AL EP 3: Nora DiNuzzo – How to Scale Without Hiring

Show Notes

Nora DiNuzzo spent the first 15 years of her career working for independent advertising agencies, pitching hundreds of brands from startups to Fortune 500. She took everything she learned in the ad world and combined it with her passion for working directly with founders to start Pitcher – a brand strategy and growth consultancy for small businesses under $25mm that are ready to make a big impact. Pitcher’s process gets to the heart of what’s been holding you back – then repositions your company to win and grow.

Connect with Nora at:
Web – https://www.pitchergrowth.com/
LinkedIn Personal – https://www.linkedin.com/in/noradinuzzo/
LinkedIn Business – https://www.linkedin.com/company/pitchergrowth/

Episode Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:32:21

Hey, everybody, this is Jessie Michael Moore, agency and transformation coach and founder of Mission Control. Creator of leverage for growth and I’m Lucas James, founder of Twist Attire, which scaled from 0 to $200,000 a month with my own agency. We are the host of leverage for growth, podcast agency leverage and Episodes. We know that in order to scale your agency successfully, there are multiple shifts that need to happen within the founders mindsets, skill sets, and leadership styles.

00:00:32:23 – 00:01:01:29

We are on a mission to interview marketing and PR agency owners on their journey to six, seven and eight figures and leverage the lessons from their journey to save you time, energy and money. In order for you to get your agency to the next level. If you find value in these episodes, watch the case study video to learn more about leverage growth and how we successfully scale agencies quickly at Niche in Control Decomp case study at Niche in Control Accommodation.

00:01:02:02 – 00:01:20:01

You are now listening to leverage for growth. Hey everybody, this is Jesse Gilmore, founder of Niche in Control and creator of leverage for growth. And welcome to the agency Leverage Edition. Today I am here with Nora de Nuzzo, founder of pitcher brand strategy and growth consultancy for small businesses that are ready to make a big impact.

00:01:20:07 – 00:01:39:08

Thank you very much for being on the show today. Thanks for having me, Jesse. Absolutely. could you tell us a little bit about your history and background of your, agency or consultancy? Yes. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I tell people all the time when people say blah, blah, blah, your agency, I’m like, no, no, no, it’s a consultancy because I don’t actually have creatives on staff, which I will talk about in a minute.

00:01:39:08 – 00:01:57:21

But, yeah. So my background is that I worked for independent ad agencies for the first 15 years of my career. everything from what we would consider like a boutique size, like ten, 15 people up to what would be, I don’t know, maybe in New York, a mid-size agency, like 200 people, where I am in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that would be one of the largest agencies here.

00:01:57:21 – 00:02:18:08

So, yeah, I’m really always, though independent, never did the holding company thing. and my role was in growth or business development. So started the first couple years of my career as an accounting account manager, and quickly kind of got the new business bug and popped over to that side. only in advertising agencies do we call it new business, like no other industry calls it that.

00:02:18:08 – 00:02:39:10

So this business development for those not in advertising, listening and new business or new biz for those that are. So yeah, that was my background, helped brands or my agencies grow, from, you know, anywhere from 2 million to 5 million, 5 million to 12 million to 20 million to 40 million. Like that was the range I was basically playing within.

00:02:39:13 – 00:02:57:19

And, after the pandemic, I really decided that I wanted to focus on helping small businesses like the agencies I worked for, for small businesses. But we were pitching bigger and bigger things as we grew, as you know, and you have more overhead and you have more payroll. You have to go after bigger things, and a bigger account is just as hard to service as a small account is.

00:02:57:19 – 00:03:16:14

So naturally, that was what we were doing. but I think during the pandemic, I had a bit of a crisis of conscience, like, why am I pitching the fortune 500 when my favorite small businesses down the street are closing? So now I’m focused on helping small business grow, and I define small as under 25 million in annual revenue.

00:03:16:17 – 00:03:34:09

Which 25 million is actually, pretty large for a lot of small businesses that actually want to get to that, that level. but that’s cool. so, you know, there was kind of like a market and, and the pandemic kind of created a need. And then it kind of touched your heart for the calling of going after them.

