Building a Stronger Brand: Marketing Strategies for Small Business Growth

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have the CEO with Lawson House Marketing Agency, Caroline Lewis. Welcome.

Caroline Lewis: Hello. Thanks so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Lawson House. How are you serving folks?

Caroline Lewis: Yeah. So we are a marketing agency based just up the road in Chattanooga, Tennessee. But we serve clients all over the country with our marketing support. So we work through design and marketing systems to help small business owners show up better online and create more memorable brands.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Caroline Lewis: Yeah. Great question. So I went to UTC. I got drawn to Chattanooga for the mountains and the river and started studying marketing here, and fell in love with helping business owners and really diving into their passions and things like that, and came across an opportunity to interview someone who had the job I wanted to have one day, and it was a school project, and then interviewed the previous founder or the founder of Lawson House. Her name was Suzy Consoli for a project. And after that conversation, a few short weeks later, she was hiring and got the opportunity to join the Lawson House crew as one of the first full time hires and worked underneath her, helping small business owners, specifically with their brands and websites. And then about three years in, she came to me and said, hey, I want to step away and do something else. Do you want to take this over? And gave me the opportunity to buy the business from her. So I’ve gotten to go from both the employee of Lawson House to now the owner of Lawson House, which has been such a joy and has given me a whole new passion for owning a business. What it’s like making these business decisions, and it’s been a really fun journey throughout all of that.

Lee Kantor: So what was it like? Um, first of all, so you were in college and then you had the opportunity to join the firm. Was that.

Caroline Lewis: Yes, I started right out of college, essentially the month I graduated. I started at the company two months before I graduated college.

Lee Kantor: So how did. So when you’re in college, you, you know, you knew the end of college was near. So you were like, okay, let me just start looking for a job. And you just kind of found Lawson House, like just in your job search.

Caroline Lewis: Yeah. Crazy through just searching on LinkedIn and things like that. I was constantly looking and I had a marketing internship at the time, but knew I wanted something more full time and came across a Instagram post that my wedding photographer had just posted about. And so she reposted that this company was hiring. And I was like, oh, I’ll reach out. This is a great connection. So it was just random timing of events, but was actively searching for a job right out of college.

Lee Kantor: And then what attracted you to Lawson? Was it was it just that the your person you knew just said, hey, check them out. They’re hiring. Like it was that simple. It wasn’t like, oh, they have cool stuff or like it.

Caroline Lewis: Was a combination of both. So I was interested by just the recommendation of the company, but also, um, was really intrigued by the fact that they were a startup and was really wanting to learn more about what it was like to gaining new business and starting to work behind the scenes and all of those kinds of pieces, especially with other startups and small business owners too. Um, I always liked the idea of entrepreneurship and always thought it wasn’t for me individually. But then this opportunity changed and there were other plans in the cards for me. So now I’ve got a whole new look on entrepreneurship. But really the intriguing piece is working for a startup from the beginning.

Lee Kantor: So then you’re. Insert yourself there. You say you’re one of the first full time hires. Now, is it one of those situations where, like, you didn’t like you weren’t like, okay, Caroline’s in charge of this and that’s it. Like it’s one of those you got to do a little of everything because it’s kind of a, you know, a small but growing team.

Caroline Lewis: Absolutely. Absolutely. So it’s one of those things and still is to this day that we all wear many hats. But, um, I was one of the first full time hires and started out as the operations assistant, which was a vague term for kind of a miscellaneous catch all that the founder needed support with. Um, and then we hired a graphic designer and grew from there being a design firm. Um, and now we have a team of eight and or nine as of recent. And um, so we all have our different respective roles, but there’s still lots of miscellaneous things that come with working for a small business too.

Lee Kantor: Now, what was the part that you were like, okay, this is my superpower. I’m really good at this.

