The Marketing Game: Our Parents Guess Our Marketing Adventures
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I thought he was joking. So when he first asked me, I started laughing and I was like, yeah, we won't be doing that. And he goes, no, we, I want you to hire a sign like flipper. And I said, for our urgent care center. It

Hey everyone, welcome to the SOB Marketing Podcast where we celebrate the SOB that you are and if you haven't figured it out yet, we mean small owned business. We don't mean SOB. Listen, we know that as a small business owner, you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you,

If we're being honest with each other, I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything. Our commitment here at the SOB Marketing Podcast is to give you the real talk,

what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, promoting your business, and then what doesn't really work. And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real. Hey everybody and welcome back to the SOB Marketing Podcast. SOB as in small owned business. I promise we are not calling you guys names. Before we get started, a little bit of housekeeping. Thank you so much for listening. We would really appreciate it if you left us a five-star review and

It helps us get in front of other small business owners, and we are here to help you guys feel comfortable with your marketing. Vivian, what are we talking about today? All right. Well, if you guys have not noticed, we are in a very different location, not our typical studio, but we are here at our parents' house. Chelsea, you're already in trouble. Grounded. Grounded.

Grounded right off the rip. And we figure for Christmas, we're going to do a little bit of a different episode. We're going to play a game with mom and dad. So mom, introduce yourself. What is your name? My name is Reina. I'm the mother of these two beautiful girls. Dad. I'm the dad.

Enough said. Dad doesn't have a name. His name's just Dad. Hector. Hector. Yeah. And so what, you know, as you guys can probably tell, Chelsea and I have been doing this a long time. We've been doing marketing out, you know, boots on the ground for some time. And we've seen quite a bit. Okay. Some of the stories...

are great. Some of them are a little embarrassing. And we're going to see how well mom and dad know us. We're going to tell them a very generic story. We're not going to tell them who lived the experience, but we're hoping they can guess correctly which one of us lived through it and also tell us maybe a little bit of what they think we did. What was our response in that particular situation? Okay. So mom, do you understand the rules? Yes. Okay. Dad? Go for it.

All right, Chelsea, do you want to go ahead and get started? I can. I'll tell the first story. Okay, so the first story is one of us, myself or Vivian, had to stand in front of a Sonic drive-thru to do market research. Mom, who do you think that was? Who do you think had to do that? Chelsea? No, no.

You didn't even get dad's response. No, it's okay. One of you is two in Sonic. When you say it's two, you mean...

So like when people in the drive through? Yes. When people are pulling up. Hi, I would like a number one with cheese. You're talking about that. And you just went ahead and drove in there and stood there and just to do research. What kind of research? Chelsea already told you who was me.

You need to act a little better, Chelsea, okay? Vivian and I did not prep well enough for this because I have no idea. I did not know. I had to ask them because companies would hire us. I understand, but I knew it was, I thought it was you, but I wanted to know what kind of research because that would give me an idea of, okay,

Forget it. Just keep going. So basically, I was just standing there asking them what their burger preferences were, I guess, because they would just hire us to, you know, to ask people like, hey, what do you prefer or what do you like about this or this? And then we jot it down. The worst thing is, though, I don't know about you guys, but when you're in a drive through, you're mostly hungry.

Okay. And having some annoying college age kid come up to you and say, can I ask you a quick question is not exactly, people were not like, yes, I would have them roll up the window. They didn't want to engage. So then I had to stand there for hours doing this. It was not fun. Okay. I'm going to get better at doing this. I'm sorry. I gave it away too early. The next story is

is that, as you both know, Chelsea and I came from healthcare background. So in this instance, there was a particular doctor who wanted to do postcards, but he did not want to pay for colored postcards. So he requested that the postcards be printed in black and white. First of all, let me ask you before you guys try to guess whose experience that was, why

When is the last time you guys got a postcard in the mail that was only black and white? We never got any.

You don't get any postcards? No, no postcards. Have you sent me any? No. I haven't sent you any. By the way, I think it was you. It was me. Yes, correct. Because the way it sounds. I know it was you. Oh, you knew it was her. Okay, I didn't know. I just kind of got the vibe that came from your side. It was, but just...

If you guys are wondering the difference between printing postcards in color and printing them in black and white is like not a whole lot. Okay. So please, please, please, if you are listening and you're a small business owner and you're deciding on what to cut cost on, do not let it be the color on your postcards. Okay.

It all depends on what you're sending. I mean, if you want to send it to someone who lives in a cavern somewhere, eh, who cares? Or if you're sending a ransom note, you could do black and white by all means. That is true. Just make sure that the ransom note is cut out with newspapers and all of that. Don't put the dates on the newspaper either.

