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Hey, what is up?
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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
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As always, I'm your host, brian Lofermento, and I am so excited about today's episode because, yes, we are talking about my favorite topic in the entire world, which is, of course, marketing, but we're doing it with someone who not only is incredible at marketing and so passionate we've got so many cool things to talk about.
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But if you've ever tuned into these types of episodes and thought to yourself, well, this person's just good at marketing, they're a lifelong marketer.
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Today's guest has such an interesting background because he actually comes from the world of finance, so we're going to take a lot of the way that his financial mind works, apply it to effective marketing strategies, so that we all learn so much within the context of our own businesses.
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So let me tell you all about today's guest and entrepreneur.
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His name is Tim Hahn.
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Tim is the co-founder and CEO of Trilux Digital, which is a company he founded with his business partner after a serendipitous meeting through a mutual friend.
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Tim uses his decade and more of years of experience in business and finance to elevate the value of digital marketing services for his clients.
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Trilux Digital is on a mission to provide the highest quality of digital marketing services to their clients with trust and view their clients' success as their success.
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And also if you are thinking to yourself well, that's great if other people have enough time to do their marketing.
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Tim also balances a lot of stuff in his free time.
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He loves cooking, especially Korean food.
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He gardens, he enjoys living a healthy lifestyle and, yes, he's also a dad, as he gets run ragged after his three children, who are all under the age of four.
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Today's entrepreneur is amazing in so many ways.
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I'm excited to learn from him, so I'm not going to say anything else.
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Let's dive straight into my interview with Tim Hahn.
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All right, tim, I'm so excited that you're here with us today.
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First things first.
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Welcome to the show.
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Hi, it's a pleasure to be here.
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Heck.
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Yes, you and I have obviously been chatting leading up to today's episode, but, Tim, I love the energy that you bring to all the things that you do.
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You're clearly passionate about these things.
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You've got to take us beyond the bio.
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Who's Tim?
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How'd you start doing all these cool things?
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Yeah?
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so I think this all started when I was in college and I was actually going into more of a pre-medical route and then I switched over to marketing and fell in love with it.
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But during the course of me in school and going through the process of all the classes, I met a professor that told me hey, did you ever think about going into finance?
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And I never thought about that because I was okay with math.
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But I was a little apprehensive of like, oh, that's a lot of math, that's a lot of work.
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I don't know, there's a lot of smart people that's in there.
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But he really encouraged me to go in it and from then on I didn't look back.
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I developed a career through over 10 years of experience.
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I got my MBA during the middle of it and then I was able to reach the position of CFO before I started to launch my own business thereafter.
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So that's kind of where my story is with how I got really interested.
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Now I kind of first full circle back after I started my own financial consulting firm and did that for a year, I started to realize that there's a lot of different needs.
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That was beyond just finance and that was revenue right.
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So I was able to help optimize their margins, financial analyze, forecast model, all those, all the shebang um.
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But one of the big questions that a lot of these clients who asked me was how can I increase revenue?
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I didn't really have a good answer to that, I had theoretical answers.
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So from that need I started to research different ways I could help my clients increase their revenue stream, or just brand awareness or any of that stuff, and I fell in love with digital marketing.
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I thought that that was one avenue that was very similar to, in my opinion, finance.
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So then that led to a point where I met with my business partner and we ended up merging.
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At the time he had his marketing agency and at the time we thought that it would make more sense to create an operating LLC together and we formed Trial Exit Digital and we haven't looked back.
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Yes, I love that overview, tim, especially because the fact that you started out with finance and you led us right to the ultimate goal of marketing, which is, of course, increased revenue growth.
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And I love marketing because I view it as the fuel to the fire.
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It's the thing that adds revenue to our businesses, which leads us right off the bat.
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I want to start here with you, tim, which is defining marketing, because there's so many different ways and goals for us to look at with regards to marketing.
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There's lead generation, there's the sales aspect I lump sales into marketing quite frequently.
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Obviously, there's the classic four Ps of marketing, which include the product itself.
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That's part of what we do in terms of marketing.
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So there's this whole big world out there.
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Obviously, the ultimate goal is to increase our revenue.
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But, tim, when you think about the scope in the context of marketing, where does your mind go?
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So where my mind goes is maybe a little bit more towards the intangibles, and what I mean by that is when I think about the Internet or the web right.
