Myth Busting Marketing Stigmas by Building Her Agency ft. Brianna Doe | Revenue Reimagined Ep. 031

In this episode, Brianna Doe, Co-founder and CMO of Verbatum, shares her journey from feeling stagnant in corporate tech roles to launching her own agency. Driven by a desire to redefine the agency model, Brianna unpacks the common stigmas surrounding marketing agencies—like focusing on vanity metrics and lacking execution—and explains how Verbatum focuses on sustainable, impactful growth. She challenges the conventional advice to strictly niche down into B2B SaaS, arguing instead for a mission-driven approach that crosses industry lines to find diverse, passionate clients. Brianna also highlights the massive advantage of applying 'horizontal knowledge'—taking lessons learned from one industry and applying them to entirely different spaces to spark creativity. Additionally, she dives into the vital alignment between sales and marketing, framing marketing as the essential 'air cover' that allows the sales team's 'ground cover' to successfully win business. The conversation wraps up with tactical advice on building an authentic personal brand and the importance of integrating genuine DEI practices into both internal operations and external marketing campaigns.

Discussed in this episode

• How consulting a career coach prompted Brianna to map out a corporate exit rather than a corporate climb.
• The inherent stigmas against marketing agencies and how focusing on deep execution combats them.
• Why ignoring the classic advice to 'niche down' into B2B SaaS opened doors to mission-driven clients.
• The power of horizontal marketing: translating strategies from sustainable tech into fintech and e-commerce.
• Learning to stand firm on pricing and value when a prospect's CEO questions the ROI of marketing.
• Viewing marketing as necessary 'air cover' to support the direct 'hand-to-hand combat' of the sales team.
• The crucial difference between building an authentic personal brand and simply spamming content on LinkedIn.
• How baking DEI into standard agency operations and influencer campaigns creates more impactful marketing.

Episode highlights

1. 0:00 — Brianna's early career and origin story
2. 3:15 — Mapping out the corporate exit
3. 6:00 — Why start an agency despite the stigma
4. 9:45 — Ignoring the pressure to niche into B2B SaaS
5. 14:10 — Applying horizontal learnings across industries
6. 18:20 — Handling prospects who undervalue marketing
7. 23:45 — Air cover vs. ground cover: marketing and sales
8. 27:10 — Building an authentic personal brand on LinkedIn
9. 30:30 — Prioritizing DEI internally and in client campaigns
10. 34:00 — Rapid fire: daily habits and productivity hacks

Key takeaways

• Stand firm on pricing when prospects fail to value marketing.
• Apply strategies horizontally across entirely different industries for fresh creativity.
• Focus on a client's core mission rather than exclusively niching by industry.
• Marketing is the air cover required for sales to execute ground strategies.
• Authentic personal branding goes beyond just high-volume content creation.

Transcript

showing them that they there's a more sustainable way without making them feel bad about what they're doing. And so learning how to adjust your messaging and positioning with really delicate topics like that actually helps when you're trying to work in other industries. Welcome back to another episode of The Revenue Reimagined podcast. We are stoked today again, not because Dale is here, but because we have Brianna Doe here.

She is the co-founder and CMO of Verbatum, Verbatum. I'm going too fast. Who's doing some awesome things in the whole marketing space, the influencer space. There's so much that I'm excited to get into on this episode.

Brianna, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited. And I'm going to say Bri because if I know if I say Brianna, I'll I'll I'll mess it up.

So, Bri, thank you so much for joining. Um, so this is this is the first time that we've actually had co-founders, uh, come on the show. So this will be an interesting as you were saying earlier, you did not listen to the earlier, uh, episode that Lexis, um, dropped. And actually it dropped today, which is very interesting.

Um, so one of the things we'd like to talk to founders about is the origin story. So tell us a little bit about the origin story, why'd you start it? Uh, just give us some background. Yeah, so one thing to note, Alexis and I talk all day every day.

