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As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the 2x Webby Award Honoree Be A Marketer podcast! New episodes coming in July!
On today's episode, you'll hear from a podcast host who started in advertising. Now, she leads an award winning Amazon show that helps entrepreneurs build better businesses. This is the Be A Marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:My name is Dave Sherest, director of small business success at Constant Contact, and I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing. And on this podcast, we'll explore what it really takes to market your business, even if marketing's not your thing. No jargon, no hype, just real stories to inspire you and practical advice you can act on. So remember, friend, you can be a marketer. And at Constant Contact, we're here to help.
Dave Charest:Well, hello, friend, and thanks for joining us for another episode of the Be A Marketer podcast. Do me a favor. Not only does she make every episode better, but she's also celebrating a birthday. So say happy birthday to the one and only Kelsi Carter. Woo.
Dave Charest:Hi, Kelsi.
Kelsi Carter:Hi, Dave.
Dave Charest:Happy birthday to you.
Kelsi Carter:It was my birthday. Thank you.
Dave Charest:So obviously, at the time of recording, it's your birthday, but you're not gonna it's not actually gonna be your birthday when we hear this. But, hey, you know what? Happy you were born. Thanks for being here.
Kelsi Carter:Thank you so much. You know what? I was happy I was born too.
Dave Charest:Way to go.
Andrea Marquez:Happy to be here.
Dave Charest:And you made it another another, what is it, a trip around the sun? Nice job.
Kelsi Carter:I know. I can't believe it's honestly been a year. I feel like just in a blink of an eye, I'll I'll be 30.
Dave Charest:Really does I know. It really does go quickly. And then, you know, then you're in big trouble.
Kelsi Carter:Wow. That sounds so encouraging.
Dave Charest:No. No. Looking back on it actually, no. I think things just keep getting better and better. Twenties are a lot of figuring stuff out.
Dave Charest:Thirties are, alright. I think we know where we're going. And then you kinda stumble around until you get there, but at least you're, you know, you're moving in a direction. So
Kelsi Carter:Yeah. That's how I'm feeling at 29 where I feel like I kinda know where I'm going. Yeah. So I feel like earlier, I was just like, no idea. But now I'm just like, okay.
Kelsi Carter:I feel solid, especially with like life personal things and stuff like that. Like, I feel good.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Well, good. Well, yay. Glad we could have some time to chat on your, well, pseudo birthday at this point. But
Kelsi Carter:Oh, that's not the point of this podcast?
Dave Charest:Well, we were gonna keep going, and we were gonna have you tell us all your wishes and all of those things, and maybe you have an Amazon account we can we can connect to and see if we can send you some gifts. I don't know.
Kelsi Carter:I was gonna say don't tempt me.
Dave Charest:Your face looks very excited about that. Forget it, friends. Just but if you do see Kelsi, say happy birthday. Thank you. So listen.
Dave Charest:You know, one of the things we talk about a lot is the importance of foundations. I mean, I do a whole keynote on the foundations of digital marketing success, and I'm a big believer in just that idea that you need a strong foundation to build upon in order to do all of the other things. And I think we've seen this time and time again with just like if you look at anybody that any industry, anything, I think they're all relative, but there's just different things that you do. But you've got to do those foundational things to give you a firm foundation to start on, and then then you can start to add those other elements to it. Right?
Dave Charest:Mean, have you found this as you've been I mean, you're coming into marketing as like a whole new thing. Right? Are there basic things that you see even in these conversations that we've had, I mean, there basic things that you're seeing that come up again and again?
Kelsi Carter:Oh, absolutely. I think the Oh, abso what? Absolutely. I was just like, I wasn't gonna acknowledge it, but you did.
Dave Charest:But I felt like, let's go.
Kelsi Carter:Would say the biggest thing for me is honestly, like, community building. That's something that I hear time and time again from any anyone, no matter how big or small.
Dave Charest:Yeah. That is a huge one that we hear all the time. And I think it's funny though, but even if you get into just the campaigns themselves, right, like just thinking about content campaigns, like even just the ways you build your business, it all comes down to almost you feel like it's magic sometimes, but it really all comes down to having a solid foundation which to build upon. And I'm excited for our conversation today because we've got a good one for you. And what stood out to me about the conversation was how our guest really builds everything from the ground up with intention.
Dave Charest:Again, that's an important word. Foundations, intention, knowing where you wanna go, knowing what you wanna do, and really building on that. And that's what gets you going. It's not about doing the one little tactic. Right?
Dave Charest:It's about having that stuff that you can layer on top of things. So, Kelsi, I'm gonna go to you. Who's joining us today?
Kelsi Carter:Today's guest is Andrea Marquez. She is the senior producer and host of This Is Small Business, an award winning Amazon podcast. Based in The United States, Andrea is a first generation Latina who grew up surrounded by entrepreneurs and now uses her own platform to tell their stories in a meaningful and educational way. Amazon hired her actually specifically to bring this podcast to life, and that's exactly what she's done. She's built a high quality show that serves small business owners and aspiring founders with practical insights and their inspiring stories.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Andre's journey both in life and in podcasting really centers on this idea. Again, here it comes. Right? But real success starts with strong foundations.
