The Foureva Podcast

From Mom Life to CEO – How Anneliese Vance Built a 6-Figure Consulting Brand

• Foureva Media • Season 2 • Episode 67

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Want to scale your business, dominate local markets with Google Ads, and build a family-first brand? In this episode, Jamar Jones sits down with Anneliese Vance, founder of Never Miss a Moment Consulting, to unpack strategic insights for business owners—especially dads—who want to grow without sacrificing family time.

Anneliese is a Google Ads expert, fractional CMO, and marketing vendor broker (aka the "eHarmony of marketing") who helps family-owned businesses craft ad strategies that convert. With 18+ years of experience and a track record of helping clients turn $500 budgets into powerful ROI, she shares real-world tactics you won't hear from most agencies.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
✅ The biggest Google Ads mistakes most small businesses make (and how to avoid them)
✅ The "pie crust" framework for building ad campaigns that work
✅ Why most agencies overcharge and underdeliver—and how Anneliese does it differently
✅ How to protect your budget from click fraud and bot traffic
✅ How to scale your ad spend smartly and seasonally
✅ How Anneliese helps dads build businesses that give them more time with their kids

She also reveals how she and her husband run their business while raising toddlers, why empathy matters in marketing, and how advertising should always pay for itself.

🚀 If you’re a family-owned business owner, coach, consultant, or service provider looking for smarter ways to market and grow—this is the episode for you.

🔔 Don’t forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and turn on notifications for more episodes on small business growth, marketing strategy, family-focused entrepreneurship, and digital ad success!

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Speaker 1:

We think through the lens of what is going to, like you said, maximize their budget and maximize their ROI, which ROI is not clicks, it's not impressions, it is not even phone calls, it's not even formulas. It's getting closer, but it's booked jobs and it's repeat job, believe it or not. You know like the Asian community is really great to get into because they tell all their friends that's like, yeah, the idea what's going on.

Speaker 2:

Annalise how you doing what's up?

Speaker 1:

I'm good kids arepping. I got my adult time.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the Forever Podcast.

Speaker 1:

We're going to dive into.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we're going to dive into a lot of different things. People are going to filter it into the room. I'm going to tell them real quick ask questions about your brand and business. Okay, so real quick. Uh, can you let everybody know who you are and what you do?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Um, I'm Annalise Vance. Um, I like to say mommy, CEO of never miss a moment. Consulting Mommy always comes before CEO. Um, and let's see my business. We do done for you Google ads for dad owned businesses and I'm also a fractional CMO and a marketing vendor broker, which I describe as I'm the eHarmony of marketing vendors. So I match up personalities and price points and just you know all the different factors and I'm a matchmaker.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, awesome. How many, how many vendors do you have? Oh my, gosh.

Speaker 1:

Well, that is an ever evolving answer, because I well, I'll tell you why. So I started with, you know, working with a lot of marketing vendors. Like, we do Google ads in-house and I do the data analysis and all the project management and all that kind of stuff, but we don't do SEO and we don't do virtual assistant that Janine and Chris do, and we don't do video production and we don't do branding, don't do video production and we don't do branding. Um, so I do some strategy, but I'm not like a marketing strategist Like some people are gonna, you know, have a $5,000 package. So we started there. But then, when I niched down to dads I guess it was October 22, I want to say, um, I now have all these parenting vendors too. So I have the single dad coach and the blended family coach and the dad coach in Holland, and you know, I've now we're getting life insurance and you know financial planning, like everything around families and dads, and I just always say I want to be the person that they say, annalise, do you know?

Speaker 1:

and I can say yes, or I will find them or they will find me. Um, so, everyone, it's more like a family first community. That's like become this conglomerate of like everything family-owned businesses needs, which is pretty sweet.

Speaker 2:

Gotcha yeah, cause your, your niche is in family business, correct yeah?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, family owned, so dad owned, I mean. But you know, we're helping them, we've helped single moms, we've helped moms, we've helped people that don't have families and, you know, don't have kids and are dog dads, um, so, uh, but generally, yeah, yeah, we're helping family-owned businesses. Um, under 15 to 20 employees is kind of our sweet spot. Like once they have a marketing manager on staff, I then become their competition becomes very interesting. I'll just say a word, but yeah, yeah, catty becomes very catty.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Gotcha and the family owned businesses are like are what? Can you give me a couple examples?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely so. Generally we say B2C, service based companies, but we do everything from helping jewelers to locksmiths moving. We have a headshot photographer and a laundromat consultant and we're about to help a gentleman who does professional development for teachers. When you're on LinkedIn, you know it's kind of anything goes as long as we can legitimately help. But you know, our sweet spot are those like heating and air, plumbing, concrete remodeling, the ones that are trying to get their foot in the door, homes that have the families and the nice houses. They're not searching for the apartments, they're searching for that. You know prototypical, like 2.4 kids, white picket fence kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

Okay, okay, gotcha, gotcha and how. And you said you're like the Google ads expert, right.

