Incorporating Personal Passions into Your Brand | Amy Singleton

Part of what really creates 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 someone to be for and with, and it's someone to be against, you know, those lazy 9-to-5ers or whoever it is that aren't the entrepreneur pushing their core to do everything they can and, 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.

Hey creative, are you ready to discuss profits, the money, the ways to make it happen? The Profitable Creative Podcast is for you, the creative, how you define it. Videographers, photographers, entrepreneurs, marketing agencies, you get it. CEO of Core Group and author Christian Brim interviews industry experts, creative entrepreneurs, and professionals alike who strive to be creative and make money at the same time. Sound like you? Tune in now. It's time for profit.

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. Joining me today is Amy Singleton of Hite Digital. Welcome, Amy.

Hello. Thank you for having me, Mr. Brim.

Oh, Mr. Brim. It's gone formal now.

Yes, you're looking very debonair in your whole setup here with the podcast. I'm excited for it.

How are you? Okay. 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.

Okay. Well, my husband and partner Joseph and I own a digital marketing agency that is full scope creative and digital agency. 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, um, 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 be— to know what a Reader's Digest is, so there's been a few decades of life lived here. But throughout that, uh, that life living. I had to stop being a nurse back in 2012. Between 2012 and 2014, my life was, um, a lot of pain and a lot of personal growth and development after that. But then I met my, my husband and partner now, 8 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. And we were looking for ways— and when I met him, he was working out of state, like 12, 8 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 going to be going back to nursing anymore, but I thought, you know, there's some way I can serve this community. Where's the hole? Where— where— what's the problem that we really are going to solve for people here in Oklahoma? And we were just talking one day, and he said the 4 words that started our business. He said, we can do better. Like, business owners deserve better marketing. They 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 HomeAdvisor, Angie's List, GoDaddy, web designers or marketers 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, have partnered with some other business partners and grown this thing and are serving, you 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. 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.

They probably refer to it as I do, which is wizardry and sorcery.

I get a lot of sorcery. Yes. That new internet thing's never going to catch on, right?

No, it's not. And it's fascinating that you 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? And that doesn't really mean that they're not good at their skills, but rather offering a solution. And, you know, that was my experience with multiple agencies in the past is kind of connecting the dots and, you know, seeing that return on investment. And it just came down to, I think, a fundamental lack of understanding of, of the marketing people, of the economics of, of what we do. Right. 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.

Yeah.

And I think that is, that's the root of it, right? 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. But so it's like this two blind guys stumbling around in a closet, like, you know, that's what it felt like.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's, it's all integrated, you know, and I did not realize the extent, um, 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 with— 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. I ask because all of these are key indicators that are going to 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. It is 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, what happens next? What happens next? What happens next? And a lot of business owners don't know because they don't know either. It's all in their head or it's in the salesperson's head or it's in, you know, when, when we're in small business, truly starting from the ground up, You know, sometimes that's only 3 people running the whole show and there aren't any documented processes in order to help you scale. So, you know, depending on those answers I get throughout discovery, that's going to tell me whether or not our marketing is going to work. And, you know, 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, you know, your customer experience is crappy. You're going to think I did a terrible job because you didn't make any sales, right?

Right. Yeah. And, and, and I guess the assumption that, 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, on Coca-Cola branding, you 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. Like, it, it— marketing in, in a lot of ways is like the last thing that a business needs, you know, to make sure that they're successful. Because, you 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, and some business owners never get past that, right?

And being obsessed with the quality of that product.

Exactly. Or service. Okay. Is your product or service the right fit? Then can you make any money off of it? Right? I 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 putting a bigger engine in a car with 3 wheels. It's not gonna work.

Exactly. Yeah, I do this little thing when I'm giving talks, you know, like at the Chamber of Commerce, and I'm, I'm, I finally figured out how to spin the thing on my finger and I'm like, these are all the, you 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, 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 those areas equally, you know, if you don't have a solid foundation under one or the other, the ball's just going to tip off of the spinning plate. And then, yeah, you're absolutely right. If you have, you know, a really great product, if you're an amazing roofer and your shingles are the best shingles ever, but, you know, you give a bad experience and you leave nails everywhere and you're, you know, your guys are throwing cigarette butts down, well, your customer experience, your experience is crap. So 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.

