Arias WebsterBerry with WebsterBerry Marketing

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Joining me today is Arias WebsterBerry, the dynamic founder and CEO of WebsterBerry Marketing, a leading digital marketing agency dedicated to helping businesses grow and thrive in a competitive marketplace. Arias and I happen to meet each other through a really cool podcasting match system, which is awesome and I am so excited to talk to him today. He is the creator of Launch Ignition and the author of Content Cannon. He equips entrepreneurs with actionable tools and innovative frameworks. His mission is clear to empower business owners to scale their ventures by harnessing the full potential of content and strategic marketing areas. Welcome to the show.

Arias WebsterBerry: Tricia. Thank you for having me. I’m glad that we actually got to do this.

Trisha Stetzel: I know it’s been a few weeks coming, I think trying to get our schedules together right. Uh, busy, busy guy. So, Arias, tell me more about you and where this WebsterBerry marketing inspiration came from.

Arias WebsterBerry: Yeah. Um, I am an Aquarius. I like long walks on the beach. Uh, no. Uh, I’m Aries Webster berry. I originally, I’m from Dallas. I grew up in San Diego, so I actually do like long walks on the beach, funny enough. Um, and, uh, probably about ten years ago, I moved back to Dallas, which is probably one of the greatest ideas that I had. I love Texas. Uh, the opportunities that are in this city are absolutely amazing. And when I got back here, I was really kind of putting my life back together and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I was already kind of in the marketing space I was in, in entertainment, doing large scale festivals and concerts. Uh, at that time, the largest concert that I had done was at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. We had Janelle Monae and Common and Ludacris and mix master Mike from the Beastie Boys was thousands, tens of thousands of people. Um, so I had tasted some marketing, and when I got back here, I went to work for a really large digital marketing firm, and that’s where I got my formal training in digital marketing. And that was, um, it was kind of the the final domino, you know, that that final piece in the puzzle that really solidified what I wanted to do. And I was there a couple of years, and then I went and started my own firm, which eventually became Webster Barry marketing.

Trisha Stetzel: Very cool. That’s so exciting. And as you’re talking, I’m like, oh, so many solopreneurs or small business owners don’t understand when they get into business that they have to either be a marketer or find a marketer like you that can help them with their marketing. It’s a tough place to be. Right. So what do you, from your perspective, what are the key challenges that these entrepreneurs or small business owners face with digital marketing, and how might they overcome those?

Arias WebsterBerry: I think that most people it’s just either a lack of consistency or, um, just intimidation. You know, many people do not show up often enough because they see all of these huge brands and influencers that are dancing on TikTok or they’ve got, you know, all this amazing transitions in their disappearing in mid-air and then they, you know, they’re flying through the air and then they show up and they’re funny. And it’s just, you know, there’s this production value that a lot of people feel that they have to live up to in order to post, or they just don’t know what to post about. And, you know, a lot of it is just figuring it out. And, you know, if you do decide to get into business, marketing is absolutely essential. You know, if if sales is the lifeblood, well, marketing is oxygen. So you need to find you either need to figure it out yourself, or you need to find someone like me who absolutely loves marketing. Is willing to take that off your plate.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, I love that you said if sales is the lifeblood of your business, then marketing is the oxygen. Like, that’s so meaningful. I might just steal it. I’m kidding, but I might reuse it and I’ll give you credit. And then after I say it a few times and I don’t have to give you credit anymore.

Arias WebsterBerry: As long as you do it once, I’m good.

Trisha Stetzel: Um, talk to me more about launch ignition. What is that?

Arias WebsterBerry: Yeah. Um, so launch ignition is a program for entrepreneurs that helps them plan, build, and scale their business to six figures and beyond. Uh, it basically came out of really what I went through in this, like, 15 year journey of being an entrepreneur. I’ve made an enormous amount of mistakes. I’ve made money. I’ve lost money. I’ve, you know, crashed businesses, I’ve sold businesses. And in the midst of all that, I’ve kind of like Neo in The Matrix. I’ve figured out the process to building businesses. You know, no matter what kind of business you’re in, the process is always the same. And I took all those things that I’ve used to build my various businesses, and I turned it into essentially, well, initially a coaching program. That’s what it started out as. And then we built a software around it, and then I came around. So we put AI into the software. So now it’s a coaching program. It’s a software. It’s an accountability, um, component to it as well. But at its core, it is designed to help entrepreneurs get their idea out of their head on paper and out into the market.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh, I love that. So for those people who are interested that are listening right now, how can people find you before we move on with our conversation?

