Andrea Merrill's Triumph: From Adversity to Success as a Fractional CMO & The Secret to Making Money from Speaking Engagements

Speaker 1: 0:01

You're in the marketing world and you're looking for inspiration, or you're a business leader who wants to understand what good marketing looks like. You're busy. You don't have time to sit around listening to a rambling 3 hour podcast. We get it. This is the Remarkable Marketing Podcast, where we celebrate the marketing rock stars that deliver truly remarkable marketing, and you'll hear short interviews with marketing execs who share stories about the best marketing they've ever done, how it delivered a huge impact and how they overcame all the challenges to make it happen. If you aspire to be remarkable, you'll walk away with ideas on how to do truly epic marketing. Getting right to the content of what you need for busy professionals, this is the. Remarkable Marketing Podcast. Now your host, Eric Eden.

Speaker 3: 0:56

Welcome to the Remarkable Marketing Podcast. Our guest today is Andrea Merrill. She is the CEO of Virtually Adventurous, a boutique marketing agency. She served as a fractional CMO. She helps speakers with speaker monetization and the psychology behind marketing. She advertises that her firm can help their clients in creating empire building campaigns. So we're excited to talk to her today and hear a couple great stories from her. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2: 1:31

Thank you so much, eric, for having me, and I'm so excited to chat today.

Speaker 3: 1:37

Awesome. Well, maybe we should start with how you got into this. You've been doing this for a number of years, but you had shared with me a little bit about how you got into this. I thought that that would be interesting for our listeners to hear as a starting point.

Speaker 2: 1:51

Yeah, actually I call it a serendipitous opportunity, and many of you will not think that this is serendipitous at all. So around six years ago, I got diagnosed with Papaladena. Actually, I started having severe migraines and they couldn't figure out what was going on. I started going through a bunch of different testing seeing what was happening. Anyway, they took out my birth control as that last ditch effort and what happened was I got pregnant and little did we know during that time that I eventually got diagnosed with Papaladena pseudotumor cerebri. So what that means is I have too much fluid on my brain that pushes on my eyeballs. That causes me to have severe migraines, and this actually gets way worse when you are pregnant. So fast forward. I then had my appendix rupture at 20 weeks pregnant with my daughter and through that I wasn't able to work. I used to be a behavior and trauma therapist for all high profile cases here in Arizona. What happened is we eventually came home. I came home to the worst situation ever. Our home was being foreclosed on. Our HOA was actually auctioning off our home, which I didn't even know was a thing, and to make matters worse, our water got turned off during 120 plus degree weather here in Arizona. So if you're in Arizona and you know how hot it is, you can't be without water. And unfortunately we had this crappy red van at the time that had no AC, so I couldn't bring my new baby with me. I had PTSD from all of the traumatic events that happened during my pregnancy with her and that near death experience. But the water was in my name so I had to go. I cried all the way there, eric, like profusely, like I couldn't breathe, my chest was heavy, I couldn't figure out how we got to this place and I have no idea how, but I got the water turned back on and on the way home, in good Andrea fashion is we don't need a pity party, we don't need to cry about it. We can feel our feels and allow that to go through the emotions, but that's not what's going to transcend or even change my family's lives. So I started listening to a podcast on the way home and I thought, hey, why not start my own business? Yeah, I have always been an entrepreneur, but, as many entrepreneurs know, we tried and failed, tried and failed, and this time I was going to make it happen. So I got home, I built my website on my iPhone 8. Yes, my iPhone 8. And I then also created a logo on my crappy, crappy laptop that could barely function. There was no way I could even build a website on there and I started my business. And the first seven days in business I made $12,500. And I have been doing it ever since and I couldn't imagine doing anything else different.

Speaker 3: 5:31

Sometimes, when the chips are all down, that's when you have the success you really need right.

Speaker 2: 5:36

Yes, yeah, I had fire, right, like I had drive I had. There was no way I was going to let us lose our home that we worked so hard to get in the first place. I will be honest with you, we've claimed bankruptcy. So making it this far to owning a home with five children was huge and I wasn't willing to let it go. So what I was willing to do is take all my education that I've learned and everything around creativeness, around marketing, all the things that I have self-taught, as well as my degree, I have my masters of psychology and applied behavioral analysis, and you better believe I was going to make that work for me.

Speaker 3: 6:21

That's great. So let's talk about you've been doing now for a number of years this work with your agency as a fractional CMO and helping companies with everything from websites to marketing strategy, and you have a story about one of the clients that you worked with. Were you able to do something quite remarkable for them around their e-commerce strategy in the launch of a new product. Do you want to share that story?

