Eliza Fillo
Welcome to Online Offscript, where we discuss trending topics and all things new on the Internet. I’m Eliza Fillo, digital ads senior coordinator.
Flynn Zaiger
I’m Flynn Zaiger, CEO of online optimism.
Eliza Fillo
This week we’re talking about managing client relationships and expectations. Our guest today is Beth Trejo, founder and CEO of Chatterkick, a digital marketing focused on helping mid-market businesses expand the impact of social media throughout their organizations. offers full-service campaign management in addition to training and strategy workshops. Their approach is cookie-cutter or hands-off. Beth has been featured in USA Today, Yahoo, and Business Insider for being on comparably’s list of the top 50 CEOs for women for two years in a row and received the Women Helping Women Award from aware for her work on promoting women in the tech and entrepreneur space. you for joining us, Beth. How are you?
Beth Trejo
I’m doing great. How about you?
Eliza Fillo
I’m doing wonderful. We’re super excited to have you on the podcast today. I think to get started, if you want to just tell us about yourself, who you are. And let our listeners know a little bit about you.
Beth: So my name is Beth Trejo.I founded Chatterkick, a social first agency, twelve years ago now, which it seems like a lifetime in the world of social media. And,we have a remote team that is across the US.we were started in the Midwest, and so we definitely have a footprint, in that area, and we have a 20 person team. We definitely use other tools in our toolbox these days,that kind of.Fit more in line with digital marketing.Such as website development and,Google Ads and programmatic ads. But we really focus on that human connection and making sure that the responses and the comments and the content all are really connected to the business. And, yeah, it’s been a crazy ride.In the last twelve years.
Eliza Fillo
so you told us a little bit about Chatterkick. I have kind of three follow-up questions. One, how did you come up with the name Chatterkick? I love it, but it’s very unique. inspired you to want to start it? and what was kind of the mission behind starting it?And has that changed?
Beth:Yeah, so,the name came from a white bard session that I had with,my partner, who founded it with me at the time. And we wanted something phonetically easy to pronounce that had a URL available that was key. And,initially we were going to be chatterkick, because that’s what a lot of people actually call us, but we,could not get that URL. And so,kicking up chatter about business was kind of that initial thought. And so that’s how the name came to be. I got the desire to start an agent.I never thought I would be an entrepreneur, honestly. I was working, I had done some marketing and social media at the American Red Cross, and so had,a really good pulse on how these tools were being used from a national level. Came back to the Midwest and started working for a chamber of commerce, and I was going out visiting with businesses and just honestly asking, how can I help? The chamber was kind of an, obscure thing in times, and so they would just start pouring their hearts out to me and I identified a few patterns that I personally could help with, which was, how do I get the word out about my business, or how do I get the word out so I can attract employees and hiring?
And so I was like, well, there’s these free social media tools out there and maybe you could do this differently. And so it kind of became a big part and role of what I.Was doing at the chamber with various.Different types of businesses. And I decided, what the heck, I’llmy job.It was a good job. Quit my job and take a risk. I was,the week after I.Quit my job, I found out I was pregnant with my second child. So it was kind of a crazy story. I had a very complicated pregnancy. I was in and out of the. Doctor’S office daily and trying to start.A business, with a baby at home. And so the first two years were just absolutely crazy. But the good part about it that. I actually didn’t foresee was that we were going to land clients relatively quickly.and so we got customers and we serviced those customers well and we got more customers and it just kind. Of evolved from there.
Flynn Zaiger
you found just extra challenges to add on to the start of an entrepreneurial journey.
Beth Trejo
Yeah. I remember so vividly that after my daughter was born and she was okay, she was early, so she was in the NICU, I was in the hospital. And I was, it was really just. Me at the time. I had an intern, and a couple contractors, but it really was me managing,I think we had over 180 Facebook pages at that point, so it was a lot. wow. I was emailing from the hospital bed, which you should not do because your hormones were. I was in pain and just thinking like, what did I do? but we made it through. And,the funny thing is that account that was one of our, um, first accounts is still with us today, twelve years later, which is really in the agency world,not something that is common. And so we really appreciate the fact that they’ve grown with us and, we’ve been able to keep performance moving for twelve years. So it’s pretty exciting.
