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The Foureva Podcast
Why This 7-Figure CEO uses Ads ONLY and Doesn't do Organic Content
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In this special More Than A Title crossover episode live from Times Square, hosts John and Kado sit down with Jennifer Spivak — founder of The Ad Girls and known as the “Conversion Queen.” She opens up about how surviving an abusive relationship inspired her to build a mission-driven Facebook and Instagram ads agency that puts more money into the hands of women.
Main Takeaways:
☑️ How Jennifer turned personal hardship into a decade-long business success.
☑️ Why she focuses on paid ads over organic social media — and how it quadrupled her business.
☑️ The messaging strategies that make competition irrelevant.
☑️ Common mistakes entrepreneurs make when running Facebook/Instagram ads.
☑️ Building predictable revenue streams with ad spend.
☑️ Hiring the right talent and avoiding over-scaling.
☑️ The importance of running a business with integrity and high-level service.
☑️ Lessons learned from saying “no” to the wrong opportunities.
This episode is packed with humor, actionable advice, and inspiration for anyone growing a business or thinking about diving into paid ads.
Let’s grow your brand and business!
Book a complimentary 30 minute discovery call with Jamar here
Testing Multiple Ad Creative Formats
Speaker 1If you have solid messaging that's going to attract people , you should be testing multiple iterations of that B-roll with static text overlay , face-to-camera video , a more produced video like very organic looking piece of creative . A more produced looking like static image , a carousel like all of it .
Speaker 2So you should just test everything .
Speaker 1You should test everything , but in a structured and focused way , because first you need to understand the words that are going to like , move people to be like .
Speaker 2That's my person man , we live in Times Square , new York . Times Square , new York . What's up ? What's going on ? Look at the backdrop . We were on a billboard . It's crazy , absolutely crazy , how you doing , jennifer ?
Speaker 1I'm doing wonderful . It's Friday , it's going into a three-day weekend , so I'm extra good actually .
Speaker 2A three-day weekend . Columbus Day Is that Monday it is . The show is Monday , it is weekend . Columbus Day Is that Monday it ?
Speaker 4is it ?
Speaker 2is man now .
Speaker 4I got so many questions . Only Christopher acknowledges Wallace Is Biggie's birthday Message . I'm like what . It's a holiday . On Monday I got to work .
Speaker 2We're booking meetings . On Monday we working .
Speaker 4Oh you working no days off . It depends on your calendar booking meetings on Monday . We working , oh you working . We definitely working Monday . We have no days off . Well , that depends on your calendar .
Speaker 3Now , if your calendar you didn't know it was a holiday , but you accepted the bookings then price goes up Yesterday's price is not today's price . It's a holiday , 100% . Walmart pays holiday pay . I think , oh my God .
Speaker 4We have established an OTP 100% . Walmart pays holiday pay . We don't have that yet .
Speaker 2So we got we got a special episode right now Because we got more than a title in the building man Also doing this episode and we get to introduce and have a conversation with Jennifer . I think this is going to be crazy . I know you said you haven't been on an in-person podcast in a minute .
Speaker 1I don't know if I've ever done an in-person podcast Ever Never .
Speaker 2Oh my God , this is going to be a treat .
Speaker 1In my office in pajama pants . I put on a nice shirt , but then I'm wearing the pajamas on the bottom .
Speaker 3Yeah , see how that goes , you see .
Speaker 2I'm your first , so real quick . Um , let's have Jennifer . Can you just tell us a little bit about your business ? Yes , so for I know I know a lot about it , but yes , so I am the owner of the ad girls .
Speaker 1We are an all-female Facebook and Instagram advertising agency . We work not exclusively , but mostly with other female entrepreneurs . We do have a couple of male clients who are awesome , but our mission is to use ads to put more money in the hands of more women , and so we do that by hiring women and also helping women entrepreneurs grow their businesses . Dope and how long you been doing it for November , which is apparently right around the corner , will be 10 years .
Speaker 2Decade , decade in business .
Speaker 4Congratulations . Can I ask you what made you start the business ?
Meeting Jennifer Spivak & The Ad Girls Agency
Speaker 1It's a long story , let me try and condense it . So actually it really all goes back to when I was in my early 20s . I was in a very physically abusive relationship that was like super dangerous , and I was very lucky and fortunate to be able to get out of it the way that I did . And so immediately what I started doing was jumping into advocacy and volunteer work , because that was just like how I knew to like process all of that . And in the process of being involved with that work I started to notice that like why was it , all things considering , relatively easier for me to get out than the people at these organizations that I'm working with ?
Speaker 1and I learned that it was because I had access to money . So I just happened to have $1,500 in a savings account that my abuser didn't know about , and that was really the difference between like at some level right like life and death because I wasn't trying to figure out , okay , okay , I'm going to like get out of this relationship , but like , where will I live ?
Speaker 1I had the money to go get my own place and that just made the whole decision-making process like a million times easier . And so I got really curious about that when I realized that that was a big part of what had supported my journey , and I learned that financial abuse is actually present in 99% of domestic violence relationships and nobody talks about it .
Speaker 1Wow and I just like , had this moment of like . So Money is gonna be the thing that like is gonna save women . Cool , I can help them and make money , and so built the whole agency around that . I've never heard the term financial abuse and we know it exists , but we don't talk about it .
Speaker 3She take my money when I'm in need . Yeah , she's a gold digger
From Abuse Survivor to Women's Advocate
Speaker 3yeah , she's a gold digger .
Speaker 4I know I don't been abused a couple times . Well , okay , we , my account has been done , my account is checking in the savings .
Speaker 2Man , man . Well , okay , we're going to get more into Jennifer's story in a second , but could we introduce let everybody know what More in the Title is ? You guys have an amazing podcast . I was also a guest on it . Yes , sir , we're in New York , we're in your town , this is your city , so I'm just visiting .
