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Music. Welcome to design for the creative mind, a podcast for interior designers and creative entrepreneurs to run their business with purpose, efficiency and passion, because while every design is different, the process should remain the same. Prepare yourself for some good conversations with amazing guests, a dash of Jesus and a touch of the Woo, woo, and probably a swear word or two. If you're ready to stop trading your time for money and enjoy your interior design business, you are in the right place. I'm your host. Michelle Lynn, you
0:49
Michelle, hey, hey, welcome back, everybody. This is Michelle, and we are talking today to John horn. He is the CEO of stub group, which is a premier Google partner, and we are talking today about as the title says Google ads for the creative So John, thanks so much for being here.
1:09
Michelle, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited, looking forward to
1:13
it, looking forward to it. But I want to first start off with, how did you get to being in the role that you're in right now. Did you grow up thinking you wanted to be a Google partner?
1:28
That's an awesome question. I did not grow grow up thinking I would be a Google partner. Did not know what that was. Yeah, yeah. Really, how we got there, so worked in different kind of marketing related jobs, and then it was about a little over a decade ago, actually coming up on 1112, years at this point, that stub group was started. The way that worked was my brother and a friend of his actually started the business, this opportunity to help companies with digital advertising, especially Google ads, as well as other platforms like Facebook and whatnot. And so they started this agency, brought me on as employee number one, along with them, and we got to grow things from then, figure out, okay, how do we make things work for clients? How do we help you get in front of customers, get customers in, run cost effective ad campaigns, and just grew our client base, grew our team. From there, I took over the CEO role. I think is about five years ago at this point. And yeah, just every day is a new day trying to figure out how to make our clients successful.
2:27
That's crazy. That's crazy. So the stub group, do you specialize only in ads, or do you do the full marketing agency aspect behind it?
2:36
Yeah, we focus very much on the ad side of things, because it is so niched. It is, yeah, and yet, there's, it's so niche, and yet so much to it. And we basically took the approach of, we can be really good at one thing, or we can try to be good at a bunch of different things. And there are some businesses that do a good job at a bunch of different things, so I'm not gonna, not gonna knock that. But yeah, we've said, Okay, paid search and paid social, that's what we focus on. So paid search is really Google ads and some ancillary Microsoft advertising, that kind of thing. And then on the social side, you've got Facebook, you've got Instagram, Tiktok, things like that. But yeah, focused on, how do we use those platforms, the paid aspects of those platforms, to help our clients generate new business? And
3:18
there's so much to know about it. Like I have, I've hired somebody that runs my Facebook ads for my coaching program, and then I was looking into doing Google for my design firm, and holy cow, there's just so many moving parts. So how can you how? So if somebody was to hire y'all or do it on their own. How do you make the most of what you're spending to be most effective? Because that's what I was like when I got into the Google and I went and tried to DIY it. Sorry to say, I don't always practice what I preach, and that is outsourcing to somebody who's better than you are. But I just thought, I'm just thought, I'm just gonna go see what it looks like. But how do you maximize the spend?
4:04
Yes, it's a great question. That's the number one question pretty much every advertiser is asking, because it Google makes it really easy to spend money with Google, but actually spending money in a way that brings more money back to you, that's a lot harder. That's the million dollar question. So a lot of it comes down. I'll try and tailor my conversation here specifically towards interior designers, creatives. We work with lots of different types of businesses, but we're going to focus it towards that. Since the notes what your audience is made up of, let's say that interior designer came to us and said, Hey, I want to run campaigns on Google. I want to get new business. I want to connect with people who are looking for an interior designer. So the first thing we're going to figure out is, okay, what makes you unique and special? Obviously, what geographic area are you targeting? Where do you want your customers to be coming from, your clients, and is there anything unique and specific about the types of people you want to work with? Is it anybody out there? Are you working just in the top end of the luxury space? Are you going commercial and residential? Figure out, okay. Okay, what is your ideal customer?