Caroline Lewis: It’s funny you asked that. I’m still figuring out exactly what that looks like for me. Um, but I think the biggest piece is I really love being a cheerleader for others around me, whether that’s for my team or for our clients. I love seeing people succeed and anything I can do to help people do that, um, has been really just something that brings me so much joy. And so I think that being in the marketing side of things, you really get to have a pulse on helping people grow their businesses and drive real results and share about what they do. So anytime I come across another business owner or something that I’m passionate about, I’m telling everyone about them, hey, you could use this service or you should meet this person or things like that. And then similarly for my team, I think that they all have so much potential and are a great group of women. And I think that giving them opportunities to grow and cheering them on in challenging situations has been really fun too.

Lee Kantor: Now when you because it was only a short period of time from you went from an employee to the owner was just a few years. Right? So that wasn’t like, you know, ten years or, you know, some people their whole career. Um, was that transition to, uh, you know, the mindset of an employee to the mindset of an owner? Was that a difficult transition or was that something they kind of empowered you with early on?

Caroline Lewis: I would say it was more difficult than I thought it would be. Just for the mental shift is that I was so used to doing the things in the business day in and day out, and I love working with our clients, so that’s been really, really enjoyable. But the hardest part was for me to say, okay, these are my decisions to make and to really to be able to step into that freedom was not an easy thing, is that I was used to kind of the normal boundaries of a 9 to 5 and things like that. And to be able to say, okay, now I get to make these decisions and make it what I want. Um, it took me a little while to kind of figure that out. And I would say just in the past year, have I been able to step into that and say, okay, here are my dreams for Lawson House. And there was a lot of homage I wanted to pay to the founder before me and the things she set out to build. And I loved what she set out to build because we were doing it together. So it wasn’t things that I needed to rework, but it was just figuring out what does that look like for me and what do I want? Lawson has to stand on to.

Lee Kantor: So did. Was there kind of, um, I don’t want to say just a major pivot, but maybe just an expansion or evolution of the kind of the values and the true north of the organization.

Caroline Lewis: Yes, absolutely. And that’s what really in I’m just about to hit kind of two and a half years of being on my own and running this in the past six months or so, I’ve really figured out and been able to put words to that. So we’ve built out our own signature framework to take clients through. It’s really just putting a lot of words to what we’ve offered to our clients now to say, okay, here’s how we take someone through and make it easily understandable, easily explainable, um, but also shaping our core values at the end of the day to, to what we want the precedent of Lawson to be internally and Externally.

Lee Kantor: So how did you kind of land on, on these, um, kind of pillars of the organization? Like it was it just from doing so much, um, or just by you, you have mentors or maybe you learned of new ways of doing things like how did these kind of the Lawson House methodology come about?

Caroline Lewis: Yeah, a little bit of both. A lot of time, just spending reflecting, what is this look like? How can we start to put words to this? Um, my husband is a creative genius and has worked in marketing and advertising for quite a while as well. And as he was hearing me on sales calls and things like that, he was like, I think you need a framework just to help explain this better and help to hit this kind of idea home. And so we really leaned into the name house and the part of our name house and walked people through what it looks like to map their blueprint and create their marketing plan. And then what does it look like to build their house, the theoretical house for their business. And what that is, is their foundation to their business. So the way that they show up online and their online presence and all those kinds of things, and then inviting people in is that third part. And that really was where I think that we bring together all of our core values, all of who we are as marketers, as people. We start to say, hey, you need a plan. You need something strong that your business can stand on. And we want to invite people in when that’s already, and that you get to share this with the world. And that’s how you grow your business.

Lee Kantor: Now as part of your journey, did you it sounds like you’ve kind of got some clarity around some of the language and some of the framework. Did you have to say, okay, these are the people that were kind of for these are kind of our people, and then these are not our people. Like, if they want this, they’re going to have to go somewhere else. Because having the people you, you know, you say yes to is important. But also the people you say no to is important to when it shapes kind of the world. You want to live in 100%.

