[Fully Managed] Brendan Roach Ep. 55 – Podcast Highlights and Transcript

Shannon: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Fully Managed Podcast, the podcast where we discuss marketing and business tips to help assist you on your business journey. I’m your host, Shannon, Penji’s partnership coordinator, and I’m joined here today with a very special guest, Brendan Roach from AdVenture Media.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Brendan: Nice to be here. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Shannon: And thank you for coming on even though you’re sick. I don’t mean to out you, but people should know that you’re a trooper. That’s important.

Brendan: We all battle through our own mini adversities throughout the week.

Background and Career Journey

Shannon: Could you please, for the audience and for me, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you kind of got to this point in your career and all the stuff in between?

Brendan: I’m originally not from Philadelphia. I’m originally from Massachusetts.

Shannon: I was gonna ask that.

Brendan: I came to Philly for college. I went to St. Joe’s. I played baseball at St. Joe’s. During my time there, I had this idea that I was going to be in international business. I was gonna be traveling across the country, and that was like a goal for me. I minored in Mandarin actually in college.

Shannon: How awesome.

Brendan: Which I can say like, “Where’s the bathroom?” And that’s pretty much it.

Shannon: That happens to the best of us.

Brendan: But then as I went through college and I started to look at potential job options, I started quickly finding that just having the international business degree doesn’t really set you out for doing international business. Then I started to understand what I enjoyed doing, which is data analytics. I really gravitate towards data. I like to go down rabbit holes and kind of poke and prod my way through questions to try to figure out what’s going on.

Which led me into wanting to do a master’s program at St. Joe’s, which was nice because it was a four plus one. I got a grad assistantship with our athletic communications department, which was just a nice add-on to make that decision. So I went in, and I got a Master’s in consumer analytics. It was like a concentration that I could do when I was going through that program. It aligned with everything that I enjoyed doing, and I started to realize in terms of a career path that I wanted to be involved in performance marketing, which is what led me to join a PPC agency, originally out of New York.

So after my grad year, I went to New York, joined AdVenture Media, and then I have a lovely girlfriend who is in med school at Jefferson. So she was starting up med school and after really like a year and a half, I decided to move back to Philly. I approached the conversation and they said, “We’re looking to continue to grow. Our office location in New York sometimes makes it difficult to recruit. So how would you feel about opening a new office,” which is how we started AdVenture Media, Philadelphia. So that is my short story.

Life in Philadelphia

Shannon: Well, I love Philadelphia, so it’s great that you’re here. Do you like it?

Brendan: Yes. I love Philadelphia. I’ve now lived here for like eight years, which is crazy to say that I’ve now spent a third of my life in the city. If you said that I was going to be doing that back when I started college, I wouldn’t believe you. And I will probably be moving out of Philadelphia within the next year and it makes me really sad.

Shannon: Why?

Brendan: So my girlfriend’s in medical school and the process to match into a residency is long and tiring, but they don’t have really a strong say over where you end up.

Shannon: Oh, that’s very sad. I didn’t know that.

Brendan: Yeah.

Shannon: What if it ends up being in Philadelphia?

Brendan: There is a chance that I stay in Philly, but it’s not as strong as some other locations.

Shannon: I understand. That’s totally okay and kind of sad, but it’s also bittersweet ’cause it’s still good news for her.

Brendan: I’ll still be around the area. I won’t leave this place very frequently.

Shannon: Philadelphia is a great place to be.

Starting a New Office Branch

Shannon: Well, tell me about doing that branch. What were the difficulties about it? What was the best part about it? Because I don’t really get to talk to anyone about this kind of thing.

Brendan: So in terms of starting this office, it was interesting. We originally started in a coworking space over on JFK. It’s called Bond Collective. Small plug for them. It’s a great space if anybody’s looking for a startup space where you can be in a coworking environment, would recommend it. Incredibly clean facility, great facility that they have.

But we started there and it was just me. So it was during really off of peak COVID. So a lot of people hadn’t returned to office yet, and we were renting the space. So it was me in a, I don’t know, six by six square, which was interesting. It would’ve been enough to fit two, maybe three desks and I was just sitting there plugging away until we could start up the recruiting, which we eventually did, and we went out and recruited.

