Lane Rizzardini of Marion Relationship Marketing
Over the past few decades, small and medium business marketing has shifted from offline to online and that shift has created massive opportunities for the owners and operators who had the foresight to invest in their digital presence.
Lane Rizzardini comes from a small business family and understands the challenges they face. His agency has helped so many business owners and so to say we are thrilled that he’s sharing his advice and stories with us is an understatement.
Lane is also a content partner, content partners help Voyage in so many ways from sponsoring our mission, to spreading the word about the work we do and collaborating with us on content like this.
Connect with Lane Rizzardini & Marion Relationship Marketing:
- Website: https://marionrelationshipmarketing.com/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/marion-relationship-marketing/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marionrelationshipmarketing/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChijqkcTh2gMWd2D_SyTvpw
- Other: https://www.brightlocal.com/agency-directory/agencies/marion-relationship-marketing
Transcript:
Alex (Host): So you now, you now call Texas home, but you’re originally from Chicago. What brought you to Texas?
Lane Rizzardini: Simply, I needed a job and that was pretty much it. I graduated from college with an English degree, which basically qualified me to do nothing. And I had interest after applying for like copywriting gigs, for like nine months, you know, I was trying to do some, I was doing a fantasy sports, right. Uh, which was not really paying the bills, but it was fun. I thought that would get into that at some point. But, uh, yeah, for nine months, I had no luck and my, my family owns a preschool and daycare and we were, uh, doing some marketing through a pretty large marketing [00:03:00] company.
Lane Rizzardini: and our marketing rep was like, well, yeah, there’s a, there’s a new kind of product that we’re service that we’re launching. we’re looking for a lot of entry level. You should definitely apply for it. You’d be great at it. Uh, but you got to move to Texas. And so I said, what, you know, what the heck? And so I applied, it was the only job I got.
Lane Rizzardini: And so by packed up my car with my little Nissan Sentra with all of my, my stuff, and moved to Texas. Didn’t know anybody. I had never really been to Dallas before, but, it was really thankful and just blessed. I’m really thankful. And I was blessed to meet like a lot of my now best friends, including my now business partner.
Alex (Host): Moving from Chicago to Dallas is not exactly a Ren McCormack from [00:04:00] Footloose moving from Chicago to Beaumont. But, uh, what was the, what was the culture shift for you coming, coming from, from Chicago to Dallas?
Lane Rizzardini: So it’s funny. I expected there to be a big culture shift I expected.
Lane Rizzardini: So I had never been really never been to Texas. So I expected to show up and people would be like wearing cowboy hats and. Riding horses. And, but later I found out that like, oh wait, that’s Fort worth, not Dallas. But like, yeah. I was like, oh, this isn’t, this isn’t all that different. And like, I, it was like all the people I ended up surrounding myself were mostly other like Northern transplants.
Lane Rizzardini: So guys from Ohio and Michigan and Idaho and Pennsylvania, uh, all, everyone that had. Texas is booming. And so we all kind of moved down for first, first or second jobs, uh, out of, out of college. So, I mean, we, I mean, really it, it wasn’t, and Dallas is such a new [00:05:00] feeling like up and coming, not even up and coming, it’s one of the biggest markets in the country.
Lane Rizzardini: It just is a very new city. Uh, and, and so, uh, it’s very, very modern and, uh, yeah, I mean, so it really wasn’t that. Really that big of a shift. other than the weather, you know, I’m getting you, I, to get used to the. A hundred degree heat, but honestly I’ll trade that for the cold any day. Yeah. That’s what I would think of the biggest shift, but that’s been a good one.
Lane Rizzardini: Yeah. That definitely
Alex (Host): seems like a shift for the positive. You, you mentioned your, your family’s daycare. So you’re from a family of entrepreneurs and business owners, and you’re now obviously an entrepreneur yourself. Did you, did you always see
Lane Rizzardini: that as your path? Absolutely not. I had never. Occurred to me at any point until, I mean maybe how long has it been now?