So the chances of us saying the exact same things are probably more like higher than normal. Um, so origin story for me, it starts back when I first got into marketing. Um, I studied film in college, didn't get a classic, you know, marketing degree. And so when I graduated, I was really determined to learn as much as I could, figure out what I wanted to specialize in, if anything, um, and start mapping out my career.

So I worked in multiple industries across multiple facets of marketing, graphic design, paid ads, content marketing, copywriting, you name it, really just trying to figure out what resonated with me and where I had the most impact. And while I was doing all of this, I always had a full-time job, but I also always had a side hustle. Um, I was marketing consulting, I was doing advisory work, fractional work, and I loved it. I couldn't get enough.

And as much as I loved being in-house, it was really, really drawn to just working across multiple industries at once. I was never really drawn to a specific industry, and I fought that for a while. Like, I thought I just needed to niche down. Um, and then over the years, I just realized I I didn't want to, quite frankly.

I liked I liked the way I work. I like working with multiple clients. And so fast forward 10, 12 years and I mean, we've all seen how the tech industry has been over the last few years. I was working in Fintech specifically and before that, just B2B SaaS in general.

And I was just starting to realize that I was really unhappy. I hired a career coach to figure out what my blind spots were and how I could be how I could grow within my career and stop feeling stagnant. And in the very first call or session with her, by the end of the call, she asked me a bunch of questions and she goes, okay, well, it sounds like you don't want to work with you don't want to stay at you don't want to work, you want to be independently wealthy. You don't want yeah, you want to be wealthy, which we all do.

So it sounds like you want to work for yourself. So we can handle this one of two ways. We can move forward with what you hired me for, mapping out your career, learning how to manage up, all of that, or we can start mapping out your corporate exit. And I thought about it for maybe 35 seconds, and I said, I want to go out on my own.

I want to launch an agency. Let's map it out. So, that brought us to like August of 2023. I started thinking about whether I wanted to do it on my own or with a business partner.

And I met Alexis eight or so months earlier, immediately hit it off, was really drawn to everything about her, like her personality, her work ethic, her skill set. Um, we became really good friends to use the only person I wanted to build this with. So, I asked her, she accepted, and we just started building Verbatum. I love it.

That's pretty cool. It's uh, I love that you guys were friends first. Um, and that, you know, when you say there's no one else you wanted to build this with. Dale had to settle for me, unfortunately.

Um, So Sorry to hear that, Dale. So, you wanted to build, look at Bri. Like, why an agency versus anything else? Because as two co-founders who have a and it's such a dirty word, but an agency type model, um, like it's hard.

It's it's one of the hardest companies to build. What made you go agency versus just like, oh, I'll be a fractional CMO or like do fractional content? It's a good question. One, it's because it's a dirty word or there's a stigma around agencies.

I've worked in agencies. I've worked with agencies, hired them and worked with them and very rarely did I have good experiences whether I was working in them or with them. And the thing with that is, I really do believe that agencies can do good work. They can be really impactful.

They can come in as like your in-house team or fractional, whatever the case may be and really help a brand accelerate and grow in an effective way, in a sustainable way. Some HCs just don't do that well. And I think those few, you know, bad apples have really ruined a lot of people's perceptions of agencies. And I like the challenge of redefining that, redefining what an agency model looks like and how impactful they can be.

And I also, when it comes to how hard it is to build an agency, I love a challenge. I was feeling really stuck and really stagnant in my career. I've been in startups for my entire career, and I started to feel, I don't know if this resonates with either of you, but I was starting to feel like I was doing the same thing over and over. It's a different company.

And it's a, you know, different playbook, but I'm just going through the motions and I'm most comfortable when I'm uncomfortable. And so I wanted that challenge of, you know, building it from scratch. And it's kind of like the struggle is so much the same and everyone thinks it's so different. They're like, no, I have a different problem.

