In this episode, CEO of S&G Content Marketing Lauren Fairbanks talks about the difference between a lifestyle business and a growth business, how to know when to expand your business, and the common mistakes marketing agencies make.
Lauren Fairbanks is a former journalist and the co-founder and CEO of S&G Content Marketing, an award-winning agency that creates branded content experiences for companies who want to stand out from their competitors. Her work with clients, such as DJ Khaled, Square, and the Las Vegas Tourism Board, has won numerous brand and communications awards.
Lauren is also a member of the Forbes Agency Council and is a Forbes columnist, covering brand communications. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Masters in Marketing Agency:
- How millennials want to be marketed to.
- What you need to successfully work with your spouse.
- Using your network to get more clients.
- Common mistakes marketing agencies make.
- The difference between a lifestyle business and a growth business.
- How marketing content changes depending on the size of a business.
- How to know when to expand your business.
- Why tech companies are having such big layoffs.
- How to make a business case for getting agency support.
Resources:
Connecting with Lauren Fairbanks:
Connecting with the host:
- Josh Hoffman on LinkedIn
Quotables:
- 1:18 – “You just have to recreate those spring and summer months in your home, so use a space heater, get a small space, put your seed starters in a little container with a plastic top so that you get lots of sunlight but you’re keeping the heat humidity in there, keep the humidity high and then get one of those plant warming pads or you can even get one of those you know how people used to use heating pads in the 80s and 90s, I feel like no one uses heating pads anymore just plop them on top of a heating pad as long as you recreate those warmer environments you’ll get them to start.”
- 5:33 – “When we started there was a lot of content that was informational so how to articles things that were very technically focused like there are all the things that you need to know about our industry or our products whereas now there’s much more of a shift towards thought leadership so the top of the mind content really just becoming an expert in your industry and in your space.”
- 7:15 – “It’s actually been really great for us, I think as long as you have that ability to compartmentalize your life a little bit so you’ve got work and you’ve got personal time and home time and family time, I enjoy working with my spouse because I enjoy my spouse, we’re friends, we’re partners so I feel like it makes sense to want to work with the same person that you’re sharing your life with.”
- 14:27 – “A lot of people run their business as a lifestyle business and there’s nothing wrong with running a lifestyle business it really depends on what your goals are and how I define a lifestyle business is basically you keep your business boutique, you have one to two founders who are running the day to day you have maybe 5 or 6 employees basically no real level of middle management and basically everything that you make in profit goes back to the Founders and it provides a nice comfortable life for you to be able to do whatever you want and keep your income fairly high and to grow but grow in small increments over the years. The way that we’ve built our agency is with growth in mind, we have very aggressive growth goals over the next five years.”