Flynn Zaiger
Do you set up out of office. Away messages now, though,
Beth Trejo
Much better at that. of just trying to give myself a little space.
Flynn Zaiger
We’ve had clients try to fight through, but I think if the email message was, I am in labor, I feel like most people would not send a second email.
Eliza Fillo
Yeah, I think we also collectively, when Flynn got married, we were like, nobody bother him because he will be checking and we need to not, not make.That happen for them.
Flynn Zaiger
Yes, Beth, obviously a party is equivalent. To, we can all agree, equally stressful. And I am a hero for going through and surviving catering, catered food, and gift receiving. Truly a challenge. One thing you did mention, as you.Said, you had clients for twelve years, which is pretty, wild. Beating our record for sure. So I think whenever I talk to you about Chatterkick, like, there’s always a.Real strong client relationship in the background of your success. So how do you define that successful client relationship?
Beth Trejo
Yeah, I think a lot of people think of customer service or client relations. As,a kind of one way street.You do whatever you need to do to make the customer happy. And I think the thing that we’ve always approached customer service and just our client relationships with is you have to have a little bit of that.I know something that I want you. To understand whether or not you make that decision or not, but there has to be that two way,relationship, really, and understanding of that. And our best clients are those that really do understand how both sides work together. And the clients that have not. Worked, typically, it’s when we are order takers, right? That just doesn’t make anybody happy. And ultimately, even if people and clients say that’s what they want, that’s not really what they want, right. They want to be challenged, they want to learn, they want to understand what else is possible. And I always tell our clients, like. I’m going to tell you what I’m saying no to today, so that, you know how I’m thinking through your account, your plan, you know, what am I. Putting to the side that isn’t right.For you right now? But I want you to understand why.
Flynn Zaiger
Yeah, I think that’s really great advice, especially for people earlier in their careers. When you get to a, meeting with a client, you sometimes just want to tell them the results and the next steps. And it’s really important, I think, as you’re saying, to show the steps, because. Or else they don’t know about the. Work and they could easily discount the.The result if they don’t see everything else you tried.
Beth Trejo
Yeah.And you all know this because social media and all these things have all these little micro pieces to them, right? And if you’ve never done it, or if all you’ve done is posted an instagram post on your personal account, you don’t understand the nuances of all of these platforms and tools and types of content and sizing and all of the things,you really do need to know to be successful. And we don’t necessarily want to burn. Burden our clients with that. Knowledge, but they also need to understand. That it’s not just one click and you’re done.Sort of a scenario.
Flynn Zaiger
If only.
Beth Trejo
If only.
Eliza Fillo
Yeah.I feel like translating that this wealth of knowledge that we have as marketers into a distilled version of that, then someone could just pick up and actually know what we’re talking about is so hard. And you mentioned this as someone who is, a younger professional. Learning to say no to clients was a really hard thing, because I’d be like, well, I want to say yes to you, but sometimes saying no is, the more responsible thing to do, and it’s because you’re trying to help them.so how do you go about. From the get go? Just kind of like establishing that, expectation with the client.
Beth Trejo
Yeah. So one, colleague told me this, this quote that I still think about. Like, all the time, which is unexpressed. Expectations are planned resentments. And I was like, dang, that’s good. Because if you don’t set that up. In the beginning, you really are on this makeup plan.Right.You’re constantly trying to, like, cover lost ground, and the clients don’t know what is okay, and what is not there. There’s a lot of misinformation and understanding that can happen. And so I think a really solid kickoff is really important.And, I think that really you.Have to have the right personality or person in that spot that can kind of take the client through the peaks and valleys with them. Because it’s not just about when you win together, but when you lose together. How do you respond and how do you help them back up and how do you help them recover? I think that’s what ultimately really builds trust.
Eliza Fillo
tactics, I guess, you use, because you make a good point that it’s so fun and it feels really good. And that’s, like, one of the best parts about this job is that when you get those, you hit those metrics. You’re like, look, we did this. This is so great. but then when you don’t still maintaining that trust and being able to convey, you know, I know we didn’t get it this time, but, like. If you just stick with me, this.Is our plan to get us back on track.tips do you have for maintaining. That sort of relationship?