It's like, no, you have the same like, you have a top of funnel problem, but then underneath that it could be a little bit like, there are like formats and frameworks that you're working in. Uh, I think, you know, Adam and I, when we were starting, we wanted to affect and I think just the same with you, affect multiple founders. So not just like one at a time. Like it it got to a place where it was like, okay, you go in and then like you're doing it one at a time where what I heard you say is you could kind of get a lot of people and try to help a lot of people at the same time.

Um, Exactly. Yeah. So it's one of the things that was interesting you said is that like, as like the agency world has some challenges. So as you're starting Verbatum, um, in the early stages, what do you see like some commonly held industry beliefs that you guys want to disrupt when you guys are actually building Verbatum?

You have an hour. Um, I would say that they just BS their way through their work. Um, people, we've hopped on some calls and even if they're excited about the idea of working with us, I'll hear little statements like, well, we'll see what you can do or, you know, it's an agency, so, I don't know if I can believe you. Things like that.

There's just this underlying belief or misconception, um, about an agency actually doing what they say they'll do and actually following through instead of focusing on vanity metrics, whatever that's defined, you know, for the company or industry. And Open rates. Open rates, like impressions, all the fun things. Um, and then on an, you know, for an internal side, when I think about when I was working in agencies, it felt chaotic.

The ones I worked for, there wasn't really a strong onboarding process. There weren't really systems in place. And so, even though we're not hiring yet, I'm being really, really intentional about how we build internally, how we build the structure, how we're going to build this process so that when we hire somebody, it's really easy for them to take over. Um, just making it a more impactful or sustainable process for both sides, clients and for employees.

It's uh, it's interesting, right? Because everything you've said, we hear also. So like it's it's resonating. It's like are we on the same calls with like, well, we'll see what you can really do and like you're you're you're just fractional, right?

Like you're you're just going to send me a playbook and like show me, like tell me what to execute on. Um, so I love that y'all are trying to kind of redefine that and, you know, I've perused your website extensively. You have great case studies and I think that if folks like you, folks like us, folks like the good agencies out there can continue to deliver, maybe we can start to change the stigma of, oh, you're you're you're just an outsourced resource. Um, because I've seen outsourced resources that could be better that are better than in-house and I think that's a big part of the value prop, right?

Is like we could deliver faster, we could deliver smoother. Um, and we don't have to deal with the politics. Exactly, you don't have to deal with so much onboarding either or like you said, the politics, the company culture, things like that. I think when it comes to, like hopping on a discovery calls an agency, it feels like you're 10 steps behind or 10 steps further than mountain than somebody that's maybe hopping on a call with a fractional person.

People are a lot more jaded with agencies. And to an extent, rightfully so. I mean, you know, people creating strategies and then they have no execution. So you get a playbook after three months, but there's no real value around it and, um, it becomes difficult.

Happens all the time. It does. Bri, let me ask you. So, when you build a company, like you, you've worked for startups, you worked in tech, you worked in Fintech, like when you're building, there's a lot of like these common beliefs, right?

These best practices of, oh, you have to build your company this way and like, make sure that you do this and don't ever do that and what are some of the ideas that like maybe either friends or advisors or other founders have told you that or things that you were like, fuck this, we're not doing this. We're doing this our way. Oh, man. You know, it's funny, we, so we heard from friends, which was welcomed.

We heard from advisors. And then we heard from people whose opinions we didn't ask for, which I found very interesting. Like, I appreciate it. Also, I don't know you.

So Right. I mean, thanks, I guess. Um, so we heard niche down often. Like, you got to niche down.

You got to have one industry that you're going after, like one ICP. And so we and specifically we heard often like B2B SaaS and tech. Only focus on that. That's where the money is.

Um, we also heard, we heard not just niching down with the industry or the ICP, but with our services. Um, so when we launched, we were going back and forth between focusing on one kind of service. So growth marketing, content, personal branding or influencer marketing. But the thing with Alexis and myself is that we have the goal to grow the company.