And then it was really finding a culture for our office space that embodied everything that we did in New York, but our own kind of twist on it. And now I’m happy to say that we have eight employees in the Philadelphia office for us. And I love coming to work every day. And if I didn’t, it would be partially my own fault in terms of who we’re recruiting and making sure that culture really aligned.

Shannon: Well, that’s really nice. It’s good to love your job and you love coming in every day. I feel like a bad workplace culture can be you love what you do, but a bad workplace culture really affects that negatively.

Brendan: If it was the case that I didn’t enjoy coming in and seeing everybody in our office, it would be at some point a reflection of myself and the work that we were doing to recruit and go out and get talent.

Criteria for Recruiting Talent

Shannon: How, what is the criteria that you looked for when looking to go out and get talent for this?

Brendan: So there’s a couple different pieces that we look for when we’re going out and recruiting and looking for talent. When we started, there’s a couple things that we like hang our hat on. One of those points being natural curiosity.

So I described like I really enjoy going into rabbit holes and I like to look at data and ask myself questions and then dig into it further and continue to ask questions till I can get to some type of resolution with what I’m looking for, or not looking for, ’cause that happens sometimes with data, is that you end up finding something that you are not expecting.

Within that, I mean, I think natural curiosity is just something that we want to have in our employees because you’re only going to be as good as types of questions that you’re asking about the product, about what’s happening with the business, et cetera. So that’s one key point.

Another is reliability. We want people who are reliable that we can trust to do the right thing when nobody else is looking, that we can’t give oversight to 24/7. I think that’s just otherwise we’re Big Brother on our employee’s shoulder and we are micromanaging them. And that’s just not a healthy way to learn, which is going off the curiosity thing, that they should be self-motivated, that they should be reliable, that they should be doing what they should be doing and what’s expected of them.

So, reliability, natural curiosity. Empathy is another thing. We work with clients, so being empathetic to a small business owner and what they’re going through and listening to them and actively engaging with them and coming to their level is something that we need to do. There’s a couple others that I could go through, but those are some key ones and some of the aspects that I think also makes it engaging and fun to work here, is that we have great people who are willing to help each other, that have been in that position. We hire and develop talent internally. A lot of our talent has started – this is their first role coming outta college.

Shannon: That’s incredible. All those things are really great. I feel for a good work environment, especially curiosity, because I feel like a lot of people don’t think about that. It’s kind of like work is work and sometimes it sucks. But if you’re interested and excited about learning new things in your job, then I feel like it never gets boring.

Data Discoveries and Interesting Insights

Shannon: When you go down these rabbit holes, have you ever found anything super interesting? I always love to ask this because for maybe like a different business, like something that you feel like you shouldn’t know.

Brendan: I’ll try to relate this ’cause it’s stemming from PPC. One of the first accounts that I was put on, it was a credit repair client. So what they’re tasked with doing is they onboard somebody and they make tips and points about how you can improve your credit score. They file disputes, so like you have an incredibly old existing line of credit that keeps showing up on your credit report, but it’s no longer active. They’d go out and dispute those types of things.

So typically within PPC, you would think that somebody who’s qualifying their searches and doing a lot of research and then pinpointing down something very specific is gonna lead to better performance. So in the case of this credit repair client, somebody who’s looking for “dispute claim on my credit report,” you would think would be a better user in terms of, they’re more pointed. They know what they want, they know how they want, what type of product they want. They’re doing a lot of research. You’d think that’d be a better query.

However, these people, the better query is actually just somebody who’s looking for general credit repair or credit score, because they don’t know, and they’re doing research about like, “What’s wrong with my credit score?” And then they’re actively seeking out a solution, which in the case that somebody is asking about, “How do I dispute my credit report?” They’re almost like doing that themselves rather than looking for an a la carte solution.

Shannon: So like the people that are more naive about the entire subject is a better client than someone who is able to identify what’s wrong already.

Brendan: Think about it like if somebody’s starting to work out for the first time versus somebody who’s like experienced and like knows exactly what they want in terms of a workout structure. Like somebody who’s just starting for the first time is probably more inclined to go and see a trainer than somebody who’s experienced and has been working out for, I don’t know, 10 plus years. So in that case, we would be the trainer. I would expect to see similar tendencies in terms of that.