Lane Rizzardini: I like just six years ago, it started to occur to me that I had, I had the skills to do [00:06:00] my own thing. again, I, I thought my first year in college, I was going to be a, uh, an English. Like that’s how non-entrepreneurial I felt, uh, in my, early on in my, in my life. And, but so in my first, my first job, I, I, you know, I kind of expected to go back to writing or do something, something else, but, marketing really drew me in it and specifically working with.
Lane Rizzardini: Working with people like my, like my mom, like my grandmother and really building those relationships and, and knowing that what I was doing meant more to them than just, you know, growth numbers on a P and L right. Like more than just like making shareholders happy. Yeah. It was helping them put, you know, put their kids like me through college.
Lane Rizzardini: Uh, it was like feeding their kids, taking like an extra vacation a year. it was, you know, they had put their, their reputations, uh, into their business. And [00:07:00] so it, it just meant. And so that’s what really Kevin drew, it drove me and kept me wanting to learn and get better and, and broaden my skillset. And so I like to say that my first job, I really learned how to, just how to be a professional, uh, how to follow, how to talk to clients, how to be proactive about followup, how to give them what they want beyond just like what’s on the statement of work.
Lane Rizzardini: that’d be a good, that’d be servant minded. Uh, how to be a proactive problem solver. Those are, those are big, uh, values. We, we have here, uh, now having kind of working backwards and realizing like, okay, what’s been, what’s really been impactful is like, oh wait, you, you really got to know, you got to not only know, but you got to like, want to go and like, learn how to do something just by Googling it.
Lane Rizzardini: That takes more. That is more bravery than I ever thought it. It did, not everyone is willing to do that. Luckily we have, we have people on our team that [00:08:00] do now and, and I was always like that. And the partner’s always like that. And he was working at a small company, uh, which I’ve, you know, my company currently is, is not that big as about five of us.
Lane Rizzardini: Uh, my last company was four when I got there. And so you really gotta be willing to like grab an or, uh, if everyone needs to grab an order, you can’t really stay in your. You’re a little, now you only told me I need to do this kind of a mindset. You really gotta be able to do really willing to do the extras and, and figure some things out.
Lane Rizzardini: And so, yeah, the first job I feel like I learned how to be like a professional. I said, communicator communicate well and be a marketer. Right? Like understand, like I learned Google ads there. I learned social media. I learned content or an SEO, all the kinds of ways to like help businesses, where we come from, like my partner and I come from like an implementation background.
Lane Rizzardini: We’re not salespeople, uh, by trade. We are not like just account managers by trade, but we were, we’ve learned how to do [00:09:00] account management. Like. We’re putting metadata in websites, we’re building Google ads, campaigns, you know, building Facebook, you know, Facebook pages. Uh, we know how to do the work. Uh, in my second job, I learned how to run a business.
Lane Rizzardini: Uh, I was the fourth employee, and so I was wanting to be in a kind of an account manager that really knew Google ads. And it became clear that he needed a lot more than the. And so I learned, I taught myself operations, uh, like how to automate stuff, how to like process stuff out, how to build checklists, how to onboard new employees, uh, how to hire them, uh, how to manage them well, how to give them processes that are like regular and, and can, can kind of guarantee a minimum level of.
Lane Rizzardini: Performance and client service, client service, uh, like we’re going to get the, you’re gonna get an email every week or every month you’re [00:10:00] going to have to have the same numbers. You’re going to know what they are like kind of same visibility, that, that sort of thing. How does set up the client experience was a lot of what I learned at my second company.
Lane Rizzardini: And, uh, you know, we grew from four people to 14 people. we were an Inc 5,000 fastest growing company, a few times. Uh, that was really exciting for me and really, really valuable. I I’m, I was so blessed to have worked there, to be allowed to do things that were way above my resume level, and pay grade, uh, when I started and I was just lucky to be able to have the rains, uh, and the flexibility and the freedom to do those things.
Lane Rizzardini: Cause that’s really what I, what I, one point I realized that. Okay. Like, I can do this, I can do this kind of thing myself. I see how much money you can make doing it. I can see how rewarding it is putting you at some point, when you kill a big law professional long enough and industry, you start to have your own way of wanting to do things.
