No Templates, Just Strategy w/ Katie Garwood | Ep. 217

In this episode of Biz/Dev, we talk with Katie Garwood, founder of One Eleven Group, about what it looks like to build marketing that actually fits the business it is meant to support.

Katie takes a hands-on approach, working closely with teams, staying in the details, and designing strategies based on real data, not assumptions.

We get into why one-size-fits-all marketing falls short, how being close to the work leads to better decisions, and what it takes to create campaigns that reflect how a business actually operates.

LINKS:

One Eleven Group Website

Katie on LinkedIn

Free Headshots with One Eleven Group

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David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

[00:00:02] Gary: Wait a minute. So if you don't add just your city name 15 times through every piece of copy on the website, that doesn't do anything.

[00:00:09] Christie: That doesn't work. Yeah.

[00:00:11] Gary: We have to convince clients that. Not anymore, but we used to be like okay, let's calm down with the keywords here.

[00:00:18] Gary: Hello and welcome to the Biz Dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. And I'm your host today, Gary Voight. Joined by my co-host Kristy, who is the marketing director for Big Pixel and for Teela. Hello, 

[00:00:31] Christie: Hello? Hello?

[00:00:33] Gary: David's not here again. So at this point I 

[00:00:36] Christie: Oh, bummer. 

[00:00:37] Gary: off.

Yeah.

[00:00:37] Christie: Yep.

[00:00:38] Gary: But I have seen better without Baxter trending on social media.

[00:00:43] Christie: I think I started that hashtag, but we'll see. You dunno.

[00:00:46] Gary: and more importantly today, our guest, Katie Garwood, is here with us, and

Katie Garwood is the founder of the one 11 Group and also a side project we'll get into a little bit later. So

welcome Katie. How are you today? 

[00:01:01] Katie: Thank you so much. I'm great. Thanks so much for having me.

[00:01:04] Gary: Thanks for joining us. Before we get into the business part of the Biz Dev podcast, we'd like to ask a few, just kinda like icebreaker questions. And lately we've been,

[00:01:15] Christie: of all. Yeah.

[00:01:16] Gary: yeah, they're more fun. But lately we've been asking like this or that kind of questions.

[00:01:22] Katie: Okay, five. Love it.

[00:01:24] Gary: for you, forms of entertainment, do you prefer. Movies, streaming shows or like podcasts or books. You could throw books in there.

[00:01:34] Katie: Definitely streaming shows like trash reality TV is like how I turn 

[00:01:38] Gary: Mindless entertainment,

just to, yeah. Okay,

cool. Any current ones that you're into?

[00:01:44] Katie: I just finished the Age of Attraction. That was a really 

[00:01:48] Christie: Ooh. Yep.

[00:01:50] Gary: No idea 

[00:01:51] Katie: time like end all, be all is below deck. I'm a below deck girly

[00:01:55] Christie: God.

[00:01:56] Katie: deck. I'm obsessed with it.

[00:01:58] Christie: the

OG. 

[00:01:59] Gary: I think one of the cast members, I don't know what season, but I think one of the cast members from Below Deck was from basically the area that I live in, and she

was pretty well known in the area. Yeah.

[00:02:09] Katie: I love that.

[00:02:10] Gary: the beach side area of Florida like so 

East 

[00:02:15] Katie: That's awesome.

[00:02:16] Gary: Christie, what kind of garbage are you into?

[00:02:19] Christie: I think you know me best. I think I'm, I wouldn't exist without podcasts. It's like one of my hierarchical things that I need to have every day, murder podcasts. But lately I've been into like, I can't handle like the real housewife stuff. It makes me so embarrassed by I just can't handle it. But I have been watching. The history channel Swamp People again, when I used to watch it when I was a kid, there's something about just like the wrangling of the alligators and the Louisiana, the accent and everything. I'm just like, ah, this is so calming. Like I can

[00:02:50] Katie: Is my dad's favorite show

[00:02:53] Christie: Yeah. It's actually like I, over the past several days, I was like, wow, I cannot believe the amount of hours I have spent listening to this and watching this while I could be doing other things.

But

what can you do? Yep.

[00:03:06] Gary: All right, so beyond entertainment now, snacking, do you prefer something salty, something sweet, or both?

[00:03:14] Katie: I think both. I'm actually not a big snacker. I never really have been. Yeah, I like have, if I'm in a snacking mood though, like I'm in a snacking mood, like I'll eat the whole.