Shannon: That makes a lot of sense. And yeah, I guess that wouldn’t really occur to you because you would wanna take in clients that are able to identify this type of thing, but at the same time, you’re not helping them as much, I suppose, because they’re more aware of it.

Brendan: Sometimes research is the enemy of a solution-based business.

Shannon: So I guess, yeah, because like, why would you go to them if you already know the solution, but you mean, and I guess that’s maybe if you’re a little lazy, I mean, you know the solution, but you don’t wanna solve it.

Brendan: That becomes a tactic in marketing. It’s like if somebody’s doing a lot of research and you’re creating a blog post, especially if you’re like a lead gen based business, sometimes you make something sound more complicated than it is in terms of finding your solution because you want them to say, “Okay, what’s the path to least resistant?” And the path to least resistance is hiring somebody to take care of it for you.

Shannon: Yep. No, I think that’s definitely a lot of the marketing world I think is confusing jargon. But it’s not as confusing as it seems a lot of the time. And I feel like that’s why a lot of agencies like to kind of hide behind jargon or like to not communicate with other agencies as much, ’cause it’s secret and we’re not supposed to talk about it and someone can steal our ideas, but if they could steal your ideas, then you’re probably not that good at what you do. So hiding behind jargon is kind of silly.

Client Communication Strategies

Shannon: Switching topics. So you are an account director, so you communicate with clients a lot, I assume, as one does. What do you think is the most important thing to implement when communicating with clients? Because I feel like a lot of agencies have different styles of doing it, and I’m just curious to what you think is the best way of doing so and making sure that your client feels properly communicated with.

Brendan: I think you need to meet the client at their level. And we deal with a lot of different clients in different roles where it’s like a business owner you’re gonna speak to differently than somebody who is inside their own marketing department for corporate events. And that’s different than somebody who’s a CMO. You need to meet people at their level, and you need to read between the lines in terms of what they want communicated to them. Not what they want – sounds like you’re giving them exactly what they’re looking for and you’re skating around certain topics – but more so in terms of the way that you’re delivering information to them.

So the value that we have is communicating and taking action and illustrating the types of action and the level of support that we need from clients typically. If you have a problem, you’re going to explain that problem in a different way to a business owner than to a CMO, than to an internal marketing coordinator. And I think that’s really important, and I think the longer you exist in this industry, the more of the same old, same old that you see, and the better patterns that you can use to predict what they’re looking for.

So it’s always, I think the most exciting clients are not necessarily the easiest to work with because it’s not the same situation and you’re not developing conversations in the same way. And you have to think about, “Okay, how do I approach this subject? How do I deliver this information in the best way to this person?”

Favorite Campaign Experience

Shannon: That makes a lot of sense. So you said that maybe they’re not the easiest to work with, but they might be the best. Had you have a favorite campaign that you’ve done or been a part of? Maybe you can’t share the name of the brand, but you know, maybe you can describe what they do or like why it was your favorite.

Brendan: I like problem solving a lot. So one of my favorite campaigns that I worked on was in the insurance industry, which people typically hear the insurance industry and it doesn’t sound very glamorous. The client was looking to figure out a way to target people who were opted out of their insurance coverage because they switched over to a competitor. But they needed to do that in a way that they weren’t overlapping with people who could be considered in their current coverage, ’cause it was pretty much the best way of explaining it is similar to like, if somebody was opted into like Verizon phone insurance versus somebody who’s opted into AT&T versus T-Mobile.

So let’s say our client was the coverage provider for Verizon. What we’re trying to do was we were trying to identify T-Mobile customers and advertise to them in a way that didn’t overlap with the Verizon ’cause that would be an encroachment on the agreement that we had.

Shannon: Okay. I understand what you’re saying. So this was your favorite because…

Brendan: So the reason that it was my favorite wasn’t necessarily because of like anything to do with like creatives or messaging or anything like that, but I really enjoy the problem solving aspect of it. Like, “Okay, how do we identify this target? How do we make sure that we don’t have overlap and we are adhering to whatever the agreement is with the Verizon customers? And how do we go about targeting that other audience?”

So it becomes challenging. We had to go through buying audience lists. We had to go through creating networks. So like what platforms could we target with audience targets that would be specifically for this customer base and not have overlap? So it was a lot of problem solving, which is really what I enjoy in the day to day. It’s like thinking about unique situations and how to problem solve for those unique situations.