Dave Charest:And you start thinking about from audience research and branding to business frameworks. She really highlights how structure, preparation, and clarity are what truly enable creativity, growth, and resilience. But as she'll tell you, none of it works without intention, consistency, and the right team behind the scenes. And in our conversation today, you'll actually hear about some of that behind the scenes work that it takes to build the podcast that actually grows and and actually why most people get it wrong. You'll hear how frameworks like the five whys and test fail and learn fast are used by successful founders to stay focused, and why showing up authentically might be the most powerful marketing move you can make.
Dave Charest:So let's go to Andrea now as she shares why everything starts with understanding your audience and the importance of telling each story the right way.
Andrea Marquez:I have a great team that works with me, so I wanna start by saying that that it does take people who are dedicated to wanting this to do well and to tell the stories correctly. We work backwards from two things, probably from the listener. And if you're not putting your listener first as a podcast, then what are you doing really? And the person that we're telling the story of or the business or the brand. And so we make sure that we stay true to both of these things that we're thinking about what our listener is going to grab from whatever story we're telling while at the same time staying authentic to the story of the person who's on of the guest who's our our podcast guest, of our episode guest.
Andrea Marquez:So everything comes from that. And then moving forward, you know, it's about staying consistent. It's about staying well organized. And one of the things that I always tell people when they ask me big considerations of starting their own podcast is setting the right foundation. So right at the beginning, we we did all of the research to understand who our audience is.
Andrea Marquez:We did the listener persona, all of the things that are very unsexy but super necessary moving forward. We did all of the branding templates. We wanted to understand what colors we were using, what fonts, like from the nitty gritty all the way to what does the soundtrack sound like? What does my voice sound like? Where do I come in into the story as well as the host?
Andrea Marquez:So everything starts from understanding who you're telling the story to and why they wanna hear it all the way to the every single day of recording and guest chasing and scheduling, etcetera.
Dave Charest:It's amazing when you think about it too, right, where there's so many facets that kinda make this thing go, right, and so many things involved, and people like, hey. That's a cool twenty minute episode. Awesome. Must be easy. Let's let's start a podcast.
Dave Charest:Right? Everybody wants to start a podcast now, and it's like, okay. Cool. But let's have a conversation first, right, to figure out if that's actually the way we wanna go. I'm curious.
Dave Charest:What's your connection to small businesses?
Andrea Marquez:As a podcaster now, for me, I'm always thinking, of course, it's podcasting is no longer about just grabbing a mic and recording yourself and calling it a day. Who would think that at this point? Who would think that podcasting doesn't require like, of course it requires this huge team behind it. I mean, look at these podcasts selling for millions and millions of dollars. And yet there's still a lot of people who truly believe that just because they have a great conversation with their buddy while they're, you know, at 2AM on their apartment balcony, they're like, oh my god.
Andrea Marquez:This should be a podcast. That that's still like the mindset. And we see this on TV shows too, like the like the murder podcast and everything, like, with Only Murders in the Building. It's like this idea of, oh, we're just gonna record every single moment of the day on the phone and just call it. No.
Andrea Marquez:That is not how these things work. Well, they could, but when you really think about doing service to the story, I think there's much more to that. But anyways, going back to your question about my connection to business, I come from an entrepreneurial family. I'm one of the only corporate girlies in my family and and my and everyone always points to that because everyone has tried or has a business of their own except for me. Well, I have tried.
Andrea Marquez:I will say that. Smaller scale things. But I grew up with that. I'm a Latina. I come from two immigrant parents who dedicated most of their time to living their American dream and making sure that I was living the American dream.
Andrea Marquez:And so I saw how they started from the ground up all of their entrepreneurial ventures. And now I live with a father who's always asking me like, when are you gonna start your own business? Or if I like something, he'll be like, well, how can we turn that into a business? And it's usually like something that we always talk about, as they say, like, at the dinner table every single day. So I feel like I'm surrounded with the idea of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial people every single day.
Dave Charest:So you said you tried to do some things. What what types of things did you try and not continue with?
Andrea Marquez:Dave, you're asking the hard questions. I don't ever shared that with anyone. I'm almost embarrassed. So I don't think people know this at all. I don't think I've ever shared it with anyone, but I tried to start a jewelry line with my mom a long time ago, many years ago.
Andrea Marquez:I realized it wasn't my passion at all. I didn't even like wearing jewelry that much. So I was like, where is this coming from? Who knows? So that was short lived, but we did do like I did the work of like opening an LLC, a company, a business.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:Opening. We did branding. We did I did some market research. Like I did the initial work and that foundational work and then just it turned into some tedious thing for me. I was also in college, so there was a lot of things going on.
Andrea Marquez:And my mom also I think I got this from her, but like she'll try a lot of things and if they don't stick quickly, she would move on.
Dave Charest:Move on. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:For like context, my mom was an architect, a politician, a chef. She was training to be a sommelier. She also had her own contracting engineering company. Like, she she did a lot. Okay?
Andrea Marquez:So Yeah. For context. So that's where I got that from too. I tried that. I tried website development at the very early ages of like when influencers were coming in.
Andrea Marquez:I was like, oh, I could could help them build their websites. Why did I decide that when I wasn't even like an intense coder? Who knows? But I did try that. A lot of service based.