Caroline Lewis: And I think that’s really where we have started to say, okay, this is what we need to stand on, and this is the message and why we’re doing what we’re doing is that we want to make sure that we’re starting with a plan every single time, because that’s where we see marketing being most successful. I think that the case scenarios that we’ve run into in the past or seen other agencies run into is when they just start spending clients money on certain campaigns, certain avenues, things like that. And there’s plenty of times that we’ve been guilty of that. But I think that really putting this framework into place is to say, hey, we want to have a really clear plan. We want to make sure you’ve got a strong foundation you’re sending clients to or, um, people to before they’re engaging with you, purchasing with you. Because if those pieces are in place, you’re going to end up wasting a lot of money and a lot of time over the course of your marketing plan that’s not currently in place, um, to make sure that it’s in a better place. So that’s really where we want to make sure that they’ve got clarity, they’ve got goals in place and we’re all on the same page before we’re moving forward with some of these pieces, because oftentimes that leads to unsuccessful campaigns or goals not achieved or things like that. And that’s the last thing that we want someone to experience. So that’s led to us people who aren’t willing to start with that plan or those messaging or saying, hey, actually, everything’s fine when it’s not. That’s when we’ve said, hey, it doesn’t sound like we’re aligned on what you want to be achieving here. We want to make sure we’re confident in the way that you’re going out and marketing, and that has allowed us to create the kind of boundaries we need to be successful with clients, too.

Lee Kantor: So who is the ideal client for Lawson House?

Caroline Lewis: Yeah. So we like working with service based businesses to start. Ideally, you’ve been around for 2 to 3 years. You’ve got some clients under your belt. Um, but it might be time to no longer rely on word of mouth marketing or, um, they want to expand their online presence or they have a ton of marketing that they want to do, but they never have the time to do it and they need it off their plates. And those kinds of things are often signs that you’re ready to hire an agency, or at least start that conversation. Um, where Lawson House really differentiates ourselves is that we are the in-between between an individual freelancer who might be just good at your social or your SEO or your website and a full blown marketing agency that a lot of small business owners can’t afford. We try to find the happy medium between the two so we can serve you really well, like an agency with one point of contact and multiple experts on your team, but without you having to manage multiple freelancers or have the cost of hiring a full time person that you may not be ready for either. So that’s where we find the in-between of, okay, I’m ready to grow and scale. Um, and our industries that we serve are not, they’re not necessarily exclusive, but we do really enjoy working with people who are experts in their field white glove services, who are lawyers, accountants, interior designers, architects, things like that, where they know their specialty, they know their trade, and we get to amplify what they do really well through their online presence.

Lee Kantor: So what’s kind of the problem that they’re having right before they hire you? Is there some symptoms or signals that an organization’s going through that you know, that it’s really telling them, hey, maybe we should reach out to Caroline and her team?

Caroline Lewis: Yeah. One thing I hear all the time from a variety of different industries is that I’m getting client inquiries still, but they’re not the clients I want to be working with. They’re low budget. They’re, um, they’re not fun to work with. They don’t understand my process. Those are things that we hear all the time. And oftentimes that means that your messaging or your online presence isn’t representative of those clients you want to be serving is that you’re not attracting those ideal clients. And that’s oftentimes where we start is to say, who is that ideal client for you? And a lot of times people haven’t really thought about that. What a question I love to ask our clients is, what’s a client that has gone really well. Like, who’s your favorite client you’ve worked with and where did they come from and why was it so successful? And those kinds of things are really good to start to think about of, okay, who is that person? How can we replicate getting more of those? Because they’re out there. It’s just getting in front of them in the right time and the right place.

Lee Kantor: So if you were giving advice for one of those people, um, prior to them hiring you, what are some low hanging fruit an organization can do to attract the right folks to their company or their service?

Caroline Lewis: I think the biggest thing is go to that favorite client or couple of favorite clients and ask for referrals. A lot of people expect people to refer them out of, hey, I know I did a good job. Surely they’ll tell their friends, but sometimes you just have to be honest and blunt and really kind and ask and say, hey, I feel like I did a really great job. I really think you guys were happy with this. What does it look like for you to introduce me to 1 to 2 people? Sometimes you can give them an incentive for referrals. Um, or they might just be willing to pass along your name, but I think that directly asking for referrals, whether that’s a text, a phone call, a quick coffee, things like that are all great ways to really start to build and attract more of those people that you want to work with, because oftentimes they’re in community together.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you find that a lot of folks, their first move when they’re looking to grow is let me get strangers in the door rather than let me just kind of start with my existing clients and build out from there.