Lane Rizzardini: not even that, [00:11:00] you know how your current company is doing badly, uh, or wrong in any way. Just, I was like, you know, I think there’s a model that I would like better. There’s a level of relationship I want to have with my clients. Uh, that’s deeper. I just have a different business model in mind that I really wanted to, to go after and try and ways I saw the market, uh, when digital marketing and how I saw that changing, that I, I thought, you know, I really want to kind of pursue a different way of doing things.
Lane Rizzardini: So, at some point it just becomes too hard to ignore. Uh, and so that’s, that’s, I think it’s about the time that the long know. Uh, we kind of tell you, like what changed and, how I, how I got to where I am now.
Alex (Host): And what is that, that shift from being someone who was not necessarily entrepreneurially inclined?
Alex (Host): Uh, going from, okay, well, here I am working at this company. I’ve got maybe this level of a certain level of [00:12:00] discontent. Not that they’re doing anything wrong, but that there’s always, as you said, a certain way that like you would like to do things a different type of model to taking that leap. What does that shift?
Alex (Host): I mean, even just emotionally, what, what does that shift to take that risk?
Lane Rizzardini: I mean, it’s terrifying. So the initial instinct, uh, is to, you know, you want to keep your paycheck. and so you start, you know, this is internet, so like you don’t really need much, you know, at one point I think I tried to start a, like, I had this idea to start like a multi-family like recycling company and they did all this research and I, I even called like the city of Austin and, and there was a, there there’s definitely a opportunity there, but then it’s okay.
Lane Rizzardini: Now I got to buy trucks. I got to get like a business loan. I view things that are outside of my comfort zone. That kind of shut down, but with internet, I mean, with marketing, the hard part about marketing is that there’s a, for much hitters, there’s a easy part of the hardest part about it is that there’s a low barrier to entry.[00:13:00]
Lane Rizzardini: And so there is a lot of MES and so differentiating yourself. That’s a whole other topic, but, you know, I’m working from home. I can run Google ads for somebody on the side and like, no one’s ever really going to know about it. that’s. The instinct and that’s the thing that you want to do. And it’s, it’s kind of what I did.
Lane Rizzardini: And the best thing that ever happened to me was I got caught and my bosses kind of found out. And, uh, we, you know, that was obviously a really, really tough conversation. They wanted to make sure that I wasn’t like poaching clients or anything. And no, none of that was, was happening. It really kind of started accidentally where I was like moonlighting for another agency and started doing some more.
Lane Rizzardini: And thankfully my, my employers were, uh, also guys that had started an agency on the side from their other agency. And so they were like, okay, this is bad, but I can’t [00:14:00] get that mad at you because I get it. And so we were able to have a really honest conversation about kind of our future together. And the idea was like, you know, look.
Lane Rizzardini: You got to go. You can maybe, you know, knowing that you’re doing this, we can’t keep you here. And then really you got to do, you got to go and try this yourself. So I had to kinda cut the safety net. Uh, I was forced to, and I think for a lot of people, it’s really hard to cut that safety net of, uh, of, of a paycheck.
Lane Rizzardini: And I think that like some people can, can do it. They can slowly replace their paycheck. Uh, with their side gig and their side hustle. And then, and then. Move into their side hustle and have it be this very neat and tidy, thing. And I don’t think that is the reality. I think most of us will get right up into the boundary line before it gets too scary.
Lane Rizzardini: And then we’ll, we’ll treat retreat back to the safety of [00:15:00] our existing paycheck and our positioning or existing job. And so I think if you really want to go for it and you really want to try your own thing, I, you know, figure out what don’t do it. It’s not saying to it reckless. My wife and I sat down, we figured out how much we had in savings.
Lane Rizzardini: We figured it out what our expenses were. We got an understanding of, okay. Our runway is about five to six months, uh, assuming no disasters. And so I got a release that we replaced my salary in five to six months. And that’s the runway. And so. That’s it, but like, you got to cut, you cut the cord and you go and do it.