00:03:34:14 – 00:03:52:20

Can you talk a little bit about, kind of maybe that everybody kind of has like that, that calling of entrepreneurship, if they’re truly to be like their own entrepreneur, and it’s usually something where it kind of like awakens them. Can you talk a little bit about maybe there was there a certain moment or like an like, oh my gosh, I need to start pitcher.

00:03:52:23 – 00:04:08:12

or maybe I’m not exactly sure who that is. I mean, it happened in phases, and I never really thought I would be an entrepreneur. Like, it wasn’t ever really like a desire of mine growing up. Like my parents were not entrepreneurs. I didn’t have any in my family, so I really didn’t have exposure to the entrepreneurial world.

00:04:08:12 – 00:04:29:23

All I thought about it was it was risky, right? Like everyone says, it’s risky. So that was never really my desire. My desire was like, you know, loved advertising, climbed the ladder, you know, like account executive to manager, manager to director, director to VP. I was working my way up and, you know, is happy on that track. And helping other people grow their business, help other people make money.

00:04:29:25 – 00:04:52:11

But then I think, like the awakening happened in a couple phases. One, we pitched dum Dums lollipops in 2017 into 2018 at my last agency, Smith Brothers, which then rebranded as Smith’s Agency and now was acquired by Barclay. So when we were pitching Dum Dums, that assignment was, you know, most of our sales actually come from people, business owners who buy them as a giveaway product.

00:04:52:11 – 00:05:14:13

So if you ever show up at a bank or a dry cleaner or a restaurant and there’s a little bowl of dum dums, mostly for the kids, but hey there for everyone to like, and so they kind of the, the, assignment to us in that pitch was how do we get more small businesses to use us as their preferred giveaway instead of Hershey Kisses or Jolly Ranchers or whatever other little, you know, candy or giveaway might be.

00:05:14:16 – 00:05:30:26

So of course, like I being, a researcher working on this pitch and we didn’t have, like, a chief strategy officer at the time, we were sort of missing that role. So I kind of jumped in and did the strategy work, which I love to do. but I dug into the Small Business Administration’s data. I was like, how many small businesses are there in the country?

00:05:30:26 – 00:05:57:25

Like, we figured by their data, maybe they were touching like 100, 200,000 small businesses, which is significant, you know? But how could they do more? And I didn’t even know how many there were. Meanwhile, I go diving into it. At the time it was like 29.5 million small businesses. Now it’s up to 32.5 million small businesses. So it was kind of this lightbulb moment like, here we are as agencies, pitching and trying to get business from what, like the fortune 500 and down?

00:05:57:25 – 00:06:19:04

Maybe that’s 10,000, 20,000 companies. That’s the point. Oh 1%, of or 0.1 percent of all businesses. And over here is the 99.9% of all businesses, the 32.5 million businesses in the United States. Like what’s going on here? Why aren’t agencies concerning themselves with small business? There’s a ton of businesses and there’s a ton of money. Like, what’s up with that?

00:06:19:05 – 00:06:36:19

You know, so that was like a light bulb for me back then. And I wasn’t ready to do anything entrepreneurial with that thought. But it was just like, man, that’s weird. And then we kept getting asked to pitch small businesses like, startups that were series B or C, they had some money, but maybe they didn’t have like all the money yet and we would keep turning them away.

00:06:36:19 – 00:06:54:22

It was like, you don’t have $250,000. You know, $500,000 can’t help you. And like, I get it again. I get it as like, running a business, running an agency. There’s a lot of salaries, there’s a lot of overhead. You go to the building with the lights, keep the lights on. All of that keep keep the beer fridge fill, keep the ping pong tables shiny.

00:06:54:22 – 00:07:14:04

You know what I like, but like. But really, though, I was just like, man, all these small businesses are so cool. Like, that’s where all the innovation happens is in small business, like big business, there’s no innovation happening. And if it is, it’s because they’re acquiring small businesses or they’re like, you know, picking things up from small because there’s so much inertia in big business.