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

Yeah. Yeah. I'm hearing difficult, picking up difficult vibes. Yes.

It's all uphill. It's not for the faint of heart. That's for sure. And, you know, I think that 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, 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, I know personally from my experience The last 6 years were harder for me as a business owner than the startup, um, by far. And, 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, going to keep you on the path, that's a bad analogy. Anyway, 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. Hey, listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and to your point, you know, more is not always better. Absolutely not always better. You know what, the two, two of the businesses my husband has had in the past were paint contracting companies. 2 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, 3-crew, you know, couple million dollar— same amount went in his pocket. Let me tell you which one was a bigger pain in his ass.

Exactly.

The 125 people and all of those projects and all— I mean, More is not always better. So like to your point, you better have a strategy. You better know where you're going and where you want to 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.

That's not a good plan.

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? Wakes you up in the morning and motivates you.

So for me personally, my, 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. 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 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 antifragility even, you 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, that 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 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, in my family, other than my grandfather that died when I was 5. But I feel his spirit in me. As a young girl, I just knew that I was bound for stages and like 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 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.

I can tell your passion from your voice and your mannerisms is something that, you know, really deeply resonates with you. And I, 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? Yeah. And, you know, sometimes people hear words like that, like, I want to, uh, provide hope for people, and they say to themselves, well, how is that a business, right? Like, that doesn't seem to jive, uh, you know. Or you should do those things altruistically, right? You shouldn't be compensated for that because you're just being a good person. Right? So how did you take that passion and justify making money with it?

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. 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 oh, also she does marketing, you 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. Oh, 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 a Coke. It reminds me of my childhood. We're not buying the product, you know. I mean, we are. I'm, I'm providing solutions for people that want their websites to rank, and Coke is helping people who are thirsty, right? Or, or maybe need extra calories in their day. I don't know. But we're all providing something, and it— that's encompassed around that brand. So the things that I do, um, the things I'm passionate about are— I'm not getting paid for. I'm not getting paid to do board service, you know. I, uh, especially if I'm, if I'm speaking in a non-marketing, you know, if I'm speaking at a marketing conference or something, it might be a message of hope, and 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 do business with my company, um, those are the people that I, you know, my brand attracts. Because when I'm in a group of 100, you know, we work best with companies that are, you know, at least $1 million in revenue, typically more like $3 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, right? It's not. But, you know, so like for the solopreneur, for the 2 to 10-person team that's really trying to make it, I give away the farm. I want to help educate and teach. And then because they're going to 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 know who really knows her stuff? That Amy girl.

Yeah.

The one with the red lips.

Let's call her.

Yeah.

I love that. You mentioned something and it spurred this thought. We just had our leadership quarterly meeting, uh, yesterday, and we actually went off. I'm the marketing person in this group, okay? So I'm dealing with other accountants, and, and we ended up on an hour-long discussion around essentially branding. And what became clear to me, and it, it's something that, you know, when I wrote my book, I 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. And the idea is that it's your creative brain and your practical brain don't always work together, right?

Right. And definitely not.

Right, right. And, uh, but they do overlap, and that's where the secret sauce is. You can do something out of a passion, your creativity, that absolutely has no commercial intent. There's never going to be a dime from it, right?

Great.

Yeah, 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, and that's where you turn passion into profit, right? Yeah. So we are working on rebranding our service offerings, right? And so I'm intrigued to see how this— I said bridge. I'll ask you, I'll get some free advice here.

Do it.

To me, it was a connection. So bridge sounded right, but not exactly right. So how would you describe that? That's synergy or that connection or what I'm trying to describe here? What words would you use?

No, you know, one of my favorite words, symbiotic, symbiosis. You 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, 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 going to know what symbiosis means.

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. I mean, usually when you think lifestyle brand, you think products, right?

Yeah.