Caroline Lewis: Mhm. Oftentimes people think that if they’re ready to grow or scale, that means that they need to go to a whole new audience, which I think is usually one of the biggest mistakes someone will make during growing or scaling times is that oftentimes that market that you need, unless you’ve genuinely tapped every organic avenue, that it’s probably within reach if you do good work and if you show up consistently. So I think that thinking about, okay, who’s in your community or associated circles that you can reach out to, because a warm intro and a warm lead is way better than having to go the cold outbound route.

Lee Kantor: So you’ve mentioned the word community several times. What does it mean to you when it comes to marketing?

Caroline Lewis: Yeah, I think community is everything from not only operating a business to how you show up online, to the people encouraging you, engaging with your content. Um, it can look different in a lot of different spaces and different industries. Um, but community is one of the most important things, whether that is a community of paying clients that you serve really well and that you are nurturing relationships with or community of partnerships of other vendors that work with a similar clientele that you get to network with on a regular basis. That’s my favorite one. And oftentimes people aren’t leveraging for that as leveraging enough. Um, is are there people who serve similar audiences? For example, if you’re an interior designer, have you talked with builders? Have you talked with real estate agents? Have you talked with other companies that serve the same audience as you? Those are things that we really want to encourage that type of community. And then lastly, community, just for your own support in business ownership, is that, um, a business coach? Is that a therapist? Is that a CFO? What does that look like for you to have that community that continues to encourage you and support you? Because oftentimes you’re the business’s greatest asset and having that freedom and that space and that brain capacity to think of new ideas and to be present in your marketing. Um, oftentimes those community pieces can help support all of that along the way.

Lee Kantor: So now when you’re doing your work, um, we hear a lot of folks, uh, leveraging AI. How are you? Or are you leveraging AI when it comes to delivering some of the services for your work?

Caroline Lewis: Yeah, absolutely. It’s something that is probably going to be a part of our lives for the rest of time, and it’s something that we’re all trying to figure out of. There’s two sides to it is that when we’re constantly doing research on AI for how our clients can show up better in AI searches, and we do a lot of SEO work. And now the term E o or G, e o is coming up where there’s answer engine optimization, um, or generative engine optimization, things like that, where people are starting to search for your services where they used to go directly to Google. Now they’re going to chat or cloud or things like that. So we’re constantly researching it for how you can best show up within AI, um, and what that looks like. And then we’re also utilizing it to help optimize our team and make sure that we have the space to serve you better. Um, but sometimes that looks like just admin things of helping with emails or helping with task management, or we use it in our CRM platform and things like that just to make sure things don’t get missed and systematized.

Caroline Lewis: Um, every once in a while we’ll use it in our copy or support there as well, but we’re very cautious in how we use it on actual client deliverables because we always want to have a human first approach is that it’s a great tool. Um, but it oftentimes can get in the way of the message that we’re trying to say. We all have seen the AI fluff and the AI, um, kind of triggers and things like that, that we’re all starting to become accustomed to. And people know that that’s AI and that we are already our brains are already trained to go, ah, I don’t trust that as much. And so the important piece in all of your marketing to become a memorable brand, like we’ve talked about, is that you have to build trust with your clientele. And if you’re showing up with AI graphics or tons of AI copy or things like that, that that trust is dwindling quickly. And so there’s pieces that we use it as tools and resources, but we try to make sure that everything we’re putting out for our clients is human first as well.

Lee Kantor: So is there a story you can share? Uh, that kind of explains what it’s like to work with you don’t name the name of the company or the organization unless you want to, but just maybe share the challenge they came to you with and how you were able to help them get to a new level.