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It's just a vast sea of infinity and with that you try to quantify what makes sense to a business that is there an ROI with this right, and I think it's hard for people even in general to quantify what the worth of the internet is or website or any of these things.
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So I think where I see a lot of ties of finance is it is an art, right, so something that's so intangible.
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How can you use that in a way to quantify metrics that makes sense, that will actually result to actual positive results, as opposed to just like vanity metrics, it's like, oh, it's great, it looks good.
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So I think that's where my value add when I look at clients and how I can help you know businesses is that there is definitely a fundamental difference between showing different parts of digital marketing that is effective for businesses, but then there's also things that are intangible that you have to kind of put together and make sure that it makes sense as well to result wise.
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So I think there's like a good marriage between those two.
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Yeah, and speaking of the marriage between the two, one of the things that I find pop up anytime I talk to any entrepreneur about their marketing is that balance between investing in longer term things that are going to work but also immediate gratification, because, I mean, you come from the finance world we need revenue, we need profitability to stay afloat, and so it is that dichotomy between making decisions for the now to create a business that is working, versus decisions for the later that are going to create, ultimately, a sustainable business.
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Where I'm going with this question, tim, is I love the fact that, as a full service agency, you provide things like SEO, but you also focus on things like social media and paid advertisements.
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Those are different sides of the coin to me, because, seo, I could also focus on things like social media and paid advertisements.
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Those are different sides of the coin to me, because, seo, I could start investing today and not see results for six months potentially.
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So talk to us about that balance of the short term and the long term and how it plays into a strategic marketing mix.
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That is a great question.
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So I get that question so many times when I talk to our prospective clients because they're trying to find if there's any value in that right, and because it's intangible, it's hard for, I think, some agencies to kind of showcase that there is worth in this, there's value in this.
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One of the I would say one of the things that I would I use as an example to talk to people of the importance of digital marketing and different strategies both organic and inorganic traffic or any of those strategies is that.
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Take, for instance, starting a new diet or working out right for you to gain results.
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It's going to take some time and discipline for you to do this for weeks, months and maybe a year, right, and at that point that will be more of the SEO track, right.
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Of course, our strategy and our way that we'll do things is we'll try to do it in a faster timeframe, but there's a realistic expectation that it does take a little bit of time, whereas different strategies, such as paid ads or social media or any type of lead generation thing, can be a little bit more immediate.
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I'll view those as kind of purchasing a you know, hiring a personal trainer that knows what they're doing and can really get you up to speed of that body that you want, or like the weight that you want to do or the muscle mass you want to get at a certain time in a more faster pace.
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So ideally you would want to mix those kind of strategies together.
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I don't believe it's a one strategy fits all type of thing.
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I believe that it's different type of strategies, that if you combine it together and it's just synergistic approach, that it will become a much more effective marketing plan, as opposed to just working out your arms or working out your legs right, it's supposed to be a whole body thing.
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So that's kind of how I view it and how I tell clients of what digital marketing is and the expectations beyond that as well too.
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Yeah, I really appreciate that perspective, tim, and I love me a good analogy.
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I use fitness all the time, but I've never used I love what you just alluded to, which is we have arm days when we go to the gym, but we also have leg days.
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You don't just want to have a completely jacked upper body and then chicken legs, which is something that we see for so many people when they don't focus on that diversified marketing mix, and that's why I've always loved that term of marketing mix.
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So I want to add onto that, though, because my firm belief, Tim and I'm super curious to hear your perspective on this is that there's also still a balance on that marketing mix side, on the mix side of things, because I see too many business owners and entrepreneurs where they sign up for an account on every single platform account, and TikTok and YouTube and all these different places but it's just not manageable.
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It's not manageable for them to be on all those platforms and then most of those platforms are empty, have no engagement, have no traction.
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How do we find that delicate balance of being in the right places but making sure we adequately invest our time and resources in those platforms that we choose?
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That's also another great question.
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So how I look at that is every business is different, so every strategy we do is very custom.
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We always start out with a whole scale audit of their whole business.
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Right, and you're absolutely right.
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It does not make sense to utilize all different avenues or pillars of digital marketing for a certain client.
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I think, in my opinion, there are different strategies that we'll do for attorneys and then what we'll do for dentistry, right?
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Or vice versa.
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I would say what we do for private equity is going to be very different than what we do for oil and gas, so very different strategies For us to look into what's more effective.