And so bringing on freelancers that we trust, eventually hiring, that will allow us to scale. So we're not just, you know, taking on a ton of work and then not being able to actually deliver. And when it comes to niching down by industry, we did it at first. Like when we launched, we did target just B2B SaaS.

I think we had like two discovery calls. And then we hopped on our like our weekly sync and I don't know who said it first, but one of us just said, I'm not really enjoying this. I said, or one of us said, I'm not either. And we realized like the industry doesn't matter so much.

What matters is their mission. We're really, really mission-driven. And being from diverse backgrounds, it's helped us have more empathy for, you know, like underrepresented entrepreneurs and businesses and business owners. And so that's what we want to focus on.

We want to focus on their mission and their impact, not so much industry. I I I love that and I know Dale has something to say, but one of the things that I think you said that really resonates with me. Everyone, oh, B2B SaaS, B2B SaaS has the money. B2B SaaS.

Everyone who's listening, B2B SaaS and B2B Tech is not all it's cracked up to be. And no, no hate. We have B2B SaaS companies as clients. No hate to them.

But some of my favorite clients that we work with have nothing to do with technology in any way, shape, or form. Yes, I would love to plaster that on a billboard if you want to split the cost with me. B2B SaaS is great. Like, there's so much innovation happening.

There's a lot of creativity. But I think it's also easy to get stuck in a bubble. Um, sometimes I log off LinkedIn after a day and I'm like, oh wow, there are other industries out there. There are other people with really, really successful businesses who want marketing support or entrepreneurs in an entirely different industry that, you know, are looking for guidance and that's it's it's refreshing.

I have a friend And it's great. Sorry, Dale. I have a friend who's a plumber who makes no joke, $4 million a year. It's not sexy, but yeah, true story.

He he owns a plumbing company, has like three people, makes $4 million a year. Um, and his answer is like, it's not sexy, but you know what? I'm going to retire before all you B2B SaaS people. Yeah.

And that's pretty sexy. I'll take earlier retirement over tech. Yeah, it's it's a long game. Um, you know, I have a similar feeling that you had where you don't want to get stuck in one industry or you don't want to be in like one place.

And I've always like, when I was growing up in the tech space, everyone's like vertical, vertical, you got to get financial tech, you got to get health care. And I always like to go horizontal. And the reason why I like to go horizontal was, I always felt like I could take something from one industry and bring it into another industry. Like, I always felt like retail like next best action or propensity to buy models.

I could then take those learnings from the retail and bring them into health care, or bring them into Fintech, or bring them in somewhere else where they may have been a year or two behind. And retail was just because their margins were so condensed. So you could take those learnings from one place to another. Um, so talk to me a little bit about how when you got when you're taking stuff from other industries or other places, how that actually helps from a marketing perspective for your clients.

People buy from people. That's why companies who invest in meaningful connections win. The best part, gifting doesn't have to be expensive to drive results, just thoughtful. Sendoso's intelligent gifting platform is designed to boost personalized engagement throughout the entire sales process.

Trust me, I led sales for a Sendoso competitor and I could tell you, no one does gifting better than Sendoso. If you're looking for a proven way to win and retain more customers, visit Sendoso.com. Yeah, that's it's funny you mention that because when I was working like a standard 9 to 5 and I'll be interviewing for jobs, I very rarely went from I very rarely stayed in the same industry from role to role.

I might go back to an industry I've been to, but so on the calls or in the interviews, I would get asked like, why should we hire you for somebody with, you know, specific industry experience? And I talked about that, you know, being able to take those learnings and apply them to a whole other industry actually brings a whole different layer of creativity. A good example would be sustainability surprisingly enough. Like sustainable tech is an industry I'm really, really passionate about.

Well, sustainability in general, but sustainable tech. Um, and that translates surprisingly well to industries that you wouldn't expect, like Fintech, um, coaching and consulting, e-commerce, because with sustainability, the rules and regulations are always changing. Like they're still trying to figure it out. You have multiple audiences that you're trying to target, whether it's B2B, like brands trying to get them to buy in to the whole idea of spending more on the sustainable product and what that means for their company, or towards consumers.