Andrea Marquez:I also tried podcast consulting, but that got too overwhelming because and for many reasons, I wasn't able to keep doing that. But I think those are the the big three, and I've never shared that with anybody. So
Dave Charest:Well well, thank you for sharing. But, mean, I feel it's interesting because I at one point too, I started my own, like, consulting thing, and I was doing that. And then I was like, okay. Cool. But, like, I really don't enjoy, like, the business side of this stuff.
Dave Charest:Right? Like, actually making this thing work. Like, I'm much better in plus, like, being kind of alone. Like, it wasn't like I had a company necessarily. Was doing things on my own.
Dave Charest:Right? And it's like, I'm better in a group of people. I have a particular set of skills that I can use and I'm good at. And it was like, okay. But the business part, not so much.
Dave Charest:And it's it's interesting though, I have nothing but respect for the people that can actually make it work. Right? Like, I'm nothing but impressed by people that are like, wow, you've built this thing. Now you've got employees. Like like, you're I don't think people appreciate.
Dave Charest:I think this is one of the things I think, you know, even when you're we're having a conversation like this and we're talking about, like, marketing and how you kind of gotta execute against those things that I think oftentimes it's a thing that's devoid of the conversation, which is the stress that is on these people that have taken this risk to do this thing to pay employees, to pay bills, to, like, take care of the and it's all on them. Right? And it's like Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, by the way, and you gotta market the business now too.
Dave Charest:Right? And so Yeah. I'm with you. Like, running my own business is not for me, but I I am grateful for the opportunity to help those people who may not be good at marketing and, like, have those conversations, help them see and figure out ways that they can do that. I'm curious.
Dave Charest:You've had some obviously, you have exposure to these people. I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about the Rice University business plan competition that you participated in. I think you were are you judging in this area? Or, like, what were you doing there? What was that all about?
Andrea Marquez:I love talking about this. There was two years I've been for the past two years involved. The first year, I produced a miniseries, a podcast miniseries around the Rice University business plan competition. It followed four teams in the competition all the way from them preparing and planning before the competition. So weeks before and what they were doing, what their business was like, telling their founder stories to the days of the competition and how they how that went, if they were semi finalists, if there were finalists, what they won, if they didn't win, etcetera.
Andrea Marquez:And then we follow them a couple weeks, actually a month after the competition to see how the competition and the experience influenced their business plans or business opportunities that came from that. And then the second year, I went again as a judge. There was no miniseries around it. But both times I will tell you, it fundamentally changed the way I see myself because I realized just what you were saying right now. I don't think I have that muscle, that bone in my body that these people have.
Andrea Marquez:The way that they have been able to carry through an idea all the way to a product that sells or a service is so insane to me because people often think about this entrepreneurial journey as the sexy things.
Dave Charest:The Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:We're up there getting our big check and posing. We're there giving those speeches. We're giving the TED Talk.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:We are giving the podcast interviews. That's what they think about. And then actually sitting down with these founders to listen to them speak to each other about their product, about the business plan, about how they pitched, how they got up there and told their story, how they answer questions live. Because for me, the craziest part in all of this was not even the pitching part for them. It was the Q and A portions.
Andrea Marquez:I swear this is a make or break parts of all of these competitions that I've seen. It's how they're able to answer all the questions because they've already asked these questions to themselves because they're prepared because they did all the foundational work and they're super committed. They're committed to taking this idea through. And these are not little product ideas. These are change the world ideas.
Andrea Marquez:These are environmental solutions, societal solutions, health care solutions. Like, these are ginormous responsibilities that they decided to take on that I realized, wow, I don't know if I have that in me, honestly. And them not sleeping. A lot of these it's a three day competition. The first day, they're broken up into many rooms and they get to practice pitch.
Andrea Marquez:And then based on those practice pitches, they go back and they have to re edit their pitch. And then the second day, it's the same thing, but then they start narrowing it down to semifinalists and then finalists. And then the finalists give their ultimate pitch to a room full of investors and venture capitalists, and it's this insane thing. A lot of them wouldn't sleep. They didn't have a lot of time.
Andrea Marquez:A lot a lot of these comments from these investors, these suggestions, quote, unquote, were basically redo a lot of your business plan. And here you had these people in a couple of hours and one night's work trying to redo a whole biz like it was and they would do it. And it was insane. And and their commitment to this was just so infectious. And I remember turning I had a in the miniseries, I had a cohost, Michale Gilbert, one of the ex finalists of the previous years of the business plan competition who was killing it, killing it with their business.
Andrea Marquez:And I turned to them and I was like, how? How did you do this? How? What what is going on in your head? And their response was like, the the question is how could I not for me at least.
Andrea Marquez:It just ingrained in my head, and I can't not think about this every day all day. I I love it.
Dave Charest:It's really interesting how, you know, we always talk a lot about there's one resiliency. Right? When everything comes up like, it's always something different for a business owner every day. Right? And it's like, okay.
Dave Charest:They figure it out, and they figure out what they need to do to make it work. And I'm often finding too, it's often the it's funny to say this. Right? But there's a freedom because you've gotta do so much more, and you're always kind of but it's you're doing it for yourself versus doing it for someone else. And I think that's what the what's really meant by the freedom of it.