Caroline Lewis: Yeah, absolutely. So there’s a company we’ve worked with for a little over a year now, and they came to us and, um, they’re in the home service industry and they have been around for 20 plus years now. And they had relied on word of mouth up to this point, and they really had done a great job, but they were ready to scale their a team of, I think, between 8 and 10 and had done a fantastic job of getting to where they were, but they knew what the digital day and age that we’re in, that they couldn’t rely on that forever and that they do. They check all the boxes of asking for referrals and reviews and all of the things that we encourage them to do, but they knew their online presence needed to be stronger. And so through working with them, we started with one of those blueprint sessions, like I was talking about, where we mapped out their blueprint, who they wanted to be going after, what message they wanted to be sending. And now they’ve got a really consistent marketing plan. We were up. We uplevel their brand and website, and we took their original brand of 20 plus years and just modernized it just a little. We didn’t want to scrap all of what they’ve built over the years, but we also want to make sure it feels really fresh and exciting and inviting and all of the things that they encompass as a business.

Caroline Lewis: And then same with their website. They wanted to relevel that up too. So we wanted to make sure all of that foundation was set in a really strong way to not only enhance their digital presence, but also to honor all of the heritage that they’ve and legacy they’ve built with their company thus far. And so we took all of that and have put that into a marketing plan. And now we consistently run ads and SEO and email marketing and social and all of the different avenues for them. One, it’s 100% off of their plate. We have one monthly call with them. They review and approve everything there, and they don’t have to think about their marketing again. Two, they’ve consistently gotten in leads and quality clients from their, um, not just leads, but quality clients, which is really important to us. And then three their engagement and their website traffic is through the roof because of the consistency and systems that we have built. So on all fronts, we’re seeing growth for them, which makes me super happy. And they’ve also been able to get marketing off of their plate entirely. And it’s been just a wonderful client experience, um, to partner alongside them and help them through each one of these touch points and create a plan that has actually worked for their business.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you think in today’s day and age where there’s just so much, um, content being, um, available for everybody on all these different channels and platforms? Is it possible to grow organically without paid or is paid something that just should be part of everybody’s playbook?

Caroline Lewis: It’s a great question. One we’re constantly asked. And yes, I think there’s still an organic way to go. Um, the constant balance that we are teaching our clients is that just because you have tons of followers doesn’t mean it’s the right followers and a lot of times paid strategies can lead to that if they aren’t very specific or very effective, is that you’re getting more eyes, you’re getting more views, you’re getting more followers. Those are all great metrics, but it doesn’t matter if they aren’t people who are applicable for your service. If they aren’t in your target audience, that’s not necessarily helpful. Um, so we do recommend the organic route for as long as possible because that’s going that way you can start to attract the ideal customer. Um, now the organic route doesn’t mean it doesn’t involve outreach. So I think you can still engage with other accounts, like follow comment on posts that have similar audiences, things like that. Um, it’s not necessarily a paid strategy, but it does involve outreach and engagement that helps you grow your account on a more effective rate.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Caroline Lewis: Yeah. So two things. One, if you are a small business owner, I think asking yourself the question of, have I thought about who my target audience is in a while. And I think that reflecting on that is just my encouragement to small business owners listening, is that it’s a really good place to start. If you’re feeling like you need marketing, start to think about who would you market to? Who would that person be? Is there ways you can reach out to them or that type of client organically before you engage on any sort of paid strategy? Um, I think that that’s more of my encouragement to listeners than anything. Um, but as far as lesson house goes, if there are listeners who are looking for someone to partner with or looking for that marketing plan, we would be honored to have that conversation with you to put a plan together. It’s a no obligation plan. Um, it’s a one time fee for that conversation. And you can take that and run with it and execute it all on your own. Um, so it’s not something that we require you moving forward with our team to do, but we believe that every, every small business needs a marketing plan and that’s going to help them grow and achieve their goals that they have as well.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have more substantive conversation. What’s a website? What’s the best way to connect with you or somebody on the team?

Caroline Lewis: Absolutely. So you can find us at www.lawson-house.com. House like the house you live in. Um, or you can find us at Lawson House agency on Instagram. Send us a DM, a message, whatever is easiest there. Um, but we’d love to connect you. If you schedule a call with us, it’ll be on my calendar. So I would love to chat with you here about where you’re at in your business and what best next steps would be for you.

Lee Kantor: Well, Caroline, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Caroline Lewis: Thank you so much, Lee. I appreciate you having me.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.