Turning Action into Advocacy Celebrating Women of Color Marketing Business Owners

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women In Motion, we have Tamara Keller with The Sax Agency. Welcome.

Tamara Keller: Good morning. How are you?

Lee Kantor: I am doing well. I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about The Sax Agency.

Tamara Keller: So, The Sax Agency is a full service marketing, branding, and advertising agency. We are located in Los Angeles, and, you know, that pretty much covers it.

Lee Kantor: So, what’s your background? Have you always been involved in this kind of work?

Tamara Keller: No. My journey to being an entrepreneur at The Sax Agency was quite different, I think, from most entrepreneurs. I actually went to undergrad and graduate school for engineering. And I feel like engineering is one of those degrees that teaches you either to just be an engineer or teaches you how to critically think so that you can go out and conquer any industry. So, clearly, I am the latter.

Tamara Keller: After going to school for engineering and practicing for a bit, I realized that I kind of wanted to do something that was more people facing and less behind the computer calculating all kinds of calculations. And so, I went back to business school and went to work for a major consulting firm. And then, that eventually led to us starting The Sax Agency.

Lee Kantor: So, where have those skills benefited you in terms of a marketing advertising agency that’s kind of driven, at least in some respect, by creativity and kind of a little bit more chaos than I would imagine an engineering firm would have?

Tamara Keller: I’m one of those people who I’m really fortunate to have been and to still be equally right brained as I am left brained, which means that I really love all things creative, from interior design to fashion, et cetera, but I really cannot operate out in chaos. I really have to have everything streamlined. So, as much as I love creativity, I love process.

Tamara Keller: And I think that most agencies, even to today, especially small agencies, they really thrive on the creative front, but there’s not always a lot of process and execution behind the creation. And I think that’s kind of where my business partner and I really merge the two worlds. We’re able to bring our hyper creativity to every client that we approach, but then what we do is we really try to make sure that when we’re thinking outside the box, it’s not so outside of the box that we actually can’t make it happen in budget, on time, and all the things that clients really care about.

Lee Kantor: Now, because your background is so interesting in this space, can you share for the folks out there that maybe have their own agency or creative endeavor, what are some go-to processes and order that you would recommend that any creative endeavor would have, like some must haves?

Tamara Keller: Wow. I think that that question is so broad because, honestly, we do approach every project so differently. And I think that actually might be my answer to the question, which is, don’t come to any project, even as an entrepreneur when you’re approaching a client, we always think that we have the tried and true formula, like this is the way that we’re going to operate in business, and I think that is a recipe for disaster.

Tamara Keller: I think what you really need to do is approach every client as if it’s a new finding and discovery. So, yeah, you have some of the things that are your go-to, whether it’s a certain sort of project management style or a certain way that you do discovery calls with clients to identify what the problem that they’re trying to solve. However, actually having this solution in a box is something that we came to the table knowing that we didn’t want to do.

Tamara Keller: Like I said, I worked for a large consulting firm – and I won’t name names – I think that that is something that the consulting industry is very famous for, they have boxed solutions that really smart people figure out how to delete and repurpose and sell to other clients, which I think is great when you have brand recognition behind you. But when you’re a small agency and really thriving and growing based on having creative solutions and approaching everything in a new and novel and fresh way, that means you shouldn’t come with this tried and true approach to everything.

Tamara Keller: So, yeah, you have some things that work to keep the project on time, on schedule, on budget, and the things that matter. But then you really don’t try to do the same thing for them that you’ve done for someone else.

Lee Kantor: And then, when you’re working with someone, can you just walk us through what that onboarding looks like? Because like you said, you’re trying to create a bespoke solution and just trying to help them achieve whatever outcome they desire, so what are some of the questions you ask early on to help kind of flush out what the real problem is, maybe not the one they say that they have?

Tamara Keller: And, Lee, you would have to pay me in order for me to walk you through my discovery session – no. I’m just joking. My business partner always tells this story, where she speaks of The Simpsons episode where Lisa is part of a concert. And the playing is really, really bad and she’s jamming, like she’s thinking that the music is amazing. And when she was approached around why do you think that this is so good, actually the music is not good, she says, “I’m listening to the notes that aren’t being played.”

