EP 06: How eCommerce Brands Can Create A Community Using Relevant Social Media Platforms

Transcript

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How eCommerce Brands Can Create A Community Using Relevant Social Media Platforms

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Alex Ivanoff  0:00  

All right, welcome to the next episode of Mission Control. I am your host, Alex Ivanoff, with my partner and co-host, Dave Pancham. And today we have a very special guest, Jen Seregos from Athena Digital. Very happy to have you on Jen. Welcome.

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Jen Seregos  0:13  

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

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Alex Ivanoff  0:16  

Yeah. Awesome. So, you know, we were talking a few weeks ago, when we first got connected and we, you know, first, we immediately hit it off, you know, Dave and I were like "Alright, we definitely have to have you on the show", just based on your insights into the industry and your background and experience and what Athena Digital does and, you know, we're just fascinated by what we heard. So, overall, I would love for you to introduce yourself a little bit and talk about what you do, what you specialize in, and what's the idea behind Athena Digital?

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Jen Seregos  0:42  

Yeah, for sure. So, Athena Digital was born very organically. I basically looked up at the sky one day and I was like "I want my next company to find me", and that's exactly what happened. I have been doing marketing with Facebook and Instagram advertising for 15 years and it was never a career per se. It was always just a necessary thing I needed to do in order to make other companies that I had started go. And I just kept getting people calling me asking me "Hey, can you help me with my Facebook ads? They are not doing what I need them to do". And then the other thing and I started just doing consulting and helping. It started out as just really helping friends. And then I looked around, and I was consulting, and doing this for a few hours a week and I thought to myself "I think this is my next company". And I sat down in my room and started thinking about what is impactful and meaningful to me and how I wanted my mission to be represented in the world and how I wanted this company to be represented in the world and the Greek goddess Athena, the goddess of strategy and wisdom, just kind of came to me because I'm Greek, my family's greek on my dad's side and I have a lot of love and respect and just pure joy when it comes to that culture and I love that part of my family history and so it was a fitting a fitting name. And I started off with Athena Digital with five clients, just doing Facebook and Instagram advertising. That was it. And now I have a team of three and we do Facebook and Instagram ads, full service social media management. We help our clients host, do content marketing, content calendar creation, we help them with messaging pillars, you name it. Strategy, strategic planning, whether it's what channel should we go to next, or should we go to market with this channel or that channel, helping clients understand what's the best place to put their dollars and their efforts and their resources in order to maximize profits for their companies. And we now do SEO, Google website development for eCommerce sites. And it's been a blast, just been growing and growing ever since. So...

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Alex Ivanoff  2:59  

That's awesome, and how long ago was this kind of started?

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Jen Seregos  3:02  

Literally the day, like, almost the day when they shut the world down from the pandemic. March 2020.

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Alex Ivanoff  3:10  

Yeah, nice. So, what's your background and were you, like, in marketing for a long time before that? Or, you know, what were you, did you always aspire to be in marketing?

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Jen Seregos  3:20  

No, I didn't even know marketing was a thing. It's a, I didn't even know, I don't think, what do marketers do? That's not a job.

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Alex Ivanoff  3:26  

Yeah, yeah.

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Jen Seregos  3:29  

But I am a serial entrepreneur. And in order to start a successful company and make it run, turns out, you need this thing called Marketing. And so I became a marketing expert because I needed to make companies that I started actually make money so I could pay my bills. And that's how I became a marketing professional. Or at least that was the beginning of it. And then it kind of snowballed. And now I focus mostly on eCommerce businesses, helping them.

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Alex Ivanoff  3:56  

Nice, love that, great story. Cool. So, you know, obviously, you mentioned that you mainly work with eCommerce businesses, I think, in general, and eCommerce, that's a very vast, you know, sector. You're working with a myriad of different clients within the eCommerce world and brands, you know, just in different industries. How do you strategize for each one of those, you know, the social social media campaigns, the content, the ads, like all the services you guys do? Because you're serving a lot of different types of clients.

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Jen Seregos  4:27  

Yeah, it's a great question. So, I would say really at the end of the day, there's a couple of fundamental things that need to be present in a company in order for me to make a decision that I want to take them on as a client. A, are they mission-focused, you know, are they trying to do good in the world or adding value to the world? And then B, do I think the founders are cool because I'm gonna be working with them a lot and I want to make sure that we get along, we have good rapport and we enjoy each other's company. And typically when I have those two things work, the strategy side is a joy to do. It's fun, you know, I look up their competitors, I do market research, have them meet our team, we do keyword analysis, we look at their competitors and what they're doing for advertising and for SEO and stuff like that. And then basically, we come up with a game plan and we say "Okay, here's your your unique value prop in the world. This is what separates you from the rest of the competition out there". And another thing is, I look for an abundance mindset because, quite frankly, companies that are constantly focused on what other companies are doing and how how they're stealing their market share and this kind of thing is not really an appropriate way, in my opinion, to look at starting and growing a company. You need to have an abundance mindset. There is always a customer out there for you and, you know, not everyone fits well with everyone. Not everybody wants your product but there's enough people out there that do, we hope, right? So, I think having that abundance mindset and then looking at their company holistically. So, we like to look at a company from click to client and everything in between. And I think that's kind of what makes me unique in the industry because I come from the background of have owning and operated many companies to this point. So, I don't just come into a client and just throw a bunch of, you know, vanity metrics at them and say "Look, your ads are working, I'm washing my hands of it. I'm done". We look at the whole entire picture of their company, what channels are they marketing on what they're doing organically, what they're doing, paid and we analyze all of that and we come up with a game plan in order to help them get their company to the next level.

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Dave Pancham  6:31  

It's interesting that. I love that, like so much of your qualification really comes down to like, a bit of the mental side, right? Which is mentally, like, how do they get along with you. How often have you ever come across people that, like, I get along great with these people, but their mission is just to make money? What do you do with that? How do you deal with that?

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Jen Seregos  6:54  

Yeah, it doesn't actually happen very often. I tend to attract some pretty awesome companies, you know, energetically, I think that's an energy thing, right? But yeah, I mean, I've done consulting calls where I was like, you know, this guy, or this gal is just not a good fit. And typically, it's a pretty straightforward conversation and it's just like "Hey, I'm not really sure I'm the right person, or we're the right company to support you and your growth but here's some resources and here's some things that you can do right now as soon as we get off this call to move your company forward and wish you, obviously, all the best and Part as friends and hope that you do do really well.

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Alex Ivanoff  7:36  

Yeah, Jen, when you were talking before Dave asked that question, you said you'd like to work with brand owners that are cool. How do you define them as cool? I mean, that's one of the things you're looking for but what does it take for a good brand owner to attract, like, you know, powerful partners, like yourself?

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Jen Seregos  7:53  

I think, well, you know, it's a feeling thing. It's tough to put into words, per se, but I mean...

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Alex Ivanoff  8:01  

You can sing it. It's okay.

