[Fully Managed] Brian Linehan from Crooked Fence Marketing Ep. 47

Shannon: All righty. Hello everyone and welcome to the Fully Managed Podcast, a 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, Brian Linehan from Crooked Fence Marketing. Thank you so much for coming on with me today.

Brian: Thank you. Thank you, Shannon. Appreciate it. I appreciate you.

Shannon: Could you just start by telling us a little bit about yourself, kind of your journey up to this point in your career and kind of what you’re doing working on now.

Brian: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’ve been in marketing my entire career, so I mean, I’ve kind of touched on a lot of different facets of the marketing world. Really started out when I was still in school. I actually traveled on the Dew Tour, which is kind of like the X Games, doing more like experiential marketing, which was a great experience being able to kind of travel throughout the country. Then, you know, kind of made shifts to more of like corporate, you know, working at like, you know, like I said, higher corporate marketing. Got to a point there where they were restructuring and I took that as a sign to get out when I could and start my own, start my own thing. So, crooked Fence marketing started in 2017. It has evolved from, you know, offering a lot of different things that being, you know, paid social traffic, email marketing, Google, to really focusing strictly on paid social traffic. Right now, you know, I do do some email work with, you know, some other partners as well. But the primary focus is definitely with the paid, paid traffic side of things.

Shannon: Great. So, I’m sure they get this question a lot, but why did you decide on this name? The reason to hear people’s stories around their names.

Brian: Do you want the real story or the made up story?

Shannon: I would love both actually. ’cause it’d be funny to see the dichotomy of both.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. The thing is, I’ll try to like, make up something to be honest with you. And like, I, especially on the fly, like, and I’m like, eh, but honestly there was a fence in my yard when I first moved in that was literally that, a crooked fence. And that’s, I don’t know, you were inspired. I, that’s how I got inspired with it and like, I don’t know why I went with it, but I did. And the funny thing is, I get a lot of people that ask that too. And I, you know, it, it works. It works and you know, it gets people talking, I guess, right? So it’s all good.

Shannon: I think that everyone’s always curious about a name that’s not someone’s last name or first name, because I feel like that’s usually the case in marketing.

Brian: Very common to have your agency named after the CEO or the founder.

Shannon: Right. So I always like to, or some like, you know, the initials or something like that using like the initials as part of it.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Crooked Fence is original. You should, it’s, you should own that crooked fence.

Shannon: Exactly. Did you maintain the crooked fence in your yard or, you know, it’s like an homage.

Brian: It’s been replaced. The fence is very much straight now.

Shannon: Oh wow. That’s kind of upsetting.

Brian: I know. I don’t tell everyone that.

Shannon: You should have framed it or something like that.

Brian: I took a picture.

Shannon: Put it in your, you know, behind you with your diploma.

Brian: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Shannon: So, okay, so actually this is a great thing because you were inspired by something outside of marketing for your marketing business. So what is something, and this might be a little difficult, some people have trouble thinking of this one because it’s on the fly, but what is the best advice that you think you’ve received outside of the marketing space for marketing, outside of the marketing space for marketing?

Brian: That’s tough. I think just with anything, you know, whether it’s life, work, you know, whatever it is, is you know, always be open to new relationships, like keep your nose down, like continue to do what you’re, you know, what you’re striving for. I think if you continue to work toward whatever it is, you know, whether it’s in, you know, life, business, whatever. Continue to push for what that goal is. And if that’s something that you’re passionate about and you want to achieve and you actually put in the effort to, to attain that, it’s totally worth just going for it.

Shannon: I like that. I mean, I like a lot of people try to pick like a very specific thing, but I think like an overarching theme is very important, especially for advice because if you name some celebrity that inspired you in the marketing space, I think some people can’t always take that.