5:02
And then we're going to think through all right, what is that ideal customer looking for on Google? How are they searching for information? How are they searching for solutions? And then there's a couple different ways, specifically for design, or just for design, yeah, specifically for design, yep. So we'll do keyword research. We'll look at competitors, see what are they doing? What types of keywords are they targeting on Google, for example? And there's, you know, there's different stages in that marketing funnel too. So you have people who know what they want right now, they're searching on interior designer near me. Okay, awesome. They're telling that's what they want. That's probably a very relevant, you know, place for us to show our ads on. It also may be highly competitive. If there's a bunch of interior designers in your area, you might have to pay a lot for those clicks.
5:46
And so we got to figure out, can we make that worth it based upon what you can afford to pay in advertising to get a new client? So we look at things like that, and then we also look at things like, what are the other things that someone might search that would indicate they need an interior designer, and can we get maybe higher up in the funnel where maybe there's less competition? So for example, there might be a bunch of people going after interior designer near me as a keyword, but if someone searches for, how do I make my room look bigger, or how do I position awkward furniture or fill in the blank, you're going to know the questions much better than I would. But basically, the things people would search that indicate they have a need that I can solve as an interior designer, and if I target those types of searches, sure, some of those people, they're never going to pay the money to hire a designer.
6:30
So it's always a numbers game. Got to figure out, can we make the numbers work? But we might be able to get less expensive clicks because less other interior designers are going after that traffic. So it might be cheaper, and we might reach people before they've even come across other interior designers, and you position yourself as a solution to their need. And it might not be a direct sales pitch. Day one, it might not be hire me. Day one, it might be. Here's my PDF that I created about how to make your room look bigger. You get their contact information exchange for that. Now you have a lead you can nurture, build a relationship with, and your email list exactly
7:06
that makes such a difference. Okay? So with that, like, when should you run an ad? Is it? What is there timing involved with running an ad?
7:18
I would say the timing really comes down to where you're at with your business. And I would, I'll generalize a little bit, but I'll say There's generally two, two categories of why people run ads. Sometimes they'll run ads to to prove concepts. So let's say you're a new business, a new interior designer. You don't have a network, you don't have SEO rankings build up so that your website ranks organically when people search. And so paid advertising is a way to shortcut things, to get in front of the right people now and see, okay, if I get people looking through my ads to my website, are they interested? If I get them on the phone, can I sell them? It's a way to prove the concept and get business in the door for a new business. So that's one category, and the other category is, hey, if you've got some things figured out and you are, you've got some good processes, and you just need more you need more lead generation.
8:06
Essentially, advertising is great fuel for that fire to go out and find people that you're just not not capturing with your other marketing options. And so those are the two times, I would say, when people often run ads, the time that is hardest to work with, when people run ads is out of desperation. So a lot of people will run ads as their last desperate hope of I need to save my business, and nothing else is working. Hopefully ads will sometimes it does. Sometimes, you know, you got to get in front of people. Yeah, it's not a bad strategy, per se, but it's also tricky, because expectations they might not have exactly, and you exactly you're spending money you might not have and you might not get any return on that. So that happens as well, but harder to work with. And
8:50
I think also, like when people start calling when you're desperate, in my opinion. And this doesn't have anything to do with Google ads, but if you wait until you get desperate when they call, there's this weird desperation in your voice, in your energy, that repels, repels clients. So I think that is y'all don't wait until you're desperate to start your marketing and advertising efforts. Get your email list rolling so that you can start so you can start capturing these potential leads. What? How does Google work? How does the Google Ads work?
9:24
Yeah, simplify things. Let's talk about Google search first, because that's what most people think about when they think about Google, which is, yep, I go on my phone, go my computer, type something in, stuff comes up. That's Google to most people. So the simplest way to put it is that advertisers participate in an auction to get their ads to appear. So if I if someone searches for interior designer near me on Google, there's gonna be a bunch of different advertisers who have selected that as a keyword in their campaigns, or similar keywords that match to that, and who are targeting the geographic area that you're in, and who've said, Okay, I want. My ad to show up to this type of search term, and then there's a bunch of other things that go into it as well.
