Consulting Spotlight

Michael Bernzweig (00:01.878)

Are you ready to unlock the secrets of consulting success? Tired of sifting through endless noise to find actionable insights that actually move the needle?

Welcome to Consulting Spotlight, your weekly deep dive into the transformative world of professional consulting. Your host is Michael Bernzweig, who in 1998 launched Software Oasis as one of the first platforms enabling businesses to download, license, and deploy software instantly across their networks with a single click. Today, Software Oasis has evolved into one of the leading communities where businesses find top consultants across the USA and Canada.

Each week, Michael sits down with industry titans, innovative leaders, and game-changing executives to bring you exclusive insights you won't find anywhere else. From emerging methodologies to market trends, Consulting Spotlight delivers the strategic intelligence you need to accelerate your consulting career and stay ahead of the curve.

Join our growing community of consulting professionals and decision-makers. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform and visit softwareoasis.com/subscribe to get our bi-weekly newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.

Get ready for weekly data, trends, analysis, interviews, and insights that will propel your consulting career forward.
Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter https://softwareoasis.com/subscribe/ to stay updated with more insights from technology leaders and transformation experts.

Welcome to Consulting Spotlight, your weekly deep dive into the transformative world of professional consulting. Your host is Michael Bernzweig, who in 1998 launched Software Oasis as one of the first platforms enabling businesses to download, license, and deploy software instantly across their networks with a single click. Today, Software Oasis has evolved into one of the leading communities where businesses find top consultants across the USA and Canada.

Each week, Michael sits down with industry titans, innovative leaders, and game-changing executives to bring you exclusive insights you won't find anywhere else. From emerging methodologies to market trends, Consulting Spotlight delivers the strategic intelligence you need to accelerate your consulting career and stay ahead of the curve.

Join our growing community of consulting professionals and decision-makers. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform and visit softwareoasis.com/subscribe to get our bi-weekly newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.

Get ready for weekly data, trends, analysis, interviews, and insights that will propel your consulting career forward.
Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter https://softwareoasis.com/subscribe/ to stay updated with more insights from technology leaders and transformation experts.

I'd like to welcome everyone to this week's edition of the Consulting Spotlight. I am your host, Michael Bernzweig, founder of Software Oasis. And this week we're actually joined by Lorrie Thomas Ross. She is the founder over at Web Marketing Therapy. And with that, Lorrie, welcome to the podcast.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (00:23.418)
Thanks so much, it's great to be here.

Michael Bernzweig (00:25.354)
Yeah, no, I'm very, very excited. I know we spoke a little while back and I'm glad that we're able to take a deep dive on some of the tips and strategies that you've used over the years to help clients. And I was hoping maybe you could share with some of our guests who may not be familiar with you or with web marketing therapy, a little bit about your journey and a little bit about

everything going on over there at Web Marketing Therapy.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (00:57.504)
Absolutely. Well, first and foremost, I did not set out to be the marketing therapist and founder and CEO of a company called Web Marketing Therapy. I started my career in sales. I worked in luxury retail for Saks Fifth Avenue and major designer brands. And I just love people. I loved getting to know people and found myself through just

making great contacts, getting plucked out of my safe, secure job in management at Saks Fifth Avenue by a personal shopping client who said you should drop out of college and come work on the internet. And this was 1999. And yes, we did party like it was 1999. It was a wild time. And my first email address ever was lori at this company.com. And I was thrust into this wacky, wild, wonderful web world. And I've seen the highs and I've seen the lows and I've seen

Michael Bernzweig (01:40.067)
Yeah.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (01:52.812)
You know, the onset of social media now, just the, you know, amazing breakthroughs that we're seeing with AI. And when I transitioned from being in sales, which was my, you online advertising, all of that, I was asked at a corporation to start running marketing. And at first I thought, well, that's not, that's not the right fit for me. And they said, well, actually you'd be perfect because who better to negotiate with our salespeople and to end.

Michael Bernzweig (02:07.726)
Sure.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (02:20.996)
I mean, just by default, I was young. I knew more than most people did at that time and just was willing to say yes. And I just fell in love with marketing. And it took the really myopic sell, sell, sell career I had into this just depth of branding and language and being able to support organizations on such a bigger scale to support sales through marketing.