Dave Charest:Right? Like, I'm doing this for me. Right? And it's just yeah. I'm with you.
Dave Charest:It's such an amazing thing that people that do that have. What do you love most about what you're doing today?
Andrea Marquez:I wanna give you a real answer to that and not, like, an easy one of telling stories.
Dave Charest:I appreciate that. I
Andrea Marquez:think truly what keeps me going, what I love is that every single day looks different to me. And because I wake up and I think, okay, why is it that I wake up every day and I'm excited for the day even if I don't have an interview? So it's not about being able to talk to business owners all the time. It's not just about that because I do get extra excited when I get to interview someone. But I really do think it's about creating my own journey.
Andrea Marquez:It's not I'm privileged that I don't have a role. Yes, I'm in a corporate role, obviously. But it's a corporate role that I get to own, that I get to drive.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:No one is there telling me every day, this is your to do list. This is what I expect from you. I create the the expectations around this role. I know what needs to get done. I create the to do lists.
Andrea Marquez:I keep everyone informed. So it's very different to what I assume a lot of other corporate roles might look like and journeys might look like. And so I think it's all tied to, I guess, also being an entrepreneur, right, where you own a lot of the trajectory of what your day to day looks like.
Dave Charest:It's very strange. Right? Because like I agree I I have the same kind of thing that you have here. Right? But so I can do that.
Dave Charest:Right? Like, I'm doing the same things. Alright. Here's what we wanna do. Here's what we're going at.
Dave Charest:But then if you said to me, hey, Dave. Now Yeah. Do that for your own business. Right? I'd be like
Andrea Marquez:I know.
Dave Charest:Oh, no. I I don't know. I I don't know what to do. I don't I don't know how to
Andrea Marquez:do that. I know. That's crazy.
Dave Charest:Right? Like, it's such a but in the role that I'm in, I'm like, yeah. Let's go. Here's what we're doing. Right?
Dave Charest:And and, I mean, I guess you could argue that, like, in some ways, I mean, it almost like having, like, your own little business within the company. Right? Like so such a strange thing. I don't know. We're gonna have to figure that out somehow.
Dave Charest:What what do you think is the most challenging thing about what you're doing right now?
Andrea Marquez:Growing, I think, and and continuing to grow.
Dave Charest:How so? How do you mean that? Personally and or?
Andrea Marquez:In all aspects. Personally. So I don't don't get too comfortable is one of the things I'm always grappling with. And then the podcast itself, growing our audience, growing the quality of the stories we tell, the way we tell our stories, and where we tell our stories as well and doing it in the right way. Right?
Andrea Marquez:Because there's always this conversation of podcasts of video podcasts and where is that going? And YouTube. Yes. All of that is incredibly important. But I'm more so afraid of being able to keep up quality and consistency wherever we show up versus Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:Scrambling to show up in the first place.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I know. Like, similar I I'm like, okay. Let's start with the audio, but and then the video piece of it, like, adds a whole other layer of because you want the finished thing to be good still. And it's not, again, not as simple as just, okay, let's set up a couple of cameras.
Dave Charest:Right? Like, so yeah. I'm with you on all that. So I wanna I wanna move into, like, just thinking about, alright, you're creating this great product. You're doing this award winning podcast.
Dave Charest:Right? You you come at with some experience in marketing, of course, but walk me through, like, what are you actually doing? And is that even your role? Like, do you have somebody on the team that's responsible for that? But, like, how do you actually market the podcast?
Andrea Marquez:I do have help with my lovely partner agency, Jar Audio, and we do have someone who dedicates most of their time to thinking about all of these things, but it really is a partnership. So Yeah. I'm always thinking about these things too. It's not simple because if you Google something like this of how do I market my podcast or how do I make my audience grow, it's it always leads to the same thing really. It's word-of-mouth.
Dave Charest:Mhmm.
Andrea Marquez:How do you do the word-of-mouth thing? Well, first of all, you have to be a good quality pod you have to be doing good content. Right?
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:Secondly, people need to know that you exist. Right? So how do people know you exist? I get on other podcasts like I'm doing right now as much as possible. We try to tap out or tap as much as we can within the podcast ecosystem.
Andrea Marquez:I truly believe that before we start tapping into social media or everything outside of the podcast ecosystem. Before even the I mean, after the podcast ecosystem, that's where I think maybe email lists are also something that is very valuable. We don't have our own email list, which I think is incredibly important if you have a podcast. Once you've tapped into the whole podcast ecosystem space, then I think it's all about email lists. We're in the works of being able to do something like that.
Andrea Marquez:And then after that, I think actually in person is a lot more valuable sometimes for podcasts than immediately thinking about socials. And this is a controversial thing that I've talked to a lot of other podcasts about, which is like social media and podcasting. Everyone thinks social media might be like the answer is always the answer to everything and discovery. Not necessarily because just having a lot of views on one post about the podcast doesn't necessarily translate into downloads or plays of the podcast episode in general. So we're not there yet.
Andrea Marquez:We're not in the whole social part yet, but I am trying to figure out a way in which the content of the podcast is amplified or adds to the quality of the content versus relying on social media for it to be a marketing avenue.