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We do a lot of competitor analysis.
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We look at what the landscape looks like.
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We look at, actually, their industry as well too, to make sure that, hey, are we playing in the right spaces?
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Is this what everybody else is doing in this?
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And sometimes it makes sense to trailblaze as well too, because just because everybody else is not doing it or is doing it doesn't mean you need to be that person either.
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And I think that's kind of the birth of entrepreneurship as well too, because you might actually find a niche that makes sense or like a marketing flaw there or an inefficiency that you can kind of go and help out in as well too.
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So that's kind of where I look at of OK, we can help out our businesses, but strategy A is going to be different than strategy B for client A and then client B as well too.
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Yeah, tim, I think that's such an important answer and I want to go deeper there with you because listeners probably won't expect this part of the conversation, because obviously we're both marketing geeks.
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In today's episode we're mostly talking about marketing, but what I want to point out is the fact that marketing doesn't fix everything, and hearing you talk about the competitive landscape, hearing you talk about auditing your clients so that you have the overall picture and landscape of their business that's important because if you've got a terrible product, for example, no amount of marketing is going to fix that.
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If you have horrible customer reviews and experiences, well, more marketing isn't going to fix that.
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So I'm curious, from your perspective, what are those foundational elements of the business that you look at aside from marketing, that will determine the success or failure of any marketing campaign before you even get that started?
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So, first and foremost, we have an intake form that we kind of get just basic questions in there and then our auditing process is I look at their website, how that's set up.
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I really try to understand what their business is about, so that way I can kind of better assess, okay, where we're going with the direction of what their vision is, what they're selling, what their services are.
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And then after that then I go look at their social media profiles, see if they're engaged, and if they're not engaged, then I try to go as back in as we can without having access, of course but there's a lot of things you can do to kind of see how their optimizations are with their website, if there's any type of things there that we need to fix.
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And then we look at the Google business profiles, we look at some of the reviews.
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So we go all in depth with that, along with the competitor analysis, and realize, okay, this is what we believe they are going to need.
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Parts of marketing will work for them here, but some other parts that they're trying is not working out for them and their competitors are not even in that space.
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So I realized why it's not working, or it might be working, but it might need better content, right?
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So that's where we kind of go from the beginning, and then, as we're going deep in deep dive, I tell my clients that, yes, marketing is really, really important.
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But how does your business work, right?
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How is your business set up?
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What does your operational flow look like?
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Right.
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And then your finances, right Are you?
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Is this your only revenue stream?
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Is there multiple revenue streams?
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Are you trying to, you know?
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So I'll go into a little bit more technical with finances as well too, because if you look at a business, it's not just the outward appearance that's more important.
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You need to also look into inward appearance and be like okay, is there something in here that I need to know that can help with the outside part of it as well too.
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Yeah, which is the fun stuff.
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I love how you're walking us through this step-by-step, because you're building that foundation and then launching those campaigns.
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Which leads me to this next question, tim, and that is calls to action.
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Because a lot of people will do a lot of marketing, or what they call marketing, and they'll start making posts on social media, but it doesn't actually do anything for their business.
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Because, of course, we need calls to action in business.
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What types of calls to actions work?
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Because some people take it to the extreme and they go straight for the kill every single time they're trying to sell with every piece of content that they create.
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Obviously, that's one approach, whereas the other people have no calls to action at all and there's a million different options in between.
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So walk us through that thought process of the right calls to actions and what types of calls to action there are.
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So there's a very good, delicate balance between that, and I think that we will have a separate discussion to go through all that stuff, because I think you and I could really geek out on it.
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I think one of the differences that I can say that we do in our business that might be different from everybody else or majority people is that we really really take a data-driven approach.
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So whatever CTAs that we're doing or whatever campaigns that we're trying to run, what we want to do is make sure that for our clients sometimes they don't see the value on what we're doing, and I think the biggest explanation from that for them that could be very helpful is anything that's data-driven and metrics.
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So what I've seen in this industry with different strategies right is I try to dissect what's really important, and there are a lot of other agencies that might just get away with maybe doing basic level of digital marketing, and this is another analogy I'm going to probably put in here.
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It's like a storefront, right.
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Some people will measure how many people are walking past the store.
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So if there's 100 people walking past the store, which I'll call impressions, that's great, right, and some people would just use that as a reporting metrics and show and say, hey, you know, this is you got 100 people coming and passing by your store.