How do you bridge that gap between showing them that they there's a more sustainable way without making them feel bad about what they're doing. And so learning how to adjust your messaging and positioning with really delicate topics like that actually helps when you're trying to work in other industries. And I've seen that quite a bit with that industry in particular. I love it.

There there's so many good ones out there. So, Yeah. Building a startup is not rainbows and unicorns, right? I mean, maybe maybe it is for you all, but it's not.

It's I mean, I don't know. At Verbatum it is. I I I I feel like I'll I'll jump the speaker like punched in the fucking face. Um, so it's not rainbows and unicorns.

Um, and if it is for you, that's awesome, but I'm going to assume for a minute, it's not. Like as you're building, there's setbacks, right? There's things that just don't go as planned. I'd love it if you could talk a little bit, like maybe one example of like something that like you thought was going to go really well that turned into like a total shit show.

And like, what did that teach you guys and how have you adapted over it? Yeah, we man, there are for all the rainbows and unicorns, there are quite a bit of examples I could share for this. So, one recent issue example, we had a potential client or prospect that we were really, really excited about. The industry, um, the amount of trust they put in marketing, how excited they were to work with us, everything just felt like felt like a rom-com.

Everything was falling in place. It's a perfect situation, it's going to be the perfect client. And we'd only been speaking with like the head of marketing. We hadn't yet met the CEO.

And we met like their marketing advisor or consultant. So, everything was going great. They told us exactly what they were looking for, so we put that in the proposal. They were on board.

And then it was time to loop in the CEO. Mind you, I was on vacation, um, in like a jungle adjacent area, so I barely had internet. We're hopping on this last minute call, and it went downhill incredibly quickly. Um, he, you know, he didn't really understand what we were offering.

Apparently there was a lot of disconnects between what the marketing team wanted and what the CEO wanted. Um, he didn't really see the value in working with an agency, over like a freelancer or, you know, a fractional CMO. And it turned into a conversation not just about our services, but about the value of marketing in general. And that's where it really goes downhill.

Once you have to start defending your entire field, it's a really, really like intense uphill battle. And so, we learned quite a bit from that. Um, that was our first, I would say our first major setback because we were so excited about it and felt like such a good fit. And we learned, one, not to undervalue our services.

Kind of took a hit, like self-esteem-wise or confidence-wise. Um, and learning that one potential client or even one existing client who doesn't really value our work doesn't mean that it's not valuable, doesn't mean that we're not doing a good job. I love that. You have to scream.

Like like especially working for yourself, like you got to be able to like bounce back. Keep going, sorry, that was that was. Yeah, well, no, exactly. You have to scream.

Dale said that because I need to hear that today. You needed to hear that. He might have sent me a message before this telling me to say this. Just kidding.

But no, that was actually a really big lesson for us. Um, Alexis and I both work really hard, but we also have a tendency to undervalue the work that we do. And as we're building this agency, that's not going to be the only company that doesn't see the value in marketing. Um, and it's not going to be the only company who says your prices are too high or you should lower your, you know, rates or whatever the case may be.

And so, learning to have a stronger backbone and really stand firm in what we provide, it's um, something we're still learning. That that was the conversation I had with you before to say to Dale. Yeah. There you go.

The price is the price, my friends. Yes. Yeah. I I I struggle with that a lot, uh, to be honest with you.

Like, a lot of times because I do want to help so many people. I was going to say it's because you want to help people, not because you don't think they value it. Yeah, it's not the value parts of it. It's like, I I've I've always been in that place of like trying to help as many people as I can.

And then it could put us in a bad situation. So we do have checks and balances in that space that I haven't had in the past. I've I've let myself cross those boundaries, but we've it it's tough because you're right. Just because someone doesn't appreciate, understand.