That would be the good case. And don't add the headliner either because they can track that, right? Don't know what city it's from. The city and the date. For more crime tips, email us at... Oh, you want me to give him my email? No. Okay. Okay, mom. We got this. So here's the next story. Again, Vivian and I have both worked in healthcare marketing.

So this particular story is about doing a physician site visit and hosting a lunch. But the provider that the person went to see didn't talk to anyone the entire time that they were there. I'm guessing it was you.

Me? Why do you think it was Chelsea? Why? Because I remember that you mentioning something about, oh, I hate doing lunches. I never heard anything about you doing lunches. I do lunches every once in a while, but yeah, it was mostly Chelsea. I...

I know. She was, I hate doing lunches because, and no, what I remember from you was that you, whenever you did lunches or anything, you used to go to Jersey Mike's or something, just order a bunch of, I loved it because I could get the points to order myself a sandwich. Dad's over here. You're going to get us arrested, Dad, spilling all the secrets. I don't mind.

Am I taking too much of your time? Chelsea, I do have follow-up questions in regards to that. Yes, go ahead. Okay, follow-up question number one. Did the doctor, though, eat?

Yes. So he enjoyed the lunch. Yes. He just didn't enjoy the networking. It gets even better. This specific provider, again, we're not going to give any names, but this specific provider, because he had a very small practice, there was probably only four people in the office, he requested a very specific lunch from a very specific restaurant. Right.

So I went to that specific restaurant to get everyone the exact meal that they wanted. And then no one talked to myself or the nurse practitioner that I brought with me. Because the whole point of these lunches was to have our nurse practitioner or our doctors, our physicians connect with other physicians in the area.

So not only did he not talk to me, which honestly, I don't care if you talk to me or not, because it's not a, I mean, you should, but it's not about me. It's about the nurse practitioner. He didn't talk to her either. He just grabbed his food and started eating and sat there. We tried to talk to him. He would maybe nod his head. That was it. Was the food that good? No. No.

No. Also, what was the conversation? How weird was it in the car when you guys were driving back? Or did you ride separately? No, we rode together. Both of us were kind of... We got the impression that we were both women. And that was the problem. It was a learning experience. That was a new nurse practitioner. This was her first job out of college. So...

she was kind of discovering how to talk to other physicians as well. So it was a learning experience. And did you guys direct any questions at him? Yes. Okay. Because I'm just saying, yes. Like we were trying to have a conversation and he was just not, he wasn't even responding. No. Interesting. Mom, what would you have done?

If you're talking to someone and they don't want to talk. Don't give up. You start talking. And probably not...

Different. Not about the job, but I mean, different. Yes. Like small talk. Yes. No. And okay. Pro tip. Thank you so much for bringing this up, mom, because do you guys know who everybody loves themselves? Okay. So if you add dad...

What? You don't love yourself, Ben? No? Nobody loves me. Oh, my God. The reason, though, I'm glad you brought that up, Mom, is because if you are having...

trouble when you're trying to network. And some people, some people are just super uncomfortable doing it. Okay. Some people, they're wallflowers. They just don't want anything to do it. And this doctor on top of that, let's be real. Sometimes physicians don't have the best bedside manner. They have different personalities. So you're having to accommodate for that. If you find that someone's not opening up,

Okay. They love talking about kids. They love talking about pets. They love talking about their past. They love talking about where they're from. They love talking about what kind of foods they like to eat. So any of those are really great ways to open a conversation. Like, you know, if you see a picture of him with the family and be like, oh, are

are your children still teenagers? How old are they? Oh yeah, angsty teen. Do they have their driver's license yet? Like those are good ways to maybe make it personal first so then they can lower their guard and you can get some good business talk in there in between there. As long as you find something that...

they would open up. Yeah. Well, that's the key. And I guess you just have to keep trying. Like mom said, don't give up. Keep trying. Well, I'm going to be honest. I gave up. It wasn't worth it to me. Okay. So my turn now. Yes. Okay. For this one, there was an instance where, uh,

Somebody, one of us, had to record something for social media, right? And potentially for a commercial, something that can be used in that way. Recorded the entire video without any audio, right?

So then the person had to go back to the doctor and say, excuse me, I know you just did all that, but can you redo it? Because I forgot to record the audio. So basically they just had a video, but nobody was talking in the video. Well, they were talking, they were moving their mouth, but there was no sound. Yes. That sounds something that you might do. What do you think? What do you think? Yeah. It was not me.

No, it was Chelsea. No, but I still believe that it was something that you might do. I mean, maybe. Actually, it would be something that you both might do. Yes, correct. And one of us did do. Yes, I did that. The thing was, the mics that I had at the time, the new mics that I have, have a green light.