But as we talked about it and we worked through it, I'm like, you know, that, that, that actually does resonate, that, 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. No, so I'll be interested to see how—

I mean, that's a— that'll be it. That would be really interesting because, you know, Part of what really creates 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 someone to be for and with, and it's someone to be against, you know, those lazy 9-to-5ers or whoever it is that aren't the entrepreneur pushing their core to do everything they can and be 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 here, and we were talking about the book," and you've got the story. And then you've got a common language among you. 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 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 you're, you 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, right? Yeah. Today's episode of The Profitable Creative is brought to you by Core Group. Are you tired of doing it all yourself? Do you feel like you have no plan? Let Core Group guide you to build the business of your dreams. Core Group, your go-to accountant for creatives.

You know, I— talking about branding, and you know, that previous conversation you mentioned, you know, I, I know that I'm affected by branding, and this is where I get into the sorcery and witchcraft, uh, definition, because I'm like, but I don't understand how it works, right? And I don't understand I know it affects me, uh, but I can't see it. And maybe it is easier to see branding on products that you don't identify with. Like, it, it might be easier than brands you do identify with.

Very possible. You know, after we had that conversation about, um, GMC versus Chevy, it was a couple of, 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, their, that tagline, like that little credo, right? And I was like, okay, that really, that confirms what we were saying, you know, Chevy was like the farm dirt truck, the, 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. It's like I didn't even— I wasn't even thinking of that tagline when we were talking about that.

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 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— yeah, I guess that's the wizardry and witchcraft thing. I get it.

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

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

And, and, you know, to, to a certain extent, I, 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?

Yeah. Yeah. And point it out, they see it quicker. Right, right.

And, and so I, 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 it works, but we've seen it work a lot more.

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 gonna catch on to this? Who's gonna fall in love with it? Who's gonna resonate? Is it gonna resonate? Sometimes it hits and sometimes it misses, but when it hits, there's usually some commonalities that you see that, that they, you know, hey, they definitely got that piece right, you know.

It's not so formulaic that you can just say, okay, I've got these ingredients, I'm going to put it in the pot and out comes gumbo, right? It's not that. But there are certain things that you know you want in gumbo, right?

Right, exactly.

And some things you don't want, right?

For sure.

Gumbo's a good analogy. I just pulled that, you know, because gum— I mean, people make gumbo different ways.

I mean, right.

Some people put seafood in it. I, I read about— I did not know this even existed— there's a gumbo they serve down in Texas that does not have a roux. It's not roux-based. It's like, it's like soup, right? And I'm like, that sounds awful. I mean, like, that, that's not gumbo. Uh, but there's a big debate among gumbo people that, you know, whether that's gumbo or not.

I reckon the, the people from Louisiana would have something to say about that.

I've never, I've never seen, uh, anything in Louisiana that looked like a soup for gumbo. It was— it's always a stew, and it's always got that consistency for sure. Okay, so let's pivot here for a second. So where have you struggled financially in the business? Uh, what, what have been some of the financial challenges that you've, you've had as a business owner?

Um, 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 as the business grew and I was no longer the one doing the hands-on stuff, building the websites, you 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 I think coming, 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, you know, raising my prices to the point that, that we were getting what, what we earned, what we deserved and what we were worth. Yes. While still providing a quality product to the client. So, you know, we went through a period 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, you 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, to your point, like, how much are you— are you really making any more as you grow in scale? So, we really, you know, 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 helped some other people find more jobs and we cut our staff by about two-thirds. And paid the ones who stayed and the ones that were doing really well more. Yes. In combination with that, then we have upped our prices and upped the, um, basically the, the threshold of where a business needs to be in order to work with us because of the patterns we were seeing in, um, age of business, uh, 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 3 clients a month. And so all of those things were really, really difficult financially to try and figure out, you know, not only in those early stages of like, oh God, when can I hire? What can they do that I can do just as good? Who's going to be better at what I can do? You know, all of that's hard. But then being able to go with that 1 equals 3 as far as talent goes has been really impactful. And now we had to go back a little ways to then go back, go forward and provide a much— we're able to provide a much better client experience to now, which helps with, you know, you work with a lot of agencies with churn rate. You know, most agencies' churn is between 8% and 15%. You know, we maintain less than 3% churn rate on clients. Right. Because of that excellent experience that we're providing every time. But it took some strain to get there.

