How Agile Marketing Works With Andrea Fryrear

Welcome to the Marketing Growth podcast. I’m your host, Shane Barker. Previously on the podcast, we discussed agile marketing with Andrea Fryrear, co-founder of Colorado-based AgileSherpas. Let’s continue the conversation and get to know more about her company and its work approach. So, tell me a little bit about your books. You had a book—was it “Death of a Marketer”? I took that very personally because I didn’t know if there was something I wasn’t in the know about. But anyway, tell us a little bit about your inspiration and what the book’s about. Give us some intel there.

Gotcha. And so just to confirm—no marketers were killed in the making of this book, right? No marketers were harmed at all. I just don’t want… there’s PETA for animals, and I just don’t know if there are marketers—if they’re gonna get some people picketing at your house or something. Just trying to keep you safe on that side, because you know…

All right, that’s good. That’s good. Okay, just want to make sure that’s awesome. So you did the book about two years ago, which is interesting to me, because you’d only been in the space for about two years at that point, right? So you’re like, saying, “Hey, listen, there’s obviously a need for this”, right? And there’s, “Hey, we’re doing this.” But also, I think, let me explain why the death of the marketer, and why we need these processes being put in place.

All right, well, my butt needs to be saved. I’m with you on that. I guess if I had $1 for every email I got about doing content together, I would appreciate it. I love it. But here’s the thing: I look and I’m like, “Wow, that’s cool—500 emails on a Monday.” Yes, this is awesome, you know. And I’ve put some efficiencies in place—nowhere close to what you guys create, by any means. But I’ve got VAs and all that fun stuff, so I’ve had a little less stress when it comes to that. But that’s definitely something I think I need to look at, because there are processes that are in place that could be improved.

I think that’s true with anything you do. It’s always good to have an outside source or another set of eyes to look at your process. Sometimes I don’t feel that way, but other people might say, “Oh, I think it’s a good process.” It never hurts to have a third party take a look at it.

So let’s let’s talk about your courses here. So I see that you do a lot of courses. Like, what are some of the…how many courses you have right now?

Yeah, well, that’s funny. So, where I have my office, there are obviously other people in the space, but one of them is Kai Partners, and they do a lot of this. They do it for the state of California, but they also do some Scrum stuff and other things, and I’ve always been really intrigued by what they do. I’ll tell you, they put up these crazy whiteboard things, and when I look at them, my brain instantly hurts a little with anxiety—even though I’m not in the meeting, I’m just looking at it and going, “Oh my God.” I think it’s to make it palatable and a little bite-sized.

And you say you have a course—that seems like a beginner course: “Hey, let’s get you some framework, some foundation on what different things we have going.” I think that’s a good idea because it can be daunting. I mean, I don’t know your process, but when I look at it—and they’re working with the state of California, so there’s hundreds, even thousands of people—I look at that and think, “That looks like it’s going to hurt my brain.” But I do; I like that. I understand the value in it. Once you’ve really figured this whole thing out and drilled down deep, I think the origami thing is a great example because then it’s really hands-on and people go, “Oh, I see.”

Oh, that makes sense. There are a lot of things we don’t know, right? We don’t know if there’s a bottleneck—or maybe you do, but you don’t understand how it happens or how to get out of it. If there’s a bottleneck, what do I do instead of just firing Larry or giving him an assistant? How do we take care of that? For you guys, when you work with those types of systems, you’re looking at efficiencies. For example, if you have a 10-person team, you don’t necessarily need 15 people. What do you recommend for something like that?

Yeah, and once again, as we talked about this, I just think about our processes and that stuff because it always changes. Every year, or every few years, it changes. I used to think having ADHD was super awesome for me because I could put up 1,500 windows and do 1,500 things, but now I’m realizing that it’s a little better to focus on getting some stuff done.