Speaker 4No , you at home , brother . We hear like this is your city , so I'm just visiting home , brother . We hear you home , I can lead it off man . So we our podcast is called more than the title . So we started this thing off three years ago .
Speaker 4So I was in corporate America , right , and it started off with the one simple idea of how do we do sales better , like straight up . So I was working right across the street at 1450 Broadway and I was with legal , and then we started the LinkedIn journey . I was like there has to be a better way than me sending out a thousand cold emails to get with a contact . Let's do something crazy . Let's just go outside and let's film . Let's talk about our clients . Let's talk about our business , let's talk about parenting , let's talk about whatever the fuck happened that day . Right , and let's just be real people . Because I felt like if people liked us , you know they would go to our website , go check us out , go book the meeting . And then we end up closing $2 million of revenue through that and we created a podcast called Rankable . I ended up leaving that company , went to Hootsuite and we started our own . I did it for about a year by myself . And then I was like , damn , this is kind of hard by yourself , this kind of sucks .
Speaker 1It's a little different . This shit is a little different .
Speaker 4Who's gonna press the button ? So I'm like I gotta get , cuz I won because this is my best friend anyway , right , and we just . I was at a point in my career I got laid off from hootsuite and I was like man , let's just bet on ourselves . And cuz I was feeling the same way . He was like man , we gotta better ourselves . And and two years later we create . I mean , two months later , we created otb digital .
Speaker 1But two years later we're here today with you guys , and this has been an amazing journey and it's been an amazing journey , man .
Speaker 4It's been crazy man .
Speaker 2So who's the brains of the operation ?
Speaker 3That's what I want to know , let me , let me , let me say this . I'm like , oh , here it goes . Let me say this Abort , what he left out was .
Speaker 3What he left out was this we also did music together for a long time Right but we didn't do business together because it was a clash between me being in the business side of music and him being in the artistry side of music . So , with him being in corporate America , I also was a senior manager and doing corporate things myself and , like him , I felt like I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing .
Speaker 4Right .
Speaker 3Purpose I've lived too much life . I'm not being funny Like I've done too many things in life . You ever meet a person where they be walking around like you gonna die tomorrow . Anybody , man , if you don't live my life , I ain't . What is there left to do ? Yeah so for me , um , I Feel like at this point in my life . I've taken care of my family , I'm a homeowner , I've achieved what I consider to be a certain level of success .
Speaker 2Yeah , your success . Yeah , just my peace of mind .
Speaker 3Now . Now I start valuing . Well , what a success truly look like to me . Is it ? Financial freedom is a peace of mind . What is it for me ? You can't put a price on peace of mind , mmm , you understand . So I left . I I can't be in a job where I'm not appreciated for my talents , when I always overdo what I'm supposed to do .
Speaker 4That's it A lot of us .
Speaker 3I never underwork , I always overwork , because I only know how to work one way , right . When they teach us at school , just work hard .
Speaker 3Just work hard , just work . Yeah , working hard gets your ass fired fast . I'm always the hardest worker and the first one laid the fuck off right . So I had a couple companies already that I was running . My cousin came to me he said , listen , I got this podcast but I want to turn it into a business . Yeah . So I said I'm going to keep it 100 with you . I don't know nothing about podcasting , I don't listen to podcasts . You see , it starts with honesty .
Speaker 4Yeah .
Speaker 3Right , I know what I know . Now . I know business . Now you know I know business . I know clothing line I design . Now that I know , now podcast , I don't know yeah so we didn't do business on the music . If we're gonna do business here , you gotta trust me and then I gotta trust you , so here . So when you say who's the brains , we're both the brains , because I put the brains , I put the brains to say I can do this well , but I don't know this yeah , you teach me that and I'll follow your lead , yeah , and , and then I'll teach you this and you follow my lead , right , you see ?
Speaker 3so we tackle this thing from both of us dominating what we dominated . So I learned from him about the podcast how to podcast . Sure you know how to carry my side , all of that right and then on along and then when I do my thing I teach him about the business , the contracts , how to balance books and accounting and stuff like that right yeah , I design the clothing .
Speaker 3I say this is how you do and I teach him because we can't only one person know this , because , god forbid , something happens to the one person . What happens to the information or the mechanics of that moving part ? Yeah , yeah . Now we're stuck . Yeah , so we're both the brains , and the dope part about it is we both allow each other to be the brains without competition .
Speaker 4Yeah , that's the perfect match right there . That's the major part Removing ego , common respect . You have to , though .
Speaker 2That's it For both sides , because what's ?
Speaker 3the goal ultimately ? Is the goal success for the business ? Is the goal success for our families generation ? Then you got to put the ego to the side . Then you got to put the ignorance to the side and say we have to build this thing the right way , yeah , yeah . So when you say who's the brains ? We're both the brains and we both acknowledge that we're both the brains and we're both comfortable enough to say we're not in competition with each other . We were raised around each other . We're actually family , right , so our families hang out . We're always together anyway .
Speaker 4Yeah , we've been doing this anyway for the last
Introduction to More Than A Title Podcast
Speaker 420 something years , so it's like we might just make some money to get recorded .
Speaker 2Yeah , that's cool , I got a question for you . So , since you're the Instagram and Facebook Queen , Forbes actually specifically called me the conversion queen the conversion queen Hold on .
Speaker 4That happened for Forbes . Thank you so much . Yeah , I called for Forbes .
Speaker 1I called for Forbes . I called for Forbes twice . Oh no , you don't get in Forbes without the conversion .
Speaker 4There you go . I called for the conversion .
Speaker 3Called that . That's when the button was stick . I've been corrected . Put some respect on her name . Thank you , I've been there twice . Put some respect on my name . Put some respect on her name .
Speaker 2So how can we use ads so Facebook and Instagram ads to grow our business , but also if we were to grow our podcast .
Speaker 4Yeah .
Speaker 1There's like a whole master class in this , so let me see if I can .