Least Favorite Campaign Types

Shannon: That makes a lot of sense. I think I’ve said that probably like 10 times. That makes a lot of sense. But what you’re saying always makes sense, so that’s good. So if you like problem solving, I’m assuming then maybe your least favorite campaigns would be one that does not involve that, ’cause I was gonna ask about the least.

Brendan: So the least is probably one of the least is when we’re carrying out marching orders for like a promotion that’s launching. The reason being is like that’s already set in stone. We might be coming onto an account after the promotional calendar came out for them, and it’s like, “Okay, we need, we want to push this message with people who have been to site before, but not converted to an order to incentivize them to convert now.”

So promotion-based campaigns don’t really excite me all that much because you’re creating messaging that’s pretty cut and dry, and then you are putting it to a distinct audience that’s already kind of set for you. There’s interesting things that you could do in preparation for a promotion, but the actual execution of like a promotion campaigns, it’s a little bit less exciting if it’s already like carried out and already set in stone.

Shannon: That makes sense. There’s a lot of parameters that you have to deal with that you can’t really make yourself. It’s not as creative, which is not what it seems like you’re saying is your favorite part, but I feel like problem solving is somewhat creative.

Creativity in Data Analysis

Brendan: It definitely is. I think like a lot of times people are like, “Oh, I am a data analyst. I’m not a creative person.” It’s like, that’s not true. Like you’re constantly doing creative things in terms of visualizations or in terms of creative thinking about like the data that’s in front of you. And I think some of those people are incredibly creative. It just doesn’t, they don’t get the glamor that somebody who is like designing an ad or designing would have, but there’s still creative aspects that’s layered into whatever they’re doing.

Shannon: Yeah, I think a lot of people consider creativity to be artistic, but I feel like the definition of art should be kind of objective as well. But creating new ways of doing something should always be under that creative umbrella because you can be mathematically minded and still be really creative and I think that people don’t give themselves enough credit in that aspect.

Because I am not mathematically minded at all, but I don’t think I’m creative. I can copy really well. Like if I have to draw something that’s in front of me, I can do that, but I can’t create something outta thin air. Like I need inspiration. And I feel like there’s so many people out there that can authentically make something their own. And I think that ideas like that are still creative. They’re innovative, which is something that I feel like marketers kind of need.

Brendan: We kind of didn’t talk about a definition of creative, but creation is physically creative. You’re creating something.

Shannon: Exactly. If somebody’s creating a presentation based off a data set, that’s still creative.

Brendan: Yeah, people, I guess creativity is constantly referred to in like an artistic sense or like something in that vice. So I think a lot of people don’t ever consider the other end of you can be creative in kind of any kind of field.

Brain Break Game

Shannon: Okay, so we’re doing a little break. It’s a brain break time. We’re doing a little game. This is a fun part of the podcast. Some of these are absurd questions. Some of them are marketing questions. It’s like, would you rather.

Brendan: I am very up for this.

Shannon: Awesome. It’s opinion based, so you can’t be wrong. I mean, like, if I disagree with you, I might say you’re wrong, but that’s the fun part. I’m gonna ask you absurd question first to get you off your marketing brain. And then we’ll give you another marketing question for the podcast sake. How many eggs do you think you can eat in a day? This is not a “would you rather” question, but I’ve been asking people this for some reason.

Brendan: In one sitting, I’ve definitely eaten at least eight eggs.

Shannon: That’s crazy. Okay. Good start.

Brendan: I’m like very active and I’ve had periods of time where like I track what I eat, and like I used to wrestle, so like I had to cut weight. Getting eggs in is a good mix of protein and fats, so I’ve definitely eaten eight eggs in one sitting. I’m thinking I could get to 50 to 60 in one day.

Shannon: You have the highest answer so far of anyone I’ve asked. The normal range is like 20 to 30.

Brendan: I’m thinking I can get to 50 to 60.

Shannon: I believe in you. You should try it one day, but hopefully not have a heart attack or like a cholesterol overload. You might die.

