2358 - Enhancing Marketing and Operations Without Losing the Human Touch with Unlucky Umbrella Studio's Kasandra Murray

0:03Kasandra Murray:Welcome to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur. If you're committed to growing your business by serving audiences with generosity and real expertise, you're in the right place. This is a daily 15 minute show featuring leaders who believe real impact comes from generosity, not hype, which means as a listener, you're going to get the good stuff. In fact, we created podverified.com to give thoughtful leaders like you free tools to show up better on podcast stages, like this one. That includes your free PodVerified score, free PodVerified guest training, a free media kit builder, and so much more. It's the first ecosystem of its kind built by podcasters who genuinely want to help guests thrive and grow in podcasting.

0:46Kasandra Murray:Visit podverify.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it. with us right now it's cassandra murray cassandra you are the founder and ceo of unlucky umbrella studio very memorable name your website is unlucky umbrella.com we'll get into that and where that name came from cassandra it's great to have you yeah thank you for having me josh before we talk about your superpowers of course i always love hearing what you know high-level leaders are into kind of what they geek out on or you know hobbies interests maybe entertainment that you might be into lately uh what what have you been into lately so i am a nerd in all senses

1:33Josh Elledge:that nerd is uh i actually collect retro video games so it's something me and my partner are like really big into and specifically right now we're trying to complete a legend of zelda collection my dad grew up playing it and he kind of got me into it so like i'm obsessed with the series as well so we go to all sorts of like retro video game events and you will be surprised what old video games go for nowadays there are some worth millions of dollars if you see them in the

2:03Kasandra Murray:right place wow which so are you so for zelda does that mean you're starting with the original nes

2:09Josh Elledge:then yeah yeah actually i have all of the mainline console games now we just completed that portion of the collection so now we're going through all the handheld versions of the games and we're doing boxes so it has to be in box and then ideally we'll like upgrade so some of the box conditions aren't the best but eventually once we complete the collection we're going to upgrade the box condition so we'll sell the ones we have yes and that's challenging to get the original boxes

2:38Kasandra Murray:yes yeah mine is uh i i have my original atari cartridges from the 80s so atari has been one because i was a little little kid but i was just so obsessed with atari games my favorite game was my two favorite games were um adventure and pitfall and so um yeah thankfully um atari came out my old console's not very reliable so thankfully atari finally came out with a retro console that uses the original cartridges and you know has like you can now buy oh i didn't know

3:12Josh Elledge:that they had one that uses the original cartridges we actually have an atari in the box like that's a part of our collection is in the box like atari we do have like we have like a retro one but it doesn't work the release of it but it doesn't work as well as like the actual console does

3:29Kasandra Murray:I can't even imagine an Atari console in the box like what that would cost yeah that's that's

3:36Josh Elledge:incredible got it for a steal we got it in like a small mom and pop shop you know down south and they were just like take it off our hands like we don't want it okay happy to do so let me add in

3:48Kasandra Murray:your load exactly have you um so over COVID my son and I who's um my sons are like now in engineering in college, but we built a MAME arcade console and we've got like 30 ,000 games on it. It's really cool what you could do with that. And, and, you know, if you buy all the pieces yourself and you buy some of these kits or whatever, it's not that expensive, but it's so fun to invite friends over and like, okay, let's do all like the original, like eighties, nineties arcade games and stuff. So yeah, I can talk to you a long time about this. You can tell I'm equally, maybe not equally passionate, but I absolutely love the retro gaming scene.

4:27Kasandra Murray:It's so fun and really cool people, too, that just, you know, are really big on this, like restoring and archiving this history, which is, you know, part of so many of our, you know, our upbringings. But Cassandra, let's talk about Unlucky Umbrella. What do you do?

4:41Josh Elledge:So I am a, what I call a marketing and operations consultant. So I go into businesses and I not only look at ways to help them generate new leads, but to improve processes. So we don't just get the leads to your door. We walk them through the door. We create customers. Ideally, we create recurring business from that and referral programs from that. So we really look at the business holistically when it comes to the customer journey, not just the first part of the journey.

5:11Kasandra Murray:Well, why is that so important?