Beth Trejo
Yeah, I think just meeting clients where.They’Re at, because so many customers have different acumens of, like, how digitally savvy they are. And so I think that if you have somebody that is really struggling just to understand impact or business alignment, or they’re just stuck. And, like, how do I communicate this to the CEO or the boss?I think it’s like providing repeatable sound bites or statistics that you can say.Well, this isn’t just our campaign performing.It looks like people just are not responding to what you’re putting out in the world. So, you know, let’s, let’s take a look at this.I also think that just asking really poignant questions sometimes can help get. Things back on track. We actually did customer service, and we do these on a regular basis. And one of the feedback points to us was, you all are so positive. I need you to give me the real, real truth. And so we had to talk through. That as a team. Like, tell me what’s working just as. Much as what isn’t working, because that information is sometimes even more critical if. You’re trying to figure out market positioning.
Flynn Zaiger
And is there anything that you kind.Of really stress with those account executives, with sending and delivering bad news? Because I assume you’re not, you know.You’re the owner of the business. It’s not your job every day. So what do you, how do you talk to someone who has to have those difficult conversations?
Beth Trejo
Yeah, I think,like I said.Pairing things with statistics, if that is really what’s happening.Right.The market is softening, and this is also softening, or the Facebook reach is not working as well as we would like it to. We’re going to watch it for a month, and then we’re going to make changes. I think you have to give them.The ideas,of, like, how you. Can connect with, well, this is a.Small indicator of success, or this is. Something really big, and we have to fix something else in this whole process.I also think that you know. It’s that good, bad good. Like, here’s what’s working. Here’s what’s not working. And then also, this is what we’re. Going to do this going forward. Like, clients want to feel you. Have, this hug around them and you’re taking them through this journey, and there’s going to be dips and valleys and, it’s normal part of marketing, but we’re going to learn from it, and we’re going to readjust, and we’re going to make sure that your money is working as efficiently as possible.
Flynn Zaiger
Yeah. That confidence in the plan is so key. I think we’re still in, like, it’s okay to say, I’m not sure why this happened, as long as you, as. You said, good, bad, good. Have a good plan moving forward. It’s like, we’re still in month 13. Or 14 of looking at Twitter clients and being like, well, here’s what we’re trying to do.But who knows what’s going to work in 30 days, right?
Beth Trejo
I also think, like, again, setting expectations, drives me crazy, honestly. Like, just the expectations that are put on marketing at times of, just we’re not wizards, magicians.if your product can’t just be put out there and sold, it may be really hard for anybody,if you’re not well positioned in the marketplace.And so we’ve had to learn that. Through the years, and there are clients that we will not bring on at times, because it’s justI don’t know if I can sell this. there’s too many products in the market. There’s no differentiators. it’s gonna be a really hard sales process, and we either try to set those expectations or just say,I don’t know if anyone’s gonna be able to help you at this point.
Flynn Zaiger
That would be so disappointing. if you were a wizard and you. You just. You were using your all great magical abilities to just get a little more reach on TikTok. Glad you’re not a wizard. That would be scary.