Tamara Keller: And I think that that’s how we approach our discovery call. Most clients come to us and they say, “Hey, sales are down. We really want a new campaign to really get the brand out there, reinvigorate the brand.” And that’s what they say, they think it’s just a campaign issue or an issue that can be solved by a new campaign. But what they’re not saying is perhaps that they have some employees that are not out of the box thinkers and want to kind of use the same visuals and messaging that they’ve always used. And maybe they’re also not saying, “Hey, our product has changed, but yet we’re going after the same target audience.” Or maybe they’re not saying, “Hey, we actually need to revive our overall brand before we even come out with a campaign.”

Tamara Keller: And so, I think within the discovery call, we really like to ask questions that are client-driven based on research. Meaning, if the client is an established client, what does that look like from the perspective of have you refreshed recently? Have you reassessed and used data to determine if your audience is still the same? Are you still able to meet them in the same place? Meaning, you might be spending tons of money on billboards, but maybe that audience has aged out of billboards and they’re only on social media. So, really trying to get to something bigger than we need a marketing solution, because a lot of times they need a brand or a strategy solution prior to even getting to the marketing piece.

Lee Kantor: So, do you have a specific niche that you serve or a sweet spot in terms of types of clients?

Tamara Keller: And I always love that question because very early on in our business, we would always get asked like, Are you guys an education focused marketing agency? Do you only work with nonprofits? Or do you only work with government clients? And the short answer was always no. I think that when you approach any project with the idea that every project is something unique, and as long as you do good research and data mining, you can solve a problem, that allows us to work across industry.

Tamara Keller: However, where our sweet spot is, is we say that we are a purpose-driven agency that only works with purpose-driven brands that are driving impact in communities of color. And so, what that means is, you know, we’re not just an agency that you come to because you’re looking to brand a campaign and touch more underrepresented communities. It means that you have to want to touch this community and drive impact in a certain way. That might mean exposing more people to the arts, or it might mean getting more underrepresented populations into college, or it might mean getting education resources into underserved communities. So, those are the types of projects that we really thrive in and go after, and pretty much the only kind of projects that we touch.

Lee Kantor: And then, when it comes to the services you’re delivering, can you share some of that?

Tamara Keller: So, I think our core competencies are around four or five key areas. We’re multicultural and polycultural marketing, which means that we can really handle end-to-end strategy and consulting in that space. So, that means everything from building out a marketing and communication strategy, but anything that’s really focused on touching multicultural and polycultural audiences.

Tamara Keller: We also focus heavy on the digital space, which means that we do a lot of research into where a brand is currently touching a consumer, and making sure that we are able to provide a smart solution in the digital space since that’s where a lot of our clients really need to thrive and operate heavily. Not to say that discounts traditional marketing at all, but we tend to lean heavier into the digital space.

Tamara Keller: Another area I would say is brand ID and communications. Similar to what I was saying earlier, this idea behind “Oh, let’s come up with this magical marketing campaign,” usually a brand really needs to have a firm visual and verbal expression of its personality. And I think what that means is that the brand has to have a messaging strategy and a visual strategy that really resonates with audiences and inspires them to take an action.

Tamara Keller: I think that we’re long past the days where you can have a picture in an image that represents a population that you’re trying to go after and you think you’ve done your due diligence. What we’ve really tried to do is dig deeper and make sure that the complete visual and verbal expression of a brand’s personality is above and beyond apparent through every touchpoint that a consumer might have.

Tamara Keller: And then, the last space I would probably say is the experiential realm. We really like to support our clients in creating and engaging in memorable experiences for their customers and their target audiences. So, that might mean an intimate event creating a direct and meaningful connection at an art installation. But something that’s really focused. We’re not trying to throw concerts. Just little small events that are really able to drive the brand message or the brand campaign home in a way that feels authentic and engaging to the audience.