I always like some of the times where and this is a bit odd, but I like the times where I just like, okay, we're finished the engagement, whatever. And then like six months later like there's conversations back to me is like, I'm still using the things that you put in place because it was better than what we had before. Like, sometimes it's hard when you're in in the middle of the process. Um, Exactly.

Yeah. That's a great point. And I'm you and I are very similar in that way. So I'm really grateful to have a business partner because Alexis keeps me in check when it comes to just wanting to help people.

I think marketing is obviously you guys are going to agree, like I think marketing is incredibly important. Everybody can benefit from it. And so, how can I help this person even if they only have $2, I'm like a lollipop. Like, I'll make it work, but it's just not.

We unicorns and rainbows. We we we have this conversation, I feel with every, almost every client, right? Because a lot of our clients are earlier stage startups. Um, and there's one, like I I had a one-on-one with the founder this morning and like the majority of my conversation, Bri, was like, these goals are great.

Where's the marketing support? Like, you can't just say, here's four sales reps, go make cold calls and we're going to grow by X percent. Like brand awareness. Like there there's so many things that you need to do from a marketing support.

And like, listen, I like to think that we're really good at what we do, but like, we also try to be really focused and partner with, be it folks like Verbatum that are really good at what they do. But if you don't see the value in marketing to your point, yeah, that's going to be a very unpleasant conversation. If you don't see the value in sales, like that's we probably shouldn't be speaking if you don't see the value in what we do. Like, I'd rather spend my time with a qualified prospect.

Right. At that point, you're not ready to work with an agency or really, I'd say, any marketer. Like, you need to learn a bit more about how marketing can work. And it reminds me of, um, just drive impressions to my website.

That's all marketing does. articles that I see. Yeah, just drive traffic. It's fine.

It doesn't have to be qualified. Um, but it's like those posts I see, I, you know, I'm the CEO of a company and I generated this much in revenue without any marketing. That's fundamentally not true. I can tell you that.

Oh, you're talking about where I used to work. Yes, you are, aren't you? There you go. You can, we can say it.

That's okay. It's it's exhausting. It is. And yeah.

It's exhausting. And I won't name names, so I don't get us in any trouble, but PS, that much revenue was not generated, um, because we didn't have marketing. Yeah. It it's there's a reason it's called a team.

There's a reason you don't just have sales or just have marketing or just have product. If you really want to grow, I don't care what your industry is, you have to have more. I love that you brought that up. You're my new best friend.

Yeah. I I did. We we just did a forecasting exercise this morning with with going through a sales funnel and it was like, how many demos do you think a sales person could do on a daily basis? Okay, I think they could probably do four because they're fairly lightweight, yada, yada, yada.

So then they model all around the four demos. I'm like, but if you do four demos a day for like 222 days, which is that's how many days are in a year that you're working, like you're going to burn the person out. So like, and then he's like, so how many, how many calls and interactions do we need to do to to get that number? And I'm like, okay, but we still need marketing.

Like, like, yes, the sales part can help a little bit, but like you need a full fourth multiplier, which is the marketing group. Like, marketing has always been air cover and sales has always been like ground to ground. Like like hand-to-hand combat. And it's like, if you don't have them flying in sync or if you don't have them executing in sync, you're never going to execute on the numbers you really want because Exactly.

Yes, we can generate awareness for an organization, but it's going to take you 18 more months and not be as effective or efficient. So, I don't know, I get super passionate about it. We talked to we have clients all the time that are like, no marketing. And I'm like, okay, but we can only give you so much.

Like it's only going to be you're going to get incremental. Um, until we put a marketing plan together. So. I love the way you describe that too.

Air cover versus ground cover. They're working hand in hand, it's going to be so much more impactful and faster. Then if you, You can't we can't do it. Like I I don't know.

Like like if someone says I get to go build pipeline and I only have a sales team, like I'll build a great strategy. We'll do cadences. We'll put stuff out there. But I can only have the AEs and BDRs and CS team do so much, uh, brand awareness because no one knows who you are.