Brian: Oh, yeah. No, I, yeah. I can’t really name a celebrity that, no, I don’t know. I mean, there’s just, there’s so many different like faces out there, like within the marketing space too, that. Don’t get me wrong, there’s tons of people out there that I, you know, that I’ll follow and watch and, you know, they’re very smart. I just, I couldn’t pick one or the other. I think just being able to apply different principles to whatever it is that you’re doing in life is important because if you have a clear focus, it’s gonna allow you to, you know, work toward that ultimate goal again, regardless of what it is.

Shannon: Yeah, no, I definitely agree with that. I think that a lot of people in the marketing space, you know, like to error their opinions a lot of times on LinkedIn. I love seeing LinkedIn posts.

Brian: Yeah. Especially the bizarre ones. Those are the best ones. My wife left me, and here is five tips on how to grow your business.

Shannon: Scripted like the scripted content out there, whether it’s LinkedIn or any of the other social platforms, like yeah. Okay. Is that even true?

Brian: Yeah, exactly.

Shannon: So I think it’s, you kind of gotta take everything with a grain of salt to an extent.

Brian: Yeah.

Shannon: But at the same time, I think it’s interesting all the different opinions that are out there. And that’s a big thing about the podcast is we got everyone’s opinions on how they’re doing it. They’re things that everyone’s doing things very differently and everyone’s successful in their own ways, so it’s really cool to. I’m always interested in how people are getting their inspiration for the way they do things. Some people are inspired by solely them, their selves and their own journey, and a lot of people are inspired by others. So it’s always interesting to find out.

Brian: Yeah, I mean it’s, you know, working with other people too, you know, within your industry is gonna inspire you, I think too. Like you kind of get out of your, you know, you, if you get in tunnel vision and you’re always doing the same thing, it’s always good to be collaborative and, and talk to other people so that you can be inspired, you know, with maybe something that other people doing in a different way that you might not have thought of. So I think that’s, that’s definitely important as well. So just, yeah, of course. Thought from your, from your previous point.

Shannon: Yeah, if you’re doing the same thing over and over again, and, you know, it might, it might lead to success, but it also, you know, you, you’re not looking at the possibility of doing something differently and then making, making more success out of that. And I think that watching other people or you know, talking to other people and being influenced by them and their decisions are, it’s really helpful in this space. And I think absolutely. Agency work sometimes has trouble with that, about talking about their, their things and their strategies and, and being very isolated in that way.

Brian: Right.

Shannon: And I like when I see more communication in the space, absolutely. So do you think that, you talk about humor a lot, I’ve noticed. Do you think that humor is crucial for a marketing role?

Brian: I mean, I think so. I mean, whether it’s on, I mean, whether it’s on the creative end, you know, trying to, you know, put together new creatives that are going to incite some sort of, you know, emotional reaction, whether that’s using humor or, or whatever. But I think I mean, it doesn’t even have to be marketing to be honest with you. Like everyone in their own career, like is gonna be focused on what they’re doing on a day-to-day basis, right? You need to be able to lighten up and, you know, have these, you know, times of, of laughing and joking, just so that you can kind of get your brain to get out of that constant work mode and be able to, you know, just lighten up for a few, even if it’s 20 minutes out of the day, you know? And just having a laugh is definitely gonna allow you to, you know, keep it fresh, keep it healthy, and yeah. Yeah, it’s something I think is just overlooked. And a lot of us may not do it as much as we probably should, but yeah, I think just, you know, having, being able to, even just being able to joke with like, you know, anyone that you’re working with too, like, you know, like, let’s stop being as serious as we are, you know, throughout the day. And maybe just have, have a laugh, you know, talk, talk about something that’s not work related, you know?

Shannon: I 100% agree. I think that my brain would melt if I didn’t have humor throughout my day. I, I think that it’s something that’s so important, not only for the marketing space, because I think it helps you be more creative, especially if you’re in content creation. I think that’s something that’s so unbelievably important. I think humor is something that catches people’s eye before anything else. Creativity, of course, they kind of go hand in hand, but being able to be in a space that is like, I guess somewhat serious as a role, but to be able to bring humor into that is special. And I think that it’s, it makes everything more fun and to be able to interact with people that appreciate humor. That’s my favorite thing on the podcast is having to laugh because I know it’s been a good podcast if I get to laugh.