00:07:14:04 – 00:07:29:07

It’s like, this is the machine. This is how the machine works. It’s how it’s always worked. And like, if we’re gonna innovate, it’s going to happen super duper slowly. But small business, it’s like innovate or die. So to me, that’s where the action is. And I was always like, head scratcher. Like there’s so many of them. They’re so innovative.

00:07:29:07 – 00:07:54:26

Like, why, why aren’t we interested in that as agencies? So yeah, that’s what I’m trying to like crack the code on now. Yeah, yeah. it’s it’s interesting how a lot of times we are focused on these big companies, and if I get one big whale, then I’m good, right? but then you start realizing that there’s more of a passion based around serving, the larger number of people that are maybe not at the billions of dollars.

00:07:54:28 – 00:08:15:00

and so that kind of lead towards the creation, creation of picture. and as you’re kind of creating the business and then where you are right now, there’s probably some lessons learned from kind of like your vision and then what you’re going after and then the obstacles. what were some of the things that were maybe a big challenge diving into entrepreneurship?

00:08:15:00 – 00:08:35:02

And maybe if you were to go back to the beginning and maybe do something a little bit different, what would be some of those lessons that you could share with others? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one lesson is that you don’t have to scale with people. And I think that’s like this misnomer that we have that like, okay, I start a company, people are interested in what I’m doing.

00:08:35:02 – 00:08:57:06

There’s demand. People want to buy my thing. Ergo, I need to hire a staff to like to do the thing. And what you realize in consulting is that people are hiring you like you, me, Nora, you, Jesse. You’re like, they want, they don’t want other people we hire like, they want our brains on their business. So then it’s like, okay, well, how can I possibly replicate my brain?

00:08:57:06 – 00:09:19:01

And it might not be by hiring somebody and trying to teach them everything I’ve learned in the last 15 or 20 years of my career. Like, it’s just that might not translate through osmosis or through SOPs or anything. You know, like if people want you, then like, how do you replicate? You? And it might be that you record yourself on video like this, like giving like your best TEDx talk, giving your best like piece of advice.

00:09:19:01 – 00:09:40:01

Maybe you need to do a content series. You need to scale through content as opposed to scaling through people. So that was my mistake. I tried to scale through people immediately and realized that’s not what my clientele wanted. And then I had to, like, reorganize and kind of pull back to being a solo. And that’s where I am right now, is sort of in this mode of like, what is it that my clients actually want from me?

00:09:40:01 – 00:09:55:10

And trying to deliver that instead of like some sort of like vision or notion of like what it means to like, own a business and scale because it’s like psychologically you fill out those forms all the time to get the white paper or like the PDF or something. And it’s like, yeah, oh yeah. How many people are in your organization?

00:09:55:10 – 00:10:12:24

And it’s like you feel embarrassed to say like one, you know, it’s like it’s like one 0 to 1, 2 to 5, 5 to 10, ten to however many and so on. And you look at that and go, oh, what can I do is just like one person, you know, you feel this like pull to hire people and scale with people.

00:10:12:24 – 00:10:27:16

But it’s really hard for me because then I also have to manage those people. I have to manage their workflow. If the work isn’t up to whatever my standard is, and I have to redo the work, and I was working like 80 or 100 hours a week, and that’s exactly what I left doing and I didn’t really want to do.

00:10:27:23 – 00:10:45:02

So yeah, I think like, you have to really think about, like what your business model is. And in consulting, it might not be to scale with a lot of people right away. It might be to think about scaling in other ways. So then that leads towards a topic of what growth or success means to you in your consultancy.

00:10:45:02 – 00:11:03:27

So what are you working on or working towards that would be a success for you in the next 1 to 3 years, maybe. Yeah. So I think now I think about success. Not so much as, you know how much money I’m going to make or what my title is like. Maybe that was the thing we were working on, like in the agency when you’re an employee, right?