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Jen Seregos  8:04  

You know, I mean, have you ever done a consult with somebody, and you just had this little voice in the back of your head that was like, something's not right, something's off, right. And then you have, you know, this just little feeling, and this little voice in the back of your head that this is this is, this person is going to be problematic, for whatever reason, right? Maybe they are like, to Dave's point, they're obsessed with money and they're not really interested in what kind of value they're adding in the world, because I believe that your income is directly related to the amount of value that you provide, right? So I really, I hate to say it, but it's kind of like a gut thing for me, you know, if I've gotten to the point in my career, where I don't have to just take anybody on as a client, which I'm very blessed and grateful for and I get, I get the autonomy to choose. And usually, it's not so much. And oh, my gosh, I have to work with these people. They're awesome. And we get along great. It's more of who I don't think this is a good fit. So I tend to not necessarily listen to the positive voice as much as the negative voice and I, you know, if I can help somebody and have that little negative voice in the back of my head, that's when I move forward and I say "Hey, you know, here's what we can do for you and if you want to work with us, we'd love to support you."

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Alex Ivanoff  9:21  

So, for those listening, if you end up working with Jen and Athena, then you know that she didn't get any negative voice of value in her head. That's a good thing. One of the things you mentioned earlier also is you try not to talk about the vanity metrics. Can you classify what some of those are for, you know, a lot of brands, I've seen this so many times, business owners, brand owners, they go "Oh, like, we got so many impressions, or we got so many, you know, like, followers and those things are great, but they can be classified as a vanity metric. What do you guys classify as vanity metrics?

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Jen Seregos  9:52  

Exactly what you just said, and quite frankly, any metric that doesn't directly correlate to a conversion that you want to have happen in this stage of your funnel is a vanity metric. So I put an ad campaign up. Only look at the numbers that matter. And then I diagnose the funnel based on those numbers, and then give the client very detailed, actionable insights like "Hey, the front end of our funnel looks great. What are we looking at?". We're looking at landing page rate, landing page rate view, right? So if you have 1000 people clicking on your ad but only 50 of them are actually going onto your landing page. That's a problem, right? That would be what we call an industry a "leaky bucket". And so I would go to the client and say "Hey, here's where people are dropping off in the funnel," right? And then say "Here's the things that are potentially causing this problem, and here's the things that we can do to fix it and bring that number up so you have more at bat," right? So the more people that go to your product page, the more people are likely to hit "Add to Cart", the more people are likely to hit "Initiate Checkout and Purchase" and the more people ultimately will buy. And so you want to make that process as easy as you possibly can for this potential customer, because most advertising is top of funnel. So my job as a marketing professional is to not get companies to sell repeat customers. My job, I would say 70% is to get them brand new customers who've never heard of brand A or B before. And so anything that does not give me actionable insights is a vanity metric. Impressions is a great example of that, like, I don't know how many times I've had clients like "How many impressions did we get?" And I'm like "It doesn't matter." Just, just chill.

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Alex Ivanoff  11:40  

Right. So, yeah, impressions is a good example. Followers is a weird one, though, right? Because every, every brand, every company wants followers, and at the end of the day, they do somewhat end up in sales, right? End up turning into sales. How do you, especially because, you know, Athena focuses also on providing organic social content and you know, social posting and things like that. What is the strategy behind turning followers into sales? How do you, how do you make that happen?

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Jen Seregos  12:06  

The first and most important thing is before you, is having a very clear strategy for who is your target market, and this is, you know, business development 101. You know, so, you need to identify who's your who's your target market? Who do you want or who is the most likely person to buy from you, and once you have that profile, or profiles, then, and only then, should you try to get people to follow your page. Because what you don't want is 10,000 followers, and only 1% of them are actually people who are interested in your product or your service. I'd rather you have a 100 followers and 50 of them are interested in your product or service, right? So what we do is we combine organic strategies to gain followers that are already interested in what this company is providing or what problem they're solving, right? And then to layer in, if they're a new brand, it depends on where you're at. Right? So if you're an existing brand, who already have a lot of followers, you know, if there's not as much of an emphasis on getting new followers so much as there is, how do we convert those existing folks into purchasers. And a lot of times these companies come to us and they already have, you know, 10,000, 15,000 followers, but they were spending $5 a day to drive ads, just to get people to like their page, and these people have absolutely zero interest in what it is that they do. So that's problematic, because what you want to do with social media is create your community, right? I mean, that's really what social media is, at its core, it's community building. it's a way to connect to people that are like minded, right? For lack of a better term. And so when we come in, we say the first thing we say is like "Okay, who are we trying to get connected to?" And who do you want your community to be? Who is a good fit to be in this tribe? Who is a good fit to be a great ambassador for this product? And then we take it from there.

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Dave Pancham  14:01  

So...

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Alex Ivanoff  14:02  

Can you give us an example? Sorry, go ahead, Dave.

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Dave Pancham  14:04  

For the social media aspect. Do you suggest that brand owners use advertising just to specifically grow their following?

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Jen Seregos  14:14  

It depends on the brand. We do advertise to gain likes and followers for newer companies that don't have a whole lot of followers behind them in order to give them a good foundation, because a couple things that happen when you run ads. So when you run an ad on social media, the typical behavior of a browser, a person, typically nowadays, you know, 80% over is on their phone looking at stuff, right? So the first thing they do is there's going to be a photo or a video that's going to stop them from scrolling. So that's the first thing that happens, then they look to see if it's sponsored or not. Then if they're still interested, they will look at the headline to see what it's about. Then they may read the ad, then they're going to click on that page. And if the last time that page posted was two years ago or two months ago, even. And they have 150 followers, the likelihood of them actually converting into a purchaser is very, very low. So my prerogative is to make sure that their social presence is what we would call relevant. Meaning we want to make sure people that do check up on the page, feel there's relevancy, feel their social proof, feel that this is a company they can trust. And hopefully, that company is doing a great organic strategy where they're adding a lot of value to their community, and giving people the information that they need in order to make good choices, whatever that may be. And that's kind of the philosophy. So it's a little bit different. It's not just about running ads to get followers, it's about specifically targeting ads, to the kind of people that this company would like to get in front of, if that makes sense.

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Dave Pancham  15:54  

Makes perfect sense.

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Jen Seregos  15:55  

Did that answer your question?

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Dave Pancham  15:56  

Yeah, yeah, it makes perfect sense. We tell clients that same thing, too, that, like, a lot of people don't necessarily click on your ad to your landing page. Like they're like, No, I want to go research. You know, what you guys are all about? Do you have, are you, I'm just, maybe it's just our own data and our heads, but I'm like, what percentage of people you think actually are not clicking on the ad are actually going to research the brand first, before they even care about what you're offering?

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Jen Seregos  16:24  

I mean, gosh, it's a great question. I, that is not a number I know off the top of my head. I don't know if anybody knows that number if I’m being honest. I don't think I would say it's a pretty good, it's a pretty good, good chunk, I wouldn't know statistically, and another thing that I do know, statistically that I can back up with data is that most people, they say, up to 70% of people who click on an ad and engage with an ad, don't make a purchase that moment. So they usually click.

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Alex Ivanoff  16:56  

Right.