Speaker 2: 6:48

Yes, I would love to. So I worked with an amazing. They're a small town pretty much you could call it mom and pop, right, but they were young. So, as many know, through COVID, we found new ways to work and one of theirs was furniture flipping and it was so cool. I loved what they did around furniture flipping and they were really setting the trajectory for a difference in this field. So I love working with industry leaders that are like, have a passion, have a way to really want to support others and help them grow. So what they had contacted me for is they wanted a amazing website that they could really bring people to. That also was psychology driven. They really loved my background and what I could bring. That was different than other designers and developers. So I came in with that intention around them, wanting to eventually sell their products, be able to grow all of the things right. Like many times, we start off that way, as we dug into their project, what had happened was they had an incredible course and I was working due diligently with them. I revamped their entire marketing. I set up their entire funnel strategy. We did their branding, copywriting, redevelop their entire website. So we're strategic for them and so that they would convert. Well, we got to a sticking point and they had their course out and I, honestly, I am a big supporter of helping my clients raise their prices and also say what is a market driven price right, like, what is the consumer going to be willing to buy? And they're very much in the mindset of, oh my gosh, like their furniture flipping, like they're probably buying a piece of, they're getting a free piece of furniture off, right? So they wanted to charge around $27 for their course and I was not having that and I was one of those that really had a pushback with them and we ended up talking for, you know, almost three hours of conversation back and forth. The reason that this conversation started was somebody had snuck through the funnel hole and paid $97. And they were like Andrea, what do we do? Do we give them back a partial refund for the $27? I'm like, why would you do that? You're already showing there's proof of concept, somebody will pay for it. That's what we need to do. We need to test that pricing. So I thought to the nail for them to keep that price, because they weren't going to go any higher and I didn't want them to go any lower. So we ended up agreeing upon their $97 offer. But we launched them and they ended up making $50,000 in three days of their launch. And this was phenomenal because when I was thinking you would have launched around $27. You would have easily made around maybe $15,000, which have gotten you your ROI back. But that's not what we're going for. We're going for greatness. I want people that work with me to make money. That is the point. I don't like wasting time, money or energy, so we really need to get that back. And what had come from that was they ended up landing a deal with Netflix. They got picked up by multiple different sponsorships. Their YouTube has exponentially went crazy. Their following is huge, and not only that, they're actually getting flown into in-person podcast recordings with their target people that they never expected to ever be able to speak in front of or be on their podcast or get these speaking engagements.

Speaker 3: 10:57

Well, that sounds like a empire building campaign to me. Quite remarkable, and one of the things that's remarkable about it is I've actually working for companies selling software. I've hired pricing strategy firms for huge sums of money like a quarter million dollars to advise on what our pricing strategy should be for subscriptions. So once you've been through that, you get a deeper appreciation for the value of getting advice on pricing strategy, and while it took you three hours to convince them, they probably got quite a great deal, because the science of pricing strategy and product marketing is actually pretty hard for people just to intuitively know. It's not something you normally learn in school, at university either. It's more of a school of business strategy that you learn from doing it in a corporate environment, and so I think you sharing with them some of the key psychological things about that in terms of if people have a willingness and ability to pay the $97 or the $27 makes all the difference in the world. I mean they got triple the result because of the right product marketing and pricing strategy advice. So that's pretty remarkable.

Speaker 2: 12:20

Yeah, it was really awesome that I could bring in that target analysis around behavior and psychology. That really goes into the strategy of this. It's not like I'm like oh, I just picked out some random number, let's run with this. It was really strategically thinking about who are the people are buying from you? Are they willing to do this? Like there's so much more involved, Like you said, Eric, like it was a pull right, but I was not willing to let them and I love how I say that I wasn't willing to let them let go of all the opportunities that were gonna come by. Just this price, right. Like, if we think about it, it came down to this pricing structure. We set everything else up perfectly and it was like this was the one thing that they were stuck on. And I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs are that way. They get so stuck on a number. But we need to remember what are all the other things, what are all the other components? What are the people even thinking? What are they feeling? What is the marketing happening? And that's where we set the trajectory around pricing.

Speaker 3: 13:34

So I always like to talk about what was hard about it, and I think you've mentioned that when you brought up the strategy to them, they were resistant in having to debate them for many, many hours about it. Many advisors firms such as yours would just take the easy approach and would just say, okay, if that's what the client wants, I'll just do what they say, and just sort of acquiesce. The problem with that is the result is so much less and then it's sort of a lose-lose for everybody involved. And so I think just having the conviction and the ability to persuade them to follow through with your advice it may seem simple to come to for people just to accept the strategy you give them, but it's really not simple when the client objects and is not going along with it, that sometimes the hardest thing about it is getting people to take your advice. It's sort of like the doctor tells you what to do and the patient never wants to take the doctor's advice. So getting the patient to take the advice is sometimes the hardest part about it, right?

Speaker 2: 14:37

Yes, exactly. Especially when there are two main decision makers and when we have more than one, it's already really hard. But then we had one saying one thing and one saying something completely different. So we had to I had to come at it from both ends to really bring us together as a team and letting them know. At the end of the day, I was hired to make them money right, like I wasn't hired to just come in and do all these fancy bells and whistles and cool stuff. At the end of the day, when we start creating funnel strategies let's say it did go off with like 15K they might be really excited, but would I be? No, I would actually probably be really sad because I didn't speak up and I didn't stand behind what I know, and I feel like a lot of experts tend to do that too Like that's the client, they're paying the money and I'm like. But when you go that extra mile and that's what I do I'm like the biggest cheerleader and supporter you will ever meet. But I'm always thinking about what is the longterm trajectory of this and what are you wanting to get out of this? So we have to think about those goals, and when I was thinking about their longterm goals that they've been telling me. I knew that a $27 offer for an entire course to teach people how to flip money into a multi-six figure business $27 is a low ticket offer. That's not putting skin in the game, so we have to also think about that. So I was willing to roll my sleeves out and go through that conversation and by the end, obviously they went with a 97, but we also came out with an entire launch strategy that made them really excited and we actually launched it on, oh goodness, st Patrick's Day, and boy did it go off without a hitch. It was so fun.