[00:03:27] Gary: If you replace a meal with snacks, is it technically snacking or is it just mealtime?

[00:03:32] Katie: I think it is just a meal. We're big, like my husband

kill me for saying this, but he we do girl dinner all the time, so 

[00:03:39] Christie: Oh, so good. 

[00:03:41] Katie: Yeah, my kids,

and we're all like, girl, dinner tonight. Great.

[00:03:45] Christie: Gary, you dunno what girl dinner Is 

[00:03:48] Gary: and just see whatever you

have 

[00:03:49] Katie: usually throw it all on a plate, like it's great. It's girl dinner.

[00:03:53] Christie: Yeah, there's like anything in there. There could be like sour patch kids next to pretzels, next to

cheese cubes, next to mini carrots, next to a Vienna sausage.

It's just like whatever's there. Yeah.

[00:04:04] Gary: A charcuterie board of just random stuff.

[00:04:08] Katie: Carlton.

[00:04:09] Christie: Yep.

[00:04:09] Gary: right. And now a little bit work related. During the day when you're getting stuff done, do you have music on in the background or do you work in dead silence?

[00:04:19] Katie: Sometimes, so I'm actually really big. I'm like, not super woowoo, but like I can lean a little woowoo and I have recently, I'm like full A DHD, like I crack out all the time. And what really helps me is I put on like frequencies. And so instead of music, I'll have like frequencies going in the background and that really helps me focus, especially if something like big projects, something I have to get done, like I'm finishing a website build or I'm doing something, I'm like, okay, I have to lock in.

[00:04:48] Gary: And we all know Christie prefers bagpipes really loud, 

[00:04:52] Christie: yeah, no more like murder and disappearance. The longer they've been dead and or gone and we don't know where they are, the more I can concentrate and get my work done.

It's a tragedy.

[00:05:05] Gary: All right, so Katie, back to actually what we're here to talk about,

which is business and development. You are the founder of the one 11 group, and that is a luxury marketing agency.

[00:05:15] Katie: Yeah. So we're super different than other agencies. I joke all the time that I got my start cleaning up the mess of other agencies, and that's how I learned how to build something like really different. I have no two contracts with any two clients that are the same. And that has poses its own set of challenges from like a scalability standpoint, but I think.

We've, ironically, in four and a half years, I've never marketed my own marketing agency because we've been a hundred percent referral based. Yeah, I, it's like unheard of, especially like in this world, and I take a lot of pride in that. We've grown slow and steady, we have over 60% of our clients have been with us for over two years, which I think is massive.

You don't hear statistics like that in the marketing. But we just approach things really different. My bread and butter is the solopreneur up to the mid-level corporate. I'm not into the whole like full blown, like corporate America, like none of that. I. I speak one-on-one with all of my founders, all of my visionaries.

They have a direct line to me. We just, we do things so differently and I think the biggest bit of feedback we get all the time is that, we listen and we actually take what the person is saying and then we bring it to fruition. We're not here to sell you a package, B package C type of marketing plan, because I think every business brand, founder, visionary, CEO, everyone's so different.

And marketing, I joke all the time. I'm like. People think it's so black and white, but this literally is I exist in the gray area. From the standpoint of like everyone is so different and deserves such a unique approach. I think that a lot of the reason I get a lot of the fallout from other agencies is everyone just tries to fit square pegs into round holes, and I just don't think marketing as a whole works that way.

[00:06:57] Christie: Yeah, 

it exhausts the whole entire concept of marketing. I think for a lot of people, like David didn't even like even value the concept of marketing. When I had first started it, Gary was like really pushing him to see it, but that was because he was burned so many times by companies coming

in and 

[00:07:14] Gary: package A or package B, lead generation. 

[00:07:17] Christie: like software development is not that. And we need you to really like key into things. And so I think. What you're saying is exactly what this, like when you say brand now, when you're saying, okay, we're helping someone come up with a brand, what does that mean for a company now new startups in 2026 with ai, the lack of anything being authentic, really that trust and ownership over the brand.

What does that look like when they come to you and they say, Hey, we're new, or we're trying to start that brand narrative. Like where do you as a team tackle that? Let's say, I know and not everyone is the same, but

what do you, how do you tackle that for them?

[00:07:50] Katie: I think ultimately, so one thing I take a lot of pride in is my intake form. I joke with clients all the time, you can sit down and spend 20 minutes on it. You can sit down and spend two hours. The information you give me, either in depth or lack thereof, is what's going to determine my rate of success in what I can do for your brand.