Michael Bernzweig (02:39.277)
Sure.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (02:49.984)
and just fell in love with it. by gosh, I mean, probably, you know, five, six years into that, I was asked by UC Santa Barbara. I'm from California. I'm in Atlanta now. But back then I was asked to teach. at first I said no. And they said, well, but you're an industry veteran. And I was like, who me? And it was such a gift to get to translate everything that I was doing into training mostly small business owners and entrepreneurs who were taking my classes nights and weekends or marketing managers at

Michael Bernzweig (03:06.754)
I love it.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (03:19.44)
corporations and then Berkeley picked up my classes through their extension program and that was just so powerful to where my career was going. And I found myself just in love with the small business owners and entrepreneurs that would come in and out of my classroom. And you know, at many corporate jobs later and all the safe, secure, know, six figure plus jobs, I decided to let go of the ledge and do what I loved, which was working with entrepreneurs and helping them make their marketing better.

My company was not originally called Web Marketing Therapy, but my clients who did not know each other would repeatedly say, you are my marketing therapist. my gosh, Lori, I feel so much better. You took all the stress away. I actually enjoy marketing now. Down to like, girl, I gotta get on your couch again. And so I started paying attention to these patterns.

Michael Bernzweig (03:58.861)
I love it.

Michael Bernzweig (04:12.184)
like both ends of the same pendulum, right?

Lorrie Thomas Ross (04:14.0)
And I was like, I'm onto something. know, again, know, Michael, was at, you know, in this world at a time when it was still not new, but new-ish. And yeah, yeah.

Michael Bernzweig (04:23.054)
Well, it was the wild, wild west of internet advertising. mean, you had all kinds of different online, you know, no one really even understood what the, how to monetize it. You had some of the early agencies.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (04:35.352)
Right, right, and there was the art of marketing and there's the science of marketing, right? There's all the geeky SEO stuff and the analytics for advertising. And while I speak both art and science and marketing, I found myself operating for a place of heart, which was different, especially at that time from a bunch of mostly male agency owners in California where I lived who said all the time, we compete. And I was like, I don't think we compete. I believe in cooperation. I believe that maybe

Michael Bernzweig (04:41.582)
you

Michael Bernzweig (04:56.994)
Brian.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (05:04.484)
we'll have mutual clients and you might do some things really well but we might come in and do XYZ and yeah.

Michael Bernzweig (05:09.742)
sure you can really partner with a lot of organizations to help your clients at the end of the day.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (05:15.48)
Yeah, and so we rebranded as Web Marketing Therapy and I had people tell me not to and it was too weird. And I just thought, you know what, my biggest risk is not aligning what I do extremely well, which is that optimization, healing, you know, make things better. And it helped me attract my dream team. mean, my employees I work with, mean, many years have been with me since the beginning and they aligned with my, not just our value as a firm, but our values.

Michael Bernzweig (05:29.815)
Sure.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (05:43.76)
but it also gave us this blue ocean, if you will, to differentiate ourselves, but also to align with ideal clients and important to say, to repel the wrong types of clients. found myself, yeah, I wasn't wasting my time with the wrong people because my message and my value proposition were so streamlined and that was huge. yeah, 19 years later, here I am and...

Michael Bernzweig (05:54.806)
which is just as important, know, really, really is.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (06:09.698)
still working with amazing inspirational intentional leaders and making marketing better and just really putting those puzzle pieces together, some marketing clicks.

Michael Bernzweig (06:19.16)
So let me ask you, as far as, so in the early days, what, you know, at that time, I remember a lot of the early search engines. Obviously you had, I mean, even Google at that time was really more of a directory than a search engine. You had Ask Jeeves and Alta Vista and GoTo and Overture and all these other search engines where a lot of the traffic originated, but.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (06:39.382)
my gosh, yes.

Michael Bernzweig (06:45.41)
What were some of the early ad agencies online at that time?

Lorrie Thomas Ross (06:49.622)
my gosh, they were the traditional agencies. were the publicies and those kind of firms. Some are no longer around. The dot com bust wiped out a lot of the firms, but it was a lot of traditional agencies that were being asked by clients to get into the space. there was, mean, online advertising was really the beginning and it was those obnoxious banner ads that you'd see on websites. And that was the beginning.

Michael Bernzweig (07:01.826)
Right.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (07:17.326)
There was, know, SEO was just starting to take flight. Affiliate marketing was something that was working at the time. And it was also, was a little more, there was an ignorance in 99 and even in the early aughts of, you know, just buying impressions, which was the old traditional marketing model, especially in Mike magazines. And then suddenly you have this brand new, you know, misunderstood.

