AL EP 36: Ashley Busbee – Having High Moral Standards to Succeed

Show Notes

Connect with Ashley Busbee and TC Squared Marketing & Advertising Services here:
Web – https://tcsquaredmarketing.com/

Episode Transcript

00:00:04:03 – 00:00:32:14

Everybody is adjusting to your agency. Transformation coach and founder of Mission Control Greater of Leverage for Growth. And I’m Lucas James, founder of Twist I am which scaled from 0 to $200000 a month with my own agency. We are the host of Leverage for Growth Podcast Agency Leverage 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 – 00:01:03:12

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 for growth and how we successfully scale agencies quickly at Niche in control Icon slash Key Study at Niche in Control Icon and slash kingdom, you are now listening to Leverage for Growth.

00:01:03:22 – 00:01:27:12

Hey everybody, This is Jesse Gilmore, founder of Niche and Control and creator of Leverage for Growth. Welcome to the Agency Leverage Edition. Today I am here with Ashley Busbee, the vice president of TC Squared Marketing and Advertising Services, committed to an omnichannel approach. We see the customer through each phase of the purchasing journey. Thanks for coming to our show today.

00:01:28:03 – 00:01:54:22

Thank you, Jesse. Absolutely. Can you tell us a little bit about the history and background of the agency? So, yeah, my my boss, Tina Clark, started the agency and 1999, April 1st, as a matter of fact. So we just had our 24th birthday and she started out small handful of clients and grew the business organically. A lot of longstanding relationships with our clients.

00:01:54:22 – 00:02:19:10

Some of us, some of them have actually been with us since the beginning, which is really cool. And she had a creative person and a building person when she started. And now we have six employees and quite a few more clients and still still growing. Awesome. And when were you when did you become a part of the agency?

00:02:20:02 – 00:02:50:16

So I came to DC Squared from the NBC affiliate down in Charleston, South Carolina. I was one of Tina’s TV reps and she hired me away and that was in 2017, as a matter of fact. Today is my six year anniversary. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. What’s anniversaries in April, Arthur? And then you talked about a lot of growth over the last six years since you’ve been a part of it.

00:02:51:03 – 00:03:11:28

Can you talk a little bit about what what the agency was like when you first started and then kind of where it is today? So when when we when I first started, Tina was still doing all the media buying herself, and that was she was very efficient in what she does. But we started to take on some larger accounts when I came on.

00:03:11:28 – 00:03:38:00

It’s kind of almost a dedicated salesperson, and it became too much for her to manage all of that media. Plus she had some account executive duties as well because she was the agency principal. And so we brought on a media buyer which allowed us to purchase media more efficiently with someone just dedicated to that. Obviously, we are one of those agencies that we believe in and buying the ratings books.

00:03:38:00 – 00:04:09:00

We have a buying software. It’s changed over the years as we’ve grown, the software has changed and and we’ve added things as we’ve needed them. And that was that was really big for our growth. We needed to be able to kind of evolve and hire in order to grow more. Mm hmm. And throughout the journey to where you are right now, you talked a little bit about like even doubling the size of 3 to 6 employees and so forth.

00:04:10:02 – 00:04:41:04

What are some of the things that you’ve learned throughout that whole process, like from either from hiring or from operations or from the sales, you know, oh, gosh, there’s so much. One is is the biggest thing, I think, to remember is an agency principal. And and Tina brought me on because she is nearing the point of retirement and I will be taking over The company is understanding that staff dreams and the employees dreams are not necessarily your dreams.

00:04:41:12 – 00:05:02:27

So that and that’s a really hard pill to swallow because you get attached to your team, especially when it’s a small team. And sometimes they do move on and it things a little bit, but hopefully they do it the right way and everybody stays cool with one another and they you can leave that door open for that talent to come back.

00:05:03:29 – 00:05:26:19

I think the other thing that I’ve learned has been that you don’t want to grow too fast. You have to know and this was a really tough one for me because I was a seller. And when you come in into an agency from a from a media sales position, you don’t really realize like you’re trained as a media seller to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, hit that number.