10:04
So everyone has to set a bid, essentially, of what they're willing to pay Google if someone clicks on their ad, because the way Google works is Google makes money when someone clicks on an ad, and how much money they make. Again, it's an auction, and it's not a very transparent auction, either. So there's a ton of different factors that go into it, different bidding strategies that can be used. I won't get too, too in the weeds there, but basically, you're trying to figure out what you can profitably pay for traffic to your website based upon then what percentage of those people might reach out to you, what percentage of those calls may turn into clients, how much money you make from those clients, etc. All the numbers matter and and so that that bid that you've placed factors into whether or not your ad shows up or someone else's ad shows up, and other things too, like the quality of your ad. So if you wrote an ad that's really compelling, hey, interior designer near you, 500 plus reviews, whatever, and people are more likely to click on that than the really shoddy ad somebody else just threw up that has punctuation issues or whatever. Then Google's going to prioritize your ad because they want that high click through rate. They see that as being relevant because
11:09
they make more money, and they make more money, more attraction, 100% Yep, interesting. So how and how would I measure? How do you measure if you're getting that return. So let's just say I dump 1000 but I don't know what an average spend would be, a couple 1000 bucks a month. How do I know that I'm getting a return? Because who just because they click doesn't mean that I'm going to get my money. It's not going to be an investment that that pays for itself Exactly. Yeah. It's
11:41
a super important Am
11:42
I just, yeah, just, am I just pissing money away Exactly? That's
11:46
what I really want to ask, and Google is happy to take it. Happy to Exactly, yeah, yes. That's an incredibly important question to ask, and something that we help our clients with, because if you aren't tracking what happens from that money, then yeah, hey, you don't know, is it profitable or not, and let's just say, hopefully, hopefully, you're lucky and it's working well. You don't know which parts of it are working well, so you can double down on and improve. So there's a couple ways you can track what happens after someone clicks through. First of all, you want to have calls to action on your website. You want them to do something after they click through. So top one often is going to be call me. Let's talk. So we use something. We use a call tracking solution, where when someone clicks through an ad and gets to the website, we actually are able to automatically show a call tracking phone number on the website. So that is specific to to our client. When someone calls that the call gets to not
12:38
my regular number, a regular number
12:40
Exactly. It's a special number. It still forwards directly to your regular number, so people still get to you like normal, but we're able to see, okay, what did person click on? What do they search for? What campaign did this come from? For most of our clients, we also we record those calls, and our team listens to them and provides feedback to our clients as well. So be like, hey, some type of clients, they've got sales teams. Did you know this? This this team member over here is not doing a great job? You might want to chat with them. Or, hey, no, you're not answering the phone. You might want to. You know, you've got these calls coming in, that kind of thing. So we can provide that feedback, and then tie that back to campaigns. So phone calls, we can track those. And then, if you've got anything on the website where people are submitting information contact form, get a free quote, sign up for an email newsletter, download a white paper, whatever we can put code on there as well to again, track those things back to the campaigns so we know all right, this keyword drove three contact form submissions. Drove two calls. Of those calls, one sounded really relevant, one was a wrong number, so we're not going to count that as a lead. And then that's what we can show you to say, here's how things are doing as a client, and then also we can use to optimize and make things better over time.
13:48
That's freaking genius. So that's why using an agency like yours versus DIY ing, it like I was eyeballing, I don't know this probably two years ago, is a benefit, but you're hiring the professionals to do it exactly those you've got those little tools that give you the right data to continue driving your decisions
14:08
Exactly. Yep, got those kind of processes and things figured out 100%
14:12
so what metrics do you look at to gage that success? Is it because, just because they call No, I think that's really cool though, that you can give feedback. It's like you're answering. You sound cranky, or you need to have a smile in your voice, whatever that looks like. Or, okay,
14:30
yeah, yeah. Now what metrics we look at? Generally, we're going to be looking at number of leads, cost per lead, relevance of those leads, number of leads. Obviously, want to drive as many as possible for the budget, which is where cost per lead comes in. So that's just how much we spent divided by number of leads that we drove. And we want to try to improve that over time. Find what's not working. Where is there wasted spend that we can cut? Where can we double down on what's actually driving those calls driving, those forms of motions and then relevance of the leads? We can get a bunch of really trashy leads, of people who aren't at all interested, with a really cheap cost per lead, but that does good. So we want, and that's where it's really important, to have feedback, a great feedback loop between the agency and the advertiser to say, hey, got your 30 form submissions last month? How were they? How many? It all sucks, exactly like, Oh, all right, let's change our approach. So that feedback is crucial, makes sense.