Michael Bernzweig (07:26.902)
Right.

Michael Bernzweig (07:38.317)
Right.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (07:47.28)
platform that was also speedy, trackable, flexible. And what it allowed organizations to do was start to understand and really analyze. so costs were minimized. It was like, if we buy a traditional magazine ad, but then we pair it with this, we can bring our costs down. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Bernzweig (08:08.398)
how the different types of media could work together. And you've probably seen a whole revolution in terms of from where things were in terms of analytics and tracking and ROI and all of that, in the early days to today, it's obviously to the nth degree.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (08:23.44)
yeah.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (08:29.104)
It's so, and what I love is that the elitism of marketing went away with the onset of digital and it leveled the playing field so that any organization, large, small, big revenue, small revenue, solopreneur or whatever started, like had a place and space in the landscape to actually play. And you could either be a riches in the niches business or a sell to the masses and live with the classes. But because of the ease of, you know,

launch, whether you call it like, you know, on the fly, whatever, it gave these organizations the ability to be there, but also to track. think about now with things like Google Analytics and Google Ads, I'm, you can't see how gray my hair is, you know, on the zoom, the, the, the ability now to just open a dashboard and track is phenomenal. I was downloading Excel spreadsheets and manually calculating ROI on Google ads back in the old days. And

Michael Bernzweig (09:14.765)
Right.

Michael Bernzweig (09:27.416)
Sure. Yeah.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (09:29.056)
Now all of that is there and I love it. I love it.

Michael Bernzweig (09:31.874)
Although, you know, it's almost like a lost art. if you, I think in one way, if you haven't been there and done that, it's hard to appreciate some of the capabilities that you do have today, which just out of the box are there for anybody, you know? Yeah. So can you give me an example? Like it sounds like you have.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (09:47.94)
Agreed.

Michael Bernzweig (09:55.214)
clients across the spectrum in terms of the types of organizations. But you mentioned earlier that certain clients are a perfect fit and other clients not so much. Can you give me an example of kinds of clients that fit into the, maybe we'll call it like the mojo of your organization and are a good fit from both ends?

Lorrie Thomas Ross (10:19.96)
Yeah, great question. And we say at Web Marketing Therapy that admitting you need help is the first step. And there is that wanting of support, the do what you do best, have others do the rest. I could run my own website. I could write my own copy. I could do a million things. I could cut my own hair. Is that a good idea? Probably not. That's what you need a professional for. And so just the psychological match of someone who knows, whether it's my employees need training.

and we need you to come in and level us up or we're doing everything right, now what? To we have some holes that we need filled in or we actually don't know what to prioritize and we need some pro opinions. Our ideal clients are ready and willing to receive help but they're also intentional leaders. They are leaders who operate not just with high value but incredibly high values, passion and purpose and...

they're in it for the long game. The types of clients that are like, need to sell 50,000 of these things every day and da, da, da. I can do that. I did in the corporate world. It's not my happy, happy place. It's the clients who are, I started my law firm to do this or I'm a coach or I'm an author and I wanna build my credibility and my visibility and my sellability and I want a creative team that can come in and help me do that on my terms.

those are the types of leaders that we align with. But there's always that spark. I can't think of a client that we've ever supported that we haven't just been the biggest cheerleaders for. They're just rad humans.

Michael Bernzweig (11:58.592)
I love it, I love it. And obviously there's so many diff, marketing is such an all encompassing term, but there are so many different components. Obviously you have everything from, you know, on page to off page to social to digital to, you know, programmatic. have all different kinds of advertising that clients are exploring.

So are you really helping clients first by advising them on the best strategies that you're to help them get to where they want to get to? are you, know, what, what, is it both advising and implementing or what, is typical?

Lorrie Thomas Ross (12:46.262)
Yes, and it's all of the above. Great ideas are only great if they're executed brilliantly. so while we come up with the creative ideas, if there is not a team in place to grab with the ideas and say, great, we're going to do X, Y, Z. Yeah, I mean, there always is that, well, yes. And can you help us do this? And so we're a great team. There's nine of us. And we have

access to just phenomenal partners as needed for certain things. Like I always say, we do everything with video and PR. And yes, we come in and just like in therapy, you know, we listen, we diagnose, prescribe and guide. We don't work with anyone that we haven't had a long onboarding process with and we see if we're a match and we listen to their wants and needs. We listen to what's worked, what maybe hasn't worked, some goals, questions, concerns. And we have a five factor framework that we...

layer on top of any prospective client's marketing and its credibility, usability, visibility, sellability, and scalability. And based on these five factors, we are able to map out what needs to be either addressed or maybe some new channels, some things that may need to be revisited. so when we work with any organization, we go into it knowing what to prioritize. What are the needs to have? So what are the nice to have?