Dave Charest:It's interesting that you say that. Right? So I think well, to your point about just social in general, I think social is the easy answer for any type of business in many instances, right, regardless of it being a podcast, whatever the product or service is. And I think it boggles my mind, and it doesn't make me angry, but it it upsets me sometimes because you'll see people spend so much time on social, putting us so much effort into it, where I think that time could be spent other places that would be more impactful. Right?
Dave Charest:I I agree. Again, hats off to the tech giants who have made social feel like you're doing something. Right? And tapping into those things that I think make us human. Right?
Dave Charest:That, like, oh, somebody liked it. Somebody commented on it. Right? They tap into those things really well to, like, make you wanna go back there. Right?
Dave Charest:And make again, make it feel like you're doing something maybe more meaningful than it actually is. I almost forgot where I was kinda going with that, but I think that's the challenging piece. I think even, you know, in person as you're talking about. Right? Like, yes.
Dave Charest:Like, I think that's making those connections, moving people to that place. Well, how long have you been doing the podcast now?
Andrea Marquez:This is small business launched June 2022. So two years.
Dave Charest:'22. Okay. Yeah. Two years? Yeah.
Dave Charest:Ish. Ish. So you've learned, obviously, this part of it. Right? Like, that the podcast is challenging.
Dave Charest:Right? Social media isn't necessarily the challenge. This is what I was gonna say, is that I actually find that the conversations and the things that you do are really more about continuing the story, not necessarily to get downloads, but to share them in another avenue. And so I'm often like, when we do this, although it's audio, like, we'll take clips of this to promote a piece of this conversation, let's say. Right?
Dave Charest:And that idea or that thing is has standalone and independent value regardless of the podcast. But then it also enriches everything else that we're able to do from just like a storytelling perspective. I do a lot of presenting, for example, and I'm able to incorporate people's stories into the points that I'm trying to make. Right? Like, here's what this person did, or here's how this person did it.
Dave Charest:Here's an example of what that looks like. This is how you can apply that. And I find that the act of producing one a great product has its own value, but the byproducts of that are equally, if not more important for what they bring, but not necessarily
Andrea Marquez:Yeah.
Dave Charest:A download, if that makes sense.
Andrea Marquez:It's complementary to the podcast versus
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:Part of the funnel to drive people directly to become listeners. But and and I think that leads to branding. That's what I've learned as well. Like, what does a brand represent? Is it just a podcast?
Andrea Marquez:Not really. What are you seeking to do? What stories are you seeking to tell with the brand? And that's where you start using socials as other avenues to be able to tell your story, but not necessarily again, and I agree with what you're saying. It's a way to compliment what you're doing, but not the solution to getting more people to the podcast.
Dave Charest:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But talk to me about this idea of, you know, everybody kinda says this, but what does this mean to you in terms of, like, building community and not just an audience for a podcast?
Andrea Marquez:I think building a community is tied to how you are able to communicate and pay attention as we'll take it to the podcast specifically, but I think this applies to any type of brand or product. If you're seeking to build a community, you're having conversations, you know when to be quiet and to listen, you know when to speak. And I think that brands that are able to do that or podcasts that are able to do that to have that two way communication and really, really make sure that they're working backwards from who they're trying to serve, that's when you're able to build a community because you're listening. You're not just telling people what you are trying to lead the trend or trying to show up as much as possible, which all of these things are absolutely, yes, they're important and they're key, but they're not necessarily what leads to building a strong community. A strong community will also feel heard.
Andrea Marquez:So to me, that's what at least what I think should happen for the podcast, obviously, but for any brand that wants to be part of the life of their customers.
Dave Charest:How are you measuring the success of your podcast?
Andrea Marquez:We do a lot of in person engagements. So for me, the immediate thing is when I'm able to speak to listeners face to face that changes my life every single time. I'm like blown away.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:But because we're not able to do that all the time, I get a lot of emails from listeners. We get our reviews also and basically like what I think a lot of brands do with their products, that's the quality of the reviews is what matters to be most for before the numbers. But that's like the first step, making sure that people are listening and they have something to say. Negative or positive, doesn't matter, but they they're listening and they have something to say is important to me. That's our first level of measurement.
Andrea Marquez:Our second, obviously, numbers, data. We do data. We do consumption rates. We do unique listeners. We do plays.
Andrea Marquez:We do follows slash subscribers depending on what platform we're using.
Dave Charest:Yep. Got it. So you've had these amazing conversations with people. I'm curious just either through the process of your own work or the conversations that you've had with the people that you've spoken to, what are some of the frameworks or, like, we'll call them methods or processes, whatever it is that you found helpful to either those business owners or or even to yourself?
Andrea Marquez:A framework that I hear a lot is from small business owners that is used is the five whys. And I knew about this framework before starting the podcast, but I was Okay. Very it was very academic to me because I remember reading it in a book. And when I came quote unquote into the real world and I realized people actually use this framework in their real life, I was very surprised. So the five whys is a very simple framework where you just ask why five times.
Andrea Marquez:You say one thing and you ask, but why? But why? But why? It's kind of like talking to a toddler is what I imagine.
Dave Charest:Okay.