15:25
So when I first started running the I think they're pretty much Facebook ads for my coaching program. My paid program is called the interior design business bakery. So as you can imagine, we had a lot of bakers who were interested in the so we were getting all these clicks, and we're like, nope, these people are not relevant. So imagine tweaking that. So you're right. It makes a huge difference. Because who cares if you get 500 clicks? If they're only five that are designers versus like confectioners or whatever, that makes a huge difference. Imagine trying to bake a cake without a recipe. You kind of know what the ingredients are, but you don't know how to put it all together. After lots of hard work and trying different combinations, all you are left with is a sticky situation and a stomach ache. Babe running an interior design business can feel exactly that same way. That is why I created the interior design business bakery. This is a program that teaches you how to bake your interior design business cake and eat it too. If you don't want to figure out the hard way, and you want guidance to follow a recipe that has already been vetted, someone that has already been there and done it, and will help you do it too. Then check out the year long mentorship and coaching program, the interior design business bakery, if your interior design business revenue is below 300,000 or if you're struggling to make a profit and keep your sanity, this is the only program for you. You can find that information at designed for the creative mind.com. Forward slash business. Dash, bakery, check it out. You won't regret it.
17:28
It's examples like that that remind me, as CEO of an agency, that even though AI has come a long ways, there's still very much a need for that human input, because the AI looks at that and they're like, Baker, boom, relevant. And then people are looking at, oh, Baker, I'm a baker. Cool. They click on it and but a human can look at that and realize, Oh yeah, they're clicking, yeah, maybe they're even filling out a form or something. But this is not who we want to be spending our money on. That's course correct. And tell the AI, let's not do this. Let's go over here.
17:58
Thankfully, we caught that pretty quickly. Now what's which brings me to a question is, why Google ad? What? When would you use a Google Ad compared to Facebook or Instagram or so a social ad, I think is what you were calling them?
18:13
Yeah, fantastic, fantastic question. I think of Google, the way I like to look at it is old marketing, and then Facebook, Instagram, or whatnot, they're push marketing. So with Google, the beautiful thing is, people are telling you what they need right now, and usually that's going to be what I call the lowest hanging fruit. So if someone goes to Google and they say, interior designer near me, they're looking for an interior designer near you, near them, and they're looking for it right now. They're literally right now saying, I want to find you. So that's usually going to be the most relevant traffic, the people who are going to be most likely to convert the warmest leads is right now they're there. Now, the downside to that is everybody knows that, and so those leads may be more expensive because everyone's bidding aggressively to get that warm traffic. And so the great thing about Facebook, Instagram, that kind of thing is sometimes it can be less expensive because clicks cost less again, it all depends on conversion rates and how those things work, but sometimes it can be less expensive.