Brendan: Yeah, physically you might be able to eat them, but you also might die. I think 50 is probably the right answer here. I think 60 might be stretching it, but like I eat eight and then have three as a snack in between the meals. I’m only eating eggs this day, by the way. Eight eggs scrambled in the morning, but then I hard boil eggs as snacks.

Shannon: They can be in any fashion, they just have to be eaten. That’s my rule.

Brendan: So then I’m thinking I could eat another 12 hard boiled eggs as my snacks in between. And then I could probably make some type of smoothie concoction.

Shannon: Ew. Wow. Worst answer.

Brendan: And that would probably be the best way to get them in. But I’m thinking 50 to 60. There’s about 60 calories per egg, and that would put you at a high amount of calories.

Shannon: Thank you for putting this image into my brain. Was that the rational answer?

Brendan: I think it’s more possible than you know. Outside of the podcast, I have asked people this too, because I don’t know why. It’s just such an, I’ve heard someone, I think I watched a clip or something on Instagram of someone talking about this, but people think they can eat way more eggs in a day than they probably can because it was about a guy in a fantasy football league and they’re, if you lost your punishment was to eat X eggs.

And they were in their mid twenties and he lost one year and was having nightmares, sweating over having to do it again the next year. And I’m like, if 25 eggs is that hard to eat, then I can’t imagine. So I ask people this a lot because it’s just a curiosity question. My boyfriend said he could eat eight dozen, which I think is wrong. I just don’t think that any human being could do that, ever. And I think he’s just wrong.

Brendan: No, that’d be a lot. That’s the craziest answer I’ve gotten, but podcast wise, you have the highest.

Shannon: Maybe business professionals and my boyfriend will have different needs. That’s 96 eggs. That’s kind of insane. Eight dozen is insane. Math. Yeah. Yeah.

Marketing Question: LinkedIn vs Email Outreach

Shannon: Next question I’ll give you a more normal question. LinkedIn or email outreach, which then do you think works better?

Brendan: So I am not part of our inbound or outbound lead team. I think that LinkedIn doesn’t get nearly the credit that it deserves. However, I do think that email marketing can work if it’s executed properly.

So one of the things that team members in our agency have been doing is sending over a newsletter, which interestingly enough, the newsletter is really like thoughts of our founder that don’t necessarily have to do with PPC, but just are a little bit thought provoking. They call it a Wednesday breakup, but the amount of traction that’s gotten is really good because people don’t usually read email marketing campaigns, and this is a newsletter, so it’s a little bit different in terms of the approach. But like, it’s kind of just like, “Hey, I’m sending this to your inbox so you can take a break on your Wednesday and you can read through this and kind of forget about what you were just doing for the past three hours.”

Shannon: I like that. That’s refreshing.

Brendan: It’s a nice, refreshing way, but it also creates traction because people wanna work with people that they can relate to, I think. Like if you are having interesting thoughts and interesting thought-provoking conversations, that’s half of the value that you’re bringing into any situation. People should hopefully surround themselves with people who are bringing in different perspectives on things.

I think they both have their place. I think that LinkedIn especially as a marketing platform has gotten a little bit of a bad rap recently, but I think that there’s different approaches that you can take with either, and I think they could both be successful.

Shannon: That’s interesting. I didn’t hear about the bad rap. What happened?

Brendan: Like LinkedIn, generally speaking, if you go through the advertising, the CPMs are really expensive, so the cost of the actual media is very expensive. So in terms of potential reach, it’s difficult. And that’s what makes it difficult.

But you can take a different approach to that and test things and become creative, and maybe you’re not doing a targeted messaging campaign. Maybe you’re doing something that’s a little bit more general reaching. And that kind of applies to what we were just talking about, the email marketing. Maybe you’re not saying like, “Hey, have your inbounds leads disappeared,” to somebody’s inbox like every other person that’s doing email marketing. So maybe you’re sending out a newsletter, maybe you’re doing something a little bit differently.

Shannon: I actually just talked to someone about this the other day, because I always hear my boss talking about how LinkedIn ads are very expensive and different things like that. And I was actually just bringing that up with a podcast guest the other day and they’re specifically a LinkedIn marketing agency, so they specifically do LinkedIn, which I have never talked to someone that does that before and I learned a lot. It’s really cool. That’s the best part about the podcast is learning.

