Agile Marketing: Discussing Case Studies With Andrea Fryrear

Welcome to the Marketing Growth podcast. I’m your host, Shane Barker. In the last two episodes, I’ve been talking to Andrea Fryrear from AgileSherpas about her professional journey, her company, and agile marketing. Let’s take the conversation forward. In this episode, we’ll take a closer look at what’s going on behind the scenes at AgileSherpas. So, what are the things? Over the years, obviously, you’ve been building up efficiencies and doing that kind of stuff. What do you think your strengths and weaknesses are as a marketer—and I guess also as an agency? What have you guys had to improve upon?

Not to talk about the bad things, but obviously, on top of the good stuff. Obviously, there’s a lot of good things there. But what have you guys had to change, I guess, from an agile perspective and as an agency, because you’re teaching other people how to do it? And there’s always, you know, usually what happens is you go and teach everybody else. For me, I teach everybody else how to do stuff—I just started optimizing my blog a year ago.

I’ve done it for everybody else, and they all got great results—everything was awesome. And I was looking at mine, thinking, “I’m getting like 100 people a day. This is ridiculous—I should…” And now we’re getting 2,000 to 3,000 people a day. But tell me a little bit about that process. What did it take for you guys to look at your process and say, “Hey, we have to make some improvements here as well?”

Yeah, I’m going to switch gears on you a little bit. You guys have a full remote team, right? What do you use, because obviously you have a full team too? It’s taken a long time to get it to a point where it’s very efficient—well, very efficient until I talk to somebody like you, and then you’re like, “You’re at 30%, buddy.” And I’m like, “Okay, I thought I was maybe closer to 70,” but that’s okay. With the remote side of things, what software do you guys use? And stuff like that—for people who have remote teams or are looking to develop one?

That’s awesome. So we use Trello as well. We do a little bit of Slack, obviously, Google Drive docs for stuff, and then Dropbox for files. Yeah, we like Trello. I mean, it’s funny because we’ve used a lot of different tools—Basecamp, Trello, and Asana. And I haven’t really found anything that’s just perfect. Everybody has a different system, but it’s always like, “Oh, this one’s good here. This one’s good there.” Another one that we actually just started trying is called Griffin.

It’s a friend of mine, Marcella, who actually put this together. She’s been working on it for about three years. I did a thing with SEMrush—a live workshop—and she was one of the speakers. She came and said, “Oh, I’ve got this software,” and I was like, “Oh, let me check it out.” And I looked at it, and I was like, “Wow, it’s really—” They talk about the processes, and pnce again, it’s like, “Hey, you’ve got this to do: somebody ordered some content from you, and here goes the 15 things that need to be done.”

And then it’s done—it’s like they have a process tree, and there are some other ones like that right. You can go and then hey, this happens, and then this email gets sent out, and stuff like that. I’m trying that right now. We’re just kind of putting the processes in place to streamline some of those and to make more transparency for both the client and for us as well internally, because there are just a lot of moving pieces when it comes to the stuff that we do. And anyway, it’s always interesting; the process side of things, like I said, can always be improved.

That’s the beauty of it all. Yeah, I’ve used CoSchedule. In fact, I was just on the podcast with Eric and those guys over at CoSchedule—awesome, awesome team over there. We do a few different things. We use another tool just for, you know, maybe people out there. So we use a company called Quuu. Q-U-U-U-U?

Then Qpromote is another one that we do. And what they do is they do two different sides of the thing. On one side, you can put content that you want promoted and you pay monthly for that, and your content for distribution side. And on the other side it’s, “Hey, you’re a marketer. This is the type of content you want out there.” And they hand-read everything and curate the content for your audience, which is interesting because, once again, we’re always looking for time savers, right? I could spend all day reading articles, doing this, and sharing them, and I wouldn’t have done the 5,000 other things I was supposed to do. So, I think that’s – CoSchedule, we’ve used, and we’ve also liked them as well. They’re obviously a great company.