Lee Kantor: Can you share a story – don’t name the name of the organization – maybe the problem that they came to you with, and then the solution, then how you help them get to a new level?

Tamara Keller: Yeah. And I’ll keep it really generic, because as a small agency I feel like you can go on our website and probably see exactly who the client is. But I will say that we do a lot of work with colleges and universities and it’s a passion project for us. It’s a passion work and a passion space for us. And a lot of colleges and universities come to the door and they have one ultimate goal, which is to enroll more students.

Tamara Keller: I mean, the college and university space is extremely crowded. Depending on what day you look at research, there’s anywhere between 3,000 and 4,000 colleges and universities. And I think that outside of enrollment, colleges and universities don’t understand that there’s usually a larger issue. And I use issue, and that sounds aggressive, but it’s a larger thing that has to be accommodated by a marketing agency.

Tamara Keller: So, we have had a few different colleges and universities come to us wanting a new enrollment campaign. And one of the first steps of our process – very similar to what we were just talking about earlier – is this idea behind making sure that every discovery call really gets to the root problem. So, when we do discovery calls with colleges and universities, they tend to be coupled with focus group sessions where we really go out and interview key stakeholders across audience types.

Tamara Keller: So, for a college or university, that would of course mean existing students, but it would also mean local high school students that could be perspectives. It could also mean alumni. It could mean faculty and staff. It could mean local business partners that could be funding internships for the college or university. And in these focus groups – and this has happened time and time again with some of our clients – you uncover that the conversation is larger than an enrollment campaign.

Tamara Keller: There’s a dialog that has to be opened up between the college and the university with the community, for instance, so that the community is there to support the college or university. There’s a dialog that has to be opened up with the alumni so that instead of you only reaching out to them when you want money, you also are celebrating them and keeping track of their accomplishments and reaching out to them at other times other than just when it’s giving day and time for annual giving.

Tamara Keller: And so, I would say three out of our five most recent colleges or universities, they’ve come to us wanting a branding campaign, and it has really evolved from a six month come onboard session to ongoing contracts. One of our colleges that we work with, we’ve now had for about seven or eight years, so it’s become way bigger than an enrollment campaign. It’s this idea of having a marketing agency partner that is able to keep the communication lines open and fresh for all audiences and all stakeholders in unique ways. And that can really mean, yes, campaigns, but it’s also about outreach, and it’s also about finding ways to keep these audiences involved, which extends beyond enrollment growth. But the byproduct is always enrollment growth.

Tamara Keller: Recently, one of our college or university clients, they’d had a ten year downward spike in enrollment. And for the first time this year, so enrollment for ’23-’24, they went up by 5 percent. And although 5 percent seems really small, when you’ve been going down for ten years and seeing that downward trend for ten years, any nudge forward is forward progress. And so, that really came from, yes, we develop a campaign, but I think it really came from engaging across all the stakeholder audiences.

Lee Kantor: And looking at the problem holistically rather than just trying to solve some specific tactic.

Tamara Keller: Exactly. They come, they say give us a campaign. And then, we say, “Hey, hold your horses. Who’s the campaign talking to?” And then, they have no idea because they haven’t started those conversations.

Lee Kantor: Right. A lot of times they look for that kind of magic pill or silver bullet that just solves magically a problem rather than looking holistically at really what they’re trying to accomplish and forming a bigger picture solution.

Tamara Keller: Absolutely, Lee. And I think a lot of times that’s driven by budget concerns. Whenever there’s any sort of discussion around recession or even this idea of AI taking certain jobs and really minimizing them, I think that people always think that marketing is the thing that should be cut, the thing that is replaceable and that you don’t need. And I think that’s because a lot of people look at it from this idea of “Oh. It’s just a campaign,” but it’s so much bigger.

Tamara Keller: So, I think exactly what you said, this idea of a holistic approach, you know, people will come to us because they’re like, “Oh. We only have this budget, so let’s just come in and do a campaign.” And then, they’re upset when they don’t get the results that they’re looking for because they only got a campaign. And had they taken a more holistic view and perhaps sacrificed a larger budget in the beginning, you get larger rewards in the end because you’ve addressed many problems at one time versus just trying to put a Band-Aid on something.