Speaker 1:

I think after almost 18 years, I can maybe say that you gotta own it. You gotta own it, yeah. No, I mean I can maybe say you got to own it. No, I mean, I am Google certified, Microsoft certified, Facebook certified. I always say I got my PhD, but not at college. I got it in real life training, with working with real life businesses and yeah, I've been doing it since 2007.

Speaker 2:

Nice, Nice, so help us out here. Okay, what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see that people make with their Google ads? And then what are the best ways to maximize their Google ads in their presence and making sure that they show up?

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I will tell my famous pie analogy in order to answer the question. Cause I this is. I guess I should coin it, but or I don't know. You're not going to get a patent on an analogy but it's your framework.

Speaker 2:

It's your framework.

Speaker 1:

Everyone likes pie crust or you can even think like a pizza pie crust, right, you want to match the toppings to the pie crust and so if you have two little toppings or you have, you know too much crust it's. You know it's too much dough, like you know it's just. You want to have the right ratio. So your pie crust is gonna be your keywords you're going after. It's gonna be your geographies that you're going after. It's gonna be your ad scheduling that you're going after. It's going to be your ad scheduling that you're going after. Biggest mistakes is people run it 24, seven nationally for every keyword. I mean, if you want to use like the biggest mistake ever, what we do is we ask the company you know what's your budget, what's your goals, right, so your budget is also. So if your pie crust is that framework, your budget is the toppings and that's how you make it equal.

Speaker 1:

And so if you don't have enough budget to hit your goals, well then, let's go after a smaller target area, let's go after a day and I'll use our mover that we've helped forever as an example. The biggest day that people are searching for moving is Mondays, between 10 and 3 and 5 to 10. And we know that, after running this campaign for year after year, month after month, that's his sweet spot after month. That's his sweet spot. And you know there's times within those timeframes that if we wanted to get like super granular, we could do that too. If you think of, you know, like dinner time, and then like put in, like you know the soccer practice, they're not searching then, and then you get the kids in bed and then after that, like those are the times that it's going to peak.

Speaker 1:

And so if you pay attention to this data that most, most agencies, they don't have to right, and that's where we come in and we differentiate ourselves and we, we think through the lens of what is going to, like you said, maximize their budget and maximize their ROI, which ROI is not clicks, it's not impressions, it is not even phone calls.

Speaker 1:

That's getting closer. It's not even formulas getting closer, but it's booked jobs and it's repeat jobs and it's people that you know like believe it or not, you know like the Asian community is really great to get into, because they tell all their friends like that's like, yeah, right now we can't target like Asian person searching on Google. That'd be amazing, but that's that's what we're going after is those book jobs. He wants the beginning of the month and the end of the month and weekends booked. If those are booked, he's happy. If they're not booked, I'm getting a text or a phone call, and so that's how we gauge it. And so another mistake I would say that people make they just run it on autopilot, they're not checking in and they're also not collaborating with the business owner. We do done for you Google ads, I do. We do legitimately have clients that we have not talked to in months because everything's fine and they're on vacation.

Speaker 1:

OK but we also have people that were like OK, this is what we're seeing on our end. And they're like yeah, but nothing's booking. And we're like OK, that's a problem booking.

Speaker 1:

and we're like okay, that's a problem, so I don't I know you want to roll, keep rolling with your questions, but if I can add and give a value add here, something we went through with the same gentleman November to February is he had bots that were stealing 40% of his budget because his website was not set up to prevent bots, and so I said, look, we're going to keep a little bit of budget running. We're not going to pull you off because you don't want to do that. That's going to starve the baby, right? Nobody wants to starve their baby. But we're also going to put the effort into fixing your website right now, because if we don't, this is going to keep happening and he legit may have gone out of business. If we hadn't, this is going to keep happening and he legit may have gone out of business if we hadn't have caught this.

Speaker 1:

That's how critical watching this data is. In 2024 and going into 2025, 2022 wasn't even a thought. It was fourth quarter 2023 and on that's when it became critical to have this. So I actually opened up another division of my website. It's still or my my business. It's still growing, but I do consults to people for people to make sure their website is bot proof, because he's had zero bots.

Speaker 2:

It's very niche yeah.