Brian: Right, right. Not to say anything bad about the shoot, the serious schmos out there, they’re, they’re probably fantastic. I, I, I appreciate a serious person as well, but I, I do, you know, it just, it makes your day better. It makes you smile.

Shannon: Yep. Speaking of, okay, so I like to play a little game during the podcast.

Brian: All right?

Shannon: Where I ask questions that aren’t related to marketing, and I’d like to ask you one of them. We’re not gonna go through all of them, but just to, you know, maybe get some laughs. So my favorite question is, how many eggs do you think that you can consume in a waking day?

Brian: How many eggs?

Shannon: Yeah. You can eat them anyway. Any style, you just have to eat that.

Brian: I mean, I don’t know, 12.

Shannon: Lame. I think you could do more. I think you’re, I think you’re selling yourself short.

Brian: I probably, I probably could, but the question is do I want to.

Shannon: Well, that’s, that’s the game is how many think you could, I don’t know. I mean, we wanna double it and go to go to two dozen. I don’t know.

Brian: Yeah. All right. Huge. I’m always trying to push people to a higher number. Huge omelet.

Brian: Huge omelet.

Shannon: Yeah. One really big omelet.

Brian: Yeah. Like Guy Fieri style.

Shannon: Taking it, the flavor town, right?

Brian: Yeah.

Shannon: Okay, beautiful. Now we’re gonna move on to more marketing questions. Now that I caught you off guard. Okay. You’ll be thinking about that for, yeah. Right. Okay. So how about, let’s talk about Black Friday, since that’s something that’s coming up. I’m not, it definitely won’t be coming up when this podcast is posted, but I’m sure that it’s always still relevant ’cause Black Friday comes every year. Do you think that it is, like, how important do you think that it is for a business to take advantage of opportunities like Black Friday?

Brian: Yeah, I mean I think it’s a huge opportunity for any business that is looking to, you know, add incremental revenue going into the end of the year. You know, I actually recently did some content on this topic and like, you know, I don’t think it needs to be. I don’t think it needs to be reinvented in terms of like what you need to do to, to get that incremental revenue toward the end of the year. I mean, you guys as a creative agency, like that’s obviously important, that being creative and I, I think that is definitely important for, for Black Friday. And I’m speaking more to like paid, you know, paid social traffic and uh, just advertising in general. But I think most consumers know that their favorite brands are going to be having a Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale. If you’re running paid traffic, like biggest thing I think is really scaling up, leading into that time period with the ads and with the content that you know is working best. Obviously you’ve already got traction behind it, so scaling budget where it makes sense. Is, you know, first lever to pull. Should you be focused entirely on creating brand, you know, all brand new Black Friday content? Absolutely not. I think you should definitely include some of that, you know, as kind of like a layer onto what’s already working. But in terms of putting too much focus on the creative aspect. I don’t think that’s necessary. Just based on the fact of consumer behavior every year, knowing that there is going to be a ton of Black Friday sales, no matter what it is that you want, you know, it’s, I mean, it’s been going on for two weeks, three weeks already. You know, some of them start at the beginning of November. So, obviously the real push is, you know, right now, I mean, we’re at the 26th of November. I mean, big push, you know, this week going through obviously, uh, early next week.

Shannon: So you don’t think it’s a really important for anyone to kind of like reinvent the wheel when doing a sale on Black Friday? It’s kind of like, it’s expected of the services that are going to do it, and it’s kind of like just participated and be able to put money where you think it’ll advertise the best.