Lee Kantor: And especially if you have that longer term view, if you’re always having to triage something and put out the fire, it’s really hard to grow if all your energy is just on that one thing and hoping it works. It’s just really hard to grow that way.

Tamara Keller: Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: So, now, why was it important for your firm to become part of the WBEC-West community? And what have you seen from being part of that community?

Tamara Keller: So, part of my career journey, I spent working in the federal government across a few different positions. And one of the things that I always remembered from that work was, I was in the Management and Budget Office, and I always knew that there were all of these different federal set asides for small businesses, for women-owned businesses, for minority-owned businesses.

Tamara Keller: So, when my business partner and I decided to start our agency, that was one of the first things that I knew we needed to do. I knew that we needed to become certified. And although I wasn’t fully versed in the types of certification, upon doing research, we came upon the WBENC certification and we went after it, I believe, in like our second year of business. And we are approaching our 12th year of business this year, so we’ve been in WBENC for ten years.

Tamara Keller: Our first government contract came from a WBEC reference. So, WBEC, specifically WBEC-West is so good about sending out these weekly newsletters that are just such a wealth of information, that if you have time as an entrepreneur to sit and go through it, there’s so many different opportunities for you to take advantage of, from RFPs being released to grant opportunities, to education resources. Just so much information in the email.

Tamara Keller: And so, one of the outreach was for a government agency here in California looking for some women-owned certified businesses to go after a marketing and advertising RFP. And so, we went after it and we became a finalist and then we won it, and they’re still our client, I think they told me recently, it’s been eight years. I’m always a huge proponent, one, for that very reason.

Tamara Keller: The other reason is about two years ago now, I joined the forum. And I’m sure you know what that is. But, you know, sitting amongst women and being a part of the forum really allows you to get involved in WBEC at a different way. It allows you to connect with a lot more women business owners and do different events outside of just the typical network setting. And like some of the business classes that you do with some of the other WBEs, I think that you get to bond in a different way.

Tamara Keller: And I know that a lot of WBENC members, they get business from each other as well. So, I have a few people that I’ve met in different WBEC settings that I’ve gotten their information, so that when I’m looking to expand and work on something specific in a project that maybe is not an in-house capability, I now have another woman business owner that I can tap into to be able to fulfill that need.

Tamara Keller: So, yes, I always tell people it’s a great resource to be able to network with heads of supplier diversity and to be made aware of new opportunities potentially for business. But even larger than that is this idea of an infinite amount of networking and educational opportunities that the organization is constantly putting before you. So, I find that I tend to be a cheerleader for the organization, not just because I’m a part of it, but because I know that a lot of my own personal knowledge and business growth and business development knowledge has come from participating in an organization like WBEC-West.

Lee Kantor: Now, what does The Sax Agency need more of and how can we help you?

Tamara Keller: I think that outside of needing more time in the day that you can’t help me with, I would say that one of the things that we are really trying to do this year is double our team size. We’re constantly being told by our business manager that as long as so much of our agency’s magic lies with my business partner and I, that we will be limited by our growth forever.

Tamara Keller: And I think that is the age old dilemma that most entrepreneurs face, like you sell yourself in the beginning when you’re a service company, and then being able to wean your clients off of seeing you all the time. And so, we’re really hoping to grow our team in a significant way over the next two years. So, that can come in the form of, like, us needing to access additional capital to be able to, obviously, pay the team, but it’s also finding the right team members that can handle the type of pace that a small agency brings. So, that’s one thing.

Tamara Keller: And the other thing is we’re also hoping to develop our advisory board, which we have not done in a succinct way since we started. And it’s something that we know that we have to do as we are really trying to grow.

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

Tamara Keller: Yes. Our website is www.thesaxagency.com, so T-H-E-S-A-X-A-G-E-N-C-Y.com. And we have a contact form on there, and all of those messages get directed right to either my business partner and I, and so that’s usually the best form of contact for us.

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

Tamara Keller: Okay. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.