But they were telling me that the way in which you do it is really important because a lot of people can get lead generation by just regularly making posts. They don’t even have to be contacting someone. Outreach happens authentically based off of the media presence that they have, which is kind of cool because I kind of hated the idea of LinkedIn for the longest time before I actively had to use it in my day to day, because I just got a social media for professionals. That sounds awful.

And in ways it is awful, but it’s also really helpful and I think that you just have to navigate it correctly. But yeah, they kind of changed my mind a little bit ’cause I was kind of pessimistic. But it’s only because of what I hear about. I’m not involved in advertisements for us. So I don’t know the ins and outs of that, but it’s interesting to know that you can work around a lot of things when they’re expensive, just to do it a different way.

Brendan: I mean, LinkedIn itself is, point A to point B is a lot of people who are looking for the next career opportunity for themselves. And it’s less so about, I mean, people do read posts and they engage with topics, but it’s more of a networking platform than anything else. So treating it as such, and understanding that because it’s kind of at its essence, you have to understand what the platform’s attempting to do and what it’s designed to do, what people are using it primarily for, and then adjusting around that.

Shannon: I think that a lot of people do not use it for what it was intended for and yeah. And that might work for them and good for them if it does. But I see it as something that’s becoming more social media-esque. And I feel like that’s kind of always how it’s been. And then like the added element of being able to find leads through that is quite interesting. And I feel like people can take advantage of that. But you know, it really depends on how the cookie crumbles.

Would You Rather: Compliments vs Insults

Shannon: Okay, next question. I’ll give another fun one. Would you rather get $1 for every time you complimented someone or get a hundred dollars for every time you insult someone?

Brendan: If I’m hanging out with my friends more, and it’s done in a loving and caring way, I think that it would be the insulting. It would kill a lot of birds with one stone. I’d hang out with my friends more. I would have probably more honest relationships with people. And I think it would be potentially the easier way. Otherwise I’d be like complimenting people going up and down the street. Whereas I could get home and say something funny to my girlfriend as an insult.

Shannon: You’re the first person to answer that. I don’t think people are going around complimenting people all the time. Maybe you aren’t. That’s also just not my personality. Like on the train I saw somebody wearing really cool shoes and I was like, I really wonder where they got them, but I’m not gonna reach out and say like, “Where’d you get your shoes? I really like them” because that’s just not the person I’m.

Shannon: Maybe if you got a dollar every time you, it would make you that type of person.

Brendan: That’s interesting.

Shannon: I am that person. I actually push myself to compliment people more because it used to make me super uncomfortable, but I was like, no, people love hearing that. People love it. You can make someone’s day so much better by just giving them one compliment. Like they can be feeling awful. And then you could be like, “Oh, you look really nice today.” And then they’re like, “Oh.” And then their whole day is better. I think that’s amazing.

Brendan: Except my delivery makes it sound like it’s passive aggressive, not genuine because I’m pretty dry. I’m pretty dry in terms of my delivery on things.

Shannon: That’s actually very fair. Most of the time people don’t know if I’m joking or being serious.

Brendan: Yes, you have a very stoic voice, if that was the word that I meant to use. My stepdad has a very similar voice like that, and it, we can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic sometimes, like he’ll just say something and we’re like, “Did you mean that?” But it’s kind of funny. It leaves for a lot of misinterpretation and it’s very comical most of the time.

Brendan: I think it’s really funny internally because I like when people don’t know if I’m joking.

Shannon: Yeah. That’s the fun part. You know, you just gotta like alter your voice a little bit for the compliment. That’s what I do. My voice is like 10 times higher pitch when I compliment someone, which it’s not even purposeful actually. I think it’s just something that ends up happening. I’m nervous to talk to a stranger.

Brendan: That’s fair.

Conclusion

Shannon: We have no time left. We’re actually already over time, but this was really fun. So thank you so much, and I really appreciate you coming on with me today.

Brendan: Of course I had fun. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Shannon: Now go home and try to eat 50 eggs.

Brendan: Yeah, you said you like problem-solving.

Shannon: I don’t know if that’s solving a problem, maybe I’m creating a problem. Anyway, thank you everyone for watching. See how many eggs you could eat in a day. And please like and subscribe to hear more interesting questions and learn more interesting things. Thank you, and have a lovely day.

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