Arias WebsterBerry: Uh, I am not hard to find. Uh, if you just Google Arius Webster, there’s tons of stuff that will come up, but you can go to Arius webster.com. Uh, all of my businesses are there. My books, courses, softwares, all that stuff is on there. So that’s probably the best place to go.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Fantastic. All that stuff. All that stuff. There’s so much of it, right? Um, let’s talk a little more about if. So I’m in business. I’m terrible at marketing and not me personally, but, you know, just making up a scenario, so I’m terrible at it. Where would I start? Areas to even just begin to understand how marketing is really the oxygen in your business?

Arias WebsterBerry: Um, I would say really boiling it down. You know, entrepreneurs come to me and they’re like, okay, so I have a website. Um, should I be dancing on TikTok? Do I need to start a blog? Should I be posting 12 times a day on Instagram? Like, what is it? What’s the magic bullet? And I always tell people there is all of those things work in. None of those things work. Um, all of those things are just what we call traffic sources. So first thing you should do is make sure that you have a solid presence. If you don’t have a website, you need one, right? You need something to legitimize the fact that you are in business and clearly explains what it is that you do. I personally will not do business with anybody who does not have a website. That’s just that’s just kind of baseline for me. If you haven’t taken the time. I don’t even care if it’s a crappy website. If you don’t have a website, well, that means that you’re not really in this thing. Um, so a digital presence. Get a website, maybe 1 or 2 social media platforms that have a reasonable amount of people that may be interested in your service.

Arias WebsterBerry: So, you know, if you’re targeting teens, well, you know, maybe Snapchat or Twitch or TikTok is probably for you. If you’re targeting executives, well, you should probably be looking at Facebook, YouTube or LinkedIn, right? So, you know, get a couple of those and then you just need to figure out what is it that you can commit to when it comes to publicizing what it is that you do? You don’t have to publish five, six, seven, ten times a day, but you do need to commit to, say, posting twice a week, right? Hey, I’m going to do one flier that says, we do this, this is how much it is. And then I’m going to create maybe a video that explains one minute part of my product or service. And when you stretch that over, say, a year, if you’re posting twice a week, that’s 104 pieces of content. That’s a lot of stuff out there for people to latch on to and realize that you really know your stuff.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, I love that. How important is it for these entrepreneurs that are trying to do their own marketing, or even hire an agency to help them with that? How important is it for them to know who their ideal client is and what product they’re actually going to serve to that ideal client.

Arias WebsterBerry: It is of paramount importance. Uh, that’s actually so in launch ignition, that is the first step of nine that we go through. We focus on helping you build out your avatar. Right. There’s no point in you building an offer or trying to find a solution to a problem if you don’t know who you’re servicing. Uh, that is the critical part. So we really dig in. We spend a good amount of time trying to figure out who is your target. Who’s your ideal, uh, customer? Like, if you could wave a magic wand and, you know, get a thousand people that would service your business, what would they look like? What’s their name? Where do they live? What kind of car do they drive? Are they college educated? Did they go to a trade school? Do they like Toyotas? Do they like chocolate? You know, like you really have to dig into who that person is because it’s very hard for you to create things for someone that you cannot see in your head or you can’t see on a piece of paper. So that’s the first thing that you have to do. You have to get crystal clear on who your audience is and who you’re talking to.

Trisha Stetzel: I knew we were going to be friends.

Trisha Stetzel: I knew it. I knew.

Trisha Stetzel: It. Uh, and I think a lot of people are very afraid of the people that I work with. Areas are very afraid of boxing themselves in to only working with for, next to or serving a particular market or a very small niche. So can you talk about the importance? I know you talked about how we get there, but what is the actual importance of being really laser focused on who you want to serve from a marketing perspective?

Arias WebsterBerry: I mean, every I won’t say every, but the vast majority of entrepreneurs that are not seeing success, that haven’t hit that first 6 or 7 figures, it’s typically that’s one of the big components. And they all I always ask, so you know, who’s your target market. Who’s your ideal customer? And man, if I had a nickel for every time someone says, oh, well, you know, my it’s my product, my service, it’s really basically for everyone. Everyone. And I always say, well, if it’s for everyone, that means it’s for no one. No one wants a one size, fit all solution. Like, I mean, even something as simple as a baseball cap. Most people don’t like one size fits all baseball caps. They want one that’s fitted, one that’s made for your head. Uh, there’s a reason why people don’t walk around with NFL hats, right? Or NFL jerseys. They wear a Dallas Cowboys jersey or a Packers jersey. Right. They want the thing that is for them. They want to know that they are part of a tribe, that you created something that identifies and resonates with them. So if you’re running around trying to make sure that your business is open for everyone, well, that’s the reason why they’re walking past it, because you’re not saying anything. You’re not doing anything that makes them stop and say, yeah, that that’s for me. I have that problem. I’m a woman who loves pink and, you know, wants to decorate my house like it’s Pepto-Bismol. Yeah, you are the pink store. Great. That’s for me. Uh, you know, if you’re the rainbow store. Well, I mean, it’s it’s it’s for everybody. And who wants that.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. Yeah. Oh my goodness again you’re my best friend today and probably for a long time from now. Um, you mentioned when we first met a few weeks back that you had a mission to serve a certain number of people. Can you talk about that?