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Jen Seregos  16:57  

Then they go to Google and they search, then they save the landing page or the business page on their browser or whatever, then maybe a few days later, they go back and they commit to making a purchase, if not months. So that's actually kind of one of the things I always tell my clients, because my focus is Facebook and Instagram advertising and my other employees do the Google side. And I'm like, "okay, look, I'm doing top of funnel with Facebook, I do a little bit of retargeting for you, so we can bring your ROAS up. But at the end of the day, our Google guy is going to be the one who's going to be like the star of the show, you know, you're gonna love our Google guy, because I'm doing all the top of funnel stuff, which is really the hard thing, which is getting new new people in the door. And then what we do is we retarget them on Google, or YouTube or whatever. And then typically, what happens is they make a search, they see it on social media, they make a search later, and then they make a purchase. So the attribution is usually not as great for social advertising as it is with Google advertising.

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Alex Ivanoff  18:00  

Yeah, I am personally the worst for a brand owner or marketer who's running ads and like, is looking for accurate attribution, because like, based on your point, Jen, there's so many times I personally have saved a link that I saw on an ad and went in purchasing, like months later. So there's just no way that they know that like, you know, that ad is working or not. So it happens. But that's why it's important to advertise, right?

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Jen Seregos  18:22  

yeah, it happened to me just a couple days ago. I saw an ad on Facebook for this new water. And then I was in Whole Foods shopping, you know, got my steak and my whatever. And I look oh, there's that water I saw on Facebook. So what did I do? I bought it. They're never going to know that I saw that on Facebook, and I made the purchase in Whole Foods.

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Alex Ivanoff  18:41  

Yep. So on your point of building a community, because this is a huge thing, obviously, to think about when you're trying to put out your content and build a following organically. Can you give us an example of whether your clients are just like really successful, huge brands in the country or in the world that do a good job of that,]? Of building a community with their followers. I can think of a few like Duolingo is a really good one that I don't know how they did it, but it's just like incredible how many people are following them because of like their their mascot and like the culture that they've done in the comments section of TikTok and stuff. So, you know, there's a lot of brands that do it very well, just like that.

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Jen Seregos  19:17  

Yeah, I mean, you know, the two that come to the top of my head immediately is Allbirds and Bombas socks. So both of them are digitally native brands. They literally built their companies with Facebook, which is kind of incredible. And they have great products and you know, it shows, but they also have a very robust community. Another company that I would throw into the mix, and it's not necessarily social media based, but Patagonia does a great job of being very vision, mission and community oriented. And they do a really great job of communicating to the world how they see themselves as a contributor to helping the environment, helping with, you know, climate change and all that stuff. And I would say Patagonia really does a great job of building a community around their company. And in fact, their homepage, if I'm not mistaken, last I checked, even has on the homepage, nothing to buy, it's just resources around what it is that they're passionate about, and what projects they're working on, and how to get involved. So I would say Patagonia for me is top, top of the list.

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Alex Ivanoff  20:39  

Those are all really good examples. The all three of those, I can definitely, you know, you see them almost like every week, something like cool that they did with their, with their content, or with their social media. Another one that sticks out to mind is Wendy's, which is not, like, a digitally native brand. But I remember like, they kind of broke the, they, like, shattered expectations when, like, they went on Twitter and started, like, you know, like, trolling all of their followers or trolling Burger King and McDonald's, like in the comments and stuff. And they started that 10 years ago before that was even like a regular thing for brands to do. And I think, you know, obviously, like, I said, they're not digitally native, and they're not, like, running ads, just for the sake of getting followers. So, you know, the fact that they're using their follower base very effectively and making people think about it, and then they want to go and you know, have Wendy's or whatever it is. They're very good at that. So, yeah, they're all good examples.

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Jen Seregos  21:32  

Well, their model is different, right? You know, they have a huge repeat customer, I bet their LTV is a few thousand dollars.

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Alex Ivanoff  21:39  

Yeah.

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Jen Seregos  21:40  

I mean, yeah, you know, every time you go in there, you spend 10, 15 bucks, but some people go there every week. Before you know it, after a five year period, they've spent, you know, 3000, 4000, whatever. So for them, it makes sense to spend those marketing dollars and for them, you know, a customer acquisition cost can, can, they can afford, and that's what makes these, makes it, you know, that's what makes social media advertising so exciting and awesome is because it levels the playing field, right? Because a lot of these big players, they used to only be able to, if you only had millions and millions of dollars could you really get in front of people and advertise and make money. Now it's like you go on TikTok and throw some ads up for $5 a day, and acquire a new customer for 30 bucks. And they maybe, they maybe break even on the first purchase. But if you've got a great retention strategy, and your customers are happy, they're gonna come back and that, you know, now you have a high-margin profitable business. And you know, you're looking good to either continue doing what you're doing or sell the company and move on to the next thing. You know I mean?

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Alex Ivanoff  22:39  

Totally. Yeah. So on the topic of social, organic social media, a lot of people like look at engagement rate, for example, what do you think, is the biggest KPI, key performance indicator, for any brand listening that wants to, like, grow their following organically, Or, you know, they they're putting some resources in there, what should they, what numbers should they be looking at?

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Jen Seregos  22:59  

I, you know, for me, key indicators of people who are serious about either making a purchase or taking an action, whatever your call to action is, would be video views over 75%. So if you've had people that have watched your videos to 75%, at least to the 75% mark, is a really great key indicator that you've got a good, a good group of people following you, and that you're getting good engagement. I would also say, post saves is another really great metric that not a lot of companies look at, which I think is really bizarre. Like, if somebody is saving a post or saving an ad, like that is a huge key indicator that they are looking to convert and take action at some point. If not, you know, right away. So I would say those two video views and post saves

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Alex Ivanoff  23:50  

Are all video views alike? Like, you know, for a short video versus a long video. If I'm watching 75% of a five-second video versus 75% of a three-minute video. It's a big difference, I would assume Right? Or am I wrong?

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Jen Seregos  24:02  

No, no, you're right. I mean, typically, when we work with our clients, we don't do videos for less than 30 seconds. So that 75% Makes sense.

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Dave Pancham  24:12  

Is that for, is that for organic or is that for advertising? That you're talking about videos less than 30 seconds.

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Jen Seregos  24:18  

Both.

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Dave Pancham  24:19  

Both?

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Wow! Okay, makes sense.

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Jen Seregos  24:23  

Yeah, I wouldn't put something up there if it's not, I mean, if you're, if you're not as interested in engagement, and you're just trying to get eyeballs, that's one thing. And then you can do a five-second video and be fine and go about your merry way. But most businesses that are posting things on social media, especially organically, I think that, you know, the end game is hey, we want people to buy our thing, right? And so if your strategy is to put up baseless five-second videos just to get your vanity, there's a vanity metric, right? Engagement. Who cares? Are they buying?

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Alex Ivanoff  24:58  

That's true. That's a good point. Yeah, don't get too obsessed with engagement, you know, at the end of the day, right? What are you doing? You're in business to sell products.

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Jen Seregos  25:07  

Right?

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Alex Ivanoff  25:07  

So, makes sense. One of the one of the ways that I've seen through your content and on your site that Athena Digital talks about increasing the organic engagement or increasing the organic sense of community back to that sense of community we talked about is to be unwaveringly focused on your customers? Can you tell us what that means for the brand owners listening? Like, what does that mean to be unwaveringly focused?