Speaker 1:

It relates to Google ads, right so it's a problem that we saw and we're like let's, let's make sure, because most business owners don't know If you're not a web designer. They just don't deal with this stuff on a day to day basis and they just don't know. And a lot of it's common sense, like when they, when they go through the consult, they're like oh, like I'm glad I'm paying for this, but like, really, it's that simple and I'm like yeah, you just have to slow down to think about it, so yeah, yeah, that's uh.

Speaker 2:

So what I'm what I'm hearing is you've got to know the data, so have to go deeper into who your, your ideal customer, is. What are they doing? Where do they hang out at? What are the times that they're looking for your service? Like? Just the more you know data, instead of just kind of throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks, you're saying, no, definitely look at the data and then also see kind of where the gaps could be in the conversion.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, we can drive all the traffic all day to you, but if you don't have somebody that's taking those calls, that can actually convert and get the job booked, or you're getting bots showing up on your website and you've got a big percentage of people that are literally not qualified and they're bots just clicking on things, not, they're never going to book anything. So how do you filter throughout that? So that that's. That's really good, because those two things, um are probably very helpful that people aren't thinking, especially when they're thinking about google ads. Um, is there. Is there, um? Is there a budget number that people should not start with when it comes to their Google ads? Is there a threshold? And I've heard many different things about this. I'm really curious on your thoughts.

Speaker 1:

I love this question. I've been getting this question a lot and I think it is actually one of our USPs about our company.

Speaker 1:

If you're with an agency, that number is going to be higher because their management fee is higher. The average agency and I'm not slamming any agency, the company that I used to work for they're really good people it's just it's the infrastructure right. You've got to pay for the sales rep and the manager, and then the analyst and the manager and the VP, and unfortunately all that's getting pushed down to the small business owner and they can't afford, if they have, let's say, a $2,000 budget, have eight hundred of it going to a management fee.

Speaker 2:

I mean that is right.

Speaker 1:

So if you're working with a more Well I always call us the anti agency, but just to be a little snarky but you're working with someone who doesn't have as much infrastructure and the management fee is lower, then your budget's going to go further and so that that answer can be lower Again, it goes back to that pie crust and that pie filling analogy is how many keywords are you trying to go after? How? How big of a geography are you trying to go after? How big of a geography are you trying to go after? How often are you trying to be up? We can customize and have a budget go a lot further if people will work with us and get those answers. However, if you're working, say in like plumbing, heating and air a budget under three to four thousand. You're working, say in plumbing, heating and air a budget under $3,000 to $4,000, you're kidding yourself. I mean, it just depends on what city you're into. Like I'm from Cincinnati and so there's some big players there that they're not going away.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And to play in that space. What a lot of people don't understand is two things. One Google's customer isn't the people actually even buying their product. It's the people that are searching, it's the end user, Yep. So they want to make sure Google's not being bad. But if, if you're constantly searching for something and you're getting misinformation, they're not mad at the customer who's trying to advertise. They're not mad at the customer who's trying to advertise, they're mad at Google. That's who Google's trying to serve. The second is I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this. Ask your next question. I'm trying to figure out how to Okay.

Speaker 1:

Well.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

It's an auction process, okay, okay. So I always used to joke like if you had the paddle right, the goal is to be the one sitting there with the paddle holding it and everyone else not having any money. That's the best place to be, because then you can get the best bid on that. That just doesn't always happen. The other thing that we're seeing is we set up daily spends for our customers so that they don't run out of budget mid-month or with a week left.

Speaker 1:

A lot of customers, even the big players, the people that are running their budgets they're not doing that and so we swoop in that last week and we kick butt and family friendly channel over here so I use the wrong word, but I have two and a four-year-old that might run in. So but yeah, so not only all those other factors, but making sure that the budget's going to last the whole month. Or you know, sometimes customers want to be aggressive and they might do a budget increase mid-month and they want to you know, really up the scale.

Speaker 1:

But most you know we're trying to make sure that it's going to last for that whole month. You know we're trying to make sure that it's going to last for that whole month and so we'll talk with people about that strategy and say, hey, like we're not going to go after it if it's this high, because we want to make sure we can have it be even keel the whole month and being able to search, and so in doing that, you have to have the budget to play the game.

Speaker 1:

You have to have the budget to play the game. And we've turned people away and said, hey, hold on to your money. You know you're not quite ready, because this is the budget you need. Unless we can pull, like I said, a smaller geography, pull out some keywords, those kind of things, then we can be a little bit more creative and most agencies aren't going to take the time to do that. So I'd say that's another differentiator for us is that we will slow down. Like we're working with a young lady right now, very niche, and she wants to go out. We know what city she wants to go after, we know what keywords, and so we're going in with the research and we're going to see okay, one is their search volume for this, because that's another mistake people make is they go after words where there's no search volume and then wonder why they're not getting.