Eliza Fillo
yeah, I guess that kind of. Speaks to not only expectations but maybe misconceptions that clients have even before they meet you and they become a client.and what are some common ones. That you’ve felt clients have about marketing? You just mentioned that sometimes they just think that, every product can be marketed successfully. And sadly, maybe that’s not the case. That feels scary to say, but,
Beth
I.Mean, I feel like you all will understand this very deeply, but just the ability to turn on the faucet of leads in any industry, whether that’s sales or b. Two, B. It’s not that easy unless you are. You have a specific type of product or you already have a benchmark or a starting point. But if you are coming to an agency and you have a challenge that you don’t really even know how to diagnose, I’m just not getting leads is something that requires a lot more understanding. Why is it your website? Is it your copy? Is it your creative? there are so many things that it could be that just a one time fix is probably not going to be easy. and so it is a process. There’s a lot of learning that needs to happen. There’s a lot of testing and trials and adjusting and, you know, I just. I don’t think that there’s a baseline for that. and so I think that’s. That’s one thing that we’ve had to really reeducate clients on, is I can. Look at leading indicators, but I can’t see your financials. So I don’t know. I won’t know unless you tell me how this is going to impact your total business. I’ve also given you an example. We were working with this company and they had us look through their entire marketing budget, and they’re really frustrated that they just weren’t able to track their,sales, right. And they’re just frustrated. They’re well, how is everybody else doing this? And the reality is they just hadn’t invested in tracking tools and systems in. Their internal processes, and so they were. Spending all this money in a brand awareness play and they wanted a direct response and leads was just this wires crossed. Scenario that you can’t fix overnight.Right.You probably, it’s a big ship to move at this point, and so we’re gonna do incremental kind of tests and steps to try to get them at. Least into indicators that give them a. Little bit more insights to. Okay, this matters to me.
Flynn Zaiger
Yeah. I’ve always felt it’s one of the key things that you should think about before reaching out to an agency like Chatterkick is because they will ask you those questions. If you’re going to come in and say, I want Roi, they’re going to be great. What are your profit margins What’s your inventory? If it’s e-commerce? And it is not surprising to you. I’m sure maybe listeners, that a lot of times they don’t have those questions answered themselves. And that could be a real challenge. When you’re given a goal, we as a marketing agency will try to. Solve that goal, but you need a baseline unless it’s a startup. And even if it’s a startup, you need a business model or a spreadsheet that tells you what you’re aiming for. So that’s something that you’re going to. Want to have it, or else Beth’s going to just make you schedule another meeting, probably.
you mentioned client satisfaction, we’re talking a lot about expectations. I’m curious if you have any action steps on how you actually measure it. Is it churn rate? Are you doing NP’s surveys? How do you measure how well and?How happy your clients are?
Beth Trejo
Yeah. So we have a lot of KPIs. In the past, we only did a handful, and now I feel like we’ve gotten a lot more with just really trying to understand the pulse of where our customers are at. So we do measure NP’s, net promoter score, both response rate and total, we measure client risks, which we have kind of listed out of. These are the things that could happen in a business that would lead to a risk, and we try to mitigate those, internal and external to the organization. we also have, and this is something we did Last year, I think it was and well worth the investment. We had a third party go and interview our customers, and they said very different things than maybe what they would tell us directly. And it actually was some of the most valuable insights that we were able to get, from our customers, because. Customers don’t want to tell the people. That they really care about, which. Are their account managers, like, feedback pieces. Especially if they are negative or if it’s just not. It’s good, but not good enough. and then the other thing that we’ve done is, connection chats, which are kind of that same thing with. A different team will go and. Interview customers, every quarter and just really understand the value that we’re providing, the problems that they’re having that we’re not able to solve and try to get a pulse on how is the. Account going and how is the relationship. That they’re interacting with going, yeah, that
Flynn Zaiger
.Third party is so good because I.Think a lot of times the agencies will think, you know, we know everything. We know ourselves better than anyone else could, and it’s. It’s very much not the case. I say, as someone who hasn’t done it, but probably should, but I just seems like a really, really great. Idea that a lot of people should. Be trying to do. Yeah.
Beth Trejo
The other thing that we did this.Year that I thought was really helpful. From an organizational perspective, I think you.Could do this in any agency or. Even any company is. I took the transcripts and the recordings of some of those connection chats and just reporting feedbacks, and I listened to it not in the meeting, but externally, and I found the patterns that were happening within our organization and the consistent quotes or excitement pieces, you know, kind of reading between the lines and just had kind of a listing of, here is why customers love us, and here is why customers are leaving, and now we can actually start to tactically solve these issues. Right. Is this a quick fix that we just need to bake into our process, or is this something that would take an entire shift within our agency actually solve for? And I think that has given me a better tactical next steps than maybe some of the things we did in. The past, which was, well, that just.Wasn’T a good client, then
Flynn Zaiger
I’ll ask. The question that we’ve been asking. Anytime anyone says the word transcript is, are you actually listening and watching, reading those transcripts, or are you using AI to Summarize them for you?