Speaker 2Can you give us , just like , at least a framework around it ?
Speaker 1yeah , I mean , look , here's the thing . I think most people over complicate ads and give way too much power to the platform , like , let's be real , it's just a place where people hang out and so if you have good messaging and a good offer , you use it to get in front of more people at a dramatically increased rate than you could if you were only doing organic . I personally do not like organic social media and I'm never like really . I'm not knocking you against it ? I'm not against it in any way , I've never had anybody .
Speaker 4I've never heard that it's not against it .
Speaker 1It's just that I don't want to have to be on every day . I don't want to have to think about turning every waking moment of my existence into a piece of content in order to grow my company .
Speaker 1Like that is just not exciting to me . I am like actually like low key , an introvert and a homebody and I want to stay in my house and like be in pajamas all day , every day . Like I said , this is the first time I'm in the room with multiple people in a minute and so like what you have to do , like the like energetic whatever to like be able to produce content all of the time and how manual it is .
Speaker 1That feels exhausting to me . I'm always looking for like the easiest way to get something done and ultimately ads is something that can dramatically accelerate any business . Now I grew my agency to like low to mid six figures , mostly through like word of mouth and referrals . I was messing around a little bit with organic but I despised it and I hated it . And as soon as I was like I've got some money and like I know my messaging , I know my audience , I just used ads to quadruple the size of that company pretty quickly just by having a dial to turn up . That was about putting money in instead of my time and that is in alignment with the way that I want to live my life and run my company .
Speaker 4Can I ask you a question ? Work smarter not harder .
Speaker 3Essentially yes .
Speaker 4A follow-up , though , for that right . What is the biggest thing you think people miss when it comes to social media ads ? What is the biggest thing you ?
Speaker 1think people miss when it comes to social media ads .
Speaker 4What's the one thing ? Because you're talking about conversion , A lot of people put up ads but they don't get the conversion .
Speaker 1What's the one thing that they miss ?
Speaker 1There's a lot of things that they miss , but I really would bring it back to messaging right . And so if you're really trying to drive some sort of sale , a lot of times the messaging that can work for you organically is going to be a little bit different than what's going to work with totally cold traffic , because you are unaware of , like , the organic audience that you're converting , how long they've been following you , what touch point , what touch points they've had and just how warm they are . And so we will have clients come in and say I've got all this working organically and we're like great , we're still going to like a little bit . I don't want to say start from scratch , but like got to kind of go back to basics and figure out the right messaging , because , at the end of the day , what it is that you're saying like this is marketing 101 , right . What it is that you're saying to the people that you're saying it to is like 90 of what's going to drive your success or failure yeah , is it too complicated what most people are doing ?
Speaker 1I think so and I think that , like again , a lot of people give a lot of power to the platform . They're like the algorithm and they took the , the targeting away and it's like it's like okay , yes , yes , there are some changes , but like advertising has worked since the dawn of time and people are on Facebook and Instagram right , we can like .
Speaker 1All agree with that being the foundational piece yeah , and so if that's the case , then who cares what tool or tactic gets adjusted or taken away ? It's about good messaging and a good offer and being able to get it in front of people like period . And it's also quite disempowering if , like , everything that your business is relying on is actually like beholden to , like Mark Zuckerberg or a platform Like . It's not about that , you know .
Speaker 2That's real Got you , got you . So is it videos , photos , like is it the copy that's in , that's in the ad ? Like what is what's the magic formula to have a winning ad ?
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean it's , it's all of those things and actually fun fact . So a smart marketer did a study very recently and I don't know if I'm going to quote this exactly right , but they analyzed something like $50 million in ad spend and they were looking at the best performing ads . So like a massive amount of spend , a massive amount of ads , and how many of the best performing ads were images versus video , and it was basically a 50-50 split . So I feel like , again , like it's one of those tactical questions that people ask all the time Should I be doing image or video ? And I'm like you're absolutely asking the wrong question . It's not about that . If you have solid messaging that's going to attract people , you should be testing multiple iterations of that B-roll with static text , overlay , face-to-camera video , a more produced video , a very organic-looking piece of creative , a more produced-looking static image , a carousel , all of it .
Speaker 1So you should just test everything you should test everything , but in a structured and focused way , because first you need to understand like the , the words that are going to like move people to be like . That's my person , that's my whatever yeah you know what I do with my own ad specifically for growing the agency . I mean , essentially what I do is I make competition irrelevant . I have people you see my ad not know who I am I make my competition irrelevant .
Speaker 4That's crazy okay no now we lean up . You have my curiosity . That's crazy .
Speaker 3I'm like okay , Screaming baby . No , now we lean up . You have my curiosity . Yeah , I was like okay , Now you have my attention .
Speaker 4How can I make ? Competition irrelevant , because everybody's relevant over here . Here's the thing right .
Speaker 1So if we look at all the other advertising agencies out , there that are running ads .
Facebook Ads vs. Organic Social Media Growth
Speaker 1It is like I , literally it's like a dick fighting war of who has the biggest ROAS . It is like I , literally it's like a dick fighting war of who has the biggest ROAS is like basically what it actually looks like they're just like .
Speaker 1But look at this case study and look at this case study and actually everyone's like on the same playing field saying the same shit , and that's not going to actually move most people to anything . And so it's not like we don't talk about our success stories . Of course we do , but we talk about our mission , which I already shared with you guys right our mission , which I already shared with you guys .
Speaker 1right , the fact that we're an all-female team , the causes that we support , the things that we stand for really just cool , weird , quirky stuff about our personality , and so what that ends up creating is a little bit of defying the odds in terms of what's supposed to be possible , with how long it should take to convert whole buyers on a high-ticket offer .
Speaker 1So I have people click on an ad , book a call with me , show up to the call the next day and immediately close in a $22,000 contract and they show up to the call saying things like I'm like damn .
Speaker 4Damn 22 on a , but that's why I'm going to , because it's cold , though right it is cold .