19:11
The other thing, though, is that you're pushing to people who aren't actively searching on Google right now for what they want, so you can make them aware. Somebody who doesn't even think to search for an interior designer. You may find some patterns in their behavior. You're able to target, hey, they just bought a new house. You know, they're looking up home decorating stuff, and you show them ads, and they're like, oh, yeah, an interior designer would make this a whole lot easier. And so you're creating awareness of your solution, and of you specifically as a solution provider for most businesses, I'll often start with Google to capture the low hanging fruit people who are searching for what they're doing, and then expand to Facebook, Instagram, etc, to go find the new people who aren't searching right now, but who are still relevant and potential customers for the business. Which
19:58
makes sense, because. Because first you spend on Google, get the low hanging fruit, make some money, and then you can spend more to get potentially better quality clients, or you have more people calling. You don't have to say as to all of them exactly,
20:13
yeah, you can get more volume and kind of nurture relationships too. So to find those people who want to want to have a relationship, maybe they're going to subscribe to your Facebook page and watch you for a while and get inspired and over time convert, as opposed to people who are just like transactionally. Okay, searching right now for a designer, that makes
20:30
sense. So if anybody listening is interested in starting with Google ads, what are some, I would say, like common pitfalls, that they might come across. And how would they? How would you guide them to avoid them? Yeah, common
20:50
fit, Paul, can't talk today. Common pitfalls first is going to be the tracking thing that you brought up. A lot of people just don't think about tracking success. So finding ways to set up tracking people can set up tracking themselves. Obviously, it does require some nuanced understanding of things, but y'all
21:05
don't seriously for those of you guys who are listening, been there, done that, tried it. It is I don't recommend it. It's
21:12
fun. Put it that way, yeah, definitely what you can do to track, because a track and then B define. What does success look like to you? What are you looking for one new client a month? You're looking for 10 leads. What are the metrics where you can say, hey, this is working, I should keep doing it. Or, hey, no, this is so far away from where I need it to be that it's not that it doesn't make sense for me. So that'd be one thing I'd say is just not doing tracking be a common fall. The other thing I would say is putting too much faith in Google. I'll just say that Google makes it really easy to spend money, and so some of the things that they push you towards in the DIY side of things, hey, use broad match keywords and automatically let Google write your ads for you, stuff like that that can that cannot be good, sometimes that can put you into situations where you think that you're targeting people looking for interior design, and then, because of the broad match keywords you're using, Google's actually matching all other types of traffic to your keywords. And you're spending money, and it's not the people you want. Don't trust Google too much. Be conservative with what you do. As far as if you're getting into match types with Google, maybe start with phrase match, exact match, not broad match with just what Google wants you to start with and try to really get that low hanging fruit again. I'll overuse that term, and then scale your way up from there.
22:27
That makes sense. That makes sense. So from a point of view as the CEO, and this is a little less strategic, but what is the favorite aspect of the work that you do working
22:41
with our team honestly, just yeah, having having the ability to have a bunch of great team members who get to work with on a daily basis, provide gainful employment, fulfilling employment, to them, and see them grow in their careers, in their lives, get to know them, and what makes them tick? That is, I'd say, the number one thing that I enjoy in the CEO role, it's
23:01
very fun. That is very fun. So how big is your How big is your company? Or how big is your team
23:06
we have right now, about 2530 people in that range. Are
23:10
they all? Are they all over the world? Or, like, how do you structure it?
23:13
Yeah, yeah. We're all over the place. We used to, so I'm in Texas myself. We used to have a physical office in Fort Worth Texas, and then what? 2020? We went fully remote. And so we've got team members in the US. We've got team members different places around the world. We're fully remote as a company. So basically we just look for where is good talent, wherever they are still work in Central Time hours, so we're available for our clients. But hey, where we can find the right talent? Let's, grab them and support
23:41
them. Pandemic changed everything, didn't it? It sure did. Heck, you can put that overhead in your pocket.
23:46
Absolutely, yeah, it
23:48
makes a huge difference. Absolutely. Oh, interesting. Interesting. What is so what do you what would you be doing if you weren't doing this? Oh, well, that's
23:58
great question.
23:59
I know random, yeah, no, that's
24:00
a fantastic question. I love writing, so I enjoy writing doesn't pay well. If it paid well, maybe it's more writing. I enjoy podcasting too. Being on podcasts like this one, interviewing people, listening to them, probably some kind of communication, writing, slash podcast type of thing is probably where I'd be spending my time. There
24:20
you go. So similar to your CEO role, because you're out promoting the work that you guys do. Okay, so back to something a little more technically specific is, what would you say if I came to you, what would you say would be an average spend per month to get a good return on your Google ads, and does that vary from what you would suggest spending on social ads?
24:43
Yeah, great question. So I'll give some specific numbers. There's always a caveat, obviously, you know, it depends on all the fun stuff, but I'd say if we're looking at averages, you know, probably for a local business, like an interior designer who's got a specific geography that you're operating in, probably 2000 A month on average, to start on Google could be less, could be more, depending on factors, but let's just average it out, probably 2000 on paid social. I'd say probably one to 2k per month, somewhere about the same. Yeah, it's pretty, fairly similar. Gotcha.
25:14
And why does that just get you enough eyeballs every day to make it like a return on investment, because if you spent 500 bucks a month, you just it's like a crapshoot, or smaller crapshoot.
