How Small Businesses Can Compete with Giants

This is Women Road Warriors with Shelly Johnson and Cassie Ticcaro from the corporate office to the cab of a truck. They're here to inspire and empower women in all professions. So gear down, sit back and enjoy. Welcome. We're an award-winning show dedicated to empowering women in every profession through inspiring stories and expert insights. No topics off limits on our show. We Power Women on the Road to Success with expert and celebrity interviews and information you need. I'm Shelly. And I'm Cassie. If you've ever run a small business or a startup, especially in a monopolized industry, you know the challenges that have become even more intense today. You can really feel like a small fish in a huge pond. Small companies on the borderline between startup and growth need more than mentors. They need actionable advice for everyday barriers so they can compete against the big boys. Julie Mattson and Holly Kissenshire recognize this and formed the May Day Agency and Borderline to level the playing field for small businesses competing with massive established competition. Julie's a marketing and branding specialist who connects brands to target audiences. She helps companies reimagine their paths and define clear marketing plans. She also offers guidance to firms that are planning on launching new products. Julie's here to offer her insights on the items that small women-owned businesses need to consider if they want to get on top of that wave and a big pond full of bigger fish. Welcome, Julie. Thank you for being with us. Oh, thank you for having me. Yeah, we're excited. Are you kidding me? Julie, there's so many things you cover. Your knowledge is amazing. But before we talk about maybe what small businesses and startups need to know, could you give our listeners maybe a brief background of what you do and where you came from on all that? Absolutely. So I was in public relations for 17 years and I always wanted to do advertising. It was something that I really felt passionate about. So that's the first story. The second story is that when I was 37, so this is about like 12 years ago. I don't know. I'll be 15 next year. I was at a firm and I was going through a divorce and I was struggling with depression and everything. And I just was like, I want to do this on my terms. This corporate life is draining me. The tech bros are killing me. It was just like this moment and I stood up and I just walked out the door. And I'm not being dramatic about that. I literally did. But I also recognized I kind of needed some help. So took a couple months off, basically had no money. I was like, okay, Julie, now what? Had some like really good self-awakening moments of like what I wanted and what I wanted to do with my life. And lived in my friend's guest house and just started my own ad agency. I was like, I'm just going to do it. And it happened little by little. And I had some core values that I identified to how my agency would be different. And it never had veered off that path. So we're an ad agency, but we also realized my partner, Holly and I were like, we really want to help women's small business. So we started the series where we would get women who had startups and we would do these kind of, you know, it was for free and brought all these women together and kind of did brand therapy. It just something was starting a candle company and we just really helped her figure out why and how she could be different and it helped the other women in the room. And then it was like that moment like, hey, how can we do this on a bigger scale? You know, we help these big companies with their brands, but there's so many people who can't afford personal advice like this. They can't afford a marketing agency. And now with the advent of AI, everyone's building their own business. So how do you, you can't just go hire a marketing company for 5,000 a month. I mean, with what budget? So we created borderline and we have about 45 consultants on there called advisors and you can go on there and build your own board and for an affordable price when you need somebody. And it's kind of like we named our ad agency Mayday, we're here when you need us. So that's the same idea with borderline. And it really honestly from my heart, it was created to help women businesses because I know the struggle in starting Mayday and starting borderline, the challenges of being, you know, a female in this world. And it's all real, you know, it's not just for like, oh, that was so happened in the 80s. No, it's still happening. So that's my backstory. The struggle is real. And if people say that it isn't, they've got their head in the sand. So Julie, what would you say are the biggest challenges small businesses and startups face today? I mean, it just seems like our world has really gotten more complicated in spite of the technology that's supposed to make it easier. Yeah, I mean, it's the challenges. You know, I think the big challenge, I think anyone who has a business can relate. It's kind of like, you know, like the five stages of grieving, there's like five stages to owning your own business. And it starts with this like, oh my God, I'm going to do this, the excitement that, oh my God. And then it's like, go and you build it and you're like telling all your friends, it's going to be done in three months. And then it's 10 months later, it's still not built. And then it's, then it's like launch day and you push the button and your website's up. And then you're like, I built it, they will come. Oh my God, no one's coming. I'm a failure. Why