Speaker 3Yes , no .
Speaker 4It is , but it's not .
Speaker 1Because actually what I've done is I've dramatically accelerated the nurture process .
Speaker 2Oh , the retargeting .
Speaker 1It's not even just that it's the things that I'm saying .
Speaker 4It's the email sequences that deliver , and so again , strangers , that I don't know , show up to my sales calls and say things like I feel like I already know you . Yeah , but that was the approach that we took with organic . So that's why it's really interesting to me , right . So because , like we talked to a lot of small business and entrepreneurs , right , they don't know what budgets they should start off with . I know a lot of people that have put five hundred , maybe a thousand dollars to an ad , don't get the conversions and say this is a waste of money right , I could have put that same thousand dollars into some organic content , but then you got to be ready to play the long game , right .
Speaker 4So what I've realized ? When we did the organic , the sales process went from a six month to three months , right 90 days , and we would just get . The only problem was it wasn't predictable . So I may get a CEO or CMO yes , I might get a CEO or CMO , but like Jad , I love your content . I've been watching you for two damn years .
Speaker 1And now you got a $100,000 slow times and how do you keep that up ? Right , so exactly . And so I've been running the same ads and funnel to grow my agency since the beginning of 2020 . So I've got now about four and a half , going on five years of data . That basically says with some level of certainty , every time I spend thousand twelve hundred dollars .
Speaker 4I will close .
Speaker 1I will close a client and it is the little bit rinse and repeat and of course , month to month , week to week , there's some fluctuation .
Speaker 4Like that's just the game .
Speaker 1But it is a very predictable , scalable way to grow my company and so I can look and project out and say , okay , I know we're hiring a new account manager in six weeks and I'm going to need to have them have one new client the day they come on another one three weeks later . No-transcript .
Speaker 2That's crazy . You're like an orchestrator , so how many ?
Speaker 1employees do you have , so they're not all employees . Some are contractors , but the team size total is 20 , 20 women .
Speaker 2Okay , so this is one question I wanted to ask you . Yeah , so because we were on a call before this , I was like we got to save this for the pot .
Speaker 1We got to save this for the pot .
Speaker 2So about a year and a half ago I had 13 people working for me and I scaled my business way too fast .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2I've scaled that down to this date . Still doing epic stuff . We're in Times Square Shout out New .
Speaker 4York Shout out , jamal , we still have a media .
Speaker 3Jamal with an R With an .
Speaker 2R , not Jamal . But one of the hardest challenges was I hired way too many specialists and not enough generalists when I was growing it . So how did you get over the hump of hiring the right talents ? And was it because you had this predictable also stream of like hey , if I want to grow my business , I'm just gonna spend a little bit more , I'm gonna run these a little bit more . You know these ads a little bit more . It was that the secret sauce a little , a little bit .
Speaker 1Um , let's just be clear hiring is the hardest thing I've ever done so hard continues to . I think I mean I just this is like my like life's journey , apparently . I'm like here to learn something I don't know every single day of . It is hard , but I've gotten like better , like , like , like mediocre at it at this point , right like I'm all right , so we actually in 2022 ?
Speaker 1we had a similar experience where we hired too quickly and then just had like a slower summer yeah , or you can have like one big client drop off , yeah , for whatever reason .
Speaker 2It might not even be your fault . It could be completely some , especially in the marketing game . It's like new CMO comes in .
Speaker 1New relationship , anything it's just something that happens , but we had that experience of having overhired and then all of a sudden , like the agency's profit went to virtually nothing like pretty quickly , because we didn't grow as much as we had anticipated and we had brought on all these team and so we resisted . We're like , no , we can figure this out and honestly , probably kept the team on longer than we should have , like if that happened again .
Speaker 1I wouldn't , I would , I would look . It's a shitty decision to have to make but absolutely for like the health of the business I would have had . I would have cut people more quickly because you just sooner you have to do it . No business , it doesn't exist but we . But absolutely for the health of the business .
Speaker 4I would have cut people more quickly , because you just have to right when there's no profit , then there's no business , it doesn't exist .
Speaker 1But what we ended up doing to build back up is change a little bit of our structure . So obviously , because we are an agency , most of our team are account managers . They are the people that literally deliver the work , and so we have , with a lot of our team , a specific pay structure where we're not actually paying them like a full time salary or a retainer . They get paid a certain amount per month per client .
Speaker 3And so we're not actually committing to anything .
Speaker 1And so
Predictable Revenue Through Strategic Ad Spending
Speaker 1somebody comes on and they understand that it's going to take , first of all , a certain amount of time for them to get up to their full client roster , which for us is like five to six clients per account manager , and we will onboard a new client with them every three weeks . So it's not like people are coming on and then boom , we have the cost of a full-time salary . That became really difficult and really risky , and so , by shifting that around a little bit , it just had us have a lot more flexibility in terms of avoiding that position of overhiring .
Speaker 1And then like , oh God , like profits are .
Speaker 4Yeah , but you incentivize your workforce to grow the business with you , because if you go into a regular agency you're making a hundred thousand dollars salary and I've got whatever brand right . Once they lose or drop off , it is what it is . I'm still getting paid , but like you've got that . But how did they buy into that ? And then the pivot I want to know too , because you said revenues weren't the same , right . So how did you pivot ? Right , cause you , like I , got predictable revenue , something's going . You could have totally changed the business . What made you stay course , like , how did you ?
Speaker 1I am a tourist and I never give it .
Speaker 4I don't even know , I just I'm going organic , I'm going paid , I'm going like that's real .
Speaker 1I just remember like again , I fought it for a few months where . I was like everything's going to be fine . It's all just going to be fine . And then like that started happening summer of 2022 . By fall , I was like okay . I sat down and I mapped out and I was like we got to do this sustainably , not in a rush , Like I have to be , like very I can't be focused on like the quickest way to turn profit again .