You know, there, is no menu of services. In fact, we don't even have a services page on our website. We have one called solutions because it's not about my company selling services. It's about us. Educating our fellow leaders on what their options are. And there's no one way to approach marketing. So empowering these leaders so they understand what their options are and what might be the best way to move forward. Actually, here's a great case in point. We just chatted with a

client today who said, really need more search visibility. And we said, well, what phrases are you thinking? And this leader shared, and we said, you're doing extremely well on these phrases and you're on the first page, not just your website, but your Google My Business. And as we talked, this thought leader said, you know what I really loved were when I was doing more of those interviews. And maybe I were, maybe I, maybe you guys helped me write more articles on other websites in the name of this particular avenue.

Michael Bernzweig (14:52.814)
Great.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (15:07.342)
And so it was a creative brainstorm. had we just myopically said, you want more SEO, here's our quote, we were like, let's get on a Zoom and let's talk and let's ideate. We walked away and the answer was actually online PR, which we do. I can't get you in Success Magazine or like, you know, the cover of Forbes, but online PR, absolutely. so our team walked away just super excited and energized and we're super clear on what to do. yeah, it's...

Michael Bernzweig (15:33.624)
Yeah, and that's exciting. think, you know, it's brainstorming is half of getting to where you hope to get to. You know, what are some of the, when a client first comes to you, is there a typical state that you see clients at when they first arrive on your doorstep in terms of, you see clients in a few certain spaces when they first arrive or?

Lorrie Thomas Ross (15:39.3)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Bernzweig (16:00.494)
Are they really all over the board in terms of the challenges?

Lorrie Thomas Ross (16:05.452)
that is such an interesting point to ponder because there are commonalities and there's usually some desire to do more or to be better, you know, whether it's, you know, there's often the, just need someone I can trust who's going to not pitch me, but who's actually going to listen and educate me. And we do see clients all across the board. It could be.

the solopreneur that is writing books on the side and wants to get more mileage out of these amazing resources. And we also have clients where we sign NDAs that say we can never say we've worked with them and they have full teams and they just need experts that can come in and diagnose and say, do this, do that, change this, tell your paid search company XYZ or here's something else or you need to get some better.

report some place and here's the templates for you. And we hand back the recommendations and the team goes, great, we're done. And so, and some of times it's training. So it's advisory training and marketing management, all very custom and we can adapt and grow with clients. So as a company might grow and they might bring on teams, sometimes we have virtual assistants that our clients hire that are amazing and we give them guardrails of here's your Canva templates. for social media,

all of your fonts are consistent. And that stuff may sound really small, but little things like that do make a big difference.

Michael Bernzweig (17:35.692)
Right. Interesting, interesting. you know, can you bullet point out, are there like certain common mistakes that you see clients making when they're in that search phase for trying to find the right marketing professionals?

Lorrie Thomas Ross (17:55.908)
great to think about it from a bullets perspective. The first thing that I think of as the first bullet is to operate from a place of fear. Any marketing is about maximizing relationships and it's not just relationships with clients and prospective clients, but it's also maximizing relationships with your vendors, with your consultants, so that you have people who are an extension of your team that you really trust and love working with. And so if they're, if,

if an organization or a consultant is making you feel scared or uncomfortable or even like a loser, I joke that there's consultants and there's insultants and if you want someone to come crap all over your organization and leave, seagulls are cheaper, just do that. But to have someone that makes you feel at ease and isn't like this, you have to sign now or your site's gonna never be found in Google again, so no fear. And also,

Michael Bernzweig (18:34.862)
right?

Michael Bernzweig (18:39.906)
Yeah.

Michael Bernzweig (18:47.81)
Yeah.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (18:53.616)
being open-minded. The three most dangerous words are, know that. And so anyone who is a little too much of a know-it-all or thinks they know everything, my famous phrase is help me understand. And when a leader is or a marketing manager is open to being, you know, educated, then that is super valuable. I feel like this is another bullet that ties into fear is that fear of letting something go.