Andrea Marquez:I don't have kids yet, but my nieces and nephews ask why a lot.
Dave Charest:I wanna give you an opportunity to laugh at me while I'm laughing at myself because as you said the five whys, I didn't realize what it was. And then I was so I was like, I literally wrote down one through five. The five gonna list the five whys. Okay. What are the whys?
Dave Charest:And it's literally saying why five
Andrea Marquez:Five times. It's saying but why it's such a simple thing.
Dave Charest:Well, there you go. There you have it, folks.
Andrea Marquez:And you'd be surprised how many times this comes up in my interviews.
Dave Charest:A
Andrea Marquez:lot of founders use this method to ask themselves if they are prioritizing the right things in their business.
Dave Charest:Interesting.
Andrea Marquez:And that can be applied to prioritizing everything else in your life. Yeah. I think. And it goes back to I think it was Simon Sinek, I think is his last name, wrote a book on starting with your wife. Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:So it all goes back to that.
Kelsi Carter:Yep.
Andrea Marquez:And that's one popular one. Another that I've been hearing lately by a lot of industry experts, I will say that I've been on the podcast. Test, fail, and learn fast. I've heard that. And it sounds super obvious like, yeah.
Andrea Marquez:Yeah. Do it. No. Because when you're a business owner, you don't have the biggest budget in the world to wanna be failing. Right?
Andrea Marquez:So it sounds counterintuitive to test, fail, and learn fast.
Dave Charest:But Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:It's how you label failure in this scenario. And obviously doing it in a way that if you are if you do fail, you're prepared for it doesn't mean failing is like I completely lost my business. I put all of my money into this one thing. Obviously, that's not the what we're trying to do here, but I've seen a lot of industry experts bring that up because we get stuck across the board, entrepreneurs and everyone. Sometimes we we tend to get stuck in the thinking phase a lot and the research and the theoretical and not wanting to move past from that because it's scary.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:And we understand that because it's not like we have money to be throwing around. But sometimes you just gotta go for it, see it as a test, know that you're prepared to lose if if that's the case, and move on and understand why what happened happened.
Dave Charest:Couple of things to to pick up on here. But before I get to my follow-up questions on that, and not to put you on the spot, but would you happen to have any specific examples of maybe someone like, the outcome of asking the five whys, that particular story there, and even that idea of, like, okay, where someone okay. I'm gonna move fast. I'm gonna test things and then, you know, fail. And then, like, how do we how do they overcome that?
Dave Charest:Do you have any examples of either of those?
Andrea Marquez:So great questions. I'm trying to think back on someone who gave me the five whys. Oh, a good one for the five whys. This was a long time ago. This interview was like one of the OGs.
Andrea Marquez:But with Justin Forsett from Hustle Clean, he's a former NFL player, I actually got the chance to reinterview him a month ago or weeks ago, not even.
Dave Charest:Was this your live was that with it?
Andrea Marquez:That was the live.
Dave Charest:Okay.
Andrea Marquez:Yeah. But this is not when he talked about that. He talked about this because we had him on the podcast, like, the first year.
Dave Charest:Got it.
Andrea Marquez:Said he went through the five whys when considering his customer who he was building the product for in terms of the customer. And I'll explain why. Because at the beginning, there's more to the product now, but at the beginning of the business, it was a washcloth. And it was for people who don't have the time to take a shower or don't have access to a shower immediately. And their thought process was, well, the sky's the limit.
Andrea Marquez:Like, because at the beginning, it came from an athlete's point of view because he's an athlete. But then they were like, well oh my god. I forgot how to say this word in English. Flight attendant. There we
Dave Charest:go. They're okay.
Andrea Marquez:The sky's the limit. We have flight attendants who can who can use the washcloth. We have teachers. Like, we have a bunch of other people who can now be using this. And they realized that going that far was diluting the messaging and diluting what they were who they initially were working with.
Andrea Marquez:And he went through that five wives process. Because of that, they decided they're going to stick to athletes and who they're doing this, what their life looks like. Because then if you start to consider what lives look like for all of these different customers, it was getting too big, which not it doesn't necessarily mean that it closes them off to those opportunities in the future. But because of the resources they were working with initially, they had to stick first to that core customer.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:And then the test fail and learn. So I just had her on the podcast. Morgan Devon, she's the CEO of
Dave Charest:Oh, I know Morgan. Morgan and I have talked. Yeah. Blavity. Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:Isn't she the coolest person?
Dave Charest:She's amazing. We love her. We love her. Yeah. Amazing.
Andrea Marquez:I was super inspired in the interview. I was like, I oh, people like you exist. I'm always inspired, but I feel like that almost every time I interview someone, a founder. She's doing amazing work with Blavity. She actually brought in that she talked about testing, failing, and learning fast with the process of pitching her business to investors.
Andrea Marquez:And she talked about failing and how she got a lot of rejection and a lot of no's with the way she was crafting her pitch. And she started learning different ways and different things that she had to be including in this pitch and what not to include. And if you think about it, if you really think about how pitching works, sometimes it's when you fail, that door is most likely closed. There's not gonna be a second knock really. You got that one chance, you didn't do well.