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If people don't know too much about digital marketing, they'll think, oh yeah, that's great, right For me.
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I like to take it a step further, like how digital marketing agencies should be, and say, okay, out of the 100 that came by the store, how many went inside the store?
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So in my opinion, I view that as an engagement right.
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So let's say, out of 100, 50 came inside, and now we have 50 engagements, right, and the engagements might have been because your sign was really well or you're running some kind of promotional item, or it's just a really nice storefront that people just want to check it out, and then, from then, I would say, the conversion metrics will be are the 50 people who came inside your store, how many of them purchased something?
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Right?
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And that those data the last two that I just talked about I think are one of the most important ones to kind of fine tune a business, and I think that, as a digital marketer, that's one of our agency.
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I think that that's one of our biggest responsibility to do for our clients is that it has to make sense, right?
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A lot of people might be wild by the a hundred people walking past the store, but let's get into the actual impact of the finances of your business, right?
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50 of them came in and then 20 of 25 of them bought, right?
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So if we look at those different types of metrics, you realize that, okay, something is working now with that as maybe a standard or a bar that we can use as a general reference going forward.
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Then we'll start fine tuning what we can do, which is like oh, maybe we should do another promotion that does this or a lot of now people who came in here bought x, y and z.
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We should use that promotional item and put that in their ad next time.
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So so that's why it's a little bit more detail that I know that you and I can really get into, but that's a simplistic way that could tell the audience about how I believe digital marketing should work and what the question that you asked me is about.
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Yeah, Tim, I'll tell you what.
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Hearing you talk about tracking and metrics, now we're getting to some of my favorite stuff in the world of marketing, because marketing is also abundant with amazing tools to help us make these types of informed decisions, and I know that you personally love this, not just from the marketing side of things, but from that financial side of, hey, let's build a business that's actually profitable, that can actually grow and scale, and so, with that in mind, I'm going to borrow your expertise, because listeners always have to hear me say at a minimum, you need to have Google Analytics installed on your website.
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But, tim, so many entrepreneurs still have not taken that basic step.
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So walk us through some of your favorite tools when it comes to tracking and metrics, and even beyond that.
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I know that within the world of marketing, we all use so many different tools, so I'd love to hear some insights there.
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Yes.
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So I think this is where the art part comes in as well too.
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So you're absolutely right, brian.
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I believe that most clients should have at least the basic in-platform metric systems such as GA4, google Analytics 4, maybe Tag Manager Search Console.
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I like to use some other third-party softwares as well too.
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There's like SpyFood, there's Screaming Frog, there's Sumrush, so there's a lot of different type of things or tools out there for our disposal for analyzing data.
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Now, the thing about data is one part of it is getting the right type of data.
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The second part is interpreting the data.
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That's where you have to be very creative in what you're doing and what you're saying and how it's impacting the business, because yes, I can see that this went up, but what does that mean for my business?
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Then you start linking these together as a web.
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Some of the data points that we get.
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We have to actually go a little bit deeper.
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For instance, let's say that they're getting a click-through rate of an ad.
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That's going X, y and Z here.
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Or their call rate.
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Let's say we're tracking calls and 100 people called.
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We're tracking calls and a hundred people call.
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I can, if I don't deep like, go inside and dive deep into that.
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I could just send a.
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If I was irresponsible, I could send a report and say, oh, you got a hundred calls this month.
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You're doing a great job.
00:20:38.686 --> 00:20:48.430
But the level that we want to go there that's a little bit more of the art based and how you need to kind of triangulate and arbitrage the data is that are the hundred calls that I'm seeing on my end?
00:20:48.430 --> 00:20:51.263
How many calls did you actually get on your end?
00:20:51.263 --> 00:20:56.166
And then at that point then you're working with the business and figuring out I'm seeing 100.
00:20:56.166 --> 00:21:00.780
They might say, hey, I only got like 50 calls, man.
00:21:00.780 --> 00:21:04.247
So that's kind of where we have to fine-tune.
00:21:04.247 --> 00:21:09.407
That data can only show so much, but we have to interpret it and use it in a way that makes sense, right?
00:21:09.407 --> 00:21:21.959
So out of 100 calls, theoretically I would hope that 100 calls actually went to them and then they picked up and you know, 100 great sales happens, right, but that's not the case, and that's the part where I think there's a lot of art to it.