Yeah, so there’s Q-U-U-U and then there’s Qpromotes—two sides of the company. I don’t know what Q.QUE is, so I just want to make sure you don’t go there. It sounds like it’s pretty safe, but cool. So, could you talk to us a little bit about some of the brands that you guys have worked with? They could be big or small, and share some of the results you’ve seen, because I’m interested. I know everybody’s results are different—it depends on the organization, the process, the people hired, and how well they adapt to it. But give me some rundown of maybe some case studies or some stuff that you guys have done.

Instantly, when you said 300 marketers, I wanted to duck out and start crying. I can only imagine because you have 300. I used to own a company with 130 employees, and if any of those people listen to this podcast, I love you guys. Also, don’t take this personally. I always felt like I was the fireman, putting stuff out and I couldn’t really work on the business. I had great people in place in my management team, but our processes weren’t all perfect by any means. I mean, what process is? But when I think about 300 people and getting all those people to buy into it and to view it—and obviously the education side of it is important, and everybody wants to keep their job—I just think that being able to put something like that together for 300 people is really mind-blowing to me because obviously I haven’t, I don’t do it. I’ll put it on a whiteboard and say, I don’t even know where to start with this thing. Obviously, you guys have been doing it for a while, so you get that. But I just think that the movement, like with a five-person team? All day long. I feel like we could figure some stuff out. With 300, you get whatever the percentage is—you get 60% or say 40% that are excited, 60% like this is “ehh”, or 40% love it, 40% says, “Hey, I’m not worried about it”, and 20% is like “this is ridiculous”. Like, “I hate this.”

You know, it’s like—how do you—being able to do that when you’re obviously not gonna be there for the whole year? I mean, it’s really—I almost feel like you’re a PR company for something bad that happens for a client, and you gotta get it out to the media and change the perception of what’s going on.

I mean, it really has to—you’ve got to get people to buy in. You have to get them to start making those changes. It’s 300 people, and that’s like moving a herd of drunk elephants—which I don’t even know if elephants get drunk—but I feel like that’s how slow the process could be.

Yeah, that makes total sense. I just, you know… look at that, come on, 300 people, that’s just quite a feat to take on.

No, I understand that. It makes sense to have those small wins and for people to share them. It’s easy for you to come in and say, “Hey, this is the best thing since sliced bread.” But they’re like, “Well, obviously you’re going to say that—you’re getting paid to be here.” You want some of the people internally to say, “Wow, this is really awesome.”

We started using this and had some small wins. This is what we’re looking at. Then people get intrigued and start asking questions instead of being opposed to change, which I would think is how many people are at the beginning, right? It’s just human nature.

Yeah, the buy-in trickles down, that’s definitely it. It was a tricky situation, as you said—it’s a big ship to move for sure. So, what do you think of content marketing a little more? What’s the future of content marketing? What do you see it evolving into? I mean, you’ve already killed all the marketers two years ago in your book.

So now that those people are out of the way, where do I – I mean, I want to know what’s next because I missed that first wave of deaths and stuff like that, which I think is good, but I’m just trying to figure out for that second wave—what do you see? Because you’re kind of Nostradamus on this.

Yeah, I think that is the key. Because people always want things faster, right? Everybody wants a seven-second habit, three seconds, right? And the bigger companies are able to do that, adapt, and have these processes, and these people are looking at the processes on a daily basis.

How do we as the smaller fish be able to go and put some kind of efficiencies in place? We don’t have to respond in two minutes, but maybe it’s two hours. Maybe it’s three hours. So you’re not missing that opportunity, because people are very quick to go jump with the other guy or jump the other person, if you don’t respond quickly or say something bad on social media or whatever that is, right? To mitigate that.