Lane Rizzardini: You put all your time and your effort and your thought into it. And that’s, you know, I think it was like a month, like five and a half. Then I ended up getting enough income and enough clients to make, make it work. And I, for having to forget your question at this point, but yeah, that, that was, that was kind of the, the process.
Lane Rizzardini: And it was, it was pretty scary for a while, but I was lucky to have a supportive. Network [00:16:00] of, of, uh, of, uh, of clients and my wife and friends, that, that allow. Uh, to happen. I want to
Alex (Host): shift our conversation just a little bit into kind of more about, about Marion relationship marketing. Uh, you know, that the term digital marketing feels like one of those DeBellis terms, that’s almost lost meaning at this point.
Alex (Host): cause it can mean so many different things to different people. So can you tell us a little bit more specifically about the way your firm approaches marketing for your class? Absolutely
Lane Rizzardini: my, my, my vision coming out of this and what I kind of saw with the market is that, the world is increasingly fragmented.
Lane Rizzardini: Uh, and people don’t just no one buys in silos. So like no one just Googles for information. No one just lives on Instagram. No one just reads newspapers. No one just asked friends for [00:17:00] recommendations. The sad is that I always throw out is that people use about five to seven average touchpoints with a business before deciding and deciding to choose them to do business with, we have so much access to information now with the internet and people use it.
Lane Rizzardini: And those are more information out there than ever before. There’s more platforms where like the information can live. And so for us, like I identify. The biggest challenge that local businesses have is just managing this ecosystem of information that exists now, you know? Yeah. You used to like, basically have to manage the yellow pages and that’s it.
Lane Rizzardini: And now it’s like, okay, Google my business is obviously the big boy in the room, but like, okay, I gotta yell. Listen, I got Bing. I have apple maps. Now I have house. If I’m a doctor, I have like 10 other listings and I’m an attorney. I have like 25 other listings. And just like, how do you keep track of that while like running your business, [00:18:00] and also serving clients.
Lane Rizzardini: And how do you like, know what thing is working? And what’s not. how do you know which advertising platform do you use and whether that’s working? it’s just, there’s so much stuff and there’s really no, to me, there’s no, really, no, there’s no one best way to, to do it. Like Google ads works. I love Google ads.
Lane Rizzardini: I’m doing Google ads for eight, nine years. It’s the reason Google, they truly know our company is that Google ads is maybe the best like intent marketing platform out there. If you’re a hero, if you’re a roofer and you want to show up for people looking for a roofer, you probably want to have an ad show up for a roofer.
Lane Rizzardini: People searching for roofers near me. It doesn’t really get more targeted than that, but, but like, it doesn’t work for everybody as well as some people need. You know, we talked to a, uploading boutique today and they’re a very visual business. Like they should probably do Facebook ads. they need you to do email more.
Lane Rizzardini: Uh, do you get people that come back? [00:19:00] And so I don’t think there’s ever a, there’s not really a one fits a one fit approach. And so I didn’t want to build a one fit approach business. I didn’t want to be a Google ad shop or a, a website shop, a, email marketing or just social media, because. Serve clients.
Lane Rizzardini: Well, this doesn’t serve clients. At least the type of clients that I work with. they need someone that can, that can help them manage their marketing holistically, like whatever that means. they don’t know what it means. Uh, and so it’s, they want someone to come in and help them figure out like, what is the right fit, uh, for them, for their budget that is going to help them grow their business.
Lane Rizzardini: Uh, and give them the life, uh, that they want, uh, as a business owner. And that’s, again, that’s different for a lot of people. Some people want to like get out of the [00:20:00] business and chill on a beach and let other people run the business. So other people want to like grow 10 X and F 25 locations. we want to really help and be that conservative, that consultatory approach to clients.
Lane Rizzardini: To, to help them kind of achieve whatever goal that is. And so that’s why we, we really started with, uh, foundational marketing. it’s something that we’ve, we’ve kind of, it’s our, it’s our, it’s our core service offering. that really encompasses all of those little details for local service businesses to help them.
Lane Rizzardini: And transparency into their marketing and know what’s working and what’s not kind of robust reporting call tracking, understanding, Hey, if you’re running Google ads and Facebook ads, like is one working in, one’s not, well, maybe we shouldn’t do the one that’s not working anymore. And just do the Google ads.