Like that's the biggest thing that we find with startup companies. They're like, how do we get more brand awareness? They're like, have marketing, you know, understand where people are, like, understand where your buyers are and then start to give them the value. That's why we always go back to origin story.

Like, what's your origin story? If you can tug on the emotional strings that are happening through the buy process and you deliver the value that you're say you're you're going to deliver, then people will trust in that message and start buying. Exactly. Exactly.

We we need we need to do some more work together. Cool. Yeah. So, right.

Yeah. So, um, as as Adam always says, uh, we believe in in giving more than receiving. And um, you've been super grateful, gracious and grateful for our audience. Tell them what you were going to give to the audience.

I am giving away a 45-minute personal branding session. So I am for context, I am hopelessly obsessed with LinkedIn. I started posting on there about two year or almost two years ago, and I'm really passionate about helping entrepreneurs and business owners understand how to leverage LinkedIn, how to build a platform, um, and create content in a way that's really authentic for lack of a Yep. Less buzzword.

Buzzword. Um, yeah, 45 minutes. We can chat about any struggles that you're having with LinkedIn. You can map out what the next couple of months will look like.

It'll be your time. I love that. There's it it's so important, you know, the the term personal branding, Bri, I feel like has just become really popular give or take in the past, call it 12, maybe 18 months. Those that have done it right have been concerned with it for a long time.

But what I don't think people realize and why I think what you're offering is so exciting is personal branding isn't showing up and just slogging out, you know, two, three, four, five posts a day, um, about various different shit. Like, if you're not doing it right, you're not going to drive the results that you want to drive and that you can drive from LinkedIn. Exactly. And I I think people also forget or don't realize that your personal brand is more than just who you portray as you portray yourself online.

Um, and so having the piece of, you know, content creation and being really strategic with how you show up online and then making sure that it's authentic, so that people see the connect when they meet you in person or engage with you in some way, it's really, really important and it can be as somebody who's really introverted and didn't really like doing anything in public. Um, it can be a tough, you know, bridge to walk or line to walk while you're trying to figure it out. So, Yeah. Let's um, let's talk DEI for a second.

So, you mentioned that both you and Alexis, um, you know, are not your typical white women. You are mission driven. Um, and I feel like DEI is also one of these terms that's become so overused like, oh, we're going to put a DEI statement on our website and like have no diversity whatsoever. Um, I remember very clearly, I was interviewing with a company that I I actually called them out on that.

Um, and they're like, well, we have it on our website. I, in my last last big leadership role, I led a team of 45 people and I'm very, very, very proud to say that the majority of them were not clones of me because I think it's important that you have folks who speak to the the world, not the same people sitting around a table. Talk to me as as you build Verbatum, what that looks like to you and what the focus is going to be on that. And then conversely, how does that play into your clients?

Yeah, this is one of my favorite topics. So I think about it or we think about it in two ways. Um, internally and externally. So when we think about how we're building Verbatum because the plan is to hire and grow the team, um, how are we baking DEI and respect and empathy for people's, you know, unique backgrounds into our processes now?

Um, yes, it's just the two of us, but what does that mean from a day-to-day? Like, if one of us needs to take time off for something personal, can we do that? Um, how do we respect the pronouns of each other and people that we meet, like potential clients that we meet. So, taking the time to understand what it means before we grow the team and what we want that to look like has been really crucial.

And then also when it comes to how we work with clients. So, if we have a brand that wants to do an influencer marketing campaign, for example, um, we bake DEI and diversity into that too. You're not just going to get the same type of person for your campaign. You're going to be provided with options of people that are creating really dynamic content, that come from diverse backgrounds, because inclusive marketing apparently is going to be more impactful than, um, non-inclusive marketing for lack of a better term.