I value transparency and clarity and the brands that come to me and they. Even if they're not fully clear, if they're clear that they're not fully clear, that at least gives me insight into where your brain's at, where we need to go. And it's okay. I think sometimes people, it's the paradox of choice, right?

They don't start 'cause they don't think they're ready. So we take a really unique position where you don't have to be fully ready. If you've got just an idea, great, come to me, we'll figure it out. We'll build it out together. And then I have some who they're like. This is exactly what I want. This is where I wanna be in five years.

This is what that looks like. This is what success looks like to me. And I think that success bit of things is really important too. It's a conversation I always have. Success looks different to different people. I think some people chase money, some people chase time, some people chase impact. And really understanding what that client wants and what their driver is in wanting or thinking they want.

That's my favorite part too, is when someone's oh, I need this. And I'm like, actually, you need this.

It clarity really is like the biggest thing. Regardless of how thought out or in depth that clarity is, like I said, you could be really in the early, early, like newborn stages or you could be like pretty developed, like ready to go to market.

But if you're not clear on where you land

on that spectrum, it you're setting yourself up for failure. And nobody, me, any other agency you go to you're just throwing spaghetti at the wall. And that's just not how, that's just not how we operate. So it's just really, like I said, I tell people what you get out is what you put in.

And I think that intake form, we ask like really thoughtful, like not what you would typically expect. Like I wanna understand like why you're doing it. Why did you start this? Did you think it was just gonna be easy to be a business owner? Or do you like really truly understand like what. Crazy you're getting yourself into, or, I deal with more seasoned, owners all the time too.

So it really just depends. Everyone's so different. I think clarity is key, and asking the hard questions up front. I never want to

[00:10:02] Katie: I'm in a unique position now in the business where I do get to pick and choose what clients I do business with. Just last week I looked someone in the eyes on a discovery call.

They had a really nice budget and they were ready to give me their money. And I said, right now I can't help you. I said, because you are not clear on what you wanna do and what you expect out of this. And I am not going to set myself or my team.

[00:10:21] Christie: To fail. Yeah, of course. 

[00:10:22] Katie: It's never been about the money to me.

I don't wanna just take the money. My goal is to grow your business so that you call me in six months and go, Hey Katie, we need you to do more things. Here's more money.

[00:10:37] Christie: Right. Yeah 

[00:10:38] Katie: but yeah. If that answers your question.

[00:10:40] Christie: it absolutely answers my question. Sorry Gary, I took over there just asking away

[00:10:45] Gary: No, you mentioned you've been doing this for a while on a lot of your businesses referrals. Have you been in the Raleigh area for a while? Are you primarily focused on like the Raleigh area startup 

[00:10:56] Katie: Yeah. So I. 

[00:10:58] Gary: entrepreneurial 

[00:10:59] Katie: Yeah, summer rare breed. I was actually born and raised just south of Raleigh. My husband was born and raised here too. So he co-owns the business. He runs our whole media division. But we work with clients primarily, yes, in the Raleigh, North Carolina pocket, if you will. But we work with clients all across the country.

I have, we'll do website projects in California, Washington. We work with some really unique property groups, so we do get to travel a lot, which is really fun. there's never a dull moment. It's different day to day. But yeah, our pocket, I would say is I would say East Coast 

[00:11:33] Christie: So you have boots on the ground when you go to places. So say you get a new client, you're traveling to that client to at least have an initial conversation with them.

[00:11:40] Katie: yeah. And I always, that's a really unique approach we take to, depending on what that client needs, I'll, we fly out at our, on our own dime. Like I don't charge clients extra for that. I just am old school in the sense of I wanna shake your hand, I wanna see your business.

'cause I also don't think it's, I get cold emails all the time right from we can lead Jen and we can do this and we can do that. 

And it's so impersonal and I think we're seeing a huge shift in the digital space anyway. 

Especially like social media. People are really craving that. Just like human connection.

So if I can. Hop on a plane or show up at your place of business as an owner, not as just an employee. It floors people they're like, oh my God, you like stopped by? And I'm like, yeah, I'm a real person. I'm a small business 

owner. Just like you. And I think you just, you don't see that anymore.