Speaker 1I've got to do this right and and so I mapped out like a nine month plan to get back to stability and every single thing like to like the dot of when and how it was all going to happen happened perfectly because I'm just very good at that stuff , and so it took you know , most of 2023 , to be honest with you to get back to stability , to be like , ok , we're good , we're comfortable , we have profit every month , we have a solid team , like we're stable , stable , and so we really weren't able to start growing again until this year . It really it took . It took time , yeah and I hate being patient .
Speaker 1My least favorite thing it was it was a little bit of like okay , I'm like , I guess I'm like a real , like big girl , grown-up business owner and this is these are the decisions that you have to make , and this isn't just like I have a business Like it was like they're like people's lives and money at stake and like , all right , like I'm going to , I'm going to create something that's even better and more stable than it was before .
Speaker 2Yeah , love that . That's you're super business savvy . Yeah , guys , I want you to ask her your most selfish question . Okay , why ?
Speaker 3we have her here because I've learned on the pod like no first question yeah , for your podcast . Like how did I ? Yeah , I do guys want to ?
Speaker 4Jennifer , right here what you know , ask , know , ask her like hey , man , I was trying to slip something in there , you guys are so they got killer guests , they getting deals , they I mean they shining right .
Speaker 2But obviously you guys , like you said , you had aspirations about , like man , we've got levels to this , right , you're trying to grow it , you're trying to get it out there . So is there a question that you could ask her that says , like , okay , how maybe , do we grow our content ? Is there more creative ways that you can use the content ? Is there like , what's the growth path ?
Speaker 3I mean , if you want a selfish question , I can say yeah , he knew it . You go for it . I'm going to say I identify as she , her . You said you only work with females . I identify as she , her . Yeah , there you go , can , is she her ?
Speaker 1You said you only work with females . I identify as she her . Can I tell you a funny ?
Speaker 3story and I will not respond to anything other than that you will work with her . Give me your email right now . That contract will be on your desk 48 hours . When I met Richard Branson .
Speaker 1he was asking about my business and I was like , yeah , I have a company called the Odd Girls . And he said to me you know , with the way I've been aging , I basically have tits at this point . That's fine . He didn't skip a beat . That's just what he said to my face . I can't even see him saying that that's fine , he's hilarious .
Speaker 3I've experimented myself with Facebook ads and things of that nature . Yeah , one thing that I will say is this Our platform is about bringing the information from the person that has it to the person that doesn't have it . One of the biggest things that seems to be a disconnect is understanding exactly how much information goes into just one thing . Even though you've mastered it , I myself can say that the ad machine itself is extremely complicated . Facebook is one , instagram is completely different .
Speaker 4LinkedIn .
Speaker 3Going into the page , understanding what it's asking you , filling out the information , applying it can be extremely taxing . Yes , Not only on your time , but mentally if you don't understand mechanical and technical terms . Mm-hmm , it's not a simple press , you know , give me $2 , press go . It's done like type of a thing . Well , unless you hire that girl .
Speaker 4No , but that's what I'm saying . There you go . It could be that simple , it could be that simple .
Speaker 3It could be if you had the resources to do that .
Speaker 2Yeah , right .
Speaker 3So a lot of the businesses that we work with , this is the topic that we talk about available resources . Now , how do small business owners , potential entrepreneurs and things of that nature that's on a limited budget or might be upside down because of economic times , how do they now take the information that you're saying and apply it without hiring you , not because they don't want the best ?
Speaker 1they just can't afford you . It's tricky . I may be biased , but I often tell people not to DIY their ads and okay , I don't think . I don't think that's like .
Speaker 4You got a lot of like don't test it out , I gotta do it myself . What do you mean ? I thought you just said test out a bunch of stuff yes , exactly that's a good segue , and I do look .
Speaker 1it's not that I think that that's true like exclusively as a hard and fast rule across the board . It's just that you can very easily end up in a situation in which you've burned through your money and then not only are you out that money , but you are disempowered and you have a disempowered relationship to a platform that you ultimately might want to be able to take advantage of later on in your journey and when , like when clients show up in a like new contract with us , with the like , but before this one time everything was bad
Scaling Too Fast: Business Recovery Lessons
Speaker 1and like it's just like energetically , that doesn't breed anything good , and so , again , there are exceptions to every rule .
Speaker 1Some people may just naturally be good with data , even if they're not , you know , somebody in marketing , and so maybe they could swing it . And I think if you have , you know , maybe a very like unique product or offer that like isn't super competitive , it's going to be easier , like we work with a lot of different clients but , just as an example , a lot of our clients are women that like coach or have courses for other people , have a how to like grow their business online highly competitive space , and so if you don't have like a deep understanding of how to message and position in a way that is actually unique , you'll likely end up with like a bunch of cheap leads that breed nothing .
Speaker 1And then , by the way , those cheap leads come into your instagram audience , they're on your email list , they're muddying everything up . Then you're putting offers out and you're like maybe my offers suck because no one's taking them up . It's because you built .
Speaker 1An audience of the wrong leads to begin with Like there's just there's ramifications and so I don't have the perfect answer . But I've always felt that in the earlier stages of business you'd be scrappy . You'd be scrappy until you are ready and able to invest money . And when you're going to invest money in ads , obviously you want the return to come back as soon as possible , but again , energetically , the best place to be in is like I'm good if I never see this money again , because otherwise there's too much like .
Speaker 2I needed to produce something today For small businesses . That's every day , yeah , that's everything for them , because and I was going to ask you because I think you're giving some really good advice but is there , is there a minimum threshold as far as to spend like , can like , is it like , it is a don't , like , don't . If you got a thousand bucks , don't even think about it .
Speaker 1You should do it at 2500 or you know like .
Speaker 2Is there a bottom ?
Speaker 1you know , look , I mean I , I mentor a couple of other agency owners who are much smaller and so they have smaller retainers and smaller ad spend minimums and like they're they're great .