25:29
Essentially, yeah, essentially, that should be enough to be able to collect enough data to have a sense for what may be working and what might not be working, so that you can then cut the waste, double down on what's working. Well, you're not going to going to have your best results ever month one, because it's a process of testing, iteration, building data, etc. But like you say, if you just throw $500 at the wall, probably not going to be able to collect enough data, enough clicks to really have a sense for can this work or can this not work again? There's caveats. We do have clients who spend $500 a month because they have a month because they have a very tight niche, maybe high value businesses. Not a lot of people searching for it, but when they do value there. So it is doable, but the average at least 2k per month, and then obviously some a lot more than that, depending on where their maturity is and what their goals are. If you're
26:18
really looking at a huge Yeah, you're right, because for interior designers, we don't do volume work for the most part, at least my audience like we're mostly residential, small business, lots of solopreneurs. It's not like we need 50 clients a year. Lord knows that totally makes sense. 50 clients would be exhausting. Yeah. Okay, so average budget you spend, but you also get better clients that way, because you can tailor it and tweak it, and maybe not get as many calls, but you're getting better calls. Yeah?
26:51
And of course, the more opportunities you have coming in the picker, you can be too with who you who you work with. Like you mentioned, you don't want to, you don't want to be desperate where anybody calls in, no matter what you got to work with them. So having options is good thing.
27:02
Yeah, and that's definitely something that comes with your business. Your business gets more sophisticated. Your clients get more sophisticated. Because, Lord knows, when I started, it was like, Oh, you've got a pulse. Sure, I'll work with you. And you
27:16
guys. What you gotta do when you start a small business? You gotta take what comes to be able to build yourself, that cushion foundation to then get a little bit more picky down the
27:25
road, and really appreciate the place that you do and appreciate, yeah, absolutely. Okay,
27:31
so couple questions that are more I don't know, getting to know you is, would you say you're an introvert or an extrovert? Definitely
27:41
an introvert. Yep, I enjoy being with people, but I like growing up with a good book of the family, and I watch a good movie. So definitely, yeah,
27:49
I can appreciate that. So speaking of books, what book would you recommend? It could be business fiction, one, one of the both. This is my own personal question, because I have a reading list. That's awesome. Yeah,
28:01
I'll do one. I'll do one business in one fiction. So business book I read earlier this year that I really enjoyed was called 100 million leads, or 100 million dollar leads, I think by
28:11
Oh, is that a nosy? Yeah, yeah.
28:15
So that's very an inspirational book about just going out and doing the hard work to get get what you need done in your business. And then on the fiction side of things, I'll throw out. I enjoy and I enjoy sci fi fantasy. I enjoy a lot of stuff. But there's a series called Red Rising that I read a couple years ago. It's an epic science fiction set in the future space Galaxy type thing, but just really incredibly well written, great character development, and one of my favorite series, and that's a series that's cool,
28:45
written that down. Have you seen hormozi on Instagram? Do you follow Him? Most
28:51
of what I see of him is on YouTube. Actually, I haven't seen much on Instagram, but probably the same thing.
28:56
Yeah, dude's huge.
28:58
He has missed he's a special character, yeah, absolutely. And
29:02
his wife both. Okay, so if you guys are not tracking with who we're talking about, it is, and it's Andrew harmozi, I think what's Alex? Alex. And then his wife's name is Layla. I think Layla or something like that. So they're just really good to follow, good inspiration and solid tips. Okay, what would you be doing right now at this moment, if you weren't here on the podcast,
29:26
I would be talking probably to a team member or a client about Google ads.
29:30
Pick up. That's sex. Sexy job, huh?
29:34
Oh yeah.
29:35
You work 40 hours, 50 hours, 20 hours. What is your what does your work week look like, yeah,
29:41
generally, varies in the week, but generally in the 40 to 50 hour range, somewhere in there, usually.
29:46
And then, what piece of advice would you give to your 20 year old self? My
29:52
20 year old self, I would say, I would say, try to take a step back and look at. Big Picture. Don't be so caught up in the weeds of the challenges you're facing right now that you forget that things are going to change over time, and you're really young, and there's a lot of opportunities to change. Just try and take a breath and look at the big picture.