It's everything we do is so behind a desk in front of your phone. Like we're not, people aren't getting out and interacting as human beings anymore. And. So to be honest, that's how we get a leg up a lot of the times is I am,

the fortune is follow up and I'll bother you until you tell me to f off

[00:12:46] Christie: I absolutely agree with you. And David would say that. That he does as well. It's just a sentiment of what type of business you are. You can't say for us it's trust and transparency, and for you it's transparency and clarity, and I don't think you can get either of those sentiments without being present, both in mind and in body.

[00:13:02] Katie: A hundred percent. And I think you know, the biggest bit of feedback I had. Started to hear frustration from business owners, especially when they come to me from another agency, especially like these digital agencies that are 

[00:13:17] Christie: Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:13:17] Katie: you can spend all this money on ads and dah. I ads are a great tool.

That's a whole other like hill I could go die on. it's, what do you mean I get your phone number and what do you mean I get to talk to you? And I'm like, they're like, I signed up with this agency and I got handed off to this intern 

that I'd never spoken to before. I think. Business as a whole.

People do business with people they like, know and trust, 

right? So if you're selling them great and then you're handing them off to someone else, you've instantly broken that trust, whether consciously or subconsciously 

that client realizes it. Like you've planted that seed. And I think people just miss the bow.

Everybody's just so turned and burned in, in, in a lot of industries, right? Like I work in so many different industries. I see it, across the board in 

different ways, but literally you like, people have my cell, sometimes they forget when they're traveling and they forget what time zone they're in, and they call me at one o'clock in the morning.

That's 

really fun. 

[00:14:04] Christie: Yep.

[00:14:05] Katie: Like that's, it's that white glove level of service of if something goes wrong or technology's not our friend today, or you want something and it needs to be last minute picking the phone and call me. You can't do that these days 

and get a human being on the other end of the line.

It just doesn't 

exist.

[00:14:20] Christie: Yeah. And marketing is also a language that a lot of people don't understand. They want to understand it, but what's being fed to us, digitally, what we see online all the time is not what marketing is. And so some of those long-term wins or long-term strategies are difficult for them to.

To really understand how their business works within all of those concepts. And so being able to have the time, take the time, explain it to them, have it be pertinent and relative to their exact pain point and walk them through that. That's again, like you, because I do marketing for ourselves and for, our new product.

It's been that ebb and flow four or five years ago. It was like nobody wanted anything authentic. They just wanted it to look pretty and have and say the bottom line and. I'm like, oh, like this is so not how, we do things. And so then it's just, you have to make a decision of yes, you want to follow along to a certain extent with the things that are trending. But I think what we've learned the most is when you're true to yourself and who you are, that really becomes your MO or you differentiator. And then when people come to us, it's because. Like you said, we tell them the truth that, and it might not be what you thought you wanted to hear, but we assure you it's what's going to make you successful or make this scalable for you.

So it's really refreshing to hear that. And also too, not that I know your age, nor do I need to, but I believe you and I are probably around the same era, which it's so easy to tip into let's just be trendy and let's do the latest technology and let's be as distant and remote as from all this as we can and just pop out the hashtag and that is not what. The industry and people in it, that's not what they crave because they really, we need to explain marketing and bring it to them as a source of something that can really scale what they're looking for.

[00:15:59] Katie: A hundred percent. And I think it's, it's also about meeting people where they're at. I have some clients who they want every report, they have certain KPIs they're really interested in every month. And I have others who are like, genuinely I do not give a flying F. 

Just do it and let me know if there's an issue and you need something from me.

And I think it's really 

important, '

cause I have some clients who like I could send 'em A PDF like full of. Data and numbers and I could explain it and all of these things, but we have a leveling conversation on, some of our onboarding calls where I'm like, look, I won't waste your time if you don't waste mine.

If you don't need this extensive reporting,

[00:16:31] Christie: I won't give it to you 

[00:16:31] Katie: if you want it, I'm happy to do it. So we just again, meet people where they're at. 'cause people are so different and they operate in business so differently. And I think it's just paying attention to what that client needs and meeting them where they're at.

But then also like just. Steering the ship because some people, sometimes they don't know what they need and they may 

go, oh yeah, I want all the

[00:16:49] Christie: A lot of the times. Yeah,

[00:16:50] Katie: And I'll ask 'em a question and they'll be like, oh yeah, I didn't look at that. And I'm like, that's exactly my point.

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[00:17:30] Gary: I think right here in between both software design and marketing, probably other industries as well, but just in this conversation alone, being the human in between, the human in the mix as the expert, using AI as a service tool for your client and not a service for your client. In other words, you're providing more services because of your expert use of AI for the client. You're not selling the client on ai. So being the human expert in the mix is definitely, I think, where the most value is gonna come from for the clients, whether it's in marketing or software development and design.