00:11:03:27 – 00:11:37:04

But now as an entrepreneur, I’m thinking about my impact. So like how many if my goal is to help small businesses grow, how many small businesses can I actually like, impact or help a year? in five years? In ten years. And like, what’s that ripple effect? And does that mean I do need to have a network or a team or something to expand the impact or is it that I’m expanding that and that impact through like a content series, like I’ve been jokingly calling like this thing I’m working on, small business only fans, you know, it’s like, okay, what you can afford for the content you want, you know, is it that is

00:11:37:04 – 00:11:52:05

it something like that? Is it, something that I naturally do in my life anyway, and which is sort of like my brand archetype is the matchmaker. Like, I naturally imagine people, like, I hear somebody say, you know, what I really need is a video, and I go, I know this really cool video production company. Let me put you together in a room.

00:11:52:05 – 00:12:04:22

Let me see what can happen with that. And I do that constantly. Like in my life. I do it outside of work, I do it, I don’t do it for love matches. I tell people like, don’t ask me for a love match, but I’ve match people to like who wanted adopt a dog to somebody who was like fostering a dog.

00:12:04:22 – 00:12:24:19

Like I do stuff, just do stuff like that. I just who I am. So I’m like, okay, well, that does take work on my part. It takes effort. Like how do I monetize that? Almost becoming one aspect of my business is like a brokerage, essentially between small businesses that need service providers, because there is no like how there’s like big be big business has agencies and they partner up.

00:12:24:19 – 00:12:44:08

It’s like small business has blank Fiverr, people on Fiverr, people on Upwork. Like it’s very decentralized. Like, yeah. Could I create a more centralized like hub brokerage for these small businesses that say, you know what, I really needs a web developer. And then here are some really fantastic, very highly qualified, very vetted web developers that I could pair up with them.

00:12:44:10 – 00:13:05:20

And then, you know, I’m taking a percentage of that for whoever gets the job, like something like that, you know? So yeah, I’m trying to think creatively about where does this go, but it’s all with, in service of like having more impact on more small businesses. Awesome. And thanks for being on the show. what is the best way of, people getting in touch with you?

00:13:05:20 – 00:13:20:16

And do you have any offers for them that they can take advantage of? Sure. Well, the best way to get in touch with me is follow me on LinkedIn. I’m always happy to have chats in the in the direct message, you know, environment there. I think that’s how Jesse and I got got in touch with each other initially.

00:13:20:16 – 00:13:37:10

So, yeah, find me on LinkedIn. You can follow all my content there. My website is actually like it’s a joke amongst my web developer friends, because it’s really just a form fill. It’s like, need to grow, fill out this form like it’s very much not there’s no information on there about picture. But if you go and follow me on LinkedIn, you follow our company page on LinkedIn.

00:13:37:12 – 00:13:55:14

I think it’s like whatever LinkedIn backslash picture growth, you find it. It’s my employer on LinkedIn. So you can find us there, learn more about what we’re doing. And then, yeah, I mean, really right now, sort of the, the sort of entry point for working with me would probably be coaching. I’m still working on this small business OnlyFans concept.

00:13:55:14 – 00:14:15:28

It’s not up in live yet. So, you know, you can’t buy my content other than like through me and that kind of stuff. So yeah, just coaching would be a way that you could sort of get a taste of what we do for small businesses, but, the main thing that we start with is really a gross diagnostic, which is to understand why you aren’t growing anymore or why you’re not growing at the rate you want to grow.

00:14:15:28 – 00:14:31:21

And just getting in under the hood and kind of diagnosing that for you sometimes, you know, you can’t see the forest through the trees. So that’s kind of the entry point to working with us. Cool. Well, Nora, thanks a lot for being on the show. And we’ll we’ll be following you on LinkedIn. Thanks. Thanks for having me, Jesse.

00:14:31:25 – 00:14:35:21

Right, right.

00:14:35:23 – 00:14:59:06

Agency owners, if you want to transform your agency to sustain and grow without your direct involvement, where you can stop working in the business and switch to working on the business where you can regain control of your time, delegate effectively, get paid what you’re worth, and have your team run the day to day. Go to niche in.com/case study right now to learn more about leverage for growth.

00:14:59:09 – 00:15:33:03

You can book a free strategy session with us to look at your systems. Understand what needs to be done in order for you to scale and get a free strategic plan for the next year. To live the life of entrepreneurship that you’ve always dreamed about.

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