Brian: Yeah, I mean, to your, to answer your first party of your question, it is almost expected. You know, I think consumers do expect whatever that brand or service or product is that they’re, you know, looking for that they will have some sort of offer for the Black Friday, cyber Monday time of the year. You know, in my, in my head, in terms of what I’m thinking, like you don’t need to reinvent it because essentially that they already know or they already expect it to happen. And when it comes to running, you know, when it comes to run, running, paid social, uh, traffic on your, you know, meta Instagram, TikTok, whatever, if you have content that’s already working and ads are already working on there, it, the biggest thing you can do is just push, push more budget behind that. It’s just because you don’t know if the new ads that you’re gonna launch for, you know, specifically for Black Friday, are gonna hit maybe as well as, you know, ones are already working. So just, yeah, just leveraging what you already know works is the biggest thing. Versus having to push out a ton of new creative that is unproven and you don’t know if it’s necessarily gonna hit or not.

Shannon: I think that’s really great advice, because I think a lot of people would probably put a lot of resources into a campaign like that. That, yeah, you’re right. Like they, they’re not positive if it works or it’s a foolproof plan. Right. How do you suggest maybe someone in a very competitive space would go about navigating something like that?

Shannon: Do you wanna give an example?

Shannon: Okay. Well, I’ll give, I’ll give an example as Penji. So Penji. You know, there’s, there’s a bunch of other creative subscription services, especially like, since, since we began, there’s probably been hundreds that have been added to the space, right? If we were to advertise for Black Friday, which we already are, so unfortunately we can’t take any of your advice. But, if, if we were to advertise, how would, how do you think you would do it? So that we’re kind of put in of these other competitors?

Brian: Yeah, I mean the, I mean, the obvious thing is, you know, what’s gonna set you apart from the competitors? I mean, what’s, what’s your USP, you know, that’s gonna make people wanna choose you over someone else. I mean, to your point, there’s a ton of different creative services out there that you can choose. You know, the biggest thing, I mean, having worked with, you know, several like, what are maybe some of the pain points that these other ones are, you know, maybe experiencing from user experience, you know, like in terms of like overall creative turnaround time for creative. I mean, if that’s a pain point with other creative services that are being used then, and you see that across the board like with different testimonials for that, you know, for whatever that other services leverage that, you know, leverage that saying that, you know, our turnaround time is, you know, 24 hours guaranteed, or so I think just trying to find those pieces and that are going to set yourself apart from the competitors is really what’s gonna be what you should use for the messaging in, you know, not only any Black Friday sales, but just, I mean, throughout the year, really. Especially if you’re in such a competitive space.

Shannon: Yeah. Leverage your differences. What sets you aside from these that make you attractive to your customer base? Right. That makes complete sense. So, okay, I guess in the same vice, how do you go about finding the, and maybe correct me if I’m wrong, if this is something that, a conflict that you run into, how do you go about finding the correct interest group to target ads for a company that is unsure of their ICP?

Brian: I mean, there’s a lot of testing involved. I mean, we obviously, we want to try to get as much information out of the client as possible in terms of who they believe their target avatar is. I think that at least builds a foundation of like who you should be targeting. Obviously, you know, interest, interest audiences, you know, within meta that’s only a small portion of it. So I think obviously coinciding who you believe and who the client believes is, or what they’re, you know, what they’re interested and being able to find relative interest audiences based on that. But all, I mean, sometimes you gotta think outside the box as well, like maybe targeting someone, you know, some interest stacks that doesn’t even necessarily make sense for that client potentially, you know? Immediate thought is why would, why would you target them? But the thing is, you don’t know. You, you, you really never know. Who could actually, you know, what kind of audience would actually resonate, based on whatever that offer is. I mean, outside of that, obviously, you know, building your custom audience is, is just as important. Making lookalikes from your customer list, you know, from your buyers, that’s gonna obviously gonna build, you know, a stronger audience, you know, based on the input that you’re putting into meta and building out those lookalike audiences as well.

Shannon: No, that makes a lot of sense. I, I ask because I know that I, I do see sometimes a common trend of a lot of businesses that think that they know who their audience should be, but sometimes it’s not correct. And they go to marketing agencies asking to be, you know, they, they want traffic from this specific group, but it’s not necessarily what will make them the most successful.