30:11
20 years old. Man, I knew everything, by the way. In case anybody's wondering, when I was 20, I knew it all. Oh, you did too. Yeah.
30:19
It's a thing. Funny how that works. We get less smart as it goes, right? Yeah,
30:23
I know it's like, you realize you don't know what you don't know exactly, and then, with you and your leadership team, you as the CEO. How and when do you think about your business strategy? Is it like a daily thing that you set time aside for? Do you go, lock yourself in a room and do a retreat? How do you go about strategy in your business?
30:51
It's always a battle, as there's always the fires that are coming up every every day that are always trying to push that strategic planning. I'm away and say, You gotta throw some water on this right now, the transparent answer is, always, I spend less time on it than I should. But I would say that's
31:06
good, yeah, for the audience to hear, because we're all in that space and probably comparing ourselves to other people. So thank you for just saying that.
31:16
Yeah, yeah. I would say most of the time it's alongside of the tactical work. So it's all right blocking out some time on a day to do some thinking. It's thinking while I'm out walking, or spending some time in the evening, figuring things out when there's less stuff coming up. And then sometimes, one thing I've been trying to get better at, and I think I've gotten a little better this year at, is blocking out a day I had today earlier this year, God day coming up towards the end of this month, of just sitting down with the leadership team and really looking at things from a big picture perspective and saying, Okay, here's the goals that we've set. Where are we at with accomplishing them? What are the challenges and problems the next six months, next year, that we really need to focus and orient towards? And I found that to be very helpful as well, to have that time set aside.
32:00
I think that is very important, is to put it on the calendar. Because if it's not scheduled, it really just does not transpire organically. Because, like you said, all the fires that just keep coming up or you're just exhausted and you want to take a nap instead,
32:14
there's always work that will be there that will say, hey, this has to get done now, so you gotta block out the calendar and make it happen.
32:21
I totally agree. I've, at one point in my business, I tried to have a CEO day once a month and just be able to sit down and strategize. And I think doing that was helpful, because it probably happened every third month in real life.
32:36
But if you hadn't tried, it would never happen to me. Exactly.
32:39
I don't think I have any other questions, John, that was, I'm sure the audience has loved everything that you had to say. I'm looking at my notes to see if there's anything that I wrote down while we were chatting. I think we got them all answered. So why don't you let our listeners know where they can connect with you? How can they find you?
32:58
Absolutely So through our website, stub group.com Great place. We have some free resources that you can download on there. Just go to stub group.com/free for some free resources about Google ads, and then also our YouTube channel. We put out a lot of video content about Google ads and digital advertising for small businesses. So just search stub group on there and subscribe to get lots of free videos. Sorry, you can see my face more, but hopefully the information communicated will be worth
33:25
that awesome. That is awesome. I will make sure that those details are in the show notes, so that when our audience is ready to enlist you, that they can find you and follow you and get the whole nurture sequence per se. So y'all thank you so much for being here. If you are an interior designer who is looking to scale your business from five figures to multiple six without trading your time for money, and you want to get plugged in to a group of like minded individuals, join us on Facebook. Yeah, yeah. I know it's Facebook, y'all, but that's the best place for a free group right now. It's the interior designers business launch pad. Join us over there. I go live, oh, anywhere between two and four times a month. That's where we hold our free workshops, and it's just a fantastic community, if I do say so myself. So again, it's the interior designers business launch pad. I'll see you on Facebook. John, thank you so much for being here and for y'all listening. Oh, it's been a pleasure for y'all listening. Make it a great day. Hey, y'all, if you love the show and find it useful, I would really appreciate it if you would share with your friends and followers, and if you like what you're hearing, want to put a face with a name and get even more business advice, then join me in my Facebook group, the interior designers business launch pad. Yeah, I know it's Facebook, but just come on in for the training and then leave without scrolling your feet. It's fun. I promise you'll enjoy it. You. And finally, I hear it's good for business to get ratings on your podcast, so please drop yours on whatever platform you use to listen to this. We're all about community over competition, so let's work on elevating our industry one designer at a time. See you next time you
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