[00:18:04] Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And I think I get, I think people just,

they just, get scared of it, right? But knowledge is power. I hate to use the example of my parents, but it's like literally, it's so funny 'cause my dad's oh my God, the robots and they're gonna take over the world

Like, BFFs. And I'm like, do you see what I'm saying though?

If you're inputting something and you're asking it questions and you're doing it and you're conversating with it, you're going to get. Back, like things you probably would never think to ask, 

[00:18:30] Christie: Right, and that's the value add for sure.

[00:18:33] Katie: Exactly.

[00:18:34] Christie: Yeah, absolutely. Sorry,

Gary. 

[00:18:38] Gary: no, that's okay. Katie, back to your agency has it always been one 11 group or did you recently change that?

[00:18:46] Katie: Yeah. So we when I started it was just me. So we called it KG Creative, which we like, kept all of our stuff on the backend. But when we started to build our team out and obviously bring more people on board and expand and all these things, it just didn't really feel like authentic. It felt weird.

I'm like, oh, I'm kg and this and that, but like also, here's this whole team. And so when my husband left his family business to come join me in the agency, I kept saying, I wanna rebrand. I don't know what that looks like. And I am like. A visionary that has a DHD in every sense of the definition of the terms.

I, like Le I've led with my gut in business and it's never wrong. And I just knew like I have ideas and they like hit me and I'm like, that's it, that's the move. Like whatever. And I have to feel really confident in it and I just hadn't had that. And so I was getting like really irritated. I was like, I haven't had the idea.

I don't know what to do. And then my husband actually is two weeks later after I'd made a comment about rebranding. He's sit down. I have to show you something. I'm like, okay. And he's so not that personality, but I was like, all right, cool. And so I've actually, one 11 is an angel number that's like new beginnings, fresh start.

Like it has various meanings. But I've seen 11, 11 my entire life. They could literally make a weird. Very strange movie about all the things that have happened to me

surrounding those numbers. But I've actually had it tattooed 

on me for, 

nine years. And so he literally, he did all the brand development for it, presented me with the brand kit, the logos.

[00:20:15] Christie: What a great idea. 

[00:20:16] Katie: and I was like, that's it, that's perfect. So

we filed the DDA like the next day and transitioned and it, it's been really fantastic and people. That's actually one of the first questions I always ask clients in a discovery call is like, where does your business name come from?

What does it mean to you? Because I think that's a really great baseline to establish because a lot of people don't ask that. They just assume it's something random or whatever. And I place so much meaning because business is personal and I think, people are always like. You have to take emotion out of it.

And like business is business and no hard feelings. And I'm like no. If you actually care about your business, there's always hard feelings. There's always emotion attached to it. Because you have to take pride in what you do. And so when he presented the name, I was just like, that's, it's literally perfect.

It holds so much meaning for us. And we've been one 11 for, I guess two and a half years now.

[00:21:07] Christie: Oh, that's great. Yeah. I saw too that you guys are rebranding or doing a new website for yourself, so I'll turn the question around for yourself. Say a client came to you and they're like, Hey, I need a new website. What are you gonna do for my website? What are some thoughts that have been going through your head when you're creating this website?

Has it been more technical and strategic for yourself? Is there some key things that you could pass along to our listeners of here's some things when thinking about maybe having your brand footprint be your website, some things to think about that you. Been thinking about. I saw that and I was like, oh that's a perfect question because she's already doing it.

[00:21:39] Katie: Yeah, so I, I am such a, websites are not a sore subject for me. So websites are the only thing in these four and a half years that I've never been able to, this is gonna sound so conceited and I really don't mean it conceited, but websites are actually one of the only things I still do fully myself. It's only me.

I am the designer. 

[00:21:59] Christie: That sounds like Gary.

[00:22:01] Katie: I've just, I've never, I've tried.

[00:22:04] Christie: Yeah.

Gary's every single thing is only me. He is I only, it's just me. No.

[00:22:09] Katie: It's so 

[00:22:09] Gary: We've tried to shorten the process by starting with templates and stuff like that, which is fine. It gives some structure, but literally every pixel is touched.