Speaker 2:

Is there a place to to check, search, uh, search.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's called the google keyword tool. Okay, anyone can use it. It's free mean you have to know how to use it. Um just cause it's free, does it, you know, mean it's going to help anybody out. Um, I always use that analogy of you know the mechanic that gave the $500 bill, and it was $10 for the tool and 490 for knowing how to use the tool.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Um but yeah, so we're going to come in and say, hey, like, because she wants to know what budget she needs to come in at, and then we can give her a legitimate answer. The other thing the Google keyword tool allows people to do is you can sometimes find I don't like the term backdoor keywords, but I guess they've been called. That is words that people aren't really paying attention to. That will get people in the door. Because what's the plumbers in the door? You know that they're gonna like, do the whole, you know, estimate on not just the one problem, but they're gonna find, hey, by the way, this is wrong and this is wrong and this is wrong. So we call them the get them in the door words.

Speaker 1:

Okay, um, our pl. The biggest keywords that we're using to help him get in are about toilet repair and water heater repair. If you go after plumber Cincinnati it's way more expensive. If you go after that, it's about 25% of the cost. So it allows his budget to extend further. We'll also ask people you know, what do you, what do you like to do, what do you enjoy doing or what's the most profitable to do?

Speaker 1:

So, we'll get in there and ask those more custom, granular, detailed questions to people as well.

Speaker 2:

Wow. So so is there like how quick? How quick can somebody start getting results? So let's say they start working with you. You identify a lot of these different places where like, hey, let's adjust this, let's make sure this is good, let's get these great keywords. How quick can we see results? Can we see something in the first month, two months, three months?

Speaker 1:

Like, I've also heard a range.

Speaker 2:

I've heard a range of this as well A lot of different people.

Speaker 1:

It's a great question. So one thing that people do need to know when they start a Google campaign is so it depends on if they've never run the campaign before. Like if we're brand spanking new, which we can help. Um, if we're taking over someone's campaign that's been running a little bit and we're coming in, then they won't go through this. But if we're either relaunching a campaign that was maybe stagnant for a little bit or we're launching a brand new campaign, there's what's going to be called the learning phase. So that first week you might get nothing and we plan that in. So Google always does their billing on the first. So some people will start on the first, but some people, if we know they're going to go through that learning phase, we may start the mid month. Um, because we know there's not going to be any clicks anyway. But theoretically they could get something day one. It just depends on who's searching. Right it's.

Speaker 1:

It goes back to what we were talking about. It's not just that they got the click. Is their website set up to convert? And then, like you said, is someone who knows what the heck they're doing on the other end of the line that can convert it? Because I will tell you that is one of the biggest holes in the funnel is people who are either really great at customer service but they're not good at sales, and that can be a big problem too, but what we do tell people. So one differentiator about us, as well as we don't have contracts, we feel that it should be performance.

Speaker 2:

No contracts. No contracts, why? What if somebody acts?

Speaker 1:

a fool. Well, we're month to month, so we do our onboarding, okay. And then if they want to do one month and they want to take it in house, our onboarding set up to cover us that we build that in. Now, most people we're vetting, we're having conversations with and I can count on one hand, in four years that we've been in business, that that's happened and I think it's because of our very thorough onboarding that we do that. That doesn't happen or they kind of weed themselves out before we even start.

Speaker 1:

But we believe that it should be performance based. I don't want someone who's looking at that bill every month and oh well, I signed a six month contract, or I signed a 12 month contract, but it's not working. Well, all that creates is resentment, which is wonderful.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

So we like, when our customers look and go, oh no, it's delivering, my phone is ringing off the hook or my form fills went up or I'm seeing, you know, the click through rate go up, and you know, I know that we're turning the ship around, but we're making progress. They're very happy to pay their bill. Yeah, um, it's. And I've always believed and this goes back to when I was in corporate and my manager never understood this, which is probably why he's still a manager and I'm owning a business but, um, advertising should always pay for itself. It sounds like a very funny thing to say, but I don't think anyone should ever pay for advertising. I think it should pay for itself.

Speaker 2:

You always should get the investment Like you get your investment back.