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Jen Seregos  25:32  

Well, I was at a party once with a good friend of mine. And this was years and years ago before Athena Digital ever existed. And we ended up, as many people do, talking about Elon Musk, and all the billions of dollars.

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Alex Ivanoff  25:49  

You and everybody else.

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Jen Seregos  25:50  

Yeah, that's why I say, you know, us and everyone, but I looked at my friend and I, his name's Robert, and we were like "Man, what do you have to do to make a billion dollars?" you know, all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. And he looked at me and he goes "Have a billion dollars worth of value." And I think when you're adding value, that's when you start to see things move. And how do you add value, you are keenly, obsessively focused on your customers, and helping them and adding value to them. And not just your customers. I can't tell you how many conversations I have in a week with people that are interested in working with us that we don't end up working together. But I walk away from that conversation feeling good that I gave them something to move forward and help them in their company in some capacity or another. So, I think it's not just a value to hold for your customers. But it's also a value to hold for anybody, right? For anybody. Whether it's personal, professional, whatever. And I might be getting a little bit more on the woohoo side at the moment. But I do think that when you are just obsessed about making your, doing the best possible thing for your customer, and the people that are around you, you tend to be successful. Yeah?

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Alex Ivanoff  27:11  

Yeah, great.

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Dave Pancham  27:12  

Ties back to being very vision-focused, right?

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Jen Seregos  27:16  

Very much so.

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Alex Ivanoff  27:19  

Yeah, it sounds cliché too because a lot of people say that. And then, you know, then they focus on like, oh, what's best for me, and my product, and my company? You know, it's not what's best for my customer. It's a big, it's a different conversation.

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Jen Seregos  27:32  

Yeah, and another thing, just totally going on a little bit of a side tangent here around that, is how many clients I have, I have a, had a client, who ran a mobile application. And every time somebody gave them feedback about the app, it was DEFCON five. It was change everything, do the thing. And it was every single time a customer gave a feedback, they were reiterating and reiterating. I finally one day, I was like "Hey, look, you know, maybe you get like an Excel spreadsheet, you know, and do 100 interviews and ask really good questions," which is something that we do with our clients, we provide to them really important actionable insights on how to ask good marketing questions to your customers so that you can glean information that's going to make your product better and make your customers happier. And that's a really important part of marketing. It's a foundational fundamental thing that not too many companies do or do well. And I think helping a company understand how to speak to their customers to get the insights that they need in order to make their company more successful is really, really important and very much overlooked.

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Alex Ivanoff  28:43  

So, what happened? What ended up happening with the mobile app? And, like, the interviews. Did he do it virtually?

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Jen Seregos  28:49  

So, we started an Excel spreadsheet, and nothing ever came to me.

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Dave Pancham  28:59  

It just sounds a bit crazy to make iterations off of every customer feedback. It's, like, why don't we take the top 10? Like, make sure there's some commonality here. Not just everybody's bit of feedback. they can get quite frustrating.

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Jen Seregos  29:10  

Yeah, I mean, I always try to think about it from a couple of different angles, but one of which is the why, you know, there's that famous "start with why." And I think that's really important is asking your customers like, why do you use our product? And see what they say, you know! You want to ask emotionally-charged questions. How did you solve this problem before you found us? How would you solve this problem if you didn't have this product or whatever, you know, it's trying to get more into the foundation of why are people needing or wanting this product, as opposed to, hey, what do you like about our cool, awesome new thing that we're doing? And it's very, it's very ego-based as opposed to just for the pure value of understanding what your customers need based, if that makes sense. like, a lot of founders are very passionate about what they do. And myself included, I'm very proud of their products and what they've created. But at the end of the day, nobody really cares about this new cool shiny feature that you just created, or this new product that you added to your line, what they really care about is does it solve this awesome problem? Like, you know, is it awesome? And does it solve this problem that I have? So I think looking at it from that lens, and that angle was a lot more impactful in the bottom line of the company.

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Alex Ivanoff  30:35  

Yeah, I think the start with why thing is a good example of also like clichés. where I think he in the presentation in the book, he talks about Apple as saying like, Apple was very different, because they started with, like, why are we doing what we're doing? And I think it was because he said the the ideas, were trying to change the world. It wasn't like we're making the best phone that we can. It's like, No, we're making these phones because we're trying to change the world. Or we're making these laptops as technology, whatever it is, again, sounds cliché, it's like, you kind of hear it a lot, especially if you like, you know, read a lot of like, successful entrepreneurs and study them. And it's like, everyone's like, "Oh, we're trying to do this, like, amazing, like, you know, revolutionising thing." And it sounds almost like, you can think of another word for cliché, taboo, almost. But it's legitimate, like, that's why these people are successful. That's why they're doing what they're doing. Because they're starting from the inside out., why, and then who, and what. You know, makes a lot of sense.

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Jen Seregos  31:33  

Absolutely. Yeah, a lot of companies, I think founders especially don't get that to the degree that's necessary to create a multimillion dollar company. And part of my job is to really help people look at their company through that lens, through that wide lens, like getting to the foundation and the fundamentals of the company. Well, why did you start this company? Oh, you know, when you just ask somebody why they started a company that usually is like, the first starting point for your marketing strategy, you know, for your one of your core messaging pillars, which is the founders mission. Why did this person start this company? And I remember I, when I was first getting started, I didn't ask that question. And I asked a client after we'd been working together for months and months and months. Oh, what can you Why did you start this business, and then she told me and I was like, "Oh, my God, like, I should ask this day one, onboarding, with every client that I ever worked with," Because there's so much gold in a founder telling you their story as to why they built this thing that they're so excited about. And that usually translates very well into a marketing strategy or positioning as far as just how you message and positioning yourself in the marketplace.

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Dave Pancham  32:53  

So you, you clearly strike me as being a very like giving person and so what, I would imagine you've probably run into some founders where you've asked that question, and you didn't get the answer that you maybe you're hoping for, or again, like, we know, like, a lot of like, eCommerce, people are marketing people out there, or like looking for the winning product, and trying to create a brand around that. Do you ever try to help that, like, we're like, alright, this is probably not the best fit best fit, but how do you try to help that person walk away with coming up with that? Right? Why? Like, do you ever try to give them more of a direction about like, Hey, you might want to think about this a bit more, because it'll make everything much more effective in what you're doing?.You ever tried to give people guidance in that direction?

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Jen Seregos  33:37  

Yeah, absolutely. So a perfect example would be I had a consult with a with a gal and I asked her her why. And we hadn't started working together yet. And she said, "Well, I want to quit my job. I hate my job." Like super honest about. And I was like, that's fair. You know? And, and don't we all who have a 9-5 , right? Or most of us. I would say what, you know, the the way that I kind of work, at least in that particular situation, I think every scenario is unique, and how I handle it is unique based on how I'm reading the person and the situation and all that, but in that particular instance, I just basically, you know, I pushed a little more. And I was like, Okay, well, cool. That's the high level, right? You're at 30,000 foot. And this is kind of getting into more of a sales psychology conversation, but then going a little bit deeper. Well, why this type of product? Why are you trying to sell this product as opposed to any other product and that when you start to drill down with people, you tend to draw out what it is that actually is their passion or interest. And that is what happened on the call and I ended up being really excited about helping her so

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Dave Pancham  34:56  

Yeah, that's cool. I like it.