00:21:21.979 --> 00:21:34.595
So data is one part of the analysis and the metrics, but the second part is really really understanding how to interpret it right and how this could be effective for the business, and every business is different too, with different strategies.
00:21:34.595 --> 00:21:41.229
So when somebody says that there's a one-size-fits-all strategy for X, y and Z, that's not true.
00:21:41.229 --> 00:21:44.804
It's almost like the same thing with my previous example of working out right.
00:21:44.804 --> 00:21:58.164
Everybody has a different body, everybody has a different way that they respond to different workouts and like their metabolisms and their age and like how they're able to do hypertrophy, like all the all the different type of variables that makes them unique.
00:21:58.164 --> 00:22:02.161
So that's why it has to be a custom report, right, or a custom workout.
00:22:02.161 --> 00:22:10.477
So that's kind of how I have to answer that question, because data is one part, but the second part is really interpreting it, and interpreting it correctly.
00:22:11.078 --> 00:22:23.566
Yeah, I really appreciate that, tim, especially because hearing you talk about these real life examples and scenarios of you know phone tracking and going through that with your clients, it makes me picture all the different types of businesses that you work with.
00:22:23.566 --> 00:22:24.817
And, tim, full transparency.
00:22:24.817 --> 00:22:29.518
I've never asked anyone this question, but hearing you talk about it today it just brings it to mind.
00:22:29.518 --> 00:22:34.261
And I'm going to borrow something from the job market, which is something that, very fortunately, I can't relate to.
00:22:34.261 --> 00:22:49.463
But when I talk to my friends who have nine to five jobs, they always tell me that there's this concept out there within the nine to five corporate world of you should always be looking for your next job, just with the notion of you know, the job market's unpredictable.
00:22:49.463 --> 00:22:53.792
There's layoffs, you should always be progressing in your career, and that's the attitude that they have.
00:22:53.853 --> 00:23:04.044
Whereas when I extrapolate that and apply it to our world of entrepreneurship and small and medium sized businesses, what I think of is how many business owners I've met that they're just like I'm not marketing right now.
00:23:04.044 --> 00:23:05.605
I've got a full client roster.
00:23:05.605 --> 00:23:10.843
I'm curious from your perspective should all businesses be marketing all the time?
00:23:10.843 --> 00:23:13.076
Is this something that should be happening in the background?
00:23:13.076 --> 00:23:17.476
I picture kind of the SEO campaigns that you all work on with your clients.
00:23:17.476 --> 00:23:20.259
That that's only ever going to benefit you in the long term.
00:23:20.259 --> 00:23:22.982
And if you've got a full client roster, cool, like good for you.
00:23:22.982 --> 00:23:27.028
But you should always be planning for that next flow of clients and leads.
00:23:27.028 --> 00:23:28.510
What's your answer to that?
00:23:28.510 --> 00:23:31.042
It's a topic that this is just the beginning of me exploring it.
00:23:32.969 --> 00:23:42.661
I think that's a great thought exercise and actually it's very, very relevant to, I think, not only entrepreneurs but other businesses as well too I have.
00:23:42.661 --> 00:23:46.661
So I'll give you my general view and then I'll give you a personal view.
00:23:46.661 --> 00:24:23.816
So generally, I think the answer to this can be both a yes or no, because it depends on what kind of business cycle you're in where you're just in the growing phase, you're in the plateau phase, you know, where you're just like steady Eddie, or you're kind of like weaning out, phase right, and typically when a lot of people are starting to close up shop or they're wanting to sell their business or kind of slow down a little bit, retire, I would say that kind of client or that kind of business might not benefit too much for marketing, because their end goal and their plan is not to grow anymore, it's to wean down.
00:24:23.816 --> 00:24:35.699
Now, for anybody that's wanted to grow their business right or get out of some kind of plateau that they have of, you know consistent metrics like, hey, we're only making 2% every year, but is there a way we can like increase that to five?
00:24:35.699 --> 00:24:40.440
That is where I think marketing will be really, really helpful, because then you're trying to boost the next pipeline.
00:24:40.440 --> 00:24:41.805
You're trying to boost like people coming in and your awareness.
00:24:41.805 --> 00:24:42.907
You're trying to boost the next pipeline.
00:24:42.907 --> 00:24:45.015
You're trying to boost like people coming in and your awareness.