Speaker 1:

Not. That's why I have the marketing vendor broker side of my business, because we can pivot. Google ads is not for everyone. Now, it's for a lot of people and it's for a lot more people than probably think that it is for them, but it is not for everyone. And and or people don't have the budget to play in the game yet. Right, so it could be for them. They just need more of the budget, but it should pay. Game yet Right, so it could be for them. They just need more of a budget, but it should pay for itself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Speaker 1:

And that's why you know you asked. You didn't ask the specific question, but you know the reason we like to help those people with the higher ticket items is there's less conversation about ROI, because one or two jobs in the month, everything else is gravy and they're very, very happy right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And that's why the the threshold, um, you know, because if you got ten dollars, you know it's like right you can't expect the world like I want my phone ringing off the hook for 10 bucks.

Speaker 1:

So here's the thing I always say anyone can advertise on Google. Google will let you go in, set up an account, hook your credit card up like a vacuum in a car wash place and then you'll get money right out of it. And then you'll get this bill at the end of the month and be like what just happened and you'll say Google doesn't work. No, you didn't know how to work your vacuum. Um sorry, my kids are obsessed right now with going through the car wash because all the different lights turn on for the different stuff.

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, yeah, car wash. And then I like to vacuum my son. He thinks it's hilarious, so sorry, vacuum's on the brain, but no, literally. I mean I have talked to clients where, like, I just got this 900 bill and I didn't get any jobs and yeah, like, okay, well, let's go in and see what the heck did you have set up here? Yeah, ten dollars is definitely not the threshold, but I will tell you we have helped a gentleman. They're a locksmith, mm-hmm. They've been my client since 2007, when I was in sales and were one of the first people to follow me over to Never Miss a Moment. He has a $500 budget that includes his management fee and he kicks tail because the keywords, the cost per click, is so low.

Speaker 1:

So low With the keywords that we have set up and he's he could double his budget. I mean he he's just very happy where he's at, but doubling his budget would not like put him in this like astronomical advertising budget either. So yeah, but I would say our average client is probably right around probably three to 4,000 right now, but we have people that we help in the five figures too. It just depends on the client. How aggressive they want to be is really the question there.

Speaker 2:

Okay, okay, cool. And is there? Should people do like more of a campaign structure of like they're trying to reach a goal, or should people just have a continuous, you know, like just like an ad that just always runs for them no matter what? Or like promote up towards something Like if it's an event or if it's a goal, if it's a sale that they have and they're only running it for the holidays, you know something like that where it's more event, or if it's a goal, if it's a sale that they have and they're only running it for the holidays, something like that where it's more of a campaign structure versus hey, we just got this tried and true that we run all the time. Is there a way to there's both Okay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it depends the mechanic that we help. He does use tires so he will increase his budget around oh my gosh tax return time. So for first quarter he'll increase it, but then he does kind of tried and true. But when people are slipping around and at first snow right like we're getting those tire ads up there, our jeweler he's running specials right now because you know we've got Black Friday, so his season is Black Friday to Valentine's Day. That's like his big hot season and we have some tried and true things Like he does some very unique things Like he's a custom jeweler that's sought all over the nation.

Speaker 1:

He also does lab grown diamonds that you've probably seen like ads on youtube for um so and we also can do that, like we can run a google max campaign that's going to include the youtube and the display ads and all of that. It's not where we tend to start with customers. We want to max out the Google ads because, in my mind, that's where people's hands are on their wallet and they're looking to spend their money Right. They're looking to give their money to someone. Where the display ads people are more in like oh okay, they're like more in an awareness. People are more in like oh okay, they're like more in an awareness, um, or you know, there may be in more of a research kind of mode and I don't like my customer's money to go to that Like. That's someone that can help them with branding. We're really good at having hands change, you know dollar bills and credit cards and PayPal Venmo, whatever, but in

Speaker 1:

answer to your question. It really just depends on the customer and it depends on the season and we have to be ready to pivot Like we have a concrete company that we've helped for a couple of years Now. All of a sudden they want to get into water. Base water, basement proofing, basement waterproofing Probably could be either way. For the keywords, that's another thing. Misspelled keywords can actually be some big ones. It's not like you want to hang your hat on that, but knowing those people, because people will enter it in differently.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. They'll spell it wrong, since I misspell yeah.

Speaker 1:

Back to and only because you triggered this, and I want to give people as much value as possible. Another big thing people don't do is they do not build up a big enough negative keyword wall.

Speaker 2:

I'll give you an example.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we helped a lighting company. He sold chandeliers. You stipend chandeliers, chandelier the song by Sia and Jordan Smith, beautiful, gorgeous, but not going to help him sell any, any chandeliers and. Jordan Smith's audition on the voice. Some of the biggest things that showed up. So I can't tell you how many times we moved over Jordan Smith into the negative keyword wall or competitors, like if you've got especially if you're in the trades movers heating and air that will have that in their name heating and cooling.