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Jen Seregos  34:59  

I think sometimes people Just don't give you the answer you're looking for, which is fine. They may never, but I think it's important to understand and recognize when it's appropriate to, you know, ask more questions until you start to get at least to a core understanding of the human behind the idea.

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Dave Pancham  35:18  

Do you, do your current clients, do you work with a lot of like, smaller brands that are extremely, like mission-focused or almost like with those kinds of brands, when you approach, when you, when you end up with a person like that, how do you, how, what is your approach to trying to help somebody in that position, that's like a newer, smaller brand, that does like a starting with a mission? You know, I know, we definitely know people that have started brands, while they have their own jobs, and they're inspired by some specific thing, maybe they are a very, very outdoorsy person, you know, or whatever it may be. How do you choose to kind of come in and help that person, you know, because they, they probably were pretty crystal clear in the vision, but there's probably a lot of other pieces that need help.

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Jen Seregos  36:02  

Yeah, I would say, you know, our sweet spot at this point is helping established companies accelerate growth and scale. So, you know, our sweet spot is one to 10 million, and then helping them double that, that's really where we shine and show the most excitement and enthusiasm. For brand new brands, I really don't take on a whole lot of brand new brands anymore, unless I get that warm and fuzzy feeling, you know, this person really is cool. And I can see that there's, there's like, a spark there. And I, I like the product, or I like what they're doing with the product, or, you know, I think they're, they're putting something out there that is for me, and looks, in my opinion, adding value in some way in the world. So it's a very personal, emotional decision. And a lot of the ways that I make decisions in my business are data and emotional so I try to combine the two whenever possible, because I'll tell you what, I don't know how many times I've put together an ad campaign and thought it was the best thing I ever did. And it tanked. And conversely, I can't tell you how many times I've put something out there, that wasn't really my best work. And you know, we had like a 10 ROAS and I was like, "Okay, well, you know, people like it, I don't know"

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Alex Ivanoff  37:23  

Take what you can.

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Jen Seregos  37:24  

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Which that 10 ROAS doesn't happen very often.

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Alex Ivanoff  37:29  

Yeah, yeah. Don't get too high expectations.

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Jen Seregos  37:32  

Yeah, yeah.

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Alex Ivanoff  37:35  

Those days are over.

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Jen Seregos  37:38  

That's true, yeah.

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Alex Ivanoff  37:39  

Certainly, back to paid media and talking about organic media as well, how does it, brand owner need to look at those two, you know, paid and organic differently? And how are they alike, also?

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Jen Seregos  37:51  

Well, I mean, I don't necessarily like to think of them as silos, or as a similarity. So much, so is a synergistic, you know, entity that works together with each other. So running ads supports your organic growth, because people are more aware of your brand, it's brand awareness, and then what you do on organic supports, right the growth of the company in that you're adding value to the folks that are engaging with your brand. So I think that they really work. They're very intertwined, and they really support one another, and not just organic and paid. But I would just say multiple channels. So if you're a larger company, and so you have, you know, a $100,000 a month budget for ads, it's not just throwing all your money into one bucket. And and and I think a lot of people got stuck in that, when the iOS 14 update happened with Facebook allowed eCommerce brands, almost exclusively ran advertising on Facebook. And that was a really great wake up call, in my opinion, to diversify. It's the same thing with stocks, right? You want to diversify your portfolio. Same thing is true with advertising, you don't want to run all your ads on one platform. So multiple channels work together and support each other as well. Like I was talking about earlier, Google can support Facebook, TikTok can support Google and YouTube can support Facebook and and they all work together and then and I don't think it's an it's an or & and. It's kind of an and & and kind of thing, if that makes sense.

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Alex Ivanoff  39:20  

Sure. No, it makes sense. Do you guys remember that day and it was October of last year where Facebook was down?

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Dave Pancham  39:26  

Yeah.

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Jen Seregos  39:29  

I emailed my clients. I emailed my clients and I was like, "Facebook's down" And I have a mountain bike.

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Alex Ivanoff  39:36  

Yeah.

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Jen Seregos  39:36  

And so I got my mountain bike and I just rode my bike for like three hours in the middle of like, a Wednesday or something and it was great. It was awesome. So I was like "It's gonna come back. It's fine."

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Alex Ivanoff  39:47  

There were so many good memes that came out of that day where Mark marketers are just hanging out in the meadow. Nothing to do. I mean, but my point is really like think of like to your point how many brands were, you know, one channel on just just Facebook and their sales that day, we're probably, you know, next to nothing. So you want to protect against that. I think about that all the time. Like, try and put you know business continuity think about the craziest thing that could happen Facebook go down for a week. What happens to your sales then? You know, I mean, the internet Yeah, I mean if the internet goes away with the world's got bigger problems than just your brand but you know, I mean, what's that, Dave?

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Dave Pancham  40:33  

Direct mail baby, it's coming back.

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Jen Seregos  40:34  

Yeah. Exactly

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Alex Ivanoff  40:36  

Yeah, I know, Direct mail and billboards. I have faith it'll work out if the internet went down, it would take a long time to adjust, but I think we'll be alright. Yeah, I mean, it could happen any platform. What's that?

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Jen Seregos  40:49  

I mean I'm almost 38. There was no internet when I was a kid.

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Alex Ivanoff  40:54  

Yeah.

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Jen Seregos  40:55  

And man, oh man, I'm so grateful, because I feel so bad for the children nowadays with these phones and all of that, so. You get teased at school and then you go home and you get teased again. So I'm grateful that I didn't have the internet when I was a kid growing up.

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Alex Ivanoff  41:07  

That's a great point. Yeah, I mean, baby boomers did alright after the internet.

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Jen Seregos  41:10  

Exactly.

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Alex Ivanoff  41:13  

So, cool. On the,  again, on the topic of organic, social, and just everything that Athena does a lot of different services. What are some like underrated tools that you guys use that, like, you know, brands listening and they're like, "Alright, I got to check out this piece of software, this tool that I've haven't had before?"

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Jen Seregos  41:31  

Okay, well, I don't necessarily have a secret tool that I love for organic, per se. I think I do have a very awesome tool, though for paid, which is called Internet Explorer and, or interest explorer.

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Alex Ivanoff  41:51  

That's not a very big secret.

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Jen Seregos  41:53  

I think they're out of business maybe, but anyway, yeah, interest explore. So the, this tool is awesome. I use it all the time on ads. So when you have a newer brand, but doesn't have a whole lot of following are a base, and you don't have a large CSV file that you can upload into Facebook and create lookalike audiences and stuff. And also I am seeing a huge shift in lookalike audiences not performing as well for a lot of brands. So I've actually shifted back into interest based targeting for a lot of companies. And interest explore, interest Explorer is awesome. Because what you can do is actually takes a lot of the guesswork out of the you know, when you go into ads manager, it's a real, really janky back end where you have to, you know, type in interest, and then...

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Alex Ivanoff  42:39  

Yep.