Andrea Marquez:So it's a big loss. Getting that reduction is a big loss because chances of them wanting to work with you again or wanting to hear you out again are very slim. They have a lot of people knocking on their doors. So her experience of really figuring out how she was crafting this and who she was talking to and where she brought in herself, because that was a big piece that she learned from this testing, failing, and learning process. She learned that she was a very important piece to all of this that they wanted to hear from and the authenticity and vulnerability that she brought to the role.
Andrea Marquez:And when she was able to do this, she got the a big cash injection. I remember an investor who was like, I'm in it. I'm in it and didn't didn't even have to hear all the pitch because and the big difference, she was able to bring in who she was as a person to the conversation.
Dave Charest:We talk about this a lot just in marketing in general. Right? Is that like, particularly for small business owners where the uniqueness oftentimes is you, is your personality, what you can bring to it. Right? Things that the bigger businesses can't bring to it in many ways.
Dave Charest:So it's funny how we often try to shy away from those things sometimes to do something the and I'm using air quotes, great for podcasts, but, like, at the correct way, right, when it actually has the exact opposite impact, right, that you wanna have. Well, thank you for sharing those. I'm sorry for putting you on the spot with those, but I'm glad I'm glad we got there.
Andrea Marquez:On the spot. It's okay. Yes. So
Dave Charest:I I wanted to make some follow-up comments, though. I think, you know, even in our conversation, some of the things that we've seen is is even just even thinking through reframing kind of the way you're you're thinking about something. Right? And reframing it to that idea of progress over perfection. Thinking, okay.
Dave Charest:Like, I often think of, like, you know, I'll use this podcast as an example. I mean, like, I had a very clear vision for what I wanted this to be like, what the format should be, and then we started a place. Right? And then I've spent from episode one to doing this interview today, alright, I'm making adjustments along the way to make it better. I need it to be good, but how do we make it better?
Dave Charest:And similar, you don't wanna put out junk, but you have to put out something that is gonna get you a reaction. Right? A something and move you forward.
Andrea Marquez:And I
Dave Charest:think that's the big thing that we've heard from a lot of people is that it's like, you have to start to adopt that mentality or else you're gonna be stuck in that analysis paralysis. Right? You're gonna be spinning your wheels all the time and trying to do too much.
Andrea Marquez:Okay.
Dave Charest:And the another interesting way that we've talked with someone with I think we actually just released her episode a couple of weeks ago, but she does this rejection challenge. And so she reframed doing these things she was afraid to do for her business by framing it as, no. My challenge is to get 10 rejections or, you know, I'm making up the number, but to get x amount of rejections by the end of the year Wow. So that she would do those things. And, of course, everything backfired because people kept saying yester.
Dave Charest:Oh, no. It got you out of the fear. It got you out of that fear of the rejection, which is the thing that holds so many people back all of the time. So, anyway, thought those were, like, really cool, bright ways to just kind of gamify and, I don't know, trick yourself in many ways. Right?
Dave Charest:To take those take those steps that are good for you. Take your vitamins. Right? Like, do those things. Yeah.
Andrea Marquez:Doing that reminds me of when I that saying that it's like, when you least expect it, like, when you stop caring about it, that's when you win. That's when the opportunity comes. And I've tested that theory in my own life, and I promise it's true. Like, when I stop caring about that thing, shows up. When I stop wanting that thing, I get it.
Andrea Marquez:Maybe it's about like this refocus of your mind that there's other things that maybe you can prioritize in life, and you can't you don't have to, like, put all of your eggs or all of your mind energy into one basket.
Dave Charest:Yeah. You know, obviously, we've talked about and you'll hear people talk about this all the time. It's just about, oh, you've gotta use the analytics and the data to really help you make the decisions. And and I'm not saying that in a derogatory way. Of course, you do.
Dave Charest:But based on what you've heard from people and based on even things that you've done in your own world creatively, I mean, when is it okay to make that decision based on a gut feeling even if it might go against what you're seeing on in the data?
Andrea Marquez:It's a good question, and it comes up a lot. I'll give you one example. My manager actually told me this exact phrase and I see her as a mentor as well. But she said this and I remember being like, gasp, how could you say something like that? And as a creative, I I, like, sat down and I was like, wait.
Andrea Marquez:But she's right. Because let's say you do a b testing for creative a lot and you get the data. You know what works, maybe what doesn't. And if it's like a resounding, like, this works versus that, well, yeah, you got your answer. Right?
Andrea Marquez:But that's not often the case for creative because creative a lot of the times is subjective. So some I've been in situations where I've done testing and I'm at almost at a fifty fifty. What do I do with that? What do I do with that response? The answer could be you do it again, you tweak and you do it again and you do it again.
Andrea Marquez:But then we get into that whole analysis paralysis where how much are you making this product better exponentially by rehashing it out until you get like a definitive answer? Not much. So a specific example where I use this is we have a mini series coming up for the podcast that I can tell you about in a bit. And we were thinking about what the name of it. And if you do a podcast, you know that every single name under the sun has been taken.
Andrea Marquez:It is so hard to find a podcast name that has not been used. And we tested different names and it was a situation where they a lot of them tested very similarly. And so I said, what do I do in this situation? I personally think that one of these names is catchier. I can see myself as a host saying it many times, and it just sounds better.