Speaker 1:

Or they'll run things on broad match versus phrase match versus exact match. You need to know the difference between all of those because broad match is going to have every word show up.

Speaker 1:

It can be a good strategy for some industries, but it can be a horrible strategy for others because of you know D&D moving is going to you know show up and it's got moving in there. Well, he's not D&D moving. Some people will target the competitors, but then you have to have the person on the phone that knows how to answer it in order to.

Speaker 1:

You know, convert that. Because if they're like, oh well, we're not D&D moving, okay well, why are we advertising for that? Then my husband likes to do in answer to your question, you didn't ask this specifically, but just the word campaign triggered it he likes to have campaigns he can turn off and on by the season because then it's already built. So if we know that something's really going to influx in a certain season, then we can turn it on and we can pause it, and he'll do that in the onboarding. So that one campaign we added for our mover was actually his name because there was a he's in Cincinnati. There's a mover that's in Dayton and Columbus that has almost the exact name. It's unbelievable how close it is. So we have his name as a keyword and we advertise under that, because otherwise people were clicking on the other one thinking it was them. But then he doesn't want to drive all the way to Dayton or Columbus. So it's really a lost lead and it was a waste of his money.

Speaker 1:

Ah, gotcha yeah, so knowing all those nuances are super key. And again, agencies aren't bad, but they're outsourcing it to someone in the Philippines. They've got it on smart campaign. They're not paying attention to it and a lot of people are wasting their money. They'll tell you you can do a $300 budget to it and a lot of people are wasting their money.

Speaker 2:

They'll tell you, you can do a $300 budget.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you can.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's probably not going to be the best for you.

Speaker 1:

You're not going in and looking at all those little things on a daily basis.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I got one more question for you, because I know this is and this is a big one. Yeah, right, so this is honestly like this has been really great because, especially, I really wanted to position this particular episode. There's a lot of other ways we could have gone around it. Oh, I love it, but I wanted people to especially that your niche is family owned businesses and a lot of times, this is either new or they've tried a couple of things and they're trying to figure out what exactly works. So, and also, people that are not family based business can also learn from this too, if they're just a small business that wants to like hey, how do I dabble into this? What is like from all the clients you've worked with over the years? What's the typical return on investment?

Speaker 2:

Because a lot of I guess a lot of gurus that are out there they say like, if you're not getting you know 10X, 20x, you know and ROAS, or you know ROAS, or you know like. They're always stating like these giant returns, right, I'm putting in a dollar and I'm getting you know 12 back, or you know, and they're just. So what should we exactly be like? What's an average return that we should be getting. So that way also, if we're working with somebody and we're not getting that like, should we quit? Should we go? Talk to you, enlighten us.

Speaker 1:

Such a good question and I don't know that it has an exact answer.

Speaker 1:

I mean, you definitely want to make sure you're paying for what you're investing and getting more back than that, and I'm probably maybe going to throw you with the way that I answer this question, but it's just, it's what's like on my mouth and I've got to have it come out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because we help family owned businesses and specifically we help dad owned businesses with the missions of them being able to be a more mentally present father. It's we're not financial advisors, okay, when I say this, but I have a really good friend who is, and when he sits down with a couple and he's talking about what their goals are, he's very specific and granular about okay, you want to go on vacation, but where do you want to go camping? Do you want to go to Paris? Do you want to go to Disneyland? And don't just tell me it's 12 grand, right, it might be. He wants to get the exact number of 11,600 and what time you need it by. So the biggest return on investment that I can give that I feel like we can give our clients and it's it's not a specific number, but it's that it's done for you and, like we have a client, I've helped since 2009. He's a what do they call it?

Speaker 1:

A serial preneur right, he's got like seven different businesses that he's running the last time I talked to him on the phone and he invests five figures with us every month. The last time I talked to him on the phone was the middle of June. He's been on vacation with his wife and his two sons and his business has not skipped a beat. So I don't know what that number is for every different business, because every different business is so custom and that's why I'm not going to give this, like you know, overarching answer, because I think every business is so custom but that they can take. What I say is I take marketing off your shoulders so that if your kids are small enough, you can be up there and their kids can be up there instead.

Speaker 1:

Your wife, if you want to like, have fun, right, but um, because it's great that maybe their marketing's being handled, right, but if they're sitting and thinking about it while they're home and they're not mentally present with their kids, then what is it all for? So we're going to work with each business on, you know, what do you need to make? What does this need to make sense? For I'm not a business coach, I'm not a financial planner, and so what we really like to do is work as teams with those right, with the business coach, with the financial planner, with what the goals are. What do you need your advertising to produce? But it should definitely be paying for itself, right? Yeah, of course, and you should definitely have metrics that are in KPIs and KRIs, that are trending in the right direction. I've heard the number five times.