Brian: Right. And I think, I mean, I think testing that, again, you know, testing is super important, but testing that and, and then proving to them, you know, whether it’s accurate or not. You know, if it’s not, you show them the, you show them the metrics and say, listen, this is who you, you thought was your target audience. It’s really not who is converting with you guys, you know, based on, you know, based on the data that we’re seeing here and I think that also needs to be taken with a grain of salt too, where it’s like, you’re coming to me to run your ads. You know, let me figure out, you know, what that audience may look like, you know, based on what you’re telling me your target avatar is. So, you know, I think let the agency do what they do best. Give us the information that you believe is your audience, and we’ll try to find that audience within a given audience set.

Shannon: Yeah, no, I definitely, I think that sometimes different, other, well, other agencies or businesses kind of need a nudge towards the right direction. I think it goes back to the point that we kind of made earlier about how some people do something for so long and it’s like they see that it’s working, so they continue to do it, but they don’t see how much better it could be if they did something slightly different or they added to that.

Brian: Right. I mean, almost, almost kind of gotta have like, you know, you know, it’s working, but then having this other silo over here, you know, always testing different, you know, elements or different audiences or different creatives that you know, are unproven, but you never know what kind of wins you could get outta that as well. So, you know, having your, having your main, your main drive, and then obviously this other silo as well, we’re trying to discover new, you know, new elements, new pieces, new audiences, whatever it is that you’re trying to find. But continuing to have that and try to stay, try to stay at least one step ahead so that you know when you know if something, if something happens, whether it’s, you know, within the advertising platform, whatever it may be. If, if it’s, you know, some change that’s coming down the pipeline or, or anything like that, at least you have this other avenue that you can kind of try to leverage. ’cause you’ve already been, you know, working on that alongside your main, you know, your main objective or audience, whatever, you know, whatever it was.

Shannon: Yeah. It’s kind of like with plants, when they create a homogenized version of a plant and there’s not different genetic codes, a lot of times that plant gets a disease and dies out because they don’t have differences in the genetic code. So it’s like if an agency or a business is doing something the same way for a really long time and something happens with the market, that they can no longer do this, this way. They’re kind of screwed because they haven’t tried any other different methods of doing it. It’s like during Covid, you know, if, if someone’s strategy was to go out on the street and find people to enjoy, you know, be a part of their business, they can’t do that anymore because we’re not allowed to go outside. Or it’s similar to like customer bases. Like a lot of businesses, you know, weren’t able to continue based off of their customer base because it was relatively in person or a business that went out of business that they were also getting business from because of the way in which their business works. And I think, yeah, that having that diversity and that willingness to try different things saves you in these kind of situations.

Brian: Yeah. And I mean, it’s not only, it’s not only like siloed to one platform. I mean, you should be diversified across numerous platforms too. You know, if you, if you’re just advertising on, you know, meta say, and you’re not doing anything anywhere else, like that is a recipe for disaster. You know, ’cause when you know when things, you know, hit the fan or when, and if they do, you have no other traffic sources coming in. You know, what’s your plan now like to just be, re be reactive? So I think being proactive, you know, having a diversified traffic, you know, traffic sources is super important. Like, I get it. Like you, you need to spend money to make money. So, I mean, I get it, it costs money to advertise, but, you know, pigeonholing yourself onto one platform is never a good idea.

Shannon: Yeah. What if that platform crashes or it gets new terms of use and, and advertising the.

Brian: It sure does.

Shannon: That’s just does ran. I mean, it is random. That’s the worst part about, it’s that you can’t expect it sometimes, which is why I need to diversify what you’re doing, especially when you, right. We had the, the transition of Twitter to X, that was probably crazy for some people that were advertising on that platform.

Brian: Right, right.

Shannon: So there’s a lot of, yeah, there’s a lot of different things that go into what can make or break, make, or break a business. So being able to diversify your strategies is really important. I definitely get that.

Brian: Yep.