Speaker 1They're just earlier on in their journey in smaller teams , and so you can find , I think , like pretty great contractors and you know , solo agencies or like small teams out there who will charge you , I don't know , $1,500 or $2,000 a month for the service and they'll have a minimum of like $1,500 or $2,000 for the ad spend . We only like our minimum . Hold on hold on .
Speaker 3You ran through that way too fast .
Speaker 4He's trying to catch it . Hold on .
Speaker 3You said an agency is going to charge you $1,500 to $2,000 a month for their services . Yes , and then you have to have an additional $1,500 to $2,000 a month to spend on the ad , exactly . So we're talking about a minimum between $3,000 and $4,000 out the door . That's a lot of money for a small business . That amount of money can bankrupt a small business very easily . Yeah , that kind of money can be can yeah yeah .
Speaker 1I mean , we can make , we charge . We charge fifty five hundred a month and our minimum ad spend is five K's where's the where's the button ?
Speaker 4just went up just Also . One of our clients just had an $8 million launch , so like , come on , there you go .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , yeah . But you also find your sweet spot of like your niche , I love it ?
Speaker 4I do . But what about the platforms that have good organic reach , so something like a LinkedIn right where the ads don't perform as good as organic , because I was gonna ask you like why didn't you do linkedin right like , so what do you think about those platforms that are emerging ones like tiktok ? Right , you go as you go organic when the reach is good .
Speaker 1I'm basically dumb when it comes to organic I it's like another language , like I actually don't know anything I , I don't , I don't touch it .
Speaker 2I feel like I know a lot about organic .
Speaker 4Yeah , yeah , focus and narrow .
Speaker 2You want surgeons when it comes to stuff .
Speaker 1I think like six months ago I was like I am going to post my first reel . How does this work ? I literally didn't know what I was doing . I'm lost . I do ads , I run an agency . That is what I do . That is my life . I am like laser focused .
Speaker 2And yeah , I don't get distracted by other shit do . That is my life . I am like laser focused , um , and yeah , it's such a good lesson for everybody . Listening , though , and watching is like , yeah , you gotta hone in , yeah to what you're good at . I definitely did the ads thing like many years ago , because , you know , a client came to us and was like hey , we're trying to run something , like I can figure this out . Yeah , it didn't work out it didn't work out it didn't work out .
Speaker 1Imagine um . I thought work out .
Speaker 4It didn't work out . I can imagine I thought I could figure it out .
Speaker 2I thought , you know , I thought one of our team members said they had experience . I found out you don't really have experience , and then it kind of snowballed into like nothingness . But after that experience I was like we're not offering ads anymore , like we know the stuff we're really good at , which is the creative , and we know how to grow and scale when it comes to organic , but we have no clue what it comes to .
Speaker 3What you could have done was just white label her services .
Speaker 2I know .
Speaker 3Or somebody else's services . So this is what we teach and this is what we've done as a company . So more than a title is the podcast . The company that houses more than a title is called OTB Digital , which is outside the box digital right . We help other companies build podcasts , start podcasts , go to market . We help them with their branding , linkedin pages , algorithms . We do thumbnails .
Speaker 3Employee advocacy all that we do all of that . You see , yeah , yeah . Now , with that being said , we have to understand the difference in the two , right , yeah ? So so , yeah , we're more than a title podcast . But sometimes a company okay say , hey , listen , I have a contract , yeah , I'm going to handle 90 of it , but my client also wants this . You guys do that . Yeah , would you mind ? I say you know , I do the deal with you . The company doesn't need to know that we're doing the work right white label us .
Speaker 3We will do the deal with you , jamar . Yeah , you do the deal with jennifer . Yeah , and you'll . You know , we'll all get on a slack channel or something like that . We'll get on a program management thing like slack or something yeah , you put in the information , we'll card it up and we'll do it and drop boom . We're a part of your team now yeah , they don't know that we work with a different company .
Speaker 4They don't need to know that .
Speaker 3So , that's part of what we do . We try to bring businesses together to say if you don't know how to do something , it is okay . It's actually phenomenal .
Speaker 4It's actually phenomenal .
Speaker 3Because that means you might be the best at what you do , and then somebody else is lacking what you do . So let's try to partner you up . With somebody that needs your services , yeah , and then if you need their services , even if you don't have the money to exchange now , you can barter yeah now you can barter . Right , I don't have money , you don't have money , but I have services . I have a technical skill . Right , you have a technical skill . Let's work together , bringing the clients together , and we can do a rev share . Everybody wins .
Speaker 2There's different ways of partnerships right so many ways creative , right getting creative yeah , yeah , gotcha yeah we just do like we just have referral partners right and obviously like
Speaker 1to each their own . I think there's benefits of all of the things , but I know because I've I've been down this road before earlier on where I was like , yeah , we could're like , yeah , we could totally manage that white label person , but like , at the end of the day , it's energy , it's time , it's effort and I just what I found the bigger my team is getting is that , like , the more we are just focused on clear systems , processes like this is the thing that we do , Because if you add extra things
Speaker 1in there you may be good at doing it Exactly .
Speaker 2But when you start to get your team like oh yeah by the way , I just did this , and then they're like huh .
Speaker 1Exactly Because it's easy right . Usually the business owner is more able to right High level people are ?
Speaker 2I learned that too Right . We could just . We could jump around , we could do everything . I'm the change .
Speaker 1How is this going to happen ? I have to think through every single step and process . Like a lot of times I'm like I don't want to build a whole new SOP for that . I'm going to refer that out and I might get a referral fee and I might not . But like great .
Speaker 4I'm going to go either way . It takes the headache away , the peace of mind For sure .
Speaker 2It's just different styles of partnerships .
Speaker 1Yeah , because .
Speaker 2Because , even that referral is still a partnership . In a way , you're just passing it off and saying , hey , let me just get a piece , there's nothing wrong with a 20 .