Lane Rizzardini: Like those are the conversations I have with people. [00:21:00] it allows us to. And get more out of whatever marketing their work, where they’re doing. So we’re going to make sure the reputation is in order all their business information is correct, so that no matter how somebody hears about them, when they go and Google their business name, whichever one always does, they’re going to want to choose to work with them.
Lane Rizzardini: so they can run a radio. Everything they do is going to work better. Uh, and three, this gives them more time back into their business. so they can, they don’t have to worry about it. They don’t have to learn GA for now. They don’t have to learn whatever Facebook thing just happened. they can focus on, uh, serving clients, uh, and spend less time trying to find clients, uh, because they have a, a marketing team in their, you know, in their corner.
Lane Rizzardini: That’s, that’s going to be there to help them with whatever change is coming into the market. Incredible. And so how
Alex (Host): does that. Yeah. You mentioned radio and you mentioned television. One of the things that I know [00:22:00] that in the digital world, you know, everybody loves various click numbers. All of these there’s this wealth of data.
Alex (Host): How do you use data to. Do that, to do that analysis with clients when not all the types of marketing have the same type of data. Yeah. Great question
Lane Rizzardini: for this giver. So offline is obviously it’s always the biggest challenge with offline is how do you know if it’s working or driving clients? You know it again, You know, based on DMA data, it got a certain number of, of eyes or ears or whatever.
Lane Rizzardini: so what we help our clients with is it, we always say that any marketing can work, let’s at least track it and find out. And so when our clients, uh, want to do they come to us and we’re doing a mailer, or we’re doing a newspaper ad in this area, we give them a tracking. Give them a tracking phone number for it.
Lane Rizzardini: we give them all and we’ll give them like a vanity URL that will redirect to some sort of [00:23:00] like UTM tracking string. And so we can always track, Hey, how many phone calls someone calls off the ad? or someone visits the website later via the URL on the ad. We can at least get some sort of baseline on.
Lane Rizzardini: Did this drive any sort of traffic or leads? And we tend to preach with our clients, especially with kind of, you know, newspaper, radio, mailer, TV ad. Those are, those are visibility though. Top level like visibility and awareness type advertising mediums, which are really important. You don’t have to make.
Lane Rizzardini: Whereas like Google ads is really down funnel. Google my business is really downfall and you’re going to have be able to attribute a lot of leads to it. but like brand awareness, uh, is like the number two reason why people click Google. So, again, it all works together. They’re not like it’s all part of one ecosystem in one customer journey.
Lane Rizzardini: our goal with kind of those [00:24:00] visibility or kind of like offline marketing mediums, Hey, let’s track how much traffic this is getting let’s track. See if we can track, uh, enough leads to break, even on that. Knowing that there’s a lot of, kind of the invisible hand of like branding and awareness. That’s going to influence your other marketing mediums, and re and boost their value.
Lane Rizzardini: So like, I may not see the value of the TV ads, direct from the TV ads, but over the next six months, I am expecting in, in, in our Google analytics data. To see, okay, there should be an overall lift in direct traffic and in organic traffic. our click through rates in our Google ads should, should increase a little bit.
Lane Rizzardini: our overall conversion rates across like site-wide should increase a little bit based on the amount of awareness that we’re getting from the TV. Uh, [00:25:00] and so we’re in those are like, those are the types of conversations that we’re trying to have with our clients. And what really is the kind of the, the whole.
Lane Rizzardini: The whole business model is built around is being able to, to give them that. And so a lot of times those are done through like, we do like video reviews for clients. We don’t like type things out. A lot of people will get on a, I use like video card uglies loom, and we just go through and make sure one of our clients see our faces, your voices.
Lane Rizzardini: you know, we got to give some context to these numbers. And so our team spends a lot of time doing that for, for clients. And making sure that, you know, Hey, like I got 25 leads. well usually they got a hundred phone calls. We listened to all of them, tell them that they actually got 25 good leads and kind of go walk through like how that, you know, how they got there.