Arias WebsterBerry: Um, I have all of these crazy ideas. Um, my team always. They’ve actually asked me. They’re like, where do you come up with this stuff? Um, I just, I like numbers, I love numbers, and I like audacious goals. I work best when there’s pressure and I have a target to hit. So with launch ignition, I, you know, we’ve had a little over 100 people go through the program. And I said, we need to go bigger, we need to go better. And I said, okay, we’re going to help 100 people. No, no, no, we’re going to help 1000. Yeah, yeah, we’re going to help a thousand people make six figures in a year. And my team said, wait, what.

Arias WebsterBerry: It’s taking us like two years to get to 100 people? How are we going to do a thousand in that same period of time? Um, but I’m, I’m very much a believer that, you know, if you set a goal, you’ll figure it out. So that was the goal. Um, helping a thousand entrepreneurs make six figures a year by 2026. And then the second part of that goal is helping 100 entrepreneurs generate seven figures in a year. Together. We call that our 100 X impact. If you do the math on that, that’s over $200 million in revenue that we will have generated or helped to generate in these businesses inside of one year, do that five years in a row. That’s $1 billion. That’s a micro economy. Um, and it’s that’s a huge impact, right? That that is cold, hard cash that is going to help put food on the table, that is going to pay people’s salaries, that is going to put products and services in homes all over the world, and it’s going to build viable businesses for these people, hard working, normal people that, you know, had a dream and had a vision. And by doing this, we’re going to bring it to life.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh, I love that. Just thinking about the pebble on the pond. Right. And how that ripple effect with one person can affect so many after. So I’m going to call yours the Boulder effect. Because you drop a boulder in the lake, you’re going to see a much bigger ripple. Uh, I’m going. To steal that. Yeah, I love that.

Trisha Stetzel: I think that’s fantastic. Um, okay. So how do you find your how do you find your clients? How can I help drive people to your launch ignition program?

Arias WebsterBerry: Um, you know, typically we we see that they’re in their first 3 to 5 years, um, you know, they’re under $1 million, typically in, in sales, typically under 100,000. Um, that first 100,000 is typically the a really, really hard hurdle for a lot of entrepreneurs. And once you hit it, once it becomes easy. Um, so yeah, anyone who, let’s say is a coach or consultant, um, someone that’s been in their industry for a really long time but are not seeing the results they know they should have. Maybe they’re seeing, uh, other people that are younger and less experienced and haven’t been doing it as long as them, but they’re seeing more success and they’re just like all they do is post stuff on social media. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, you know, um, type of people that we love servicing, right? People that have put their blood, sweat and tears into their craft, they’ve honed it. They’ve, they’ve they’ve got it down, but they just haven’t figured out how to turn it into something that’s duplicatable to see success long term.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that, and and it takes work. I know people want to go out and just have it done for you and, you know, put puts the magic out on the I’ll just call it the world Wide web. Because I’m old, right? Put it out on the internet and they will come. And that’s just not the way this works. And I heard you talk about the, you know, the beginning steps of this program. You got to go do some work so that what the product that comes out the back end is people want to come find you, right?

Arias WebsterBerry: Absolutely. You know, there was a time where just posting on social media regularly was enough to get you attention. Everyone does it now, and most of them don’t have businesses. And you have to do something. Um, you know, kind of above and beyond to get people’s attention and to earn their trust, earn their respect, earn their interest. Um, and going through something like Launch Ignition gives you very concise framework to be able to get that trust, to get their attention, to build your product or service into something that is attractive to your target demo.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. Uh so now if you’re compelled and you haven’t already gone to find areas, I’m going to tell you where to find him. Uh, he and I are connected on LinkedIn. So if you can’t find him, come find me. And you can find how we’re connected. And check out all of the amazing things that he’s done and his areas. Web on LinkedIn. A r I a s w e b on LinkedIn. Or you can go to WebsterBerry marketing.com and find everything else that you might not have found already. Um, areas. Can I ask you about your favorite client story? Would that be okay?