So helping our clients understand that it's really important to us by just practicing it, putting it into practice in the deliverables that we provide to them. And we're seeing it specifically with the clients that we work with. So because we put such an emphasis on celebrating what makes us unique and what makes us diverse, it's really resonating with like prospects and clients especially because they feel seen. And I think that's one thing that I know I have struggled with in the past if I was going to hire an agency and I didn't feel seen, like my unique self or my unique company, how can I trust you to then market it in a way that's actually going to reflect who I am and my goals.

So, I love that. It's been fun. I'm glad we're prioritizing it now. Yeah.

And you can spread the word from the from your perspective, push, you know, as you're putting it into the the deliverables you're running. So let's wrap up with some rapid fire questions. I'm going to jump in front of Adam here from me. He usually does not do this.

Um, okay. Uh, under under 10 words if you can. Um, if you weren't and I I know the answer because I've seen your LinkedIn profile. If you were in tech, what profession would you be in?

Ooh, I'd either be a screenwriter or a like a movie critic. Oh, I I thought you were going to say photographer. I get that often. I used to be a full-time photographer, but it drained me emotionally.

And I love movies. I I go back to school and get my masters and PhD and then teach on the side. That's very cool. What uh any any particular genre?

I love horror and psychological thriller. Um, huge fan of dramas and then if it has romance and comedy, I've seen it and I probably love it. That's awesome. Bri, are you an early bird or a night owl?

I'm an early bird. I wake up at 4:00 a.m. and I'm tired by 7:00 p.

m. Yep. You are like my wife. That's exactly that's that's her schedule.

Yep. First app you check when you wake up in the morning at 4:00 a.m. Uh, Kindle.

I read for an hour. Oh, very cool. We haven't got that answer before. I love that.

Actually. Absolutely love that. What um, what's your go-to productivity hack or app or whatever? Ooh, I I'm trying to pick between two.

Give them both. If it's only one, it would be time blocking. Both of them. Okay.

So time blocking. You look at my calendar, every single section is blocked out. And then do not disturb like the focus time on your phone. I set it up so that certain family members come through, but it's actually stays in another room.

Oh, you're both of those are so near and dear to my heart. I I got yelled at by someone the other day for using do not disturb because I was working. Um, and my calendar is super OCD. Do you color code it?

I do. Oh, see, I knew we were destined to be best friends. We are best friends. You get it.

Yeah. Yeah, I live by do not disturb. I don't know what I did before I had it, honestly. What's the most used emoji in your work chats?

Ooh. Right now, I'm really hooked on the dancing woman in the red dress with a disco ball. I use it probably when it shouldn't even be used, but I think it applies to everything. So, I like it.

Um, what's your favorite guilty pleasure snack? Ooh. Melted ice cream. Haagen-Dazs specifically.

Vanilla bean. You put it in the microwave for about 20 seconds. Do you do that too? I don't microwave it, but Haagen-Dazs vanilla is my favorite flavor of all time.

So good. So good. Pure. Okay, let's wrap it up last question.

Last question. Dream vacation destination. Oh my gosh. Italy for a month or New Zealand for a month.

Both great places. Why are you going to pay for me to go there? Yeah. Adam is.

Yeah, right right right on Dale's credit card. Happy to do it. I'm I'm going to be I'm going to be with Dale tomorrow when I have to um lean into his wallet and steal his credit card, we will then go travel. Um, We we all think that's funny, but American Express called me at dinner the other night asking if I booked a $22,000 trip.

I did not. Um, oh yeah, someone got my credit card number. Oh. It wasn't me.

It was Dale. Hope you figured that out. Yeah, it was Dale. Bri, this was awesome.

So much good tips. Selfishly so much information that I want to connect with you on, um, later. Um, but thank you so much for joining. We know people can find you on LinkedIn, but where can people learn more about Verbatum?

I know the answer, but it's going to sound much better coming from you. Yes, so you can find out more at we areverbatum.com. And from there, you can learn about all of our services, including influence by Verbatum, which is the influencer marketing piece.

Awesome. Bri, thank you so much for joining us. This was awesome. Thank you.

Thank you for having me.