Lane Rizzardini: what we’re seeing, what changes, what improvements we made. if we’re struggling, why are we struggling and what we’re going to do [00:26:00] to fix it? And so we are, you know, our, our, our kind of tagline is it’s about people. And the point of that is that it’s, you know, this isn’t a transactional relationship, you know, you know, you’re not going to get, we have a salesperson, but we also have a digital strategist that is there to be your dedicated person.
Lane Rizzardini: you’re not just going to get a report with a bunch of numbers on it. They’re you’re going to have to figure it out. Uh, every month, like we want someone who’s going to be there to kind of explain it to you, kind of humanize everything for you. talk about the different names of customers that you’re getting and how they got to you and, relate it back to your goals and really be your, your partner in growing the business.
Lane Rizzardini: And so, I mean, so that’s how we’re. I, I was trying to humanize, uh, you know, the, kind of the whole marketing agency experience and really help clients, you know, like, w [00:27:00] we go at your question, like we talk, it’s all, it’s about the numbers at the end of the day. That’s all, it’s all we really have to go over, but it’s, it’s more than that.
Lane Rizzardini: It’s adding context and humanity, those numbers that, is what’s really the most important to our conversation. I just want to talk
Alex (Host): about, uh, your, your kind of typical Workday, you know, you, you work from home, which if we had done this interview three years ago, it would maybe be a pretty unique thing that you were doing, but obviously in the pandemic, many people that started experiencing working from home, you’ve been at it for seven years or so at this point.
Alex (Host): how does that impact what your Workday looks like and how did that shift during the.
Lane Rizzardini: Yeah. As soon as you said, I was working from home before it was cool. My last company didn’t have an office either. And, uh, you know, yeah, back then it was kind of a like weird thing. I have, it impacts, I would say the answer.
Lane Rizzardini: It wasn’t directly, [00:28:00] it impacts my work day. In every way that is outside of my work, I’m able to spend, you know, when I started working with them, I didn’t have a family. Uh, now I have two children. It allows me to like wake up with them every day and give them, feed them breakfast. And. It’s a play a little bit before getting into work still at, at 8:00 AM sharp.
Lane Rizzardini: cause I don’t have a commute. I don’t need to get dressed or even showered right away. Uh, I can like settle in, you know, there’s no commute. I mean, I save two hours of my life and those are like, Hours of my life and able to put into my family. it’s more time than I have for, for like for exercise.
Lane Rizzardini: Uh, I’m able to buy, I do a workout at lunch every day. I have the flexibility to do that. Uh, I don’t think I would really, I didn’t have that much flexibility at, at the office or at least most people don’t really have the flexibility to do that, uh, from an office standpoint. Yeah. And [00:29:00] even like, it just gives me more.
Lane Rizzardini: Even within the work, it gives me more time and brain space for work because I’m not worried about what I’m making for lunch that day. I’m not having to fight traffic to get into work. I can, you know, I’m not trying to get out before traffic hits, like find you to invest some more time until six. Like, I don’t mind doing that.
Lane Rizzardini: Cause I’m like at home, I grew up beer out of the fridge at like four on Friday and like, that’s great. I can wind down my day and I just think it gives me so much more bandwidth and energy to really, to do better work. Now, of course it is. I will admit it is harder to unplug because the desk is always there.
Lane Rizzardini: but I have always loved my work. Uh, I don’t really mind. And especially now that I own the business, like, you’re not, it’s hard to unplug just based on that. I, so I don’t really mind the whole, I know people have some trouble like kind of separating the work from the life. I don’t really mind that too much.
Lane Rizzardini: just cause. I always love it. I always loved it. So really the only [00:30:00] thing it’s own that only, the only thing that shifted during the pandemic, was video calls, pre pandemic, even working from home. Like I didn’t really ever do video calls with people. Uh, we just kinda did phone calls. And, now we have now everyone, and then everyone else are working from home and everyone has each other’s faces.