5:14Josh Elledge:So I think a lot of marketing firms only focus on that first portion of it. And when they do that, they're really just talking about, well, we got you a bunch of leads, like, because you're not converting it is not our problem. And I think that's where a lot of marketing firms fall short is that marketing firms should be involved in the process of getting those leads to convert. And they rely heavily on each other. I was talking to somebody yesterday, and you could have the best customer service experience and the best product, but if nobody knows you exist, your marketing side, then it doesn't matter.

5:49Josh Elledge:And vice versa, right? You could tout that you have the best customer service experience and the best product, but if your operations doesn't walk the walk, your operations is failing your marketing then. So that's why I think both parts need to be working together cohesively.

6:04Kasandra Murray:Well, okay. So what is working well, given what you just shared? What are some of the maybe actionable things that you typically see with a lot of business owners? You're like, yeah, a lot of people skip this or a lot of people don't really focus here. Can you give us some examples of a lot of times when you begin working with a client? What are some of the biggest targets that may have not been emphasized previously?

6:30Josh Elledge:So it's always processes. So SOPs, and they are, I would say, probably the least sexiest part about running a business. A lot of business owners, they understand the value of them. And a lot of them, like, I know that they're important. They just don't have time or whatever it is that's holding them back from getting into it. So what I've tried to encourage business owners to do is one, find an employee to write your SOPs if you can and make it more about progress over perfection. So a lot of times people are like, well, I don't have time in between doing stuff to write an SOP. And that's where I encourage them, write the SOP as you are in the process of doing whatever it is that you're doing.

7:12Josh Elledge:So documentation is a huge gap that I think a lot of businesses are missing right now to really improve that operations and in turn improve that customer experience. Yeah.

7:26Kasandra Murray:And I would imagine, Cassandra, that AI is a huge part of either what you are contending with, you know, from what else might be out in the market and hopefully improving and creating efficiencies and operations in particular.

7:43Josh Elledge:Yeah, yeah. AI honestly is, some people are advertising it as a replacement, but I think by the end of the day, it's going to end up being just a very useful tool for both marketing and the operations side. So on the marketing side, we were just talking before the interview how like you're being found via AI. So SEL is starting to kind of take a backseat to search engine and AI is starting to take over search results. So you're seeing a lot of changes into AI optimization for your websites and things like that. And that's on the marketing side. And then on the business side, AI is being used for things like you have AI agents who are answering initial interactions with customers or even some call agents.

8:30Josh Elledge:So you have AI call agents picking up phone calls for you, and that creates efficiencies within your business. One thing that I think business owners need to keep in mind, though, is that these things still need to be built out. They still need to be trained, just like an employee needs to be trained and making sure that you're not just implementing these things without taking that training into consideration. Yeah.

8:55Kasandra Murray:And I'm sure you have a few other warnings around where, you know, where AI can maybe be used in a way where, yeah, it's efficient, but I don't think your people are going to like it. I think, you know, at the end of the day, you know, nearly all businesses is human to human. And so we definitely don't want to miss that human touch. Where do you exercise caution in that regard?

9:22Josh Elledge:I think a lot of it in that initial customer interaction, there can there's some horror stories out there. A couple of months ago, there was a it was a car dealership or something they had implemented like an AI. chat bot on their website and somebody had negotiated with the chat bot to give them a car for free. So there are a lot of like pitfalls that can come with AI. So I think it's important that when you're building AI is to kind of come from it of like, okay, what can the AI do wrong? Or what, you know, potentially could the AI do wrong? And let's build around that to make sure that a human jumps in before that, you know, potential crisis happens essentially.

10:07Josh Elledge:And I know like I'm, you know, a little bit older, we're all from like a generation of you call in the robo callers, and you're just like, I just want a human, I just want to talk to a person that really impacts the customer experience. And in turn, that, you know, is going to affect referral business and repeat business. So I think like AI customer facing, it should be way more cautiously implemented, but AI on the backend can be implemented a little bit more experimentally. So you can try to find ways to what I call like create quality of life improvements for your employees. So implementing things that make their jobs easier on the day to day.

10:49Yeah.