did I do this? I left my job. How much money do I have in my bank account? I'm never available for my kids. My husband, you know, like it's just, you go through these like patterns. I should just go find a job, forget about it. And then you go back to wait a minute. I wanted to build something and I'm here. And then you calm down and you reassess and then you put your plan in place. And then you go through that like five more times. But as long as you never stop and every time you make a mistake and keep learning, your business will go somewhere. But the challenges that people face is, I think there's too much to do. You know, there's especially today. I mean, if you're on TikTok and you're listening to experts and you hear about one more AI tool that you don't know about and that you're over 40. And if you're just using chat, LGBT, you know, your world's over. I mean, the panic, the pure panic. And I think people just have to go back to the core values of why they have their business and what problem they're solving before they start taking on every tool to maximize it. That's one of my big tips. And I think people when they start their own businesses, they forget to ask the why. Like why do they have this product? Like what problem are they solving? And I think also people don't know their own story and they also aren't realistic. So I think if I were to like, it's really hard to cool down because every business has a unique challenge. But I definitely would tell people like if you're going to stomach it and start your own business, just know you're going to fail a million times in the beginning. And you're going to spend a lot more money than you think. But at some point, at some point, it's all going to click. So does it take basically you have to really stay focused and believe in yourself? I mean, it's so easy with some of the things you're talking about to go, oh heck, I can't do that. Yeah. I mean, if you want to create a successful startup, these are some things I always tell people like create a rainy day fund. The worst thing you could do is leave your job, go start a company and then think that it's going to happen faster and not have that cushion. So I think I really always recommend to smart to small businesses like think about the line of credit and the loans before so that you don't panic because panic will make you do bad. You'll make bad decisions. It'll make you so crazy. Like I went and got, you know, a great one is American Express. They have a blueprint and any small business I highly recommend you can get like a hundred grand. You're not using it. It just sits there. But you just like, okay, I can't make payroll this week, but I got that hundred grand versus, oh my God, I have no money. I had to get a loan and then you're calling family members. Or the other thing is you get desperate and you try to go raise capital. We could talk about that all day long, but I have a big thing about capital. You don't always need it. And, you know, also like be realistic with your revenue forecasting. The thing with marketing is that people will think I'm going to take out an ad on Facebook and then Instagram. I'm going to go on tip talk. I'm going to talk about my product and I'm going to make a lot of money. Probably not. It's a tough nut to crack. Your line in the beginning is something I always say. Like everyone's going to the biggest pond they can find, casting this huge net and assuming that they're just scoop up customers. And you've got to go to the smallest pond with the people that really care about what you're doing and what you're offering and will actually listen. And then you've got to go find them. Maybe they're not in a pond. Maybe they're in a creek. Maybe they're in a river. That would be my analogy to like maybe they're not on Instagram. You know what I mean? You've got to go. You've got to go or you've got to fish where the fish are. And then you know, you have to rethink what marketing success looks like. Here's some big, big pitfall with companies, I think. If you're a startup and you're the one man show and you're like, I'm going to use Meta to run all my Facebook ads and I'm going to run all these ads. And then you're like, oh my God, I'm a failure. My ads are not working. They're not converting. But somehow I am selling and I don't know why, but it can't be Facebook. So I'll just turn it off and you make it like a panic decision. When you don't realize that Facebook is actually doing something in a different way. We have a lot of clients that will use social media to sell their products, get no sales on their website and don't realize that all the traffic actually went to Amazon. Why? Because we like to buy things on Amazon and have it show up at our door and know it's easy to return. So we go to websites to shop and or to browse, but we go to Amazon to check out. And I think people in business don't think of these different. They're too linear in their thinking. And that's what I think, you know, AI is a little bit of a problem when it gives advice. You have to be careful. And also another thing like if you have your own company, what's your story? And if you have a product that's not something someone really needs, but maybe could want like a nice candle, you got to find out what makes that candle special. And there might be a nice story around it. Like when I was five years old or when I was 10 years old, I became obsessed with beeswax, you know, something you need to tell your story. You got to make a difference. So sure, brand is really important if you don't have a product that solves the problem. And