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Jen Seregos  42:40  

Do all the things, right? And interest explored, just basically makes my job so easy, because I go in, I type in a broad term, and then it spits out, you know, dozens of hits that I can also target on Facebook. And so what I'll do is I'll click on the ones that are appropriate for the client. And then you just copy and paste and put it in and then you're off to the race. So yeah, I would say interest Explorer.

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Alex Ivanoff  43:07  

So it's kind of like that suggestions, drop down, like when you go into ads manager, right? And you put an interest, it gives you maybe 10 suggestions. It's kind of like that, but, like, on steroids, really.

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Jen Seregos  43:16  

Yeah, exactly. And then okay, here's the secret. Here's the secret. And it's not a tool, but you can do it with your brain, which is almost better. You. Look, there's, okay, here's how I break this down. When you're looking for new customers, the best way to target them interest-based on ads is to target folks that are following companies that solve the problem that you solve. So an example would be let's say you have a weight loss supplement, which you probably wouldn't be on Facebook, because you'll get turned down, but just let's go with it, because it's all I could think about on the top of my head. And you have, you want to target based on interest and not based on look alikes. You are a new brand, you don't have a big robust email list that you can leverage, yada, yada. So who do people who want to lose weight follow? They follow Weight Watchers, right? That would be a great company to put in your target that you want to have your ad delivered to people who follow or or are like the Weight Watchers page. And a secondary audience would be people who maybe shop at what's that? Lane Bryant right? That's a brand that caters and sells clothing to folks who are overweight, but those folks may not necessarily be looking to lose weight so they wouldn't be your primary audience. It would be like a secondary audience to test later once you've saturated your primary audience, if that makes sense.

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Alex Ivanoff  45:03  

Yeah. I'm writing down. Dave, are you writing this down? Oh, these are good ideas.

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Dave Pancham  45:09  

Internet Explorer, I got that.

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Jen Seregos  45:11  

Interest, interest.

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Alex Ivanoff  45:15  

What version of an inter, internet, internet explorer? It's called edge now, right?

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Jen Seregos  45:22  

Is it even still a thing?

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Alex Ivanoff  45:23  

I don't know. I actually don't know. I'm definitely outdated. Cool, what's the biggest challenge that you're facing right now with with your business and, you know, with your clients?

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Jen Seregos  45:36  

Hiring.

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Alex Ivanoff  45:39  

The challenge of everyone right now.

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Jen Seregos  45:41  

Yeah, I can't seem to hire enough talent to to keep up with the, the client work that we're doing. So, you know, I'm primarily at this point focused on my team, in order to be able to give the highest level of service possible to our customers. And so we can scale and we can grow and bring on new customers. And I still feel really good about the work that we're doing. You know, the number one complaint that I get from new clients is, I don't want to work with a big agency, because the last time I did, I kept getting shifted around different account managers, and they never really got a feel for my company and my brand. And I kept feeling like I was getting bounced around from person to person. And I just didn't feel like I was getting that that relationship. And so for me, it's really, really important that those relationships, start and continuing stay intact through the lifecycle of that client, whether it's a one month, one year, 10 years, 20 years, whatever. And that, to me is, quite frankly, the single most important thing that I can do to provide the most value to my customers and my clients is to make sure that they have a direct contact with me, they know me, they know how to get a hold of me, they have people that they know, and that they can trust that we're going to do good work for their businesses. So yeah, hiring.

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Alex Ivanoff  47:07  

I love that. Obviously, but, you know...

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Jen Seregos  47:10  

Know, any good, know any good google market advertisers? I need them.

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Alex Ivanoff  47:14  

Well, if anyone's listening, that's not a brand owner and needs a job. Hit up, hit up Athena.

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Dave Pancham  47:21  

What about your brand owners, what are your brand owners dealing with? What's the biggest problem you find them running into these days?

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Jen Seregos  47:28  

You know, it's interesting. Not knowing their numbers, you know, you'd be surprised how many multimillion dollar companies I come to, to start working with. And they don't know what their LTV is, and they don't know what their CAC should be. And so they're kind of flying blind. And as a, an advertising professional, it's really important for me to know these things as representing their company, because I need to know, Are you focused on how much you're paying per customer, because you know, you're going to make that up on the back end, because you have a great retention, you know what I mean? So I would say that's actually been, I don't know that that's their biggest struggle. But I would say that that's been mine, as far as just getting that data and helping clients understand why it's so important to know these metrics and to know these numbers so that when we run ads, we know, we cannot pay more than $50 to acquire a new customer period. And when you know that, that gives you power, right? Because then you can make better decisions with Ads Manager, you can do cost capping and whatever else in order to you know, make sure that the budget is being spent appropriately for that company. I would say a lot of my customers are just I think just like anybody else. And it's always the same problem, which is, how do I stay relevant? How do I continue to build my company? How do I get new customers in the door? And how do I keep the current customers happy? And those are the kinds of things that keep business owners up at night.

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Dave Pancham  48:57  

I know, I know one of your strengths is definitely like social media especially like from the organic side, what are your, what are your thoughts with, like, you know, the emerging platforms like such as TikTok or you know, using, like, Instagram reels, things like that for brand owners?

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Jen Seregos  49:15  

Yeah, I mean, we love it. I use TikTok every day for clients. We do ads on TikTok. We do social organic on TikTok. We do reels for all our clients that we do social media management for. I'm very bullish on TikTok. Not necessarily the political side of things, but as far as the platform. But, you know.

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Alex Ivanoff  49:38  

A lot of uncertainty there.

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Jen Seregos  49:39  

Yeah. There's, you know, at the end of the day, there's uncertainty in anything right? I mean, even Facebook or Meta or whatever you want to call it these days.

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Alex Ivanoff  49:47  

Yep.

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Jen Seregos  49:47  

You know, has its own fair share of issues and then apples coming in and making it harder for Facebook to allow, you know, their, their advertisers to do well on the platform. So everybody's constantly needing to adapt and change and I think that's life. If you You can't adapt and change, you're going to, you're not going to do well in life, let alone in business. And so I think it's just really important to have a good head on your shoulders and not get emotionally attached to a channel or a thing, right, because like things change. I think the the core foundational principles are, like, be a good person, make a product that matters to you and to the people around you, you know, like, core foundational things, I think, is what's going to keep people in business, and not worrying about the economy, or the price of oil, or the price of food and, you know, inflation. And while all these things are important, and I, I look at it just as much as anybody else, I just don't think that dwelling on those things is what's going to make you a successful entrepreneur, I think you need to you need to do stay in your lane and do the things that you, are in your control.

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Alex Ivanoff  50:53  

Yeah.

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Dave Pancham  50:53  

As a, as a strategist, how do you like help a brand, decide what they should come in and focus on, right? Because there's so many different platforms? I know a lot of brands out there are definitely on the organic side, not active on every single platform that they have out there. So how do you help them figure out what the heck they should do? Because it isn't, you can't go Facebook, Facebook, Facebook all day. Like, how do you help them, as a strategist figure out where their focus needs to be?