10:50Kasandra Murray:Cassandra, what would be an example of someone that you've worked with and kind of the before and after that maybe they were really struggling with something. And what I'm hoping is that you can maybe share, again, very tactically what you implemented and what those net results were as a result of that implementation. And particularly, you know, what I'm thinking about, because it seems like your strong point is, you know, it's like the operational support and systems behind the marketing, which, again, And I agree. I think a lot of people are just like, all right, what needs to get done? All right, let's go do it.

11:29Kasandra Murray:And, you know, it's probably not real efficient. We're probably way overpaying for things like, you know, maybe creative and, you know, all the scheduling and stuff. And I agree. I think that there's probably a lot of room to make this stuff just way more efficiency, bring down our operation costs and just really increase the quality, the output, which then results in more sales and more engagements. right?

11:54Josh Elledge:Yeah, it's funny because I actually like I have an image and it's like an infinity loop is how I define the, you know, marketing operations. But a really good story, this is my favorite story to tell is I had a customer that came to me and they were like, we want to double like our marketing spend. And I said, before we do that, let me get into your numbers and see what your marketing is actually doing for them. And when I got into it, I saw that they were spending about $40 ,000 on magazine advertisements, which was, it was a highly targeted market. It was exactly the people they wanted to be in front of.

12:25Josh Elledge:And they had call data. So I started to listen to that call data and review that call data. And it turned out they weren't picking up 50 % of their calls from that magazine ad. So I went back to them and I said, listen, we can spend, you know, all the marketing budget until you're blue in the face. But if you don't pick up the calls, it's not going to make a difference. You're still going to feel like you're not getting enough leads. So what I I spoke, well, after we talked, we realized we needed somebody to be able to pick up the phone for them 24 seven. Now, obviously hiring a full-time employee or multiple employees to do that isn't very cost effective.

12:58Josh Elledge:So I started researching call centers for them, specifically call centers in the United States because they wanted to make sure that they were, you know, people in the United States picking up the phone for them. And I interviewed five different call centers. I found one that was an excellent fit for them. I helped implement the script for them. I worked with the call center to get everything set up. I did onboarding training with the employees who needed to interact with the call center. And then I continued to manage the call center. So I still manage that call center for them today. And this particular client, they went from a$1.6 million company to a$3.6 million company in a year.

13:37Josh Elledge:And we feel that that one change made a huge impact on their ability to take on more leads and get more leads scheduled, more leads booked and then more leads closed essentially.

13:51Kasandra Murray:Well, awesome. All right. So to our friend that's been listening to our conversation here, Cassandra, I don't know if you have any resources or kind of next steps and like how you generally like to engage with folks online. And again, it may be appropriate that they might be ready for a conversation. You mind sharing maybe what's next for them or what you'd recommend?

14:09Josh Elledge:Yeah. So I do have a blog and I'm constantly updating that blog with useful and practical information that can be implemented on the daily. But if you're looking to kind of go a little bit deeper, or you need someone to help with execution, you can go to our website and engage with us there by, you know, filling out a form. And we do a one hour audit, essentially. And those audits typically do come with action items. So you can either choose to do those action items yourself, or you can have us help you execute those action items.

14:43Kasandra Murray:All right. And now your website is unluckyumbrella.com. Cassandra Murray, again, you're the founder and CEO. Thank you so much for the great conversation.

14:54Josh Elledge:Yeah, thank you for having me.

14:58Kasandra Murray:Thanks for listening to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. If your goal is to grow your business, increase revenue, and build authority without gimmicks, this show is designed for you. Each episode gives you practical insight from leaders who have turned trust and credibility into real business results. If you value short, thoughtful conversations that respect your time, make sure you're subscribed. We publish daily 15-minute episodes focused on growth that actually compounds. And if you're interested in being a guest or you want to turn podcast appearances into measurable business growth, visit podverified.com.

15:34Kasandra Murray:You can start for free with your pod verified score, along with free podcast guest training and a free media kit builder. These tools are built to help you get booked on better shows, deliver stronger interviews and convert audience trust into revenue. No more desperate sales. You truly can enjoy all the business you like by generously sharing your wisdom. Everything we offer is built by podcasters for guests with a focus on trust, organic growth, and long-term business success. Thanks again for spending your time with us. I'll see you next time.