And if they die, like, you know, the green light goes out. But the ones that I had before didn't have a light. So I had no way of knowing whether it died or not. So I did the entire recording and maybe 10 seconds into this six minute long video, the audio went out. So then I had to go. This was a doctor. It was a doctor who had a very busy schedule. And I had to go to him and I had to say, I am so sorry. Sorry.

we have to record that entire video again because I can't use any of it because there is no audio. You know what he said? Of course. No bonus for you. That was the nicest doctor I have ever worked with. He was upset, rightfully so, but he was like, okay, let's rerecord it. It's fine. I know what bonus for you is.

Yes, we're not going to say names, but yes, it's the doctor you think it is. Mom was about to spill the beans. She was going to tell us. Chelsea, how much did you go in the bathroom and cry before you went to go talk to the doctor? I didn't cry, but I was kind of sitting there like, how am I going to explain this? Because...

There was no way to explain it. It was me. I didn't notice that it died. I hadn't charged the microphones beforehand. And you think I would learn my lesson, but I still don't charge my microphones beforehand. Mom, do you ever watch our Instagram? Yes. Okay. Do you know Chelsea sometimes on the stories, she'll post a story and she'll say, I just recorded this whole thing and the microphone was not on.

I think your next tattoo needs to go right here. And it's going to say, turn your microphone on. No, she won't be able to read it. Right here. Turn your microphone on. When she looks in the camera. So get it done backwards? Get it backwards. Are you a small business owner feeling overwhelmed by marketing?

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Empower your small business without breaking the bank. Join the SOB community today. Please do me a favor. Leave them a review. They promised me a bottle of bourbon. So the next story we have, one of us had to do a round of interviews and find someone who could dance and twirl signs. Who do you think that was? Golly.

One of you was looking for someone to do... Yes. One of us was looking for a professional... Twirler. Twirler. Signed twirler. Who do you think that was? There is... The only one I can think of is you going around... No, but I don't know. I just noticed that... I don't know anything about your... That's...

That's your job, though. The things that you got to do to do your job. Yeah. Oh. So you think, mom, who do you think did it? Thank you. I think Chelsea. Okay. It was actually me. And let me tell you how this came about. When I used to work at the urgent care center, the doctors, if you have never worked with emergency room doctors before,

you are missing a real treat, okay? They will teach you patience. They are very fabulous at what they do because they have to be good in high risk, high, you know, like making decisions quickly. That also means that every decision they make, they want you to act on it very, very quickly. So one of them went to California and he came back and he said, oh,

Oh, my gosh. I saw this great idea. There was a sandwich shop, and outside the sandwich shop was a man that was flipping a sign. Burning sign. Yeah, sign flipper, okay? Back in the day, y'all, that was a big deal. Not as prevalent in 2024. However, they still use them during tax season. They have the ladies out there with the liberty. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yes. So...

Signed Whirling, he said, I thought he was joking. So when he first asked me, I started laughing and I was like, yeah, we won't be doing that. And he goes, no, I want you to hire a signer.

like flipper. And I said, for our urgent care center? And he said, yes. And I said, so you want me to put a man outside to flip a sign that says, come get your health care? And he said, yes, great idea. So he was serious because he bugged me about it for like two weeks. So finally, I was like, I got to do it. This was back in the day, Craigslist.

This was how old it was. I went to Craigslist. I posted a job posting and I had people show up. And so this, I had never done an interview like this. I sat there and I'm like, do you know how to dance? Yes. Can you show me some moves and pretend like you're holding a sign? Cause I didn't even have the sign made yet. Yeah.

And I hired somebody and we had him there for a couple weeks. And every day he would come in at a certain time. I'd give him his sign and he'd go outside and flip it. For all the time. Interesting. Interesting. The stuff you never think you have to do for marketing. Yeah. Okay. So...

In the world of marketing, some of the stuff you never think you would have to think about, this person was putting together some marketing photos and materials for a particular business. And the discussion came up with the business owner as to what type of photos you want to use, such as, do you want to include photos of your nether regions? Yes.

In there. Excuse me? What kind of photos are these? Okay, I'm not going to go into that. Okay, so who was it, Mom? Do you think it was Chelsea or Vivian that had to talk to a small business owner and ask them, do you want to include pictures of the downstairs area of your body on social media?

I think you, Vivian. You think it was me? Yes, Vivian. I'll go with the opposite, Chelsea. The only reason is because I can see you. And I think, do you want me to? No, I think it's you. I can see you doing it. Okay, so it was kind of not a trick, but this wasn't, it was me.