Lane Rizzardini: So like now zoom is a thing and video calls are definitely more of a, uh, are now the absolute norm. And, and that really was not the case pre pandemic, which like, I like it. I mean, just, I just have, I have to put on a polo now before meetings. That’s that’s that’s the biggest shift is I have. I have a polo shirt, like folded up next to me on the desk.
Lane Rizzardini: And if I get on a call, I, I throw that on so I can look at least somewhat professional on meetings. So that’s really it. What holds you back? I think lack of routine. I find that I am. W very, I’m extremely [00:31:00] routine oriented. I’m very scheduled. I really have to do the same, a very habit based. I have to be able to do the same things, to prepare myself for the day and be my best worker, man, husband.
Lane Rizzardini: If I ever get out of that and having a three month, four month old now doesn’t really give you much routine. Uh, it’s harder that that’s where I kind of get, held back at times. Right. I just, I struggle sometimes when I’m eight, when I get out of my routine, generally in business, uh, what’s holding us back is selfish.
Lane Rizzardini: Selfishness, I think with my time, and kind of willingness, uh, and effort into like working hard, uh, to train members of my team. What has, what has really been successful for us is when we spend a lot of time, like building standard [00:32:00] operating procedures, uh, and not just like, not, not just like here of go do this, like what, wasn’t a phone calls, uh, and rate them like, no, Putting in the time and effort and in training to go over, like what is a lead for a client and what is not, videoing how I do things for people, going that extra mile to like document in very specific detail, like here’s how we need this done and kind of within, and then that that’s that’s for other, like, kind of more standard positions, but, for kind of like our strategist position and, Google ads and sales and that sort of thing.
Lane Rizzardini: Like you can’t get lazy about putting in that feedback time. You can’t get lazy about doing it. You may do. We do. We try to do three month reviews with every employee. And like at around month, they’re on the third or fourth one, you start to think as he’s doing great, like, I don’t have to do these anymore, but then you end up of.
Lane Rizzardini: Things lapse a little bit. And [00:33:00] then the feedback becomes really surprising when it’s not all positive. And so, you really can’t, you can’t get lazy or selfish about your time. You really have to continue to put in like the feedback, given the feedback loops and put in the effort to take those notes and, and share and spend time with your team members to, to help them grow, you know, and become the professionals that you want to, that you want them to.
Alex (Host): I think that’s a really powerful piece of advice. So just thank you for sharing that with us. Yeah. And then my last question here for you is what propels you forward?
Lane Rizzardini: Yeah, I think these, what we’re really, what I’m really excited about is I, I like to think of our, I’ve started to think of our business.
Lane Rizzardini: Uh, a marketing agency as being kind of a revenue generation engine. That’s really the job. We’re not a profit generation engine. That’s, that’s our client’s job. Uh, we’re not an operations team. we are our job. We’re not a, [00:34:00] we’re not a branding and awareness company either. Like we are here to drive. We rate everything we do on, on, on how much revenue are we driving, uh, in, in lead value.
Lane Rizzardini: And so we, we always ask our clients in our meetings. how much is a client worth to you? Not because we want to up sell them on something, but because in our reporting, I want to put, I put how much they’ve spent on marketing and then they have the total, the lead total. And then the lead total is multiplied by how much they told us that lead is worth to them because we don’t just want them to see marketing as a cost we needed to be seen as a, this is a net revenue.
Lane Rizzardini: Hmm. And so when you, we started to think of our business as a, I’m really excited about building kind of a, what is a self fueling revenue generation engine look like? Where, like I’m not kind of moving the pistons, right? Like what does it look like to build a team, a team with that’s so talented that I can just plug in.
Lane Rizzardini: [00:35:00] Any like local service business into it, and it will grow that businesses, revenue, you know, what does that look like to have, you know, to be able to take, people and plug them into a process, any system, that will just generate value, without really having to, you know, it doesn’t, it can’t happen every time, but, that happens almost without fail.
Lane Rizzardini: Uh, like we’re gonna make you. That’s a really exciting concept. And so that’s really what propels me forward to really try to build that and, and end up with this kind of like, I like a physical engine that I can drop into any business chassis, uh, and have it, you know, go 200 miles. that’s a really cool concept.