Yeah, man, those selfish customers everywhere, and they’re having kids, so their kids are gonna be the same way. So we’re gonna have to learn to adjust. So let’s – I’m going to totally flip this on you a little bit – tell me a little bit about what’s your favorite vacation. I know we’ve been talking about the Agile thing, which I’m really intrigued about, but tell me a little bit about your favorite vacation. I know this is a total switch of gears, but I’m a huge traveler. I was just in Sri Lanka for a keynote and some other stuff, and now I’ve been bitten by the bug. I’ve been asking everybody that’s on the podcast: where have you gone? I think it’s mainly just for me being selfish because I want to know a cool place you’ve been to so that I can go there, other than Austin, which is absolutely on my list with my other three books that I’ll be reading here soon. Tell me about a cool vacation you went on recently, or maybe not recently. It could be whenever.

On purpose?

You didn’t disconnect the internet or cut wires or anything?

Just straight, you said, “I want to spend some time with my hubby.”

I hear you, you’re an angel. That’s awesome. My wife and I try to do some stuff like that, but it’s the disconnect. Actually, let me take that back. I am leaving for Lake Tahoe in seven days, six days. That’s supposed to be my total disconnect. That’s going to be my….like  if my wife sees me on my phone or trying to pull my laptop up, she’s gonna slap it on my hand. The funny part about that is my laptop—my wife actually calls it my girlfriend.

So when we go on vacation, she’s like, “Are you bringing your girlfriend?” And anyone around is like, “What, you’re bringing your girlfriend? I thought you guys were…are you like swingers or something?” I’m like, “No.” And so my laptop—usually I bring my girlfriend, right? Not all the time—I used to be really bad. I told you before, it was 18-19 hours—really, man, I was 30 pounds heavier. I just wasn’t mentally right. Now I have a better balance when it comes to work-life balance, even though it doesn’t sound like it when I explain it here because I bring my girlfriend everywhere. But yeah, it’s always been interesting.

So this next trip is supposed to be three days of— and I shouldn’t say that because people are gonna email me and I’m emailing back from— like you lied, you said you were…

My wife will probably set up a few people to do that to see if I do it. We gotta—this is gonna get tricky. So I gotta maybe totally disconnect this way.

Yeah, hey, that’s a good one, because it probably won’t. Maybe I’ll have the team push it out a little bit, and so I can still be bad, not disconnect, and then that will…?

I thought we said two, because one is kind of like—I mean, I think it’s kind of a committee—but I need to tell my people, “Hey, this is what you’re supposed to do.” And I’m already looking for a way out of not responding to people, right? So I’m that guy already.

Yeah. Oh, the poor vacations; sometimes those are good too. ou know, that happens. I said I was just in Sri Lanka for a little keynote I did, and I’ll tell you right now: all my people from Sri Lanka are gonna watch this and love it. It was the best vacation because I was a keynote there. They’re like, “Hey, you want to come out one week early and travel the country?” And I’m like, “Yeah, hell yeah, I do.” So that was my disconnect, only because the internet wasn’t phenomenal. But anyway, I went out there, and it was the craziest trip I’ve ever been on. Now, it was all paid for, VIP. I’m only saying this not because I’m used to this, but it was the hospitality, and they wanted to show you a good time, because there were 52 influencers from all over the world that flew out there for this. And it was the largest hotel chain, Cinnamon Hotels. And so, this experience was kind of like yours—it was, I mean, yours was awesome as well. But I barely spent any money on the whole thing, and the people, food, and drink were so nice. There was one day — this is how much fun we had, and although it’s terrible to say it out loud for the podcast, there was one day when we had lobster all day long. This is terrible. I sound like a diva right now. By the end of it, when it was dinner time, they served lobster again, and we’re like, “Oh God, not lobster again.” Literally, I said it because the food was phenomenal and everybody there was amazing—but it was just like, “Lobsters. I don’t even know if I can finish this.” And I’m like, “Who are we right now?”