Beth Trejo
So we’re using, what is it? Fireflies, I think, is the one that we’re using. That gives me both the audio because I think that is really interesting to listen and read separately.because, you know, one thing that.I was reading, a transcript looked very. Sharp and very harsh. And then I listened and I was. Like, oh, in context, this person wasn’t. Angry, it was just the way that she was speaking. So that’s why I like that tool specifically. You can do a little bit of both.
Flynn Zaiger
Cool.
Eliza Fillo
I feel like keeping this work that you’re describing just essentially sounds like keeping your finger on the pulse of not only, like, how you internally are, treating these clients and how you feel about them, but how they feel about you and that is so important. And if not right now, long term, that has to contribute to client retention. Right. Like, you’re just honing that ability to, hear your clients and get to. Know them and keep them. So beyond that, do you have any tips for client retention? and the best practices, I guess, to get in the habit of. To retain clients.
Beth Trejo
Yeah. So we have lost some clients because. We were good, but we weren’t great. And I think, like, understanding what those differences are for good to great is really important. and then starting to solve for those challenges. For example, reporting is always a puzzle, right? Do you need a big, in-depth report? Do you want a small bite-size report? How many people does it need to pass through? How professional does it need to be designed? Can you use dashboards? If you can tell? This has been a thing that I’ve constantly tried to solve for the last twelve years. but I think constantly trying to. Improve and trying to get a balance of how much you need and what type of client you need, what for while still maintaining consistency has been something. That we have really tried to just. Keep pushing through and evolving and adjusting until we can get it in a good spot for most customers and then confirm that that works for them.is this report what you need? Do you need more? Do you need less? Can you transfer it over to the right team members? and so I think that constant. Evolving process is really important for retention.and also just understanding those indicators, we have a map that kind of goes through if clients are canceling meetings.Flag.They have people leaving their organization. Flag.is their stock dropping? if we have a publicly traded. Company, is their stock dropping, or is their industry having major financial issues? we have a list of those. Risk factors, and some of them we can control and some of them we can’t. But at least if we’re not surprised, I think that is actually what we’re going for, that we can control the controllable and not be surprised on something that we’re man, that was going so well. Why did they choose to leave? Or why didn’t they continue to stay with us?
Flynn Zaiger
Yeah, I think one of the things. That we, the stock price is interesting. Do you go even further and just have to look at interest rates as a red flag at some point?but I think that’s one thing that we see and we love, at least always optimizing and trying to figure. Out a process should never be done. Just because it’s how it’s done. If we can improve the process, if you can improve the system, then you should do it.We always stress that, but the struggle is training people to live in a.World where everything is constantly changing, where the report that they were using last year is no longer acceptable to you. It needs to be in a different format, needs to be improved. It needs to be more customized to the client. So what strategies have you found in.Training your themes to work in a world where everything is constantly being improved?
Beth Trejo
Yeah, I think that would be the challenge that a lot of my team would say, just let it be, Beth. Just let it be. And I am, the disruptor in our organization. I’m the one that says, you know, oh, we need to move faster. We need to, be sharper. We need to be better. And then I have our coo, who happens to be my husband, but he is more level set, and, can just handle waves in a less dramatic fashion than me. And so having him there to balance some of this stuff and help the team go to him and be like, well, what’s my real priority here? Do I need to change this? Or is this the best idea she heard on a podcast somewhere? And he knows me well enough, too, to be like, don’t worry about that. She was just excited. Or, hey, we really do need to think about this, and change is the only constant we can expect, right? Unfortunately, you either change or you’re dated. So I would rather push the team and change.
Flynn Zaiger
I think that’s why you’ve been so successful.
Beth Trejo
How about you all? how do you feel like that? Is it something that you channel throughout your organization?Because it is hard. It’s hard to be an employee and a team member at that point.