Lane Rizzardini: I think it’s, that’s, what’s really propelling me forward more and more of a vulnerable answer to that. I think, I mean, fear of failure, uh, definitely propels me forward. I think I think about this in the lie is I understand that I didn’t come in a [00:36:00] business owner is really helpful as a business owner that works with other business owners.
Lane Rizzardini: It has helped me understand my clients a lot better. And how, what value I provide. And that’s like being a business owner is a, is an, I is an, uh, is a very strong core identity for a lot of people. and you can say it’s about your family and you can say, uh, it’s about, your, your whatever else. But like, if you’re a business owner, like that is a part of who you are.
Lane Rizzardini: And then as a core, like, that’s like the top three thing you’re going to tell us. Mostly because like you put so much work and effort and your values are stamped on this thing. it is your, is your baby. You spend, you spend eight hours, 10 hours, 12 hours a day with it. and, uh, you, you know, there’s a lot of like your own self-worth is tied up in that.
Lane Rizzardini: Uh, and so we’ve actually shifted our marketing, our [00:37:00] personal marketing a little bit towards like, Hey, we’re yeah, we’re gonna drive you revenue, but Hey, like we want to build help you build a business at your. I just think that’s really, uh, if it is on our website now, it’s like, you’ve worked hard to build a great business.
Lane Rizzardini: We’re here to tip. We’re here to tell what is it, we’re here to build a great, you’ve built a great business. We work hard to make sure people know it. Like that’s the tagline now that I really enjoy. And so that’s back to the point of like, failure is so like real, right? Like when you’re telling people, Hey, I own a business and it’s really great.
Lane Rizzardini: And. Yeah, we’re really good at like marketing and stuff. The idea that like, you’d have to go back to them in six months and say, I can, I, I wrapped up shop, is scary. Uh, you know, you’re you, and now we have employees, right? So it’s the skin in the game and kind of the, the, the consequences of, of success or failure continue to the stakes rise a lot.
Lane Rizzardini: And so there’s just [00:38:00] no way to be lazy when like that’s looming over your head. Hmm. And so as much as like fear of failure sounds kind of, kind of negative. I think it’s, it’s, it’s something you can definitely use to, to get to the desk when you’re tired. to really push through those end couple of hours of the day, knowing that like, Hey, I need to do this.
Lane Rizzardini: Cause like my, you know, my partner relies on me. my, you know, my team relies on me to get this done. My clients rely on me. if I fold up, they got to go, what are they going to do? Uh, That’s uh, so I think that’s a big, that’s a big driver to whether like it or not. I think that’s an important thing to acknowledge, and embrace cause, uh, It’s not going anywhere.
Lane Rizzardini: It’s going to be there. So you might as well just use it for your benefit rather than let it be a boogeyman
Alex (Host): plain. I just want to thank you again for, for coming on the show. But before, before we go, I want to give you [00:39:00] a chance to just plug where, where our listeners can find you and Marianne relationship
Lane Rizzardini: marketing.
Lane Rizzardini: Yeah. they say Alex, it’s Marion relationship marketing.com. Now you’ll be all the same. Yeah, we’ve got social media, obviously Facebook, is really probably the big one in LinkedIn where we’re sharing content. Uh, we have a guide, uh, on our website called three reasons. Your marketing sucks. It’s kind of attention grabbing, but a, it should help go download it.
Lane Rizzardini: It should help you figure out kind of, Hey, I don’t know why my marketing’s not working. here are some things to look at and the secret is like, sometimes it’s not always your marketing, so it’s a good thing to check out. Uh, if you’re kind of think you’re like, man, I’m doing all the right things. Like what’s going on here?
Lane Rizzardini: Why can’t, why have I gone through three or four marketing companies? And I can’t seem to get any of them to, to, to get it right. it, it may help point you in the right direction of kind of, Hey, what do I, what do I need to do to, to get this right? So that I can, [00:40:00] focus on growing my bills.
Alex (Host): Awesome. Well, thanks lane.
Alex (Host): And we look forward to continuing to check in with you as the years unfold.
Lane Rizzardini: Appreciate the opportunity to come on.