Do we really need to buy all those Google ads? Maybe we do just a small percentage of that, or maybe we hit the pause button and see where things fall. That kind of stuff is always a barrier to success. Gosh, another thing is trying to do it all yourself, which I joked that I can cut my own hair. Is that a good idea? No, it's not. Just because you can do it doesn't mean it's the best use of your time. If you're a lawyer, you need to be lawyering. If you're a doctor, you need to be seeing your

Michael Bernzweig (19:30.688)
Thank

Michael Bernzweig (19:45.142)
Right.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (19:53.482)
That doesn't mean you should be on Google Ads on a Friday.

Michael Bernzweig (19:55.028)
Exactly. I mean, at the end of the day, every client that you have has a core business that they're running, which is really where their time is best spent.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (20:04.528)
Yep.

Michael Bernzweig (20:07.274)
Interesting, interesting. So as far as different, you know, channels, because you've, you've seen such a journey and in terms of channels over the years, do you have, if a client comes to you and says, you know, we're totally focused on paid advertising and that that's where they, you know, the lever that they want to pull. Do you have some new favorite?

channels that you've seen come to light over the last couple of years that didn't exist in the past that are really starting to light it up for some of your clients that are pulling that lever.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (20:49.944)
It depends on the type of client, we are seeing, I mean, we have clients doing Roku ads, which are more like TV type placements. Google ads is still very strong. You have different types of demographic or even like job title targeting through LinkedIn. It will depend on the network. And another thing that I can think of that is just, and actually I've seen clients investing in tools like,

whether it's online PR tools, way to get more interviews, those kind of things. And yeah, as far as, you know, there's paid media, there's earned media, I do see a lot more shift, not even shift, but more attention on personal branding. And what we are finding is even in analytics, you'll see leaders names, employees names that are pulling in search results, bios on the websites, and then we look at their LinkedIn and...

We're like, this leader hasn't, like there's, this is such a dated profile. And how do we creatively create a digital footprint, not just for the organization, but the people who are representing the organization that are all feeding the visibility into the company. So, you know, the brand called you and your thought leadership, whether it's blogging, writing for other publications, doing podcasts has become something that we are seeing more and more.

Michael Bernzweig (21:53.378)
Yeah.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (22:18.224)
not just attention on, but more of an appreciation for.

Michael Bernzweig (22:24.94)
Yeah. And obviously more important. So, I mean, the other big shift that I'm seeing on this end of the mic is, and, you can tell if you, if you follow Google closely, they're, they're, they're kind of shaken because there's a huge shift away from traditional search. And I don't know about you, but I start my day with most searches through some form of AI, whether it's, you know, chat GPT or perplexity or

know, Gemini or some, some other channel, versus Google or Yahoo or Bing or any of those spaces. So how do you see AI affecting things in terms of search? And, know, a lot of these AI channels don't have paid advertising as, a component, you know, they're really more pure, kind of like the good old days of, of search, you know, just information.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (23:23.64)
AI has been a part of Google for so long that it doesn't feel new to me. And as someone who's seen the search engine results pages morph and evolve over the years, I'm so used to the only constant being change and to see how great content, while there's new technologies and new user experiences, the power of things like well-written content and super high value podcasts and all of that are

Michael Bernzweig (23:34.829)
Right.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (23:53.952)
that content is now coming into AI and being a part of the mix. I'm just, it's so inspiring and it's exciting. And I am seeing just the payoff of hard work in the classics of marketing, know, content is not king, it's the whole kingdom and seeing those start to come up more and more. But like you, like with AI, I look at AI, I'm on it all the time. I think of it as like my virtual sparring partner, you know, where

Michael Bernzweig (24:10.926)
Right.

Michael Bernzweig (24:21.666)
Yeah, it's like the ultimate assistant, you know, in many ways. I I think in some ways, if you're not using some of the tools out there, you know, just even like you, you mentioned with, you know, downloading things from spreadsheets versus using a lot of the dashboards and a lot of the tech that can, you know, do some of that heavy lifting so that you can use your brain to really analyze what you're seeing. I think it's the same thing with, with AI, but I think

Lorrie Thomas Ross (24:24.495)
Yeah.

Michael Bernzweig (24:50.168)
you know, at a high level, it's interesting to see the decline in traditional search, the rise of AI search. And I guess the other side of that that's kind of interesting to me is if you look at Google, they just dominate in terms of traditional search. They don't dominate in terms of AI. They're not even, they're not the market leader.