Flynn Zaiger
Yeah, we stress it a lot to.Our lower level, to our tour staff that aren’t supervisors. And I guess Eliza will be able to tell us if we do that well or not.I think what’s been really hard to do from my perspective is just understanding.The consequences of every change. I think a good example of, we are setting up a new process for when websites launched. So I was great, we.Want to have one simple report. And so in order to set up a simple report for that, I need to update all current website projects. I need to set up a process for future website projects. I need to teach that process to everyone. You need to make a guide on notion. You need to put it into Asana. So that’s the hardest part is this should have been, oh, this is a great idea I had. It takes five minutes, but now it’s actually a three hour task in order to implement it. So there was my morning and I didn’t have a good solution other than you try to make blocks for yourself. So that you have time to foresee those changes. and to understand that there’s going to be something that takes up a couple hours and just drilling into your team, excitement about a new process is what I found.It’s really important to, you have to be excited and I know I’m not. The right person to say that, but essentially you have to fake and you have to be look at how.Much better this is going to make your life in the future. and just hope that you could. Overcome their grumbling about another new process. They need to learn.
Beth Trejo
Yeah. I’ve also found, being candid with my employees to say, here’s what I. Want you to ask back to me. When you feel like this is unrealistic or I’m being a crazy person, because you said, sometimes I don’t know the consequences of, this one little change that I asked to update.Maybe this is going to be a twelve-hour project and I thought it was going to be a twelve minute project. So I want you to ask me. What priority is this? Am I normal workflow? I want you to ask me when. You need this by. And I want to tell you, these are the four things that I’m going. To need to do to make this change. Is this still what you’re looking for? And if, if they’re completely allowed to push back on me in that set because there are some times when.I’m you’re right, let’s just skip this, you know, it’s not worth it.
Eliza Fillo
y’all both just hit so perfectly on, from my perspective, the two things that I was going to say. One, from Flynn’s perspective, I feel Culturally, at our company, at least, is, I feel,ingrained culturally. At a director level. And I mean that. And every meeting, that I have with my director, which is, you know, at least twice a week, for a long period of time. But I’m talking to him constantly. He’s asking me questions let’s take a look at this campaign. what could be better? What’s not working? I had this idea. What do you think about it? and as an employee, sometimes I am in the situation where I’m whoa, I have a lot of stuff to do today. And, some of it is time sensitive. Look at my task list and tell me what needs to get done, because this is going to take me, you said, maybe a whole morning.and if you say that’s a priority, then it is. But then you need to help me realign my tasks. And I feel like that, synergy between the two is what makes it work.
Beth Trejo
Yeah.I do think that trust in relationships.Is really the key to that, too. Right. That gives you the openness to.Be able to discuss those type of. Vulnerabilities where some people, if they didn’t. Have that, you just be working your. Butt off in the background and maybe. No one would know, right, that you. Took the long route and they were. Thinking of the short route. We also do the old standby of. Trying to pay people to optimize things. I will say just, if staff listen, that, this is something we haven’t done recently, we need to do it. But we literally have a program. Call the money program, which stands for. everything on laptops either rhymes or is an acronym maximizing optimizations, and nurturing exceptional yields, which was to try to encourage departments to, actually look at a process and fix it. so, yeah, that’s everything at. Our company, we’re either going to try to solve it by giving you a. Gift or paying you.So, that was ours. If Eliza’s idea to just be really upfront and positive about it doesn’t work, well, we’ll try cash. Fall back.
Eliza Fillo
you mentioned a little bit about how you interact with,your team members, and I’m wondering how, being recognized as the top CEO for women has affected your, like, how you lead a team and, not only a team but also, I guess, your approach to client management as well, like, if that had an effect on it.