maybe sometimes people don't really even know their brand. They have an idea, but they don't know how to frame it and make it relevant so that people want to come and buy it or listen or see it or whatever they're doing. And identity and like you said, you need to find the audience. It's really about a niche marketing plan, isn't it? Because there's so much noise out there, especially on the internet. Yes, I think it's important to own something, be really good at it and then go on to the next market. So, you know, if you have a product that everyone could use, great, but maybe you could market it in a certain way to one audience and get really good at it. Don't jump ahead. Well, and you know, it takes time and I think too, when people start into business, they hear a lot of things. Well, you should be making money within three years or whatever the length of time it is. And are those rules still set in stone today or has that changed? Because it seems like there is so, like I said, so much noise out there. The competition, especially with the established companies that are louder because they have bigger budgets and they can advertise, make it really, really, really challenging. Yeah, but you have to ask yourself, like, I think when you're starting up, when you're in a startup and you have customers, you have to define success. So, success is I'm going to sell my company to a bigger company. I'm going to make enough money to retire or I'm going to build this, have somebody else run it and take a piece of the pie so that I could go invest in other things. Like, you really need to be clear about why you're starting a business. Because what you're going to do is you're going to go online, see your competitors and be like, oh, I'll never be them. Or, you know, I'll never make that kind of money. Or, oh my God, I have to raise a million dollars to do all these marketing things that my competitors are doing. But people don't often think if I go and get an investor, they are going to own me and they're going to put me on a timeline. They're going to give me more money than I need and they're going to be like, why aren't you spending it? And you'll be, and you're going to be like, I don't know how to spend it because you don't know what you need because you jumped into it so fast, you didn't take, you didn't do any learnings. So that's why you've got to walk before you run. So, and also there's always room for two. And if you're starting a company and you start seeing your competitors, I don't know if this is the best advice. This is what I do as a personal opinion. I don't follow them on social media and I don't look at their websites because I will immediately do the, why am I bothering? I'm never going to compete. Isn't that interesting how we always tend to compare ourselves? And then we're like, oh God, it gets so overwhelming. It really is a battle with the mind. And I think that once you're able to beat your own self, like, you know what I mean? Like be the winner and pick your battles and it's a lot of self-talk, you know? Whether it's in starting a business or in anything, really, right? As a negativity tends to want to overrule all the time. Oh, it's founder syndrome. I mean, and it's, women, as women, we're so, we look at things from a different lens and men do look at things differently. We get very, I mean, it's just the truth. We're very passionate and that's why women tend to start businesses based on passion. Whereas if I think, you know, a lot of men might start a business based on a business need or something they see as a big moneymaker. And so when you're passionate about something, you're personally intertwined. And so when something doesn't happen, you look at it as an identity of you. A lot of people do that. I mean, it's just like when you see your girlfriends like going on vacation and you're like, why can't I afford a vacation? What am I not doing right? So you do, it's like the same thing with business. Like, why am I not like that? How come I'm not on the cover of that magazine? Well, because you're just not there yet. Or maybe your product is never going to be that big, but it's going to be big enough to send your kid to college. And that's okay. So I think we, you know, you can go get some investor to take 80, you know, whatever, ridiculous amount of your company, need to raise four more rounds, dilute yourself to no end. And then your value, no one cares about you because now you are the creator, but you're not an operator. So you're just that person who had the idea goodbye. And they ruin it. Your vision's gone. And then you walk out with like, everyone thinks you're, if it's sold for a lot of money, everyone thinks you're rich. And you're like, well, actually, I only got blah, blah, blah. And I don't get to run it anymore. And it looks nothing like my vision. So there's a cost for everything. And I think that's the thing. You have an idea. You want to do something, but you've got to answer all these questions emotionally. Like, what can you handle? You can't. I can stomach just about anything. Stay tuned for more of Women Road Warriors coming up. Dean Michael, the tax doctor here. I have one question for you. Do you want to stop worrying about the IRS? If the answer is yes, then look no further. I've been around for years. I've helped countless people across the country. And my success rate speaks for itself. So now you know where to find good, honest help with your tax problems. What are you waiting for? If you owe more than $10,000 of the IRS or haven't filed in years, call me now at 888-557-4020 or go to