This wasn't in healthcare. This is when I did the salon marketing. The Brazilian wax. The Brazilian wax. So we had the discussion. We were talking about social media, the kind of branding we wanted, the kind of imagery we wanted to use. And there are some salons out there that do share photos of the bikini area.

Because they like to show before and after. I can see that. They like to show before and after. So we had to have a conversation of, are we going to be the type of salon that shows those kind of images or not? We ended up going with not just because the owner felt like it didn't align with her branding.

But that was a discussion I had to have, and it was a very interesting one because also we had to discuss, okay, well, how do you want to show them if you do want to show them? Because there's different ways of doing it. You could blur out certain areas. You could put like a pretty picture covering certain areas or like how would you get a flat? Actually, there are a lot of salons who do the flower.

There are a lot of salons who do the flowers. So we had to have that discussion as well. In the end... A Pokemon. A Pokemon.

Call, call Hector for all of your Brazilian wax studio marketing needs. No, do not. Yeah, that was, um, that was a very interesting conversation. I can only imagine because like you said, the conversation is not just a simple yes or no. It's a, if you are giving serious consideration to it, how far is it acceptable to, because you, the,

The thing is, okay, when you're selling a service like that, and y'all, this is the one thing where with marketing, we always tell you that having before and afters are really great, especially when it comes to skincare or, you know, a lot of hair salons do this now, right? The before and after.

That's wonderful because people are very visual. However, sometimes if you are struggling and you're saying, I don't want to go that route, you need to sit down with your marketing person or whoever's handling your social media and say, let's come up with a consistent game plan of how we can visually portray the same thing without actually using that imagery. But I mean-

Regardless of whether you go with a porcupine, a flower, whatever it is. Porcupine is the before. It's the before. And the flower is the after. Naked mole rat. They don't get that from me. She definitely gets that from him. Can I say though, it was...

a surprisingly very serious conversation because like you were just saying, like, how are we going to make up for not showing this? And what we did is we showed other before and afters, you know, legs and arms and eyebrows and stuff like that. We're just not showing that specific area. A lot of client testimonials in place of showing the bikini area. Yeah.

And again, it was a long conversation because, you know, you're giving up a piece of material that could be very beneficial. But again, again,

It doesn't align with our branding. It doesn't align with who this small business is. So we're just not going to do that. And listen, if you're listening, leave it in the comments. Tell us, is it, I mean, does that type of imagery even matter when it comes to Brazilian waxing? Because at this point, everybody and their mama knows what a Brazilian wax is. I don't think you have to get too specific, but I could be wrong. Okay. They could be the one thing that people are like, I want to see what a, you know, potentially good wax.

Let's not have that conversation. All right. Well, I think that was it. You guys actually fared pretty well. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. You did better than what I thought. Mom, did any of you...

I had a lot of confidence coming in. I exceeded her expectations. Thank you. Mom, was there anyone that surprised you? What was your favorite story out of all of them? The weirdest one, do you think? I think for me is the one that Chelsea didn't put there. I didn't turn the microphone on. Yes, I think that was the funny one.

Is it funny because you knew she was in hot water and she had to go beg for forgiveness and say, I'm so sorry? Is it funny because you know the doctor that it happened to? Yes. And I like him. Oh my God.

He won extra brownie points with that one, Chelsea, because he did redo the video, right? Yeah, he did redo the video. He didn't fire me. That was great, too. Yeah, I often think about that half the time when we were talking about this episode and we were coming up with stories. We were sitting there just talking about the random stuff that happens, and I will say I am surprisingly shocked that sometimes my reaction to things, I'm like, oh, I don't

think I reacted to that very well. Thank goodness we all kept our jobs. I was thinking because when we sat down trying to come up with these stories, originally I was like, I don't have any stories. I don't have anything weird that happened to me. And Vivian was prodding me like, come on, do you have nothing? Oh, let's talk about lunches. I'm like, well, one time some guy just didn't talk to me.

I mean, that's pretty – to sit in front of somebody for 40 minutes and not talk to them, that's pretty hard to do, okay? Yeah. Like even – most people are going to be nice at the very least, right? Like pretend to, you know, thanks, you brought me a free lunch. Now I feel like I have to talk to you for at least five minutes. Yeah.

All right. Well, Chelsea, I think that's the episode. Friendly reminder, you guys, if you have not already hit subscribe, please do so if you're not following us. If you did not get us a Christmas present this year, Chelsea and I are both a size five stars on the review page. So go ahead and leave us a review because that helps to, as Chelsea mentioned earlier, get our information in front of others.

And go be the best SOB you can be.