I get lobster. We usually have it with my family twice a year—on Christmas and New Year’s Eve—and so I just thought, “Oh, gain weight and all that kind of stuff.” But it was a phenomenal trip. It was just like that—I knew it was because somebody else was footing the bill, and the people were just so nice. It was just such a good trip. And then I want to India, had an awesome trip there, and blah blah blah.

So anyways, it was a good trip, for sure, but yours sounds like a lot more like a personal trip—just you and your husband being able to connect. I think those are always good. My wife and I try to do those, seriously—where I’m not bringing my girlfriend—at least one or two times a year, where it’s like, “Hey, let’s just spend a weekend, or go do whatever, go hiking or whatever that is, and just kind of have some fun to revamp the relationship, you know?” How long have you been married for, may I ask?

Okay, see, we’re right about 13—about 13 or 14, so about that? You know, close to the same. It’s always, you know, anyways, my wife’s an absolute angel. And I mean that—other than the Agile angels you’re going to be sending me, she’s like a real angel and puts up with me and deals with me. So my wife —

Pray for them. Give them three angels—little agile angels they can take with them. Well, cool. Well, good. I think what we’ll end on here is: is there anything the world doesn’t know about you? Give me a fun fact. One fun fact I gave was that — I didn’t, and I’ve done this before. It’s taken me me 10 years to finish college—not because I failed out, was on drugs, or in prison or anything.

I can’t say whether that’s true or not. But anyways, my point in telling you this is that it took me 10 years to finish college because I was traveling and doing all this fun stuff, and I didn’t want to be a full-blown adult—I was trying to evade that whole thing. So give me one fun fact. It doesn’t have to be anything too crazy, but the crazier the better—obviously, we use that as a clip and send it around the world so everybody can hear it. But give me a little fun fact about yourself.

Oh, man, so uh…Spartan was one of my clients—the Spartan Races. I’ll tell you, we went to the one in Tahoe and I saw those people running up that hill. And now, obviously, you’re doing triathlon, which is the preparation. If anybody under—if you don’t understand, the preparation is — for that — is insane.

It’s like all the people from a mental standpoints are saying, “Hey, I can do this.” But with jet lag? I can’t imagine doing it without jet lag. And with jet lag, your odds of making it are—I don’t care if you’re an athlete-athlete-athlete—like 1% or something.

You get another thing: what people don’t realize—or maybe they do—is that one of the guys I was working with on the whole Spartan thing, he was always from California, but it wasn’t from the mountainous areas, right? So it was more of a valley-type thing. And you know, obviously Boulder being an example—running a mile in Sacramento, a nice little flat valley compared to Boulder? Not even on the same page.

Yeah. I hear you. But you know, the thing is—and I know this is—but at least you try to do it. I don’t know if it was the jet lag thing—we could probably talk about it off screen—but the idea that you at least still try to do it, because we’re always looking to push ourselves, is awesome. I think it’s great that you tried it, and even though you did get pulled out and you’re still alive and able to talk about it, that’s awesome for your kids, your husband, and all that other stuff. So we appreciate you staying alive, and we thank you for that. Easy wins, yeah.

So, okay, so let’s talk about this. We’re at the end of this thing. This has been an awesome interview. So if anybody wants to get in contact with you, why don’t you give us your email, the website, how they can get in contact with you, a little description, or anything else you want to give at the end of this thing?

That’s awesome. I have one last thing, so Fryrear. How many people in the US have that last name? Do you know?

Yeah, yeah, you guys are gonna be taking over the world, I heard. So this is what’s funny. My wife’s original last name was Pattalock, and they’re the only Pattalocks in the world, because when they came over from Ellis Island, they changed it from Padaluci to Pattalock, for whatever reason because the spelling wasn’t good. And I’m just saying, I didn’t know if there was a story behind your last name, because, you know, like I said, there are literally only two Pattalocks in the world—we looked it up. But you guys have grown a little bit, and you’re obviously gonna take over the world. So that’s, yeah, it’s good. I’m glad we talked about remote working and team management. I definitely got some great pointers from your approach to both.