mytaxhelpmd.com for a free consultation and get your life back. Welcome back to Women Road Warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Takarov. Check us out on all the major podcast channels like Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon Music, Audible, you name it. Check us out and bookmark our podcast. Also, don't forget to follow us on social media. We're on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube and other sites. And tell others about us. We want to help as many women as possible. If you've ever tried to launch or grow a small business in today's market, you know it can feel like swimming upstream in a pond dominated by giants. That's exactly why Julie Mattson and her business partner created Mayday Agency and Borderline to give small and women-owned businesses the strategic muscle they need to compete. Julie's a marketing and branding strategist who helps founders sharpen their story, rethink their direction and launch products with confidence. Before the break, she was breaking down the real challenges startups face today during practical boots on the ground tips like securing a line of credit, forecasting realistically and knowing your brand inside and out. Let's dive back in to Julie's insights. Julie, in our previous segment, you talked about people knowing their vision and being careful about somebody investing in your company and taking control and maybe taking over that vision. There's so many things to consider. Would you say that people need to, before they start a business? Or even if they're in the throes of being a startup, put this all down. Sometimes when you write things down, it's a little clearer so that they can understand their own expectations and be more realistic and maybe come up with a game plan. Yeah, that's why I created Borderline because essentially I felt I was becoming a business therapist and I think everyone needs a therapist before they start a business because they'll go all over the place if they don't have a mapped out plan. And it's psychological. It really is psychological. At what point am I going to realize this might happen and I'm going to be okay with it? So yes, writing it down, writing like, it's just like mapping out planning a party. I expect 12, this many guests and I expect them to leave with this feeling and you really got to plan it out because if you don't have a roadmap, you won't know what success looks like at any one point. It's very true. You can plan a party and people might not show up. I remember that actually happened to me. I was like 12 or 13. And there were just a couple of people that showed up and I was just horrified. So I decided I was going to have a really cool party and I put signs everywhere in the school and had another party and there were so many people. I was like, I'm seriously ridiculous. My parents are like, what the heck did you just do? There were people showing up that didn't even know me. So I guess that was marketing at an early age, but I really showed up. I should have been more realistic on my expectations. And also like where that invite goes to get the people you want, right? Or else you get a bunch of people, you're like, why are you at my party? There were some drunken teens that showed up and my parents were not happy at all. It's like, oops. And I think they were a little older. So yeah. So expectations and being realistic, that's hard to do. And like you said, women start a business with their passion. I've heard it said that we treat our businesses like our children. It's an extension of us. It's our baby. And we don't want anybody hurting that baby and we want it to thrive. And we've got all these expectations, much like I guess you would after having a baby. You'll look at you the next 20 years and where that kid's going to head, but maybe not doing it in a realistic fashion. Yep. I think that was a really good, I'm really, I'm going to steal that. That's a really good analogy. Yeah. You're nurturing something and you're right. Just like having a baby, you want to raise it correctly. You don't want to know that you gave them bad advice or, you know, didn't steer them in the right way. And yeah, it's a very great parallel analogy to starting a business. Would you say maybe being objective is tough. And that's why having someone who can mentor you is a good idea because when you're looking at the big boys, the big competitors who've been established, it's probably kind of hard to know exactly what they had to do to get to that plateau. We don't know the backstory and we don't know who helped them. They may have angel investors. We don't know about. I mean, if they're a private company, you're not going to see that. Yep, you're not. So would you say that having someone setting you down and coming up with a game plan is really important? I mean, that's obviously something that you do. Yeah, but if you need somebody, here's the first thing is, you've got to listen to the experts. Founder syndrome is the worst when you think you know better than everyone because you know your product so well. And you're like, no, when it comes up on the show, when it gets on the shelf, these people are going to be buying it like hotcakes. You're just going to sell it hotcakes. And you need somebody who's been helping companies for years say, I hate to tell you this, but it might walk off the shelf, but your packaging is hideous. You need someone to tell you that. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. Or someone says, like, what this branding, you're competing against the bottle next to you. What retailer would pick this up? Or you're going into the biggest market possible. You have no capital. You've got to sell online and go direct to consumer and have the best margin possible. And you're like, no, I want to be in stores. I want to be in stores. It's not happening. Then you have to go raise money. And you're like, but I don't know how to do that. You know, you've got to be realistic and, you know, you got, it goes back to the game plan. I guess we have to put our egos aside too, don't we? Oh, you could not have an ego. No. I had, so here's a good one with my ad agency. I identified for years as being quote unquote creative until I brought on some big pros to my team. Did I realize I'm not really that I'm creative, but I don't have like these super talents. And when I had to accept the fact that I had a step aside, it like crushed me because that was what I wanted. I thought, wait a minute, I'm not here to do this or that. I'm here to grow this business. I'm here to empower other people and make money for everyone. And that's what I'm good at. Why am I sitting here sulking because I'm not doing the piece that I love anymore. You know, I had an identity crisis. It's like, it's okay to be like, Hey, you know what? I'm a B. I'm not an A. I'm a B. I need to bring in the A, the A people. And that's okay. That's that's hard to do. That's that's hard to that's hard to admit when you're running a company. That's why a lot of founders don't listen to consultants. They don't like to delegate. They want to be the leader always. And you can't be good at everything. No, you can't. But unfortunately, when you're a startup, you are doing you are the CEO, COO and HR director. Yep. Chief cook, bottle washer, you name it. Oh, yeah. You even have to take out the trash because nobody else is going to do it. Yeah. And it's like those little tasks. You're like, I wish someone else could do this for me. You're like, well, I'm going to make money first. Yeah. I hate paperwork. And that's something too. You have to have somebody who can crunch the numbers for you so you stay compliant because you start making money. You have to make sure that the tax man gets his share or you could have problems there too. Yeah. So here's some other tips. Again, this is more for people who are starting a business. I mean, most people figured this out, but you have to know what type of corporation to have, how to set up your partnership, your agreements. You have to know the tax laws and your state. You have to know payroll systems, but luckily, luckily, luckily, there's so many amazing tools out there. Like go to legal zoom, 300 bucks. They'll file everything for you. Quick books. It just, it like literally runs itself and that you hire an accountant to look at it orderly. Insurance, call a broker, find out exactly what you need and what you don't need. If you can go down the list and there's companies now that will, you could outsource everything to them for a fee per month. And I highly recommend that. We use gusto for our payroll. They're amazing. And we just, and we, you know, you find these little niche partners that are really affordable and you got to get them in place of day one. Another big one is trademark. You don't want to name your company and find out five years later that someone's sending you a letter saying, I kind of own that name. And you're like, it's on every package that I spent all the money on. So, you know, you got to be very clear on trademark laws and there's ways to hire experts. We have somebody on borderline who can talk you through it and it's not like, just to understand the process and it's not, you know, crazy amounts of money. You know, if you choose to work with that individual. So when you're a small business and you've already maybe gotten the grasp of some of the things you're talking about, Julie, you've got your business plan. You've got things pretty much outlined as to what you want to do. How do you compete when you see the really big competitors and you really want to reach their plateau? How do you do that? I mean, sometimes, especially if it seems like a monopolized market, how do you break through all of that? Well, that's, that would be where you would be raising capital if it's a big company to go against them. But sometimes some people, if you're authentic and you do use the tools that are appropriate to your brand, such as social media or maybe it's TikTok, and you grow following and you start to attract partners and you start to use the tools out there like affiliate programs, influencers. You start getting really smart about your little web that you weave at a price that you can afford. Maybe you can start to grab that niche and you start growing there. And maybe you just look at a piece of a business, even they're big, but maybe their customer service is really awful and they've grown so big, it's done. The reviews on Amazon are just atrocious. They're customer service, they're customer service. And you're like, you know what? I could do that at a smaller scale and I know I could offer better service. That's the point of difference. But you got to kind of look at what the big boys are doing and say, what can I do as a barrier to entry? That's my number one thing. I tell this to big companies too. What's your barrier to entry? What do you have that they can't compete on? And what can I both running to the bank screaming that I have this? Is it a patent? Is it a self something that, is it not easily copied? You can't go in thinking you're going to go against a big guy and have some big thing that you just, oh, your feature, well, we'll