00:05:26:27 – 00:05:49:23

And when you get into this world, it’s it’s a lot more careful growth. You have to be careful with your growth. You growth. You have to make sure the clients are going to pay their bills because you don’t want to get into trouble with that because that’s how you get paid. And then the other thing that I’ve I’ve really had to learn is when to say no, who are clients.

00:05:51:02 – 00:06:14:07

And it goes back a little bit to that growth. But knowing knowing when a partnership with a client just is no longer a good one and that your values don’t fit what they’re doing or what they’re asking you to do, and knowing your values and being strong in your values is really important in our industry. I think a lot of people can take that a lot of different ways.

00:06:15:22 – 00:06:50:13

For me, it’s it’s an ethical thing, you know, being very ethical. So learning to convey that those ethics into my day to day and interaction with clients is a big time growth for me. Mhm. Absolutely. There are a lot of things you just touched on. Yeah. Sorry. No, no, that’s perfect. You know, you talked about good communication with your clients and making sure that there is an alignment of values and also an alignment from an organized national and an employee standpoint being able to have that alignment.

00:06:51:10 – 00:07:16:14

Would you say that that is something that you would you would tell maybe somebody that is just starting off in an agency, you know, based around alignment, make sure that if you’re going in a direction, you’re kind of aligned both from an internal employee standpoint and also clients. Yeah, I would I would say, you know, having a high moral standard in this industry is the number one factor for success.

00:07:16:22 – 00:07:38:17

And when I say a moral standard, I don’t necessarily mean, oh, this is the the nonprofit that I’m passionate about. I mean, when you take someone’s money and they give it to you to spend, you have to spend it as if it’s your own in a sense that you’re responsible with those dollars, that you are ethical with those dollars.

00:07:38:17 – 00:08:05:11

You’re not going to do anything that would jeopardize your client’s brand or presents. But I also know that sometimes they’ll ask you to do things like beat up the stations for, you know, a discount or try to go after a competitor on Google, which, you know, you absolutely can do. But make sure you educate that client in the ramifications of what they’re asking you to do.

00:08:05:23 – 00:08:26:24

Ethics and having those strong ethics is important. Mm hmm. Awesome. Now, you had talked about taking over the agency, and obviously that’s something that’s coming up in the future. But what are you excited about over the next 1 to 3 years? What are you working on? What do you say we’re getting We’re looking at office spaces right now, and I’m so excited about it.

00:08:27:08 – 00:08:48:25

I think we have been in a small office for the last, well, terms 15 years and we’re we’re looking at doubling the size of the office and getting kind of a really cool space. And I have in my mind that it’s going to have all this awesome exposed brick and natural light, and that’s turning out to be so much harder to find than I thought it would be.

00:08:48:25 – 00:09:18:12

But that’s the goal. And and being able to have a place where we can film some stuff that’s that’s important to me. But also being able to bring in clients, hopefully bigger clients, because I want to start pitching bigger accounts and being able to bring bring those votes and as well as our current client base to see the space and have meetings there and entertain them there.

00:09:19:06 – 00:09:45:24

Mm hmm. Cool. Sounds exciting. It is. Well, cool. Well, what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you, or do you have any offers for them that they could take advantage of? Yeah. We offer a free consultation at t c squared will come in, analyze your your media, analyze what you’re doing, and give it a really good, long, hard look and tell you, is there a place where we feel like you can do better?

00:09:46:17 – 00:10:12:29

I always tell people that there are no guarantees, so we don’t make any promises. Outside of that. Consultation is free and that we will have an opinion about what you’re doing. So that’s that’s our that’s what we offer to folks as a free consultation. Google. Awesome. And for anybody that’s listening, you can connect with C squared. I have the URLs in the show notes and actually it’s been awesome talking with you today.

00:10:13:13 – 00:10:36:17

Awesome talking with you today. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having us on. 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.

00:10:36:25 – 00:10:54:12

Go to niche in control. That com slash case study right now. To learn more about leverage for growth, 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.

00:10:54:28 – 00:11:15:20

Go to niche in control dot com slash case city that is niche in control dot com slash case of now.

Transcripts are auto-generated and may contain errors.