Shannon: So my last question for you is I wanna get to more of the you know, the, the founder of things, because I think that we kind of talked about more marketing stuff, but I wanted to ask you, what do you personally think is the most crucial for someone trying to be successful in starting a marketing agency?

Brian: You, you gotta commit. You, you can’t go in it like half-assed, like, excuse my French. You need to fully commit into it. Starting out, it’s, it’s a lot of work. It’s frustrating. You know, obviously you’re in a very saturated market like we were just talking about with, you know, whether it’s a creative agency, it doesn’t really matter, whatever the industry is, it’s a very saturated industry. So there’s, everyone’s always, you know, grabbing for the same business, you know? So starting out, you know, a lot of times you’re gonna take what you can get. You know, I, I think networking is important to get in front of other people that you are, you know, are already in the industry. And, you know, having those connections so that, you know, maybe something comes up and someone’s willing to give you a chance, like that’s how it really need. That’s, I mean, that’s how I started, is really just kind of going out, you know, left a corporate work, you know, a corporate job, started my own agency and just evolved from there by having the, you know, having connections already in the marketing field and knowing other people that were, you know, you know, standalone agencies as well that may have been doing something else. You know what? Can I provide that maybe they’re not doing? So if like, I’m, you know, if my in was someone that is running an email marketing agency and that’s all they do, I’m coming in and saying, Hey, I can run your paid traffic on, you know, on Meta and Instagram for you. And again, from there it’s just like you need, you can’t just coast you, you need to continue to grind and find, you know, find and build that, that client base. I think the more and longer you’re established, and can build that credibility of yourself, you know, as, as a brand and as a marketer, you’re gonna get better opportunities that are gonna, you know, bode better for you. And then you’ll be, you know, as you, again, as you start building up too, you’ll be able to provide that level of assertiveness in terms of like what your expertise is and dictate, you know, what you can charge a client too, versus just taking what, you know, the bare minimum of whatever that is when you’re first starting out. So, yeah, you can develop that. There’s definitely, there’s definitely a lot to it. You know, I don’t think there is one way or another that’s right or wrong, but it’s the overarching theme, I think is, you know, you need to commit a hundred percent and, you know, open your doors to basically anyone that’s already in, you know, already in that field. And that’s, you know, can hook you in with other, other groups and other networks within, within the marketing field.

Shannon: I think that is incredibly sound advice. Thank you really very much. I think that a lot of people do want or feel inspired to start a business, but they aren’t really all in it. And I think that that’s something that’s super crucial to being able to be successful is not only being passionate about it, but also always trying to be innovative and find new ways to do things. And what you said about the pricing too, I think is something that people definitely adapt to be better at, whereas I think they kind of learn not only more respect for themselves. ’cause I think in the beginning when you start, you kind of have to accept a lot of business that maybe you don’t want or you have to deal with someone who’s not easy to deal with, but is paying your bills. But I think that it’s really nice to get to a point where you’re able to work with your ideal client as much as possible. And you can say, and you can say no to clients too, or potential prospects.

Brian: Yes. Exactly. Yeah. I think the ability is saying a great place to be.

Shannon: Yeah. I think that it’s not, you know, I think, I think it makes for, you know, a good relationship makes for a good outcome for work.

Brian: Absolutely. It’s, uh, absolutely you’re not as inspired if someone’s yelling at you throughout an entire process or not being respectful.

Shannon: No, that does not bode well for anyone involved.

Brian: No it does not.

Shannon: Well, thank you so much. I think I learned a lot from this and I really appreciate it and I know that our audience will too. I appreciate you, you know, kind of doing this in the spur of the moment. It’s definitely very appreciated. I think you did a fantastic job.

Brian: All good, all good. Well, thank you. Thank you everyone also. Well, I appreciate it as well, Shannon. Thank you. Thank you for having me on with you guys. It’s much appreciated.

Shannon: Thank you and thank you everyone for watching and or listening. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to learn more things like we did today. I appreciate it. Have a lovely day.