just implement that into our program. So you have to be a company, not a feature. So these are some of the things you've got to think about. And if you've got something that's really solving a really, really big problem, then you know, I do recommend raising money and going up against the big guys. But slow and steady for most people. Yeah, slow and steady wins the race. Stay tuned for more of Women Road Warriors coming up. We're continuing our conversation about what it really takes for a smaller women owned business to rise in a landscape dominated by big players. Julie Mattson knows that feeling like being the small fish can just crush you. And that's exactly why she and her partner launched Mayday Agency and Borderline to help founders turn underdog status into an edge. As a branding expert, she guides companies into finding who they are, who they serve and how to stand out. Just before the break, Julie was giving us a reality check on startup challenges today and offering powerful tips like securing credit, setting up a corporation, knowing about taxes, trademarking your brand, tightening your revenue expectations and mastering your story. Julie, it's also a matter of perseverance because slow and steady wins the race. That's especially true when you're looking at the competition and maybe figuring out where you can offer something different, something better that will give you the edge. And that's where you're going to be memorable. Is it all about that being memorable? You want people to remember you? Yeah, I mean, how many Super Bowl ads do you watch and talk about? And then someone says, oh, wait, what were they selling? Oh, so I tell people, if you're a product that solves a problem, maybe you don't need to be overly cute about it. Maybe you just need to say, there's a better way to clean those floors. Like maybe you just need to be direct response about it, like 80 style infomercial. Here's how it works. This is why you need it. That sometimes is the best approach. Now, again, if you're more like fashion, beauty, you need a story. You know, you got to dig deep and figure out like what's going to make people talk about you. You know, it's like, what is your identifier? And I have some fun games I play with companies to kind of find that out. And they're games you could play with your own company. If you're interested in hearing, they're kind of fun. Sure. What are some of the games? Okay, so you could ask yourself, if I was a cocktail, what kind of cocktail would I be? It's interesting because you'll say, oh, I'm an espresso martini, but really maybe you're more Chardonnay. But now you just showed yourself like, oh, I kind of want my brand to be a little bit more trendy because an espresso martini is kind of trendy. Chardonnay is tried and true. Maybe I'm playing it too safe. Why did I say that about my brand? So, you know, and then I will do, if you're a fashion brand, who would you be? If you were a celebrity, who would you be? And please don't tell me George Clooney. If you're a car, what kind of car are you? And don't tell me Tesla because you think you're tech forward. You know, it's like, I would, that's what I have to say because it's the same answers over and over. And these are like big, big ass companies I'm talking to doing this with a whiteboard. I mean, it's the same, every company tells me the same thing. And it's not so much like what's my spirit animal. Or also, what am I today and what I want to be tomorrow? So if I'm Chardonnay because I'm like everyone else, how do I become an espresso martini? Like what happened that's like the new hot drink? Like you've got to start thinking, why do you like it? Because it's a little bit sweet. It wakes you up. Like you've got to like sit there and map out all the attributes of why you think you're something. And you'll find when you do the exercise, something will come out crazy. And you'd be like, oh my God, I did this whole exercise, nothing standing out. And I chose a koala bear for my animal, which I do have animals category. And in other words, it's like, oh my God, your point of difference is that you care. You're a company that cares. Are you using that in your marketing? So these little games you can play in brand exercises can get you closer to your story. Like with Borderline, given that I'm the co-founder, I have to play that same game because I am too close to Borderline. Half the time, I don't even know how to market this company, but I know how to market yours. So, you know, I think there's all these different things we can do to find our story, to go deeper. So we need to figure out what our brand identity is and also be objective. The objectivity, I bet you that's hard. Oh yeah. It's interesting how many brands think they're, like I said, they think they're a martini or a Tesla. I'm like, oh, I don't know how to break this to you. You know, but good to know that you want to go there. So let's send the money to go there. So then it creates a game plan. Yeah. And I like to do with all people involved in a company in one room, so that the aha moment is everyone. Because if you have stakeholders in your business, say it's partners, people you're giving equity to, like 2%, just to be a consultant, everyone is an expert. Everyone's an expert. You know, everyone's a graphic designer. Everyone's a brand or everyone's a PR expert. But you bring everyone together in one room. Everyone leaves their ego at the door and you do these fun exercises and you have a roadmap and you're like, everyone in the room is like, yep, we are leaving a company that cares about