Speaker 3: 16:48

So when you talk about pricing strategy, the other thing I know that you do, that I'm fascinated by because I spent 10 years in the events space is speaker monetization, which is a different form of pricing strategy. I'm fascinated by this because I've launched this podcast and got into podcasting. I realized that a lot of the guests on podcasts there's no monetization there and from my experience at in-person events and hosting them and throwing, organizing conferences and attending them is I noticed that at in-person events half the speakers are free and half of them are paid and I always thought that that was interesting, that it's sort of a 50-50 thing, and I also spend a lot of time on the process of keynote speakers and hiring keynote speakers, which is, as it exists today in the world, largely a very manual, tedious process. That is frustrating, I think, for just about everybody involved. So I'm fascinated by what you're doing with speaker monetization. I'm wondering if you could share just a little bit about that.

Speaker 2: 18:02

So I came up with this concept speaker monetization strategist because I realized that there was a huge gap in the market around speakers. So, like you said, we have free speaking gigs, we have paid speaking gigs, but what I also noticed, a lot of them do not monetize from their stage, and when I say their stage, I mean this is in person or online. So, wherever you are speaking, you need to make sure that you're actually monetizing the event. And the reason that I saw that this was a gap is because I literally watched Amy Porterfield not sell from the stage, and I've actually spoken on a stage with her before and I was like Amy, what's going on Right? Like we have to make sure we are always even if you are high level, like Amy or you know, wherever you are at and you're speaking gigs, it is so important to monetize. A monetization means you are going to leave a lasting oppression on your audience. You're offering them a way to continue to learn from you and you're also offering them a way to teach them even more beyond their speaker presentation. So it has a lessened impact if you're only speaking for, let's say, 15 minutes to like an hour. We can only learn so much. So, by offering them and monetizing them, that means you're getting them into your funnel, into your pipeline and you are actually creating more revenue, more impact and more opportunities for you to grow. So, with speaker monetization, that builds your credibility, your authority, it builds your brand presence, it increases, like I said, your impact revenue community. And I think it's so important to remember that when you say that you're going to do a speaking gig, that you are giving people exactly what they want, like people are going to listen to me here and they're like where can I learn more? You know what a disservice it would be if we didn't give them the show notes, more information for them to grow and expand upon and learn more, because that is what speakers do. We don't just speak to speak, right, eric, like you're here to provide value, you're here to help your audience and you're here to help them grow. So if we are monetizing our gigs, we are literally helping them do the thing that we've been set out to do right, like speaking on a stage, and a lot of the time, speakers don't have the capacity to be able to create these strategies right. So if we need help and support, I remember I was also at an event in October there was. I spoke to many speakers while I was there and I was like, why are you here? And they're like I don't know, like I'm here to like, inspire and invoke change. And I'm like, well, how are you getting them back into your world? And they're like, oh, they can just follow me on Instagram. I don't know how many times I heard that from speakers. I actually had my best friend there and she monetized from this stage with me actually there in person, helping her strategically make money and create more opportunities and create a way for her to get her email list, which now she just got brought on by a huge company that she has loved and worked with for a really long time, and they brought her in as a community and an event manager. So it just goes to show, when you monetize, you're literally changing lives, but most of all, you're also changing your own life and a lot of speakers tend to forget that part.

Speaker 3: 21:58

And there's probably better and worse ways to do selling from the stage. Some people I've seen do it really well with a finesse that is amazing, and some people do it in a way that is not very inspiring.

Speaker 2: 22:14

No, I like to say this isn't QVC, like look at all my stuff and come by and call me. The way that I teach these strategies are very non-salesy. I have a client that actually gets paid $50,000 to speak on stage and he said the only reason he's never sold in over 20 years of speaking is because he felt salesy. And with the tactics that we've gotten together he no longer feels that way and finally feels like he's giving his audience exactly what they need. So sometimes it's just that mindset shift that they need and then, with the strategies that we put in place and completing the rest, it just makes perfect sense.

Speaker 3: 23:01

Yeah, for every episode of this podcast and I've done about 20 episodes now it's always worked out because I've picked great guests that they always have some resource for people who are interested in learning more on it, because there's only so much you can learn in a 15-minute, 20-minute podcast and people often want to go deeper and there's great resources out there that people are offering on every episode for people who want to know more Things that I, being a marketer for 25 years, didn't know and I was like I'm learning something on every episode. So I think that driving value like that for people from the stage is great. Well, thanks for being