[00:22:17] Katie: Yeah, and that's, there's, look, I'm in all the networking groups locally and all. I'm not like shitting on anybody, but everybody's oh, I can design your Squarespace site, or your Shopify site, or this, or whatever, and I'm like, I'll give someone thousands of dollars for a plug and play template that you're adding images and changing copy is not like truly.

[00:22:38] Christie: Designing a website.

[00:22:40] Katie: a website, right? And everything we, so I designed in a platform called Show it. It's really cool. It's great for my brain. Nobody really uses show it, which I love. It started as like a personal branding website, like back in the day.

But everything, you start with a white screen. Like it is a white screen.

You can custom code, you can animate, you can. I love it so much. Every site I've ever designed from hospitality to food and bev, to our website, to everything in between is built in that platform and I love it. And it's, over the last however many years, it's gotten so much better. Like even it was great to begin with.

And now I, like

anybody that I sign on, I'm like, are you sure you want me to redo your website and show it for 

[00:23:19] Christie: Yeah. It that much. I'll do it. Yeah.

[00:23:21] Katie: I love it because it's great for me as a designer. There's so many things that I can do, but also it's really easy for me to train, whenever I hand off a website project, I hate designers who are like, okay, but if you need to change an image or you need this, it's gonna take two weeks every time you request it

and blah, blah, blah, blah.

I wanna empower people to be able to make basic changes on their website that they need to, to where you're only having to come to me. If it's something like more in depth.

Yeah, I love it. And I think it's just again. Everyone wants to sell you on a website. I will say I don't think people need to cheap out like it because you will get what you pay for when it comes to like

web development. But I think people settle and I think they get charged a lot of money. Like I recently cleaned up a Squarespace site and I was like, they charge you how much to do this.

[00:24:03] Christie: yo. Yeah.

[00:24:04] Katie: It just breaks my heart because then I feel bad and I, and then the human in me is oh my God, I need to lower my price. 'cause you got taken advantage of and I feel so 

[00:24:11] Christie: Yeah. No. You have to raise your value because you told them to begin with, or you know that's not what they should be

[00:24:16] Katie: I like, I'm so sorry. It's just tough, 

[00:24:19] Christie: a hard education point. 

Is that the biggest thing people are coming to you for when they think marketing? Are they coming to you or most people saying, I want a website, or are they saying I want a strategy? Or are they saying, I have an idea and I need a brand? What is the thing that, because marketing is,

[00:24:34] Gary: Or

just we need more sales. Yeah. 

[00:24:37] Christie: Yeah. Or we

need more sales. Yeah. That's, yeah. 

[00:24:39] Katie: I always try to get to the root of why they think they need marketing. Sometimes it's third generation, sometimes it's social proof, right? 90% of the time nowadays, if you go to a website and click on someone's Instagram, they can be a very real business, very much in business, doing business every day.

But if their last post was three years ago, guess what? I'm clicking to the next person.

[00:24:57] Christie: Yeah. Right. That's the truth.

[00:24:59] Katie: A hundred percent. And I think people think marketing, right? And they automatically go to like social media ads and it's it's so much more than that. Everything has to work like in synchronous, like it has to all work together for good.

And the biggest I'm just always transparent and upfront. Like you may think you need digital ads, but I'm not going to send people to an a website that's outdated. The a's not going to convert, it's not 

going to work. So 

then I have to have the conversation of we actually need to do these things first and then we can do these things.

So a lot of what I do, I wouldn't even say people come to us for any particular thing. Like obviously we get referrals. So when someone's I need social media, I need a website, or I need my logo and all these things,

they come to me one thing and then we end up, in a six to 12 month. 

[00:25:43] Christie: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:45] Katie: I'm just like, it's not, it's a process and if you wanna invest in it, great.

But we also have to be very clear about. What you're hoping to gain from this. You know what I mean? And every industry is so different. Our, it is, it's, I mean I'm everything from food and beverage to

[00:26:01] Christie: I saw that on your LinkedIn. I liked the way 

[00:26:03] Katie: to medical.

[00:26:04] Christie: how you market different verticals. Yeah.

[00:26:07] Katie: Yeah. And so and it's so fun. Like it's definitely never boring, but it also gives me really unique, I think, insight and perspective to be like, Hey, look like these are things I'm seeing across the board.

These are things I'm just seeing in this industry. This is what I'm seeing in this industry. So I have a really unique opportunity to be able to also like. This is working over here. I think this is gonna work over here too. So we're able to play back and forth, which so many agencies that just like niche down, they only work with food and beverage hospitality, or they only work with properties or like whatever.