this. We are leaving as a company that stands for this. This is our point of difference. This is hard to copy. Everyone's like, yes. And then you go and you stick on that plan versus versus the what most companies do. Go into a meeting and start going. So what should we do in social media? What should we do for ads? Those are like conversations that are so far down the line. You haven't done the upfront work yet. What's the upfront work? Who's your target audience? What are you selling? What's the emotional drivers? Why does someone care about your product? Where do they live? Where do they shop? What shows do they watch? Age? What kind of books do they read? Knowing your customer. It's very psychological. You might have a product that it's a beauty brand and what there's four million beauty brands, but yours is more custom custom to somebody. I think the companies that do a really good job that have tools that you can check your skin tone to match the foundation is a good example. They took it a step further and made it personal. That kind of stuff. How many businesses do you think don't do that? They just assume people are going to come. They don't really stop and identify who their target is, their target customer. So many. Yeah. I think Liquid Death is a great storyline in the sense of their water. What is that? What's the product? Liquid Death. Have you seen them at the store? I don't think I have. I haven't. No? No. You would think it was beer? Vodka? No, it's water. They are competing against water. Okay. They call themselves Liquid Death? Wow. Yep. Yep. And they really? Yeah. The name. The name. A name is very important. Very, very important. Yeah. Now that I told you that you're a liquid mouth, but they use brand storytelling to differentiate and they never say their water is better. They're just liquid depth. They own it. It's ridiculous and they own it. Well, yeah, you don't think of water with the word death. Because water is essential to life. That's interesting. Or if you're dying and you're really, I don't know, like if you really need water and this is what you're going for, I have no idea. I mean, their ad campaigns are really good. But, you know, is it novelty? Well, the novelty wear off. You know, if I was liquid death, I'd be thinking of death of my company and I'd be thinking of, okay, well, what else can I make death? That's just everyday boring. I'm sure they are. You got to expand pretty quickly with that concept before you become, you know, boring. Sure. With the name, it creates curiosity. It's going to make you stop as you're walking down the aisle and say, what's this? Yeah. Their tagline is murder your thirst. Murder your thirst. Okay. I'm sorry. Don't be scared. It's just water. Okay. Murder your thirst. Death to plastic. Because it comes in an aluminum can. Okay. I bought it once for my Halloween party because it made sense. Okay. All right. Clever. Well, when you think about it, that's really key for a business too, is good marketing and having somebody who can really head you in the right direction. And Julie, you do this for all levels of companies, don't you? I mean, small businesses as well as bigger ones. Yeah. I've had the fortune opportunity under Mayday. We've had some amazing clients, some Fortune 500 companies. We got to work with ORA ring for three years. We still work with companies. We're starting to work with Master Lock, Yale, Smart Locks. I mean, we do a lot of smart tech. We do work with ShelterLogic, so a lot of outdoor products. I mean, it's across the gamut, but it's pretty much all consumer-based. A lot of e-commerce. Okay. You probably provide consulting on all levels, not just marketing. You said that your company, Borderline, will actually consult it. And you have to sit companies down and say, okay, we need to redirect if this is what your goals are. Is this what you do with both Mayday and Borderline? So Mayday's our ad agency, and then Borderline is like for companies that are on the Borderline who can't afford an ad agency or can't afford a marketing company, but we took it a step further. So we want you to be able to build your own board of advisors. So for like $600 a month, you could have two advisors on your board. You have your own little portal. And basically, you could say, well, month one, I want a digital media strategist and I want a PR person to look at my stuff, give me feedback. And then you do an hour video call, and it's $300 for an hour, $150 for half an hour, which is if you think about how much someone with that much experience costs, and maybe you don't need 15 hours a month at their time, you just need to ask them a couple questions, right? Sure. And then maybe you stick with them for three months, and then you change your board because you're on a subscription. You're like, now I need to talk to somebody about getting a loan. Oh, I go on Borderline, I have my portal, I look up and it's like, oh, the guy from Trulient loan is on here. And then I go to a call with him. And we give you like credits so you can like choose who you want to talk to, and then you could like up your subscription. It's kind of like, you know, it's truly having your own board of advisors without giving away equity, getting rid of someone you don't like, because you could, people get so excited. Here's the other thing with founders. Oh my God, you believe in my company? You believe in my company? Can I give you like 10% and you don't want me to grow it? And then two months later, they're never around. They don't care. They suck. So you, it's good to have a board that you could change in