Speaker 1:

Okay heard the number five times Okay, but I don't know that that's the answer for every business, because some business might be happy with two times and some might not be happy unless it's 10 times, yeah. So if I say that number right and I'm like, oh well, shoot, I wanted 10. So I'm not going to work with them, we're gonna we try to be as custom as we possibly can, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, it definitely does I. I, what I'm hearing is definitely on the lowest end. It should always um with your investment. You should at least make your investment back.

Speaker 1:

That's like the low end, that's the absolute lowest yeah, absolute lowest yeah yeah, the middle, the middle of it is you're not doing that. That's a problem.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, so that that's the lowest and then, um, the middle of it is a maybe five times is kind of the middle of the road, and it could go as much as 10 times. But then I also heard that and and this is typical with with anybody right, it's especially because you're so in the mindset of also family-based businesses.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, yeah so sometimes it's about, ultimately, what's your goal with, with the overall business and your marketing, like if it is more time to spend with your family or to go on vacation or to not think about the engine, and if business is going to come through the door, well then that might be at even a greater value than even if it was at 10 times, 20 times, you know whatever it is, but yeah, it's those intangibles of of what the goal is.

Speaker 2:

Or if, like, hey, if it's building enough, where, hey, I might open up another location or I might do something else, okay, maybe that's the goal is. Or if, like, hey, if it's building enough, where, hey, I might open up another location or I might do something else, okay, maybe that's the goal. So it seems like it depends on what the goal is, but for sure, if you're, if you're working with somebody and you're not at least getting back your investment, um, it may be time to switch. It may be time to switch. It may be time to switch people, people.

Speaker 1:

I love this question too, because and I can't remember who I have so many virtual coffees. I'm always networking and trying to meet people and referral partners and marketing vendors and all that, but if it's not, if you're banging your head against the wall, you've got a headache. Right, that's a problem.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

But it's also it needs to. You need to talk with someone that in my opinion, understands what you're going through, because the reason we love working with family owned business is I grew up in one, my husband, I run one together now, I mean, we have a two and a half and a four and a half year old that are sleeping right now how. I get four and a half to sleep. People ask me all the time.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, um, routines, routines, routines. But, um, we understand, like, hey, your kid got sick, or we just had a client whose dad was in the hospital and they had no idea what was going on. So we rescheduled. Like people that have empathy, we like to say we get you, because we are you. We're going through the same struggles. We're a four year business, right, and we have a lot of things figured out, because I had a lot of experience in this before then. So it's, you know, four years on paper and then like how much experience with it. But we're making some of the same decisions. You know, do we do this yet? Do we wait? Do we scale? Do we all those things? But we actually, I mean, we've had last year we had our jeweler. They bought a bank because they're expanding into a bank. We had another company who they literally ran out of space and they bought a two acre property. It was the martial arts school that we're helping.

Speaker 1:

So those are wins too. And it's what does that my husband? He's, he's a martial artist. So if he was, if he was on here, um, and you ask this question, he would be talking about win conditions right when he goes into a tournament, he knows what throw he's going to do.

Speaker 1:

He knows what's going to get him the points to win. He's focused on that one match, and so sometimes we're focused on that one month. What are the win conditions that month? And then what win conditions are we also growing to? It's ever changing. You know what did Google throw out with how they're trying to run campaigns with AI? Sorry, if you're a fan of AI, there's lots of positive uses of it. Turning your Google campaign over to AI is not one I would recommend.

Speaker 1:

Because, they don't know you, they don't know your business, like our locksmith, they don't like doing anything with auto lockouts. We've run the campaign for four years. They keep suggesting auto lockouts. I'm like, how many times do I need to deny this?

Speaker 2:

for you to realize.

Speaker 1:

Don't do that Right, like we're not exactly into the self-driving cars, we like to have a little control. But other people are like, oh, drive me, like right. But when it comes to people's money and when it comes to the fact that there's a family and there's kids and there's maybe grandparents that are, you know, living with people too. Or you know, the mover we help helps three generations, literally, like his business feeds the mouths of three generations still his kids and he's older, his, their kids and his great grandkids. And I. We take that very seriously. That's not something we are playing around with, but we have that level of empathy and care because it's what we would want someone to have with our business, and so we try to offer that too. That's why we'll tell some people hey, hold up. I mean, there's people I've built incredible relationships with on LinkedIn and they're like Annalise, I want to do Google ads with you.