You mentioned two things that I think I want to highlight. One, 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?

Yeah.

And the, the thing that really helped me is a book and a process called WHO, and it basically gives you a process to hire. But, 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 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, might be 2 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 dollars to it to say, okay, I'm going to pay this person $50,000 a year, what do I need to get out of them to justify that expense, right? Yeah. 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 exactly what we expect, right?

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, it's kind of ambiguous. And so when someone comes in motivated, great personality, good, 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, you know, here's, yeah, this equals your salary for the next year. I love that.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. Well, and so the book is Who by Jeff Smart, I believe. The other thing you mentioned that I wanted to highlight was pricing and that fear of raising prices. And I, 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, there is this overarching fear among business owners to not raise prices, and you couple that fear with I don't want to say no, right? Because most of us are in the business to help others in some capacity, and see somebody that needs your help, right, could use your help, but they can't afford it. Yeah. And so it's, it's hard to tell those people no. Those two things just kind of suppress pricing, and, and especially in the last 3 years with inflation going haywire, it's You know, I think in general, people haven't raised their prices enough just across the board for small businesses.

I, you know, 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, that was a big, 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 got to get paid from this contract in order to pay your bills next month and you're floating payroll. And I mean, it's tough. Um, so the thought of going up on prices sometimes, you know, like, I gotta work with anybody and everybody, but, you know, at least in our industry, um, you know, in a service digital industry, that there are no guarantees. You know, it's not like I can say you're gonna put this many dollars in and get this many dollars out. We're gonna have to try some stuff. We need some some runway, and if I don't deliver, then we're both disappointed and you're gonna think I'm bad. And really, you weren't in the right place to, to start this, but I really wanted to help you. And so, um, you know, over the last couple of years we've had to develop some low-ticket offers, some things that will move the needle, you know, that people, you know, less than $500 a month, you can get into this, we can start, you know, kind of ease you in. Um, that's why we do so many classes and teaching, because most of those people are still in a DIY situation. You know, they're, they're like, how can I help me until, you know, money's funny, until I've got more time, you know, more money than time, I got to spend my time. So that's why we do so much education. That's why I feel like, you know, especially like coaches or, 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 and scale, they will need you. You know, they will eventually need a dedicated CPA. They will eventually need a, you know, 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, is very important for your brand building and for your authority. You know, if you want to be known as the authority in your space, you have to have something to offer Everyone. Until you're just so big that only people, you know, that want to pay you a 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.

Yeah, and we just introduced a couple of what I call micro products this year for just that purpose is to, you know, give them more value than they're paying for. Partly as part of the sales process, like, so it's partly that. But it's also partly for filling that need of, hey, you can't spend what you'd have to spend to hire us, but we still want to help. And, you know, the other way I've, 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. I mean, and that, that feels better than just saying, no, I can't help you.

Exactly. Yeah. Getting— finding people that you trust to be able to hand work off to is, is huge, you know, and that helps their business grow. That helps someone get, you know, 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, it's a wild road out there.

There's an industry shortage of accountants. Uh, for sure, but it's, it's of our own making. Uh, the traditional accounting jobs were basically a pyramid scheme where, you know, the only way it paid off is if you stuck it out, and most people didn't. They said, I'm, I'm out of here. Uh, but now the problem is younger people are like, I can go make more money and work less somewhere else, so No thanks. And that's a challenge that we have to face as an industry. And the other part of that is, especially with people in creative industries, it's hard to find soft skills in accountants, you know, being able to have some emotional intelligence, be able to have a conversation and not use jargon. Yeah. You know, 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. We're number engineers, you know, that's what we do. Yes. Amy, how do people find you if they want to learn more about you or Hite Digital?

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. Amy Singleton dot net. If people want to get a scan of their website, they can go to Amy Singleton dot net slash scan, and I'll show them kind of, do a little video showing them kind of where they rank and where they can make some improvements to their website themselves.

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.

And that's a wrap for today's episode of The Profitable Creative. Until next time, you money lovers. And don't forget, Profit First for Creatives is live via Amazon.

Link below.