Beth Trejo
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting because we are actually getting sought out because we are female-founded and female-owned.and we really didn’t put a lot of emphasis in that being our identity. We happen to have a lot of women who work for us, a lot of working parents. And I think it kind of evolved in the sense of, you know, like. I said I was working when I had my baby. I did have a maternity leave. Luckily, she was, the most angel. Baby there ever was. She was so easy in the beginning. And I could just put her in. My, next to my computer. But even when we couldn’t afford to. Do maternity leave as an agency, we were smaller. I still wanted to treat my employees like I wanted to be treated and. Kind of gift that to them. and so I think that alone. Of the flexibility has really allowed parents and women to feel like they didn’t have to choose all the time between. What was important at work and what was important at home, because we don’t. Take the approach that we are family. your family is your family. We are your workplace. We are your colleagues. We can be friends, but your family is important, in a different way than work is. And so those types of decisions are. What we really take a step back at and say, is this the right. Way to do things? And should we try to do things differently? And I think that probably comes across. The most in that young family parenting part of life, is when you have lots of competing priorities, lots of competing time, attention. and I’m. I mean, even now, so, you know, I’m in the generation, my parents are still in good health, but I see it coming where you do have to. Your whole world shifts, right? And now I have tweens that have. Different demands than babies, but also, their sporting events are at 02:00 in the afternoon. the world makes it hard for. A lot of people, men included. So we also put a lot of. Work into just a dei initiative. And we’re not taking our foot off the gas on that, because it is something that’s really important to me. And I think there’s a lot of. Underrepresented communities and people in the digital advertising space, and so we want to. Try to make our little impact on that.
Flynn Zaiger
Do you feel that all those initiatives have helped you in recruitment, especially because. You’Re as, you know, when you’re. Hiring remote, you’re not competing locally anymore, competing against jobs across the country? Have those helped you stand out?
Beth Trejo
Yeah, I think so. And I just,To me, I want people to be attracted to us that are a good fit. And I think that’s what it allows it to do, is you have people that may not be the same as you, but that would be a compliment to the team. And we don’t have to go out. And headhunt as much as we used to. People come to us pretty regularly. So that’s been amazing.
Flynn Zaiger
That’s great. And the benefit of having tweens is you get market research on what’s cool or not. Whereas.
Beth Trejo
Yeah, so, funny story. My daughter was playing, she’s eleven and she’s very grown up. just, she thinks she knows everything, right? So she’s playing a game on her iPad, and we’re doing some ads on LinkedIn. Well, they have an expanded network now. And so one of the ads with my face came on her, And she’s like, mom, you’re on my game and I have to wait 6 seconds for you to get home. She shouted it and she’s sending it to me and she’s like, I’m just letting you know, this is what it is.
Flynn Zaiger
You’re don’t click, don’t click.
Beth Trejo
It’s kind of funny, though, that, I mean, a LinkedIn ad, I wouldn’t expect.To be on the,game.
Flynn Zaiger
The dangers of the expansion. The ad expansion network.
Cool. So I am curious because I think. This connects back with parents. And I will say, I feel a lot of. I will go with the vast stereotype of women, female lead. companies tend to have more emotional intelligence. I’ll say that as a fact, online optimism. I do not have enough emotional intelligence. That’s great. How do you feel that that’s helped your company’s success and client relationships? they’re always talking about data and ROI and KPIs. But, was there an emotional intelligence Aspect that you think has led to your client retention success.
Beth Trejo
Yeah, totally. And I don’t know how to pinpoint that in data or even in, How you would start to measure that. But I do feel that it. Matters, and especially in industries that are very male-dominated, I think that a different perspective and insight is really helpful, and it gives companies that maybe couldn’t. Recruit a female, CMO to a heavy industrial work environment in an office, an. Opportunity to have a different viewpoint on that. Still understanding their audience, still understanding that that person may not be their direct target, but how can they add additional insights and social-emotional connections to their campaigns? Copy and creative.I think that’s been really helpful.
Flynn Zaiger
Yeah, we’ve seen it around, anything that has to do with medical or healthcare, as you mentioned, aging parents, those decisions are going to be made by women. And it’s many, many of those organizations, you have male leadership. And one of the first things, we’ll tell us, FAP, especially if they haven’t worked in those industries before. In every one of these ads, the dad is not making. The medical decisions that we should protest against that and try to make change in society, but, these ads are targeting women. And it’s, really helpful to have that sort of obvious experience to know. What the messaging and creative should look like.Like to appeal to them.
Beth Trejo
Yeah. And I think justyou know, shifting another person in the mix is really helpful. Right. And really having a pulse on why people do. Women are really good at reading. Reading the room. Right. Reading the things inside and outside the lines. And, I mean, I definitely think that. We have some really great male teammates, too. And, I think that they have the opportunity to not just conform to gender stereotypes either, because, they’re surrounded with a lot of ladies.