and out and based on level. Like I might just need someone who really knows Shopify from my e-commerce site or I need someone who's an Instagram expert. And that's probably not somebody who's been in business for 40 years and sold all his companies. He's that individual is so high level. They're like, what's Instagram? I think my daughter's on it. You offer top and bottom as far as what you need. And it's the same price. It's always the same price. That's pretty cool. Nathan hire me. I could be your mentor. Yeah. I mean, I can meet with someone once or twice a month, spending on their budget. And I love it because I'm really, really like, we're going to talk for an hour. We're going to get down to business. I'm going to have you send me documents. I'm going to look at your marketing plan. I'm going to look at where you're at. And then a month later, I'm going to say, did you do what we talked about? And they're going to say, well, my cousin's cousin cousin cousin told me they didn't really like the colors. You know, it's always one of those. And I'm like, mm-hmm. I've been doing this for 30 years. You need to listen to me. Don't talk to your cousin's cousin. Do you know logos were changed at big, big, big companies because the wife didn't like it when the CEO brought home? Wow. Logos changing at big companies because a wife didn't like the logo. Huh. I guess she was in charge of the board of directors. I'm not kidding. It's the simplest. Like people don't realize these things happen. She's like, oh my God, that's so ugly. And he's like, oh, I better go. I can't have something my wife thinks somebody that that represents me and my company. And then he goes back to the marketing department of 30, chase the logo. And then it doesn't work. Yeah. Cause it wasn't, it wasn't from an expert who thought through why the logo should be a certain way. Right. Now it's five lines and it doesn't fit any box on any social media platform. Sure. Sometimes you're wondering what kind of advice these companies have had or if they just picked it out of a fortune cookie. We've certainly been seeing marketing blunders around lately with different companies trying new things and all of a sudden the pushback is like, no, no, no, no, no. And that's why you have focus groups too. It seems like, you know, have some people actually professionals and people who are not look at some of that stuff so you could get some really objective feedback. And that way you don't spend an enormous amount of money going the wrong direction and having to regroup. Right. It also on the flip side, not taking one person's opinion too seriously. Like, like going back to, I show my logo at a dinner party and two women in fashion are like, that doesn't appeal to me. And you take it personally and you forget that those two women were never your target anyway. Right. So I think you have to, you have to balance out the experts. So that's why those roadmap and those games and really thinking through all the emotional drivers and all the reasons why to believe is so important because once you have that down and someone tells you something, you know, well, my logo is representative of that group. And it answers that aesthetic. So sorry. That's right. You've got some really good common sense approaches here. And I think that sometimes that's what businesses need is kind of a reality check so that they can head in the right direction and succeed. Where do people reach out to you? The Borderline.co and board is spelled B O A R D. I'll be honest, the URL is awful, but it's really hard to get a good URL these days. But I figured with search ads, that's where I would go. So the borderline.co. B O A R D E R L I N E dot C O. Yep. And people can also reach out to your agency Mayday. Yeah, I mean, of course. And honestly, if you, it's easy to do on Mayday agency dot co apparently like the dot co at the bottom, you could just find my info and send me an email. I mean, I love talking to people. So if anybody wants advice or I call it triage, like call me and we'll talk for 15 minutes because sometimes you'll people don't know what they don't know. So they'll go on borderline and they will book someone because they're like, I don't know what I need first. Well, that's why we offer like a free consulting call for like 15 minutes and I could be like, you know what, you need Val, you need this person. Don't book that person. It's way too soon. You don't even have a product yet. Why are you talking PR? You know, that kind of stuff. So you can be a brief business therapist for people. I am such a business therapist. Yes. That's great. What are the websites again? The borderline dot co. Okay. And Mayday. Mayday agency dot co. And that's for that's for bigger, a little bit more big budget. Okay. I love your perspective. I appreciate it. You've covered a lot of really good information. It's food for thought for people and that's what they need. Sometimes just sitting back and listening to an interview, people go, oh, that makes sense rather than somebody, they know, telling them that where they get their ego bruised. You know, they're like, I'm going to stop talking to my mother-in-law about this. Yeah, no kidding. Some people run away from their mother-in-laws. Not a good person necessarily, depending on the relationship to get advice. Yeah, right. So we're going to go waste all the money of the family. Yeah, agree. Good luck. Thank you, Julie. We really appreciate you being on the show. Well, thank you so much for having me. This was so fun. Thank you so much. 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