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Jen Seregos  51:20  

Well, a lot of it goes down to what we talked about earlier, which is who is their target market? And where do they hang out? Right? So some brands, we actually do mostly YouTube ads for them, because that's where their customers hang out, where their potential customers hang out, or where their target market hangs out. So it has a lot to do with understanding all the different channels that are accessible to people in the digital world. And then understanding their business, understanding their core competency as a business and then understanding who their target customer is. And then because I have, you know, 15 years experience in this, I'm able to say, Okay, well your target market, you know, here's here's the breakdown of the demographics of each channel, or whatever, and then say, hey, based on your target market, I think we should focus on this channel first, and then focus on this channel, and then focus on that channel, and so on and so forth. And because of the nature of the way eCommerce is going now, we put a lot of emphasis on SMS and email, as well. We built out a whole flow for a client, we had been doing Facebook ads for them for eight months. We were doing then we labored in SEO, then we layered in Google. So we did it in stages, right? And then the next thing I was like, Yeah, we gotta get your email going. We built three flows, we had a nurture sequence, a welcome sequence, about facts sequence, and they made $12,000 in six weeks that they wouldn't have otherwise made because of those email sequences. So I think a well-rounded channel, multi channel approach is absolutely the way to go.

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Dave Pancham  52:55  

You mentioned for a second there because of the nature of, I think you said because of the nature of social media, you built the email and SMS flows. What do you mean, what do you mean by that, because of the nature? What ,what are you observing that you're saying that?

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Jen Seregos  53:07  

Yeah, because people because of what's happening in the economy and the slowdown, people are taking much longer to decide to make purchases, which means capturing people's emails and having a very robust and meaningful follow up sequence with people is what, is, is, we're in it for the long game at this point, like, the days of people seeing an ad and making a purchase, right from that ad at the scale that they were five years ago, is just not there, we're just not seeing it. And whether it's iOS, or the economy or the or, you know, Ukraine, whatever the case may be, people are just not making decisions as quickly and purchasing things as quickly as they were a few years ago. And so, again, adapt and change, right? So what, what makes the most sense. You don't own your customers on the platform. I mean, perfect example is Amazon. So many companies have Amazon stores, but they don't own those customers, they don't know their emails. So if you're going to be on Amazon, you better be on other channels. Because what if something happens to Amazon, right? You know, what we were talking about earlier? So, you know, email and SMS to me is like, the, the single most easiest thing you can do to get money from, you know, for your company, and have direct communication with your customers. That and Facebook groups. I love Facebook groups.

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Alex Ivanoff  54:27  

Yeah, and if anything is gonna happen to any of the platforms I imagined. phone, texting on the phone and emails will probably be last. Facebook and TikTok and Google, they're all gonna go down for a couple days, you know, SMS and email. I'm sure. There's always they're always going to be around so.

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Jen Seregos  54:44  

Yeah, I mean, I got a text from a company. I bought something from months and months and months prior and they never texted me and then one day out of the blue, they texted me. You're gonna love this, you know, said Jim, you know, to me And and I did I bought it, I bought the thing. I thought the things they texted me about. So it does work.

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Dave Pancham  55:10  

What are you observing about the landscape? Because you made some good observations there? What are you observing and kind of predicting or thinking that's kind of like, how do you think things are shifting? Obviously, the customer journey is not as quick as it was before.

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Jen Seregos  55:27  

Yeah, yes. It's really well, I'm a couple of things, I would say. More companies now more than ever, are branching out of Facebook. I mean, I think Facebook was the predominant player for digital ads for many companies for many years. And I am seeing a shift away from Facebook and towards other other channels. I don't think Facebook is going to, you know, go away. And I think there's always a place for Facebook, for marketers and advertisers. I just think that companies are becoming more acutely aware of being reliant on one channel. And that channel, for lack, for better or worse, has been Facebook. And I think a lot of these companies are starting to recognize that and branch out, I would say, that's something that I'm seeing, a really big shift. And then another thing that I'm seeing is a really big shift, which is no big secret is influencer marketing. There are just so many influencers out there, you know, and million followers.

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Alex Ivanoff  56:27  

Everyone's an influencer.

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Jen Seregos  56:28  

Yeah, it's like, yeah, you know, um, and, you know, as much as I hate the term, it does work. There's a reason why it's out there, right. And I even seen a big shift with user generated content UGC. So a lot of companies are contacting their best customers, and they're saying, Hey, would you make a video with your iPhone? And would it be okay, if we used it in ads, or, you know, used it on our social platforms and what not. So there's definitely a shift that I'm seeing in terms of the delay in purchase time. So you know, click-to-action has become longer. And ironically, the attribution window has become shorter. So it's been a really big challenge for us digital marketing professionals, because, you know, back in the day, we could have 60 day look back windows and attribute a sale to a channel that we were running ads for, up to, you know, weeks and weeks and weeks. And now it's seven days, like, if they don't make a, take action, within seven days, you don't get credit. So it's rough, it's rough out there, you know.

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Alex Ivanoff  57:38  

Wild Wild West.

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Jen Seregos  57:40  

A little bit, a little bit. And then, like, the conversions API, and integrating with the back end, and getting everything going and Facebook, potentially moving away from Pixels, which is a whole other podcast. You know, it's just, it's, it's nuts out there, you just, you gotta keep good head on your shoulders and trust the right people and have, you know, have a good, a good mission, good vision, and just try to, you know, see the forest through the trees, because all of these things, yes, they are there, and they matter. But, you know, at the end of the day, if you're really doing something in the world that is helping people like you're gonna do okay, you're gonna you're gonna come out, okay. But I do think that the cost of living going up with inflation and stuff like that is slowing down. People from purchasing big time.

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Alex Ivanoff  58:28  

I agree with that. It's scary, like people spend so much a percentage of their disposable income on rent and mortgages, like, mostly rent, but yeah, it's just nuts.

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Jen Seregos  58:37  

Yeah, yes. Yeah. I mean, and also, I'm seeing like, it's kind of weird. I'm seeing this weird thing. I don't know that this is happening across the board. But at least in Facebook world, people are. There's just this weird, divisive energy. And if people actually look up founders of companies, and if they have a particular political leaning that they don't agree with, you know, they just write them off, even if they like the product, you know. So I'm telling a lot of my clients to just keep their politics to themselves.

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Alex Ivanoff  59:16  

Yeah, yeah, most people are fine with that but some people are, you know.

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Dave Pancham  59:22  

I mean, there's a lot of skepticism on the internet, and on social media. Yeah, I didn't think people went that far. I know, it's normal to go google the company that you just saw the ad for, but to go google the founder and really understand like, what's their opinion? And like, do I want to support this person or not? Yeah, that's pretty deep. Yeah.