Andrea Marquez:I can envision it on a billboard, if you will. Like, I just like this name better, but the other one's also tested similarly. So what do I do? And that's where my manager came in and said, go with your gut. Just go with your gut.
Andrea Marquez:Do you think this is gonna do better? Then just choose that name because no one knows it more than you. You're in this world. You have the vision of what the end product is going to look like. So go with what you think is the best possible name given the options you have for this.
Andrea Marquez:And so we chose the name based on obviously data because we do we did do the data. I'm gonna lie. It wasn't purely on gut, but it was still similar that the final final decision was taken based on my gut and a couple of other other very important guts.
Dave Charest:Well, can you share it with us? Like, are we Of course. What are we looking forward to here?
Andrea Marquez:So coming up, or maybe in this case, out once this episode is out.
Dave Charest:Probably already out.
Andrea Marquez:Already out. Is a mini series for This Is Small Business called This Is Small Business Behind the Buy. It is a companion podcast to a prime video show called Buy It Now that features contestants who with products that pitch their products. This is super exciting. In front of a 100 live customers, a 100 live customers in the audience vote on products if they would buy them or not based on the pitch of the founder.
Andrea Marquez:They vote read red or green light based on just the pitch. Then they unveil the price of the product and customers are able to vote again. You either get more red lights, less red lights, more green lights, less green lights. And then based on that, all of the customers vote if this product goes to the next round. And then the next round is judged by a panel of judges made up of a celebrity CEO like Gwyneth Paltrow, Tony Hawk are two examples, but there's more.
Andrea Marquez:An Amazon executive and Jamie Simonov, the creator of Ring. They then vote who wins, who's the ultimate winner of each episode, and if they get the grand prize of $20,000 and being featured in the Amazon store, the Amazon Buy It Now store. The podcast itself is going to be launching an episode every day after show episodes air, and we're gonna be going into the origin story of the winners behind the scenes of how they prepared, how they auditioned to be on the program, all of that behind the scenes information that we want, understanding how these people even got there in the first place. Jamie Simenoff is going to be with us every episode, giving us the lessons that we wanna learn from these pitches so that entrepreneurs can extract that when it comes to telling their story. It's all over the place because it's branding, it's pitching, it's business foundation.
Andrea Marquez:It's from how you even stand on stage and present this. And then we're also going to be talking about what the winners are going to be doing with their money, and a lot of them are doing very exciting things and what the future holds for these products as well.
Dave Charest:Very cool. Well, congratulations. I'm gonna look forward to checking that out.
Andrea Marquez:Yeah. Yeah. You definitely should.
Dave Charest:Definitely will. We're getting at the top of our time here. So my question to you to kinda close this out, you know, what would you say to inspire a a business owner, an entrepreneur listening today?
Andrea Marquez:Oh, I asked this to my own guests, and I feel like
Dave Charest:there's Isn't it funny when you've you've flipped you get the my the tables have turned. Right?
Andrea Marquez:Oh, wait a minute. I'm like, okay. And and I'll be honest. Sometimes I'm like, am I the person to be inspiring these people? I don't know.
Andrea Marquez:But what I will say is think about what the worst that can happen is, and it's usually not that bad. I always do this exercise to myself and I say, what's the worst that can happen? Always I do. I play all of the possible scenarios. And sometimes you'll find that the worst that could happen is you not trying at all.
Andrea Marquez:So if you're on the cusp of maybe trying out a new venture of that, I think this applies. But also even if you're a seasoned entrepreneur and you're halfway in and you're usually thinking what's next? How can I go bigger? What can I be doing better? And I think the answer usually lies in just go out and do it.
Andrea Marquez:And if there's any group of people who have that muscle built in, feel, and or that exercise it all the time, it's entrepreneurs. So often I just find myself thinking, try it and see what happens and take it from there.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, let's recap some items from that discussion. Number one, start with the unsexy work. Andrea emphasized the importance of building strong foundations, things like audience research, branding guidelines, and understanding your purpose. That groundwork, it may not feel glamorous, but it makes everything else that you do clearer and easier to execute. So take thirty minutes to map out who's your ideal customer?
Dave Charest:Who are they? What do they value? What problems do you solve for them? Number two, use the five whys to find your focus. Andre has shared how entrepreneur Justin used this method to avoid diluting his brand and better define his audience.
Dave Charest:Asking why five times helped him zero in on who his product is truly for. Pick a recent marketing idea, a campaign, and ask why five times to uncover its true purpose and whether it aligns with your goals. Number three, think progress over perfection. In both her own experience and in the stories she's heard, Andrea sees momentum as more valuable than flawless execution. Testing, failing, and learning quickly allows for faster growth and better decisions.
Dave Charest:So launch your next campaign with the mindset that it's an experiment. Measure the results, gather feedback, and improve from there. So here's your action item for today. Try running your next email or campaign with Constant Contact's AB Subject Line Testing feature. You'll quickly see what resonates, and it's a more practical way to start applying that test fail and learn fast mindset.
Dave Charest:You don't need perfection to move forward. You just need to start. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be a Marketer podcast. Please take a moment to leave us a review. Just go to ratethispodcast.com/bam.
Dave Charest:Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. That's ratethispodcast.com/bam. Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.