So it's a very strange place for them. And I mean, I think they have, you know, through some of the search generated algorithms included AI in some of the traditional search results, but it does get really expensive because they're not able to monetize in the same way that some of these AI, you everyone's fighting for market share at this point. It's not so much even a...

profit type of thing for a lot of these companies. So, yeah, I just thought that was interesting. What now the other trend that I've seen over the last year or two is a lot of, a lot of, you know, smaller companies are starting to look at some of the programmatic advertising.

options and you know obviously they can get themselves into hot water pretty quick with some of these. Do you see it as just the same old the same old beer with a new new new head or what do you what do think?

Lorrie Thomas Ross (26:25.188)
You know, I am always open to options and coming from being a seller of online advertising, I think I have a different perspective too, in that advertising is a long game investment. You create, you execute, you monitor, you rinse, repeat. And what is important for people to realize is that you don't have to like go big, right? You can start small and snowball and...

There's always options and it's making sure that it's done in a way that is relevant, that it makes sense for the brand. It's on brand, it's on purpose, it's all about targeting. Going back to online, I mean any type of advertising, it's about targeting, it's about reach, it's about results. you can't just.

throw something out there and expect results. Like you really have to be invested in this long term, not just money, you don't just throw money at it, but who's going to measure it? How is it going to be optimized? And you know, that's a whole, whole other team of experts that are driving that. You know, we are seeing the power of some of this, you know, automated buying and selling. It still requires a human to

Michael Bernzweig (27:21.102)
Alright.

Michael Bernzweig (27:38.466)
Yeah.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (27:47.632)
you know, look at it and to be that critical thinker.

Michael Bernzweig (27:49.656)
to interpret and understand what's going on. So can you share for our listeners maybe an example of a real live client, whether it's one you want to mention or not, and what life looked like for them prior to working with your team versus after and some of the results they saw and the transformation along the way?

Lorrie Thomas Ross (28:16.112)
Gosh, there's so many. think of one of my early clients who hired me to help make his site more search friendly. And they had a, I think at the time it was probably a 12 million a year practice. They were in the financial services space and it grew to a 21 million a year space. And we went way beyond search. I I get paid to be good, not nice sometimes. And I just said, look, your site is...

Michael Bernzweig (28:18.838)
Or just a favorite story, yeah.

Michael Bernzweig (28:35.008)
Okay.

Michael Bernzweig (28:43.97)
you

Lorrie Thomas Ross (28:45.872)
really amateur looking and I know you would like me to make this site optimized but that's like you're gonna be flushing money down the toilet. You need to elevate your brand, your logos are inconsistent, you need this, you need branding. So we do it once and we get some guidelines and then we need a new website but you have a huge website so we need to find another firm and I can help you with that and then I'll make sure that the site's search friendly.

And then we need to start creating content and taking your thought leadership and tying in the radio ads you're buying and things like that. And so we created a whole new platform for this organization. And then that founder decided he was done, which happens, right? You you can run a business for only so long until sometimes, you know, partners may change goals. And we helped this client exit the business and we

created SOPs, Standard Operating Procedure Documents for the new in-house marketing guy. I think it was the son of one of the leaders. And we helped this person create a whole new brand for a whole new business. And so I feel like that's like a cool example of the power of web marketing therapy, that as an agency, we walked away from a $40,000 a month account because this thought leader that we loved working for

Michael Bernzweig (30:02.049)
Yeah, and I think

Lorrie Thomas Ross (30:10.222)
was ready to exit and we were cheering him on and we closed that out and empowered the new team and helped him start a new business. And so that's like one example of just like, yeah.

Michael Bernzweig (30:19.33)
Yeah, that's, it's the right thing to do. you know, and obviously sometimes you see something that has so many challenges that they need to just start over again. And that's sometimes the best advice you can give. Yeah. Interesting. So as, as far as any of the, individuals that are listening to this podcast that may be struggling with, getting a cohesive strategy together.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (30:31.024)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Bernzweig (30:48.456)
and kind of pulling things together. As they're exploring different options, do you have a short list of things that they need to have at the top of their minds as they're looking at different options?

Lorrie Thomas Ross (31:04.238)
Marketing is holistic, just like health, right? You don't go to the gym every day and eat nerds gummy clusters, breakfast, lunch and dinner and expect to get results. It's all interconnected. that's why I would go back to our five factor framework and that's credibility, know, like and trust, usability. Is your site easy to use if your services are not clear or someone has to scroll to the deep dark fiery pits of your website to figure out something that should be front and center.

