.744)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (34:53.531)
is a book and a process called Who. And it basically gives you a process to hire. But the most important part of it to me about that whole process is being very clear on what you're hiring the person for, right? And the way they do that is,

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (35:02.587)
Mm.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (35:13.67)
Mm -hmm.

Christian Brim (35:17.678)
rather than writing like a job description of these things that you're doing, you create what they call a scorecard and it's more time bound. So it might be a year, it might be two years, but it starts with the outcomes. Like in the next 12 months, this is what this person will do. These are the things that they'll produce. These are the work that they'll be responsible for, which allows you to put some...

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (35:34.629)
Mm -hmm.

Christian Brim (35:44.142)
dollars to it to say, okay, I'm going to pay this person, you know, $50 ,000 a year. What do I need to get out of them to justify that expense? Right. And being uber clear on it. And then it's a hell of a lot easier to recruit with that because you're being very upfront. This is this, this is exactly what we expect. Right.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (35:56.923)
Yeah, definitely.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (36:07.077)
Yeah, I think that's a huge mismatch with so many people that are hiring others is that especially someone who's never hired anyone, they're not even real. They just know they need help. They're not even sure what they need someone to do necessarily. Sometimes it's kind of ambiguous. And so when someone comes in motivated, great personality, good fit with the team or good fit with you, but they don't have a clear expectation of what am I here for?

I mean, that that is that's what will cause turnover quicker than anything and frustration in your team without those clear people don't know what to do. Just like a customer doesn't know what to do unless we tell them neither does our team. They have to have clear set. Here's yeah, this equals your salary for the next year. I love that.

Christian Brim (36:51.0)
Well, so the book is Who by Jeff Smart, I believe. I think it's Jeff Smart. So the other thing you mentioned that I wanted to highlight was pricing and that fear of raising prices. And I talk about it in the book in terms of value pricing. And I don't want to go into value pricing here, but just pricing in general, there is this overarching fear among business owners.

to not raise prices. And you couple that fear with, don't want to say no, right? Because most of us are in the business to help others in some capacity and you see somebody, excuse me, you see somebody that needs your help, right? Could use your help, but they can't afford it. And so it's hard to tell those people no.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (37:29.841)
Mm

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (37:45.702)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (37:49.934)
Those two things just kind of suppress pricing and especially in the last three years with inflation going haywire, I think in general people haven't raised their prices enough just across the board for small businesses.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (37:49.989)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (38:09.975)
Mm -hmm, for sure. Yeah, I think there's a huge disparity in who you can help and who you can't help. And so often those people you really want to help.

you maybe can't help, you know? And so that was a big discussion for us because like I said, Joseph had owned so many small businesses, some of those, you know, 10 person or less team, you know, it's like, you gotta get paid from this contract in order to pay your bills next month and your float and payroll. And I mean, it's tough. So the thought of going up on prices sometime, you know, like I gotta work with anybody and everybody, but.

you know, at least in our industry, you know, in a service, service digital industry that there are no guarantees, you know, it's not like I can say, you're going to put this many dollars in and get this many dollars out, we're going to have to try some stuff, need some runway. And if I don't deliver, then we're both disappointed and you're going to think I'm bad and really you weren't in the right place to start this, but I really wanted to help you and so.

Over the last couple of years, we've had to develop some low ticket offers, some things that will move the needle, that people, less than $500 a month, you can get into this, we can start, kind of ease you in. That's why we do so many classes and teaching, because most of those people are still in a DIY situation. They're like, how can I help me?

until money's funny, until I've got more money than time, I gotta spend my time. So that's why we do so much education. That's why I feel like, especially like coaches or other industries can always have a low ticket offer that gets someone introduced to you, to your brand, to your team, to what you do. Because eventually if they grow in scale,

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (40:04.773)
they will need you. They will eventually need a dedicated CPA. They will eventually need a plumber on contract or whatever it is that your niche is, but maybe they're just not ready for you now. So planting those good seeds of faith in your community, whether that be online or in the town where you live is very important for your brand building and for your authority. If you want to be known as the authority in your space, you have to have something to offer.

Christian Brim (40:06.072)
Yes.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (40:32.131)
everyone until you're just so big that only people that want to pay you million dollars a month are pounding down your door, then you're in a different situation. But I know very few people who've gotten from that point to that without serving.

Christian Brim (40:45.986)
Yeah, and we just introduced a couple of what I call micro products this year for just that purpose, is to give them more value than they're paying for. Partly as part of the sales process, so it's partly that, but it's also partly for filling that need of, you can't.

spend what you'd have to spend to hire us, but we still want to help. And the other way I've dealt with it is I have a lot of accountants that I know and I refer. So I don't feel like I'm saying no. I'm like, it's just not me. mean, and that feels better than just saying, I can't help you.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (41:18.629)
Yeah.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (41:28.613)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Exactly. Finding people that you trust to be able to hand work off to is huge, you know, and that helps their business grow, that helps someone get their need filled until they are ready to come into your services. But it's tough to find a good CPA in this town, I'll tell you that. I hear more people griping about that, about financiers and financial help. It's a wild road out there.

Christian Brim (42:00.436)
Well, there is an industry shortage of accountants, for sure. But it's of our own making. The traditional accounting jobs were basically a pyramid scheme where the only way it paid off is if you stuck it out. And most people didn't. They said, I'm out of here.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (42:05.306)
Is there?

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (42:23.654)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (42:27.932)
but now the problem is no, younger people are like, can go make more money and work less somewhere else. So no facts. And, that's a challenge that we have to face as an industry. and, and the other part of that is, is, is especially with, people in creative industries is it's, it's hard to find, soft skills.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (42:36.121)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Brim (42:56.544)
in accountants, you know, being able to have some emotional intelligence, be able to have a conversation and not use jargon. you know, that's, that's another big problem. Part of it's just, you know, it's who they are. there's not a lot of difference between accountants and engineers. Engineers don't want to hear that because they, you know, they think they're really special, but we're number engineers. You know, that's, that's what we do.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (42:57.979)
Yeah.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (43:03.93)
Yeah.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (43:12.187)
Yeah.

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (43:16.975)
Right?

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (43:22.001)
That's right. Yes.

Christian Brim (43:23.818)
Amy, how do people find you if they want to learn more about you or height digital?

Amy Singleton | Hite Digital (43:30.447)
They can go to amysingleton .net. All of my handles are on there. I'm the real Amy Singleton on all the platforms, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, all those places, but amysingleton .net. If people want to get a scan of their website, they can go to amysingleton .net slash scan, and I'll show them, of do a little video showing them kind of where they rank and where they can make some improvements to their website themselves. Absolutely.

Christian Brim (43:56.974)
Beautiful. I love it. Listeners, if you liked what you heard, please subscribe, follow, like, or whatever on your platform. If you didn't like what you heard, drop us a comment or an email and let us know what you'd like to hear. Until then, ta -ta for now.