We have like the leg up because we do it all and we do it all really well. But yeah, I think people fail to realize that marketing by definite, it's not just one thing. 

[00:26:46] Christie: It's 

[00:26:47] Katie: if you.

It's everything. Even SEO, like I have to explain to clients all the time, like people automatically think SEO is your website.

It's not your whole digital presence, it's your Instagram posts are indexed. It's your Facebook posts. It's any article, like articles that are, it's everything. And people are like, oh, I thought it was just SEO on my website. I'm like, that is so not how the world works anymore.

[00:27:07] Gary: Wait a minute. So if you don't add just your city name 15 times through every piece of copy on the website, that doesn't do anything.

[00:27:14] Christie: That doesn't work. Yeah.

[00:27:16] Gary: We have to convince clients that not anymore, but we used

to be like okay, let's calm down with the keywords here. 

[00:27:21] Christie: It

is educate, it's education all of the time. Yeah,

[00:27:24] Katie: Yeah. All right. 

Anyone comes to me for anything particular. It's more so they think they know what they want, and then it's my job to take my expertise and go, 

actually, this is what you.

[00:27:32] Christie: Yeah. That makes total sense. 

[00:27:34] Gary: So we learned about how in depth and hands-on and white glove you go with each one of your clients, which then again will define, my original question was, what do you mean by luxury marketing? So thank you for 

that. But now to wrap it up, since you've been in this industry and working with founders and startups, you said and being a founder yourself, what would you say are your top three pieces of advice for a new startup or a new founder?

[00:28:02] Katie: I'll start with hiring. Hire fast, fire faster. I think that who you have surrounding you will determine either your success or your detriment. Having people on your team that actually see and understand and work towards your vision and they have that buy-in is really important.

I try not to hire people who are just looking for jobs.

I don't want people that are here to punch my clock. I want people that like have a passion for helping people and impact and learning new things. I'm also incredibly flexible with my team. No one has set hours. I pay you a salary based off of deliverables and I do not care that, you get the job done in 10 hours because you fully optimized and time blocked and done everything you're supposed to do, or it takes you 50.

You shouldn't be penalized for being able to do a job quicker and more efficiently than someone else. I also think. Where there's smoke, there's fire, and sometimes we do make the wrong hire. Like I said, hire fast, fire faster. I've definitely held onto people longer than I should have.

[00:29:00] Katie: And I think that's just like my nature.

But I have learned over the years when you have that kind of gut feeling on someone, get rid of them because it can be really toxic not only for yourself but for your whole environment. So hire fast, fire faster. You said three things, right?

[00:29:15] Gary: Three. If you have three, if you

only have two, that's fine.

[00:29:18] Katie: I got a lot of things. 

[00:29:20] Gary: If you have 15, let's just 

[00:29:21] Christie: She's I have 33. She goes, I have

33 things. Yeah.

[00:29:27] Katie: I think always trust your gut. It's really easy when there's, cooks in the kitchen or people who are bought in, which is really fantastic, but at the end of the day, you're the visionary and you have the desire and the goals and everything for a reason. I think it's really important to stay true to that.

Although sometimes gut feelings are not the greatest and sometimes it may be negative, like you just have to trust that you have to trust yourself is like the biggest thing.

[00:29:51] Katie: And I think

sometimes I have gut feelings on like really incredible ideas where my whole team could be pushing back going, we don't need to do this right now.

And I'm like, no, you don't understand. We're doing it. Sorry, suck it up. Buttercups. This is what we're doing. And. It's always really fun for when it's okay, yeah, you were right. And I'm like, I know because I trust my gut and I like, I went with it. And then the flip side of that coin is, sometimes you have gut feelings about, I, I just recently had to fire actually a very large client of mine and that was so 

[00:30:17] Christie: that's

[00:30:19] Katie: I think the third thing is to remember there's not rules.

[00:30:24] Christie: Oh, I like that.

[00:30:25] Katie: It's really easy to look at other people or gurus in your industry. They did it this way, so I should do it this way. They have a 10 step plan, let me follow that 10 step plan. This kind of goes hand in hand with trusting yourself. There is no rules in business, there is no roadmap.

[00:30:42] Katie: Like. A lot of times the best visionaries and entrepreneurs I meet are some, they have some sort of proprietary idea, vision, goal, and it's like they they want the roadmap to get there.