Arias WebsterBerry: I love talking about this. Um, so, coach, doctor Jay, uh, she is such a sweetheart. She is, um, altruistic at her core. She’s a college professor. She’s a social worker. Uh, and she’s just a lover of of people, and she’s a good human. And she is set out to help college students deal with the nonacademic barriers to finishing college. You know, a lot of college students, they move away from home. Uh, they’re around in an environment that they don’t know. They a lot of people that they don’t know. They may not have the best, um, time management skills. They may be a little anxious. All of these different things, you know, trying to find, um, money to pay for school and all that different stuff. And she’s created a program that helps students with that. She had been at this for about ten years in academia, you know, working a full time job, rigorous schedule, but trying to turn this passion that she has for students into a real business. And, you know, she is that person, like, hey, I should start a YouTube. And I got a website and I’m on blogger.com, you know, back in the day And, you know, she’s just doing all these things, but she really didn’t know what process, what sequence to do it in. Like, what should I really be focusing my attention on? And like I said, she was at that for ten years. And within a year she came into the launch ignition program. And she has, I want to say, three different offers out. So two courses and she’s got two books that she’s written. She has multiple sales funnels, she’s got a new website. She has been um, we’ve got her into, I think, the San Francisco Post, we’ve got her into a couple different trade journals in education, and now she’s actually in the middle of negotiating two, six figure contracts that are about to absolutely change not only her life, right, but but all of the students that she’s going to touch with her stuff. Uh, she is a testament to you.

Arias WebsterBerry: Just not giving up? You know, just deciding that this is what you want to do and just sticking to it until you figure it out. She is just awesome. And you know, if you get a chance to look her up, if you have a college student, please go look her up. She is just a ball of energy. She’s always smiling. She’s always got a kind word to say.

Trisha Stetzel: Nice. And we got a plug in for her.

Arias WebsterBerry: Absolutely.

Trisha Stetzel: Yes, I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that story. So we really want everyone who’s listening who needs a better marketing plan. Most of us do, especially when it comes to digital marketing. To go check out your launch ignition program if they’re not ready yet. What is your best advice for those who may not have a website yet? They don’t have a YouTube channel yet. They’re not quite ready for a program that you have out there. What could they be doing right now to build their business, their brand and growth inside of just being an entrepreneur?

Arias WebsterBerry: I would probably say. Probably. I mean, you need to get a technological base, right? There are a lot of great platforms out there. Um, I would pick one and stick to it. Um, obviously in our agency and with all of our launch ignition customers, we use ignite Funnels. Um, because it provides everything that you need from the ability to use maybe a templated website. You know, you don’t have to be a tech genius, but it comes kind of templated. Swap out your colors in a logo and boom, you’ve got a site. Uh, it allows you to do kind of your payment processing and, you know, send out some emails and some text messages and stuff like that. But I would say just find a tech base and then focus on one project at a time. Right. So if you don’t have a website, great. Say, hey, this next month or this next two months, I’m going to focus on getting my website up and out, right. I’m going to I’m going to take every Saturday and Sunday, and I’m going to dedicate a couple hours in the next two months, I’m going to somehow figure out this website thing and get that published, and then take the next month or two and go to the next thing, and on and on and on.

Arias WebsterBerry: And again over the course of a year, you’d be surprised what you can get done. I heard a quote that said, um, people overestimate what they can get done in a day, and they underestimate what they can get done in a year. And this is the perfect time because it’s the end of the year. We’ve got 2025 coming up. And if you are trying to make next December look different than this December, well, this is the time to start, right? Put together a plan for the year, and then just slowly knock those things out and make sure that, you know, you put in enough work. And I’ll say this, um, you, Tricia, you know this. You’ve been in business for a long time. Uh, things typically take longer than you think they are just the way it works. But if you commit to just doing the thing, and and no matter how long it takes, eventually you will see the finish line.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. It’s all about that action, right? We can plan and plan and plan and talk about the plan and pretend like we’re going to do the plan. But until we actually put one foot in front of the other and do the right next step, we’re not going to make any progress. Which means if we keep doing the the things that we’ve always done, we’re going to get the same result. We’ve got to go do something better, right? Uh oh my goodness. I am so excited that you came on the show with me today. I can’t wait to hear how many people are going to reach out based on a show that we did today to just query, tell me what this program is all about. I want to understand more. I’m excited about your program. I know that you’re going to go and, um, effect a thousand people in 2026. I am so excited about that. Arias. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

Arias WebsterBerry: Tricia. Thank you for having me. It has been more than a pleasure.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh, you’re such a giver. I can’t wait to hear the rest of this story. That’s all the time we have for today’s show. Join us next time for another exciting episode of Houston Business Radio. Until then, stay tuned, stay inspired, and keep thriving in the Houston business community.