You know, back in the day I would have 10 projects going, and we were 20% and 25% done—nothing was really getting done because we would chip away at them. That was great, but there were just so many different things happening instead of focusing on one project, finishing that project. I mean, unless it’s clients, because then there’s always different levels. But for our own internal projects, it was like saying, “Hey, we need to finish this one because this is a high priority—put all the team on this one, get it to where it needs to be, and then move on to another project.”

So I think that is in allowing that time, right? When I was younger, I was working 18, 19-hour days, seven days a week, and I was literally killing myself because I didn’t have processes in place—I was just grinding. I was making great money, but who cares about the money if you can’t ever use it? I’m like, “This is great. My son’s gonna have money in the bank, and I’m gonna be dead at, you know, four years old or something.” So that’s obviously not the goal here in life. I think that’s when you look at those efficiencies and what you need to do to cut that down. I’m gonna work smarter, not harder, right? It’s interesting—really interesting to me—because, as I said, I think of that transition of my agency and myself as an individual from 20-plus years ago to today. I feel like we’re definitely better, for sure, but we’re nowhere close to the thought process and how you guys put things together. Once again, very intrigued by it, for sure.

And that’s the way I run my teams. I have a 31–32 person team now, but we’re all remote, and that’s the way I run things. I’m not here to manage anybody. Because I don’t want to. I don’t have time to go see, “Hey, what are you doing here? What’s going on here?” If you’re more efficient and can get your work done in three hours when it should take eight, I don’t have a problem with that—as long as the work is getting done. I think another thing is, on the internet, if you thought about selling this, is that the Agile angels—do you think those are sold? Can you buy those? Because I would probably take two right now; I’d want two angel ones because the devil one always seems to have my shoulder. The devil one is always like, “Hey, no, do more. Come on, man, show them what you got.” I’m like, “Dude, leave me alone. Talk to the other angel real quick. Call me later, or something.” Do you guys sell those angels or anything?

I mean, why not? Everybody needs that little—what is that? I was like, “Oh, it’s my angel. I forgot about that.” Awesome. Now, let me know if that works out, because I’d like—I don’t really care about a cut because it was a little bit my idea. But you brought it up originally, so if you could send me a free angel, or two, or whatever, maybe they can help me out throughout my day.

I look forward to the angel coming in the mail. So, tell us a little bit—when we talk about, say, I’m an aspiring marketer and I say, “Hey, I want to jump in the marketing space.” I mean, obviously, a first step would be your course, right? Your baseline, your foundational course, where people could take a look at what other books or things you’ve read that you might recommend.

I mean, because if I’m a marketer, for me  there are a lot of things we would have to change, and I get that. But if I was starting off and said, “Hey, I really want to jump into this,” I know there’s training and stuff you can go through as well. Could you touch on that a little bit as well?

Somewhere in the middle. And I think that’s why I was excited about today’s conversation—because we don’t necessarily do agile, but we should. That’s where I love these podcasts and this kind of stuff, because you can start to learn about it. I feel like these days it’s hard because there’s so much information coming in and you’re trying to make it palatable.

And so first, for entrepreneurs like ourselves who produce content and have people consuming it—which is good—but it’s difficult for us and, even the people that follow us, to be able to have people come in and take a look what do we like. How do you filter through all that information that’s coming through, right? I think that’s why I always try to figure out some books we can recommend, because if someone can read a little bit—maybe not go full-blown agile—but maybe, you know, as a piece or as something in your toolbox you can use. And so we talked about these different books to give you a better idea, so you can at least talk fluidly about it. Maybe not be an instructor by any means, but at least have enough information to be dangerous.

And who was the author? Do you know? Oh, if you don’t remember, I’m just—every time you mention a book, I write it down—so you duck out for a second. I’m just trying to add it to my list.

That’s alright. I’ll look it up, and we’ll put it at the bottom of the podcast or something like that. Wow, I love getting to know more about new resources and tools for marketing. I’m learning so many new things about agile marketing as well. There’s still a lot I want to know about AgileSherpas. We’ve taken the conversation further in tomorrow’s podcast. Stay tuned.