Speaker 1:

Okay, slow your roll. Like, what budget do we have? What are we trying to accomplish? And that's what I was trying to remember to say earlier. Since the very first business I ever sat down with, when I was in corporate sales, I've asked the same two questions what's your goal? What's your budget? Same two questions what's your goal, what's your budget?

Speaker 1:

Right, and we're going to do what matches that as close as we can and it would drive my manager crazy, because they they called it like the happy meal analogy right, they wanted everyone to have a little bit of this and a little bit of this, and I'm like they don't need a website and they don't, and they only have a budget and the best thing that's going to help them hit their goal is to do Google Ads, and I would increase and max out until we got to a certain impression share, which is the same strategy we have now. My manager never understood it, but my customers appreciated it because it was what was getting them the best return on investment.

Speaker 1:

I always say let's do flashy later, like right now we need to pay the bills and I'm all for branding and all for those kinds of things, but if you're trying to feed mouths and you need this to work, let's put it where it's going to work and help you get some breathing room. And you know not be how are we going to pay the mortgage every month? Because you know what? We've been there. We literally have been there when we said goodbye to almost six figure client year two because an executive coach was driving their business into the ground and we didn't want to go with them driving their business into the ground and we didn't want to go with them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, two weeks before we said goodbye to this client, so we had two under two. Did not make sense to a lot of people, but we wouldn't be where we are now had we not gone all in and decided we were going to help the family owned businesses because they're so overlooked.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1:

Everyone wants to go after the multi-location. They want to go after the I don't know, just the big fish. Right, We've made a living and raised a family since 2007,. Helping the family owned and they're so appreciative, they are so loyal. We don't need contracts because of how loyal they are.

Speaker 2:

I mean that those checks are very every month yeah, and it's it's families helping families yeah, it's a very uh, it's like down to the core of of what you do and it sounds like you have a very strategic mindset and definitely connection with everybody that you work with. And I know that I've even seen just I know for everybody listening watching later on when this is posted, but for people that are popping in on the live, there's actually a lot of I see a lot of tags of like cleaning, elite cleaning and some other some other ones as well that I know. It looks like they got a family business already, so hopefully they grabbed a lot of takeaways from this episode. Annalise, where can people find you and get connected with you? I know we're connected on LinkedIn, but what's the best way to get connected with you?

Speaker 1:

that is the best way. Um, I am on there, um, that's majority of where we do business, um, but so under my name and I don't I'm sure you'll have the spelling, but it's under annalise dance or never miss a moment consulting, and then you can link over to me, um, and then our website is never miss a moment consultingcom. Um, the moment we are in the middle of a rename and a rebrand that we're really, really excited about, but not yet. So currently that's where to find me and I always say I answer all of the messages personally and if they put in that, so if they go to our website, um, and they go to uh, let's I think it's let's get started page, uh, cause I recently just changed it, um, so I hope that's right, but the let's get started page, and they send a message and they mentioned this podcast. We do have a first time offer for all podcast listeners that we will talk to them about, um, so they can do that. But just mention, uh, mention Jamal or Forever or whatever I'll know.

Speaker 2:

I'll know who it is. So Awesome, Awesome. Well, thank you so much for for being on this episode, and I know we went like really deep into Google ads and I think that's awesome because I don't think we've ever done that in all the episodes that we've had so far. So I think that's awesome because I don't think we've ever done that in all the episodes that we've had so far. So I think that people are going to get a lot of value for this. Please connect with Annalise as well on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, on there if you DM me or you send me a connection request. I know like sometimes it's limited on when you can send the message. Just try and mention this so I know that's where you found me. So I don't think you're. I have a lot of random people that I know. You know what I'm talking about, jamal.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, oh yeah, don't be a random Mention, or go best place.

Speaker 1:

If you can't send me a DM because you're like limited on that, go to one of my posts and do a comment. Comment and just mention this and I'll I'll DM you, that could be a little that works, so don't be a random.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and definitely get connected. Yeah, don't, don't be doing any pitches.

Speaker 1:

You can do a whole episode on that.

Speaker 2:

But, yeah, if, if you're listening, watching, please like, comment, subscribe to the episode. We're pumping these things out. We have a ton of amazing, amazing content like this where you can meet these amazing people. And don't forget, you can change your circle. You can change your life. So, thank you all so much for listening and watching and we'll catch you on the next episode, peace. Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe, and don't forget to hit that notification bell for more amazing content that we're going to be putting out. And don't forget, you can change your circle to change your life. Thank you.

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Jamar Jones

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