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Jen Seregos  59:45  

I mean, I think people have a little more time on their hands maybe. But I do, I mean, I am seeing a lot of stuff on social that's a little, it gives me pause right because I make my living running advertising on a platform that has a lot of negative press around it right? You know, my expertise is more on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, I do social advertising mostly. And then, you know, our company does other things, but I have experts in those areas that do the work. And then I kind of stay in my lane and do more strategy type stuff. And I, you know, how does one reconcile helping companies make money on a platform that doesn't support young teenage girls or on a platform that supports, you know, wars in Myanmar and Russian hackers coming in and changing outcomes of elections in various countries and stuff like that? So, you know, it's an interesting conversation. And it's, I don't think there's a right or a wrong answer here. I think it's very complicated. I think there's a lot of the, you know, I think the SEC, at some point is going to need to get involved with these social media companies, because the word media is in the term, right. And these companies, for better or worse, they do put information out there, and I don't think that they're going away, and nor would I want them to, I mean, I have family in Italy that I get to connect with on Facebook, and it's beautiful, and it's wonderful. I just think that we need to kind of find that middle ground where it's doing more harm, more good than harm. And, you know, there's no utopia, and there's no perfect answer. But, I mean, those are things that I mean, I think about because I do, I do make money on these platforms. And I mean, I have to, I have to, you know, pause sometimes and ask myself, Well, how am I rationalizing this? Right? And I think at the end of the day, I think that these companies are connecting people and they are bringing people together. I think that there needs to be more work, there is more work that needs to be done with regards to the the way that they're being leveraged to divide people.

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Alex Ivanoff  1:01:54  

Yeah, no, that's a very real thing and real feeling to have for sure. I always like to think, you know, we all have our opinions, I have my own. I like to think like, I'm very happy. I'm not the one calling the shots on a lot of this stuff because like, these are very hard problems to solve, right? Like very, so many different opinions, so many different, like, ways to look at things. So.

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Jen Seregos  1:02:12  

I have no idea why on earth, Elon Musk would want to buy Twitter, I wouldn't want that touch that with a 10-foot pole. Like, I would want to own a social media company. I mean,

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Alex Ivanoff  1:02:20  

Twitter is not a very good, yeah, Twitter is not the best business either. Like they don't make a lot of money.

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Jen Seregos  1:02:24  

They make like no money, if anybody can make it make money it would be Elon, but you know.

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Alex Ivanoff  1:02:27  

probably, probably.

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Jen Seregos  1:02:29  

We'll see what happens.

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Alex Ivanoff  1:02:30  

So Jen, you've been doing this for a very long time, we'll start wrapping up. But I have one interesting question I want to ask is, obviously, like I said, You've been doing this a long time, you have a lot of experience, you know, what you're doing? Obviously, you know, the past hour shows that. What is one thing about the marketing industry or you know, the services that you guys provide that no one almost nobody agrees with you? Like, they're just like, yeah, she's wrong. But you, you,, you know you're right.

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Jen Seregos  1:02:56  

Well, I mean, I'm gonna go into I'm gonna say, I'm, it's a woowoo thing, but I'm an energy, I am an energetic being and I spiritual person. And I believe what you put out into the world and what you get back, and I think a lot of marketers believe, data, only logic, only, if you do good marketing, and you use this formula for your ad copy and your landing page copy, you're going to convert and you're going to be profitable. And I just don't agree. And I am definitely an outlier in that, because I think you can have the best marketing team in the world. And if you don't, if you don't have a good product, or you don't have the right, founder, it's not going to work. So I definitely think I'm an outlier in the sense that I really do firmly believe that the energetic connection between you and the world around you and the offering that you put into the world is and will always be paramount to your marketing. Your marketing should be a reflection of that.

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Alex Ivanoff  1:04:00  

I agree. It's a great one. A lot of people don't look at it that way. It's a good one. Yeah. Cool. So as we begin to wrap up, we'd like to conclude the show with one question that we asked every, every single guest. If you could sit in a room with a bunch of mentors once every morning to help guide you and give you advice. Who would be in that room? They can be alive or dead.

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Jen Seregos  1:04:22  

Sadhguru he is an Indian mystic. I guess is what you could call him, he is the most mystical pragmatic human being I've ever witnessed. And I think he's fantastic and I would love to be in a room with him and just soak up his good energy. I would like to let you know, I hate, I know he's very controversial, but I'd be really interested to hear what Elon Musk has to say. I heard a podcast interview with him and they asked him about the simulation thing. And you know, he's been a proponent of saying, you know, this is for sure a simulation or whatever. And the interviewer asked, So what do you really think about this? And he goes, Well, do you believe that we are living in a simulation? And he said, My heart wants to say no, but my mind wants to say yes. And I would think that that, In-and-of-itself, that kind of an answer just makes me intrigued by the human that he is and would want to know, more and would want him in a room mentoring me for sure. And then another controversial person that I would want to share with me is a, Jeff Bezos,

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Dave Pancham  1:05:42  

I was about to ask you that earlier because of the Amazon, you know, ethos and consequent billionaires. I was waiting to finish this and ask if you were what your opinion was on him. So, please proceed.

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Jen Seregos  1:05:53  

I Think his ex-wife, Mackenzie is the most fantastical human and she would have been my fourth pick. But I probably shouldn't put them in a room together, mentoring me. they're separated now.

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Alex Ivanoff  1:06:12  

That would be hilarious. They can take turns coming in the room.

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Jen Seregos  1:06:15  

That'd be really funny. Yeah, I know, I think he's, I think he's brilliant. I think he's a brilliant businessman and entrepreneur and a brilliant mind and has a very unique perspective on the world. I very much agree with his philosophies that the customer comes first. And I haven't found a company that has given me better customer support than Amazon. I do, however, have a bit of a bone to pick with some of the things that have been coming out with regards to employees and how they've been treated. But you know, there's two sides to every story. And I do know that they do provide a lot of resources for employees for college education, and stuff like that. So I want to hear it from the horse's mouth, sort of speak. But I would love, I'd love to be mentored by those four people. I think that would be you know, two of them are more philanthropic and more spiritual in nature. And then the other two are more business savvy. So I think it'd be a good balance. You know, I always like to try to keep people around me that aren't one. I don't like to have just one type of perspective or type of focus of mentors around me. I like to surround myself with a well rounded bunch of people, whether it's spiritual or musical or creative writers, whatever, you know, poets, I like to be surrounded by a healthy, eclectic mix, to keep things interesting.

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Alex Ivanoff  1:07:33  

Yeah, that's awesome. That's a great answer. It'd be interesting. You know, Jeff, could be on one side of the table saying do this and focus on the customer so you can make more money and Mackenzie will be on the other side of that. Yeah. So you can donate it.

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Jen Seregos  1:07:44  

Yeah.

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Alex Ivanoff  1:07:47  

That'd be funny. Cool. Well, thank you so much, Jen. For the people listening, you know, the brand owners, the potential employees, everybody that we've talked about that could be listening. Where can they find you? Where can they get in touch with you? How can they follow Athena Digital?

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Jen Seregos  1:08:01  

Yeah. So we have a Facebook page that I do nothing with because I'm too busy serving my customers. But you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and I'm on LinkedIn, Jen Seregos , J E N, S E R E G O S. And our website is www.Athena-Digital.com. And you can contact us through our website, there's a Contact Us page. And I'll be sure to reach back out.

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Alex Ivanoff  1:08:30  

Perfect. Well, again, thank you so much, Jen. It's been a pleasure. I learned a lot already. And Dave and I have taken notes and I can't wait for this episode to come out. People listen to this. I had a blast.

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Jen Seregos  1:08:40  

Cool. Me too. Yeah, I enjoyed it.

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Thanks, Jen. Thanks guys.

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Alex Ivanoff  1:08:45  

Alrighty, see you guys later. Thank you.

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