That's user experience. Visibility, our search best practices in place. How are you ranking? What could you be doing more of? Are your competitors doing things that you may not want to pay attention to? Or are there some blue oceans? Social media is part of the mix. Online PR, advertising. And sellability, why you versus someone else. And that is a big education piece in the power of

Copywriting and clear compelling copy. then lastly is scalability. It's investing versus spending. What makes sense? there are times when it may be wise to scale back on something that may have worked two years ago or maybe the landscape has changed or maybe the Google search results have changed and what was serving you may not be the best use of time. And so it can also just be optimizing budget, optimizing partner relationships.

I hear the stories all the time of, yeah, I don't get a response from my agency usually for a couple days and I usually have to text. And I'm like, that is unacceptable, right? That is not ideal. Or I have a social media team and they send me stuff with typos. Like, that's not acceptable. And just owning...

Michael Bernzweig (32:52.91)
Especially with all the modern tech, right?

Lorrie Thomas Ross (32:55.312)
It's so true, right? There's grammarly. mean, even word will underline stuff. any time you're not getting the level of service that you're paying for, that's time to reevaluate. yeah, it's looking at the holistic picture and it can be, you know, gosh, mean, we see clients who've changed their model of what we used to go after.

client wise is different or we really want to do more of this because this is more lucrative for our company or we really want to sell more of these because we're sitting on a ton of inventory and that's going to be a very different conversation. yeah, but looking at those five factors gives you a lens of what is working but also areas that could be improved and then those are the things that you can prioritize and that's a big pain point for

marketing is what do do first? The cool thing is there's so many options, but it's also overwhelming. And so how do you start and looking at the five factors can give you that holistic lens to make smart next steps.

Michael Bernzweig (34:03.694)
I'm going ask you one final question because before these episodes we always take a lot of audience feedback and there was one question that kept coming in in different ways from different angles and I think a lot of execs out there are kind of wondering, know, when they're working with your agency, is it, know, once the plan is laid out and things are being implemented, are they working with the

team, are they working with an individual account manager? What is the strategy for how an account is managed?

Lorrie Thomas Ross (34:40.758)
It's a dream team and I am very involved still to this day. talk to every prospective client. We are a boutique agency and that's part of our values and that's my magic is the marketing therapist. But with our whole team, there's nine of us then depending on what the needs are, if it's writing, if it's heavy website optimization, if it's search optimization, but there are always at least two to three contacts so that our clients are able to get the support.

You know, we've had clients in the New York Times this week that want to get that up on their website. They, you know, and so we are always dividing and conquering, if you will. And we are also leveraging our resources as needed. And so it's not like you're paying for something you're not getting. if phase one is optimization, you might work with a couple of our team members and then move in to something else. One thing I hear.

Michael Bernzweig (35:15.63)
Sure.

Michael Bernzweig (35:28.736)
Right.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (35:38.006)
over and over and over again from our clients and even partners that we work with is, wow, you have such a great team. Like, wow, like they're just, everyone's so lovely to work with. And that is essential. Like I get up every day because I thoroughly enjoy what I do, but I truly love the people that I get to work with. And it's fun.

Michael Bernzweig (35:57.612)
I love it. And that's so, so important. I mean, it doesn't, does not matter what you're doing, what industry you're in, what type of business, you know, waking up every day and loving what you're doing is so important. And I can hear the pride coming through, you know, obviously female owned, female led, and it sounds like the entire team there is all on the same page. So that is very encouraging. We're going to leave in the show notes a link for anybody that would like to reach out to you.

to explore a little bit further. And I wanna thank everybody for joining us today and for this deep dive. For anyone that is joining us for the first time by chance, we have three different podcasts. This podcast, the Consulting Spotlight, the Software Spotlight and Career Spotlight, all three focused on technology. And today we've had Lorrie Thomas Ross.

the marketing therapist over at Web Marketing Therapy joining us live. And for anybody that's not subscribed, you can head over to softwareoasis.com backslash subscribe and join our weekly email marketing newsletter that includes all kinds of tips, data and research. So once again, Lorrie, thank you for taking the time and joining us on the consulting spotlight today.

Lorrie Thomas Ross (37:25.732)
Thank you so much, Michael.