Eliza Fillo
A world nowadays that’s becoming just increasingly automated. And I sometimes feel we have less of, that touch on people. Then we used to.
Do you find that, that emotional intelligence part of it will become less important or perhaps more important because it’s so, I don’t even know what you would call it? Automated, I guess.
Flynn Zaiger
Robotic?
Eliza Fillo
Robotic, yeah, something that.
Beth Trejo
I do think that that EQ is. Going to be the currency with all. Of this AI stuff, because you can. Get AI to produce some amazing things. And I love AI, use it every single day. But it’s the sift through the brain. And the mind and the human interaction at the very end that makes or breaks it. Right? We’ve all seen really bad AI copy. And creative and all the things, but. Some human on the other end thought that was just perfectly fine, and they let it go out into the world. And so is there a point where that filter is really the thing that matters? And, I mean, that’s what I’m banking on for my own kids, teaching them on text message etiquette and, how to solve problems through short form copy. I didn’t have to learn that we would be on a phone call, but. My 13 year old is trying to. Navigate the world in small fragments of group chats. And how can I help him develop Those EQ tool sets so that he. Can be successful in his career? And I think that the workforce is. Probably going to be the same way.
Flynn Zaiger
Yeah. Or companies will just start getting run through group chats. Well, get rid of slack. No more discord. It’s just going to be all telegram groups. Running the world.
Beth Trejo
I hope not.
Flynn Zaiger
That’s when I know I’ll be too old. I’ll be these kids. I’m an emoji. I am a huge emoji, everything. And I, think I them because it allows me to say something. And not say something at the same time.
Eliza Fillo
I feel so strongly about that, especially on slack. You need to put either a smiley face or a frowny face or something next to what you’re saying, or I am just going to be sitting here anxious about what you meant by that for the next hour.
Beth Trejo
I know.
Flynn Zaiger
I, think that’s basically what you were saying earlier with the transcripts. You can’t tell from a transcript what the mood is, what the tone is. How well it’s going, and maybe they’ll. just have those happy, sad sentiment analysis, markers to transcript soon and they’ll solve the problem, but until then, you. Got to listen sometimes.
Beth Trejo
Yeah, well, I noticed that even on, like, social comments, you know, there, we use AI to detect sentiment, but there’s a lot of it that gets missed. We have our people go through it. And be like, you know, killing it is actually positive, not negative. and so making sure that we’re. Filtering that stuff because, you know, two. Out of ten messages being marked as negative makes a huge difference than one. So, I do think that there’s. Definitely still a place for humans, and I think we’re going to be moving a lot in the moderator and editor.Worlds instead of maybe the actual copywriters.
Flynn Zaiger
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
Do you have any more questions, Eliza?
Eliza Fillo
Yeah, we learned everything. We’re out of time. Yeah, I know. Everything that I need to know. That was very informative. And we’re very happy to have had you on the podcast. Before we sign off, we like to give our guests the opportunity to, Just leave, us with anything that. They want to plug about themselves. A shameless plug. We welcome that, as well as where people can find you online and. On social media, et cetera.
Beth Trejo
Yeah. So, I mean, I’m happy to connect with people,on LinkedIn or on social media. My, LinkedIn handles for the company chatterkick, just like it sounds. And our handles are pretty much consistent. And my LinkedIn is just my name.Beth trejo.I don’t think there’s a lot of other Beth Trejo’s out there, so hopefully you’ll be able to find me. And that’s tr e j o.
Eliza Fillo
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. This was a wonderful conversation, to have. I feel like I learned a lot.
Beth Trejo
Well, good.
It was great visiting with both of you. Thanks for having me.
Flynn Zaiger
Thanks, Beth.
Beth Trejo
Awesome. Thank you so much.
Eliza Fillo
Thanks for joining us today. Be sure to subscribe and rate the podcast. And if there’s anything you’d like to hear us discuss, reach out, uh, on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. And as always, stay optimistic.