00:24:45.015 --> 00:24:53.486
You're trying to engage in your strategies and like seeing what you can do differently compared to everybody else that's doing the same or typically similar type of business to do.
00:24:53.486 --> 00:24:57.148
So that's the general approach that I see with our business.
00:24:57.189 --> 00:25:06.344
I know it might be unpopular because there might be a lot of agencies that say, no, you need marketing, you always need marketing, but I think that just depends on what phase you are in the business.
00:25:06.344 --> 00:25:33.981
So I'm always like level-headed on like where they are, because I recently met with somebody who is phasing out of the business and we both decided that it doesn't, it doesn't make sense for you to, for us to work together in this capacity, because my way of trying to increase your business and your brand awareness and everything is countering your way of wanting to retire, so it won't match.
00:25:33.981 --> 00:25:51.308
So me, my personal belief is I believe every business can, they'll work with marketing and I think every business should need marketing in some sort of capacity, whether it's small or big.
00:25:51.308 --> 00:26:09.359
And the reason why I say that is because if you're selling a service or a product and you're having that as a livelihood, especially as an entrepreneur or a business owner, that's a way for you to get consistent levels of revenue each month and a year to support yourself and your family, right, or any of your loved ones.
00:26:09.359 --> 00:26:16.108
So I think that you would have to be somewhat forward thinking, and marketing is just a way to kind of get your product out there.
00:26:16.714 --> 00:26:30.717
You know, in the past there used to be a thing where if you ever put their ads in the classified ads right In the newspaper, and they're like like, okay, we have it out here, you find jobs there, you can find, like, used refrigerators there, and you know it was a really popular thing.
00:26:30.717 --> 00:26:32.800
But now the landscape changed.
00:26:32.800 --> 00:26:42.837
Now that kind of idea and that theory is now in the digital world right, so it's in the internet, with web-based search engines, with google and bing and yahoo and whatnot.
00:26:42.837 --> 00:26:58.335
So I think that when you are stuck at that level where you believe that putting ads on a newspaper is something that you consider marketing, that's when I realized that, hey, we need to fast forward and play in the same stage as everybody else is Now.
00:26:58.355 --> 00:27:05.363
You don't need to be in the top of the stage, but you need to be on at least the stage where everybody else is at and we can do some minimal basic marketing.
00:27:05.363 --> 00:27:10.144
That will kind of get you into the map and keep going with your business if you want to keep it steady.
00:27:10.144 --> 00:27:17.304
But no one will know you anymore if you're not in that space anymore, which is online.
00:27:17.304 --> 00:27:45.828
So that's why my answer to that personally is that whatever phase of business that you're in, I believe that you need some sort of basic marketing, even if you're weaning out, because chances are, even if you're weaning out, there might be an opportunity that somebody some private equity firm or some other investor or maybe another business wants to look at it and be like, oh my gosh, this business has been in 30 years, they have a great client roster, maybe we're going to acquire them right, but they would have never known that if you never marketed yourself as that person.
00:27:45.828 --> 00:27:49.526
So that's my long answer in a nutshell.
00:27:50.055 --> 00:28:05.857
Yeah, tim, I'll tell you what I tease this episode as the fact that you're not just a marketing expert, but you also have that financial and business background, and I love the fact that that's on display here in today's conversation, because here you are talking about business life cycle phases and all of that.
00:28:05.857 --> 00:28:17.963
These are the important considerations, and what I really hope that listeners take away from today's episode is that marketing is an intentional and strategic decision based off of these sound business principles that you've shared with us here today.
00:28:17.963 --> 00:28:19.516
So this has been so much fun.
00:28:19.516 --> 00:28:29.298
I knew that time would fly by, but I do want to squeeze in two more questions, tim, because we've got you here, and I need to talk to you about AI, because obviously, within the world of marketing, it's a very hot topic.
00:28:29.358 --> 00:28:35.824
We saw open AI last year, brought it into the mainstream with chat, gpt, and now there's obviously so many other tools there.
00:28:35.824 --> 00:28:47.521
A lot of entrepreneurs may be tricked into believing I can just have AI do everything for me these days write all my copy, create all my campaigns, improve my offers all of that which is true to an extent.
00:28:47.521 --> 00:28:48.785
By the way, I personally love AI.
00:28:48.785 --> 00:28:50.738
I'm not throwing shade at AI here.