Speaker 3Even if you don't get a piece yeah . If we do something and say Jamal , we rock with you , Right ? So we're invested in you as a person anyway , yeah . So guess what we got ? A platform we're going to refer to you because not gatekeeping yeah for sure , that's another thing that we talk about on our show , not gatekeeping . It's not for you . Give it up .
Speaker 1Totally what are you holding
Speaker 3it , for it's not for you , no for sure , in a world , in a world where you're you don't even like vanilla , it's so annoying , give it up . Give it up . You know what I mean . Pay it forward , pay it forward , gotta pay it forward man Gotta pay it forward your blessings will come . What's meant for you will be for you .
Speaker 2Oh , my God .
Speaker 3And when it presents itself , you'll know what it is . You'll be able to handle it and it'll be for you . But if it's not for you , I truly believe in giving other people opportunities .
Speaker 1For sure .
Speaker 3We cannot progress as a people with a selfish mindset .
Speaker 4I will also love for all of us . What's the biggest lesson we learned as entrepreneurs ? What's the one thing , the one thing that kicked your ass early ? No , yeah , that we can tell to the audience .
Speaker 2You need a minute . I ass earlier . No , yeah , that we can tell to the audience I'll be quick . I'll be quick , um , I think . Oh , my god , there's so much .
Speaker 2Somebody just asked me this when I was uh , speaking , uh , and a thing in milwaukee the other day um , one of the biggest lessons that I learned , especially for newer entrepreneurs . Um , and kind of to her point , like you you got to laser in , I heard I kind of talk about . It's called the five ones . So you want to have one , like for one year . You want to have one channel , like one traffic source , and really do one niche . So have one thing that you do one product , really do one niche . So have one thing that you do one product and then basically one delivery and you want to do that for one year .
Speaker 2But most times with entrepreneurs they start their thing and then they diversify way too quickly and they have a bunch of different things and it's so hard . Think of it like if you took all your services and stuff and you stacked them like on a cardboard . So imagine I'm holding a cardboard and you put all your services on top . You're trying to like do this when you just need to find one and then just stack on just that one again and again . So , like with her , like you have it predictable and then you can diversify and usually there's like one more piece to the to the five ones .
Speaker 2It's like you do it till you hit one million . So you got to do the same thing over and over . But the problem is sometime , like in business , you might be making half a million . Right , let's say you're cruising and you're like , oh , I got this , let me go over here and do this .
Small Business Ad Budgets & Partnerships
Speaker 2You shouldn't do that . You got to keep cruising until you hit a point where you're like okay , I now have this completely off my plate and now I can go and try to do something else . But most people will try to switch it up when they just made a couple you know , maybe $20,000 , and they're like , hey , this is good , all right , maybe I should start doing this , I should start doing that . And that's one of the biggest learning lessons , at least for myself .
Speaker 4I would piggyback over that I will .
Speaker 1I love that message you just gave and also starting off early , not just taking any client .
Speaker 4Yeah , that was the biggest one for anybody , any client , because we start off you like hey , hell yeah , hell yeah .
Speaker 1I do that money . You need the capital .
Speaker 2I gotta take and we're all gonna go through it and learn it ourselves , especially if somebody got the budget and they're like hmm .
Speaker 4We'll figure it out , and that was one of the in some cases it can really F you up . It can really set the business back . Like I said , we had something that set us back a few months Right . Taking the wrong client is going really well at first , and then the relationship became really toxic on both ends . We're like what the hell is going on and it took a lot of my time , a lot of my bandwidth . It was not toxic on our , not our .
Speaker 4We were extremely professional , no , no yeah , in the world where I am NOT not a role model trained .
Speaker 3I believe that my biggest lesson , honestly , and in all the years of me being an entrepreneur before I even understood what an entrepreneur was , because I grew up as a hustler .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 3So , technically , we grew up running businesses . Uh-huh , I just didn't know what that was . From an educational standpoint , the biggest lesson I've ever learned is learn business . Learn , yeah , business . So I've ran successful businesses before I went to school and got a degree in business , because I had practical knowledge and experience on a job , training , whatever the case you want to call it .
Speaker 3But when I went to school and actually sat down with a curriculum and learned business , it fills in a lot of the gaps that you're like , holy shit , that's why I had to do that , that's why you're supposed to do . It fills in a lot of that fundamental knowledge that you can now take and say let me explain to see this is the way fundamentally , business works . Seeing a good thing about when you understand how to run business fundamentally , it doesn't matter what kind of business you are running . You understand the fundamentals of business . See the difference you understand . So you can take that fundamental knowledge and build any kind of business Because fundamentally you understand business . So I think that's the best thing for me is you can know something and you can have done something family business , whatever , and it could have worked . But education , knowledge in any form , whether through a collegiate system or a mentorship or a course . Knowledge in any form , whether through a collegiate system or a mentorship Course , whatever , anything .
Speaker 3Always continue to educate yourself , because you can always do better , your business can always do better , it can always operate at a cleaner margin , and this and that , et cetera , et cetera . So that's the best lesson . It's just education , man , super dope .
Speaker 2Super dope , we got you . Yeah's just education , man . Super dope , super dope , we got you . Yeah , it's on you .
Speaker 1All right , I think I have two . So one is definitely learn and continue to master unattachment . It will be your greatest friend in business because otherwise every person you employ and interact with yes their energy and how they feel and like whether they're upset that day or not , like if you start wearing that that's dangerous .
Speaker 1That's not good for your mental health and like the best energetic state to be in is like I'm gonna let people people , I'm still gonna show up like at my best and I know like the values of my company and the way that we operate , and like that's gonna be true no matter what yeah , but like trying to change other human beings is not actually what we're in the business of doing , and so we're just gonna let them people and like keep moving forward I love that .
Speaker 4So that's one .
Speaker 1You have that , and then the second one and actually I didn't even really realize until I was talking that it does tie in . There is nothing , there's nothing greater than being a hundred percent committed to operating a business of integrity and providing the absolute highest level service .
Speaker 1We talk about , you know , marketing and ad funnels and like that's the horn right it's like the predictability of being able to put money into ads and get a certain amount of clients out is amazing , but 10 years in in business , things that I never could measure in any way , shape or form . You know , something extra that I did for a client or the way that we handled something when I was mistake was made comes back five thousand fold . Yeah , and it is , I have to admit , even ten years . The last six months , for whatever reason , our referrals have been beyond like anything I've ever seen in my life and it is I'm like realizing oh , I didn't measure , I didn't .
Speaker 1I don't have a strategy for this , I didn't do anything , I was . I don't have a strategy for this , I didn't do anything . I was just committed to being a business and a person of integrity and providing the highest level white glove service at all times and , like the I'm , I think I'm still seeing the impact that that is having . And it's not the measurable thing , it's not the marketing plan , but , man , it can really impact things . It also helps you sleep better Impact over metrics .
Speaker 3That's what he said about having a client and when he said , oh , it was toxic , but no , no , no , no , no , no , we handled ourselves .
Speaker 2They were toxic .
Speaker 3They were toxic Be clear we have turned down life-changing opportunities . Yeah . Life-changing opportunities are a dime a dozen , by the way , but again from a small business , from a small business struggling to keep the lights on .
Speaker 4Yeah , for sure To keep the lights on .
Speaker 3Again , when you're presented with something that can make or break the business , you're going to want to do it , but we turned it down . You know why we turned it down ? Because we were not able to go and operate at that level and we said if we can't go and operate at this level , regardless of what the money looks like , regardless of blah , blah , blah blah , regardless of where we're going to be , we will not attend , because our name and our brand is our name and our brand metrics yeah , purpose over profit .
Speaker 4We stand by . We love a profit , though I love the purpose for a lot of profit . No , don't get it in there . I got to stop you . To it out of it .
Speaker 1I don't want to take a couple dollars and go out there .
Speaker 3Yeah , of course , and not perform to your best ? Yeah and have an issue with whoever the person you're partnering with , because now you guys are not seeing eye to eye on what was supposed to happen , what was discussed versus what came out in the contract ? A lot of the times that happens .
Speaker 1Hey , jamar , what you ?
Speaker 3want me to do at the park ? Come through the 42nd man and just hang out . And then when I get here , it's a 15 page NDA . And then I can't say ABCD , I can't talk about granny apples Smith , and then it gets crazy , right ? Then I'm like how do you expect me to do my job , right ?
Speaker 4you're like just do it , you already signed , I love . I love what you said , though , about taking just not attaching yourself to the people that work . That was so major , because this is our baby . You want them to have a certain experience and you take as an entrepreneur , you take all that shit home with you , even don't yeah that like I , like that's so real .
Speaker 4We we've had a few employees , but like , when you think of when you're scaling , like that I can see , is I see me definitely don't like 20 people ,
Key Entrepreneurial Lessons & Integrity in Business
Speaker 4like damn what . Do you feel happy ? Do you like this ? Do you do this , do you do that ?
Speaker 1and that's a lot of murder for somebody . Your own energy and not just for your own self . Obviously there's that benefit , but actually when you're at the helm of a business it is in the business best interest . If you are like of sound mind , you are like protecting your peace like absolutely it is it ? Yeah , it's . It's furthering quite a bit , and and so it's incredibly important .
Speaker 4That's something I will not forget . Well cool .
Speaker 2We got to wrap it up , so I want to first , can you guys drop your socials of where people can find you ?
Speaker 1Instagram . I'm Jen Spivak . Jen with two N's . That's it , jen .
Speaker 4Spivak , I'm about to follow you now , jen Spivak .
Speaker 1Jen with two N's and I Jen with two N's , and I will never post anything , but if you follow me you will see my ads . Follow you around the internet for the rest of eternity .
Speaker 3I like it something dark about your ass something dark .
Speaker 1I will be everywhere . That's how it works .
Speaker 2You are on LinkedIn , though . I am on LinkedIn . Yes , you can send me a .
Speaker 1LinkedIn request and then we will never talk to each other everywhere . That's how it works .
Speaker 2You're on LinkedIn though I am on LinkedIn .
Speaker 1Yes , Right you can send me a LinkedIn request and then we will never talk to each other ever again , at least she's honest .
Speaker 3At least she's honest .
Speaker 4I love it . I can deal with that . You know what ?
Speaker 3you're getting with her ? Yes , you do . Send me a friend request , I'll accept yes .
Speaker 1And I'll never see me on there . I love it .
Speaker 4Jared Thomas on LinkedIn . But anything else is more than a title Across YouTube , instagram , tiktok , facebook . I am Chadio . You want to tell yours ?
Speaker 3Yeah , instagram . I am Chadio Facebook . Chadio the CEO . I think Instagram still comes up Chadio the CEO . Same thing more than a title everywhere . I'm on LinkedIn , chad Fernandez . I will talk to you . If you send me a real message , if I friend request you or you friend request me , and the first thing I get is an automated fucking hey , chad , you thought , about growing your business . How about me . I'm just gonna next .
Speaker 3Yeah , yeah , and then you know we never conversated . You know , listen , uh , we respond to everything directly . We don't have like handlers and stuff like that . We could but we we have social media managers , but we like to deal with our people directly that way , because opportunities come sometimes and they need to be handled very quickly yeah , yeah last-minute things that yeah , if you go through too many channels , yep somebody drives the communication . You lose it , you lose it yeah , you contact us . Just understand , you'll get Either me or my cousin . He'll probably respond .
Speaker 4I'm always on it , it was super dope .
Speaker 2This has been a super dope episode . Please like , comment and subscribe to the episode If you like something that you've heard and share this with somebody . Don't be selfish . Share this with somebody that needs to hear it . And don't forget you can change your circle and change your life to the next one we're out . 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 .