And it's no. Like you are paving said road, right? There is no step by step guide and any guru trying to sell you that is just trying to prey on your lack of knowledge, right? And 

[00:31:04] Christie: Yeah, don't set yourself up and believe it all too. You have to, again, like you said, trust your gut. Have that initial instinct to move something in a way that it needs to move. And then don't listen to what everybody else says. Listen to what you feel, and then also do your

research, but don't be so easily got.

[00:31:21] Katie: Yeah. And I think, like you have to be a special, crazy to be an entrepreneur, like it's a hard life. But. It's fun and you get to do a lot of cool shit that other people don't get to do, and you get opportunities that other people like only dream of, but like you have to realize and understand there is no black and white way to achieve any one goal.

I, there's plenty of other agency owners and I guarantee you every single one of our stories is totally different. Why we got into this, where we came from, what that looks like. And I think people get soaked. Some of it is just information is so at our fingertips and there's so many people out there who, are trying to sell you something, teach you how to do something.

Gurus who claim they have the secret sauce and the reality is there is, there's no smoking gun, there's no secret sauce. Like you get to decide what that looks like and I think people get so caught up in it that they

sometimes, and I think there are no rules. You're you get to make the rules.

That's why you went into business for yourself.

[00:32:15] Christie: Yeah. I love

[00:32:16] Gary: Okay, so now this means I have to add a disclaimer to the end of our podcast now. So every other podcast that we had that gave you three pieces of advice, that doesn't necessarily mean you have to follow him. Maybe you just trust Katie here and trust your gut.

[00:32:28] Christie: Yeah. See, there you go.

[00:32:30] Gary: Now, Katie, if anybody wants to learn more about you or about one 11 Group, where's the best place to find you?

[00:32:37] Katie: So you can go on our website, one 11 group.net. There is a direct link to my personal calendar. You can hop on for a three 30 minute call. I couldn't tell you the last time any single one of those went for 30 minutes. People normally yap for an hour half. 

Which is fantastic. I love, learning and meeting new people, so that's really cool.

Or you can set up a time to stop by our office in downtown Raleigh and see who we are and what that looks like. And we also. I think they're still doing it. I gotta ask the girls. But we have a really cool content special going on where we will actually come out to your place of business so you can get a feel for what it's like to work with us.

On set. We'll do a full professional photo shoot and videography session with you for two hours for $111 

[00:33:19] Gary: Oh, nice. 

[00:33:19] Christie: Then you have

a headshot. You have a headshot thing coming up, right? For an event coming up soon. Free headshot. Yeah. Plug that.

[00:33:26] Katie: We do. So it's April 23rd, I think it's 23rd. It's a Thursday.

[00:33:31] Christie: A link? Is there a link to register that we can

[00:33:33] Katie: yeah, I can send you guys the Eventbrite. It's also on my LinkedIn, but it's totally free. You register for your time, you show up. You'll get a gallery of two images. We'll send you the full gallery after should you choose to purchase additional prints, but totally free.

Tyson, my husband, who is our lead photographer, videographer, is phenomenal. He takes 

[00:33:51] Christie: Yeah. Don't let AI make your LinkedIn profile picture

[00:33:53] Gary: Yeah, I was just gonna say

[00:33:55] Christie: profile picture. Go do it. Meet people. The

[00:33:58] Katie: free. We'll have some fun, we'll have some fun things going on throughout the day but would love to meet you, shake your hand, learn about your business, and 

yeah,

[00:34:06] Gary: Yeah, don't use your in-car selfie from that one angle that everybody else uses, get a real headshot. 

[00:34:12] Christie: Yep. 

[00:34:12] Katie: I love 

[00:34:12] Gary: Katie, thank you very much for your time. Thank you for I guess you could say riffing with Christie back and forth about marketing and everything you can and can't do, you should and shouldn't do, and where the industry is right now. And for everybody else that wraps up this episode and we'll be seeing you next week.

[00:34:29] OUTRO: That wraps up this episode of the Biz Dev Podcast, and this time you get me, Scott Bailey. I'm the lead dev over here at Big Pixel, and I know what you're thinking. I thought David did all the work. Well, not exactly. We have an awesome team of people to back in both. Biz Dev is a production of Big Pixel, the US based provider of UX design strategy, and custom software.

This podcast is edited by Audio Wiz Matt McCracken and Christie Pronto marketing guru for Big Pixel. Want to connect? Shoot us an email at hello@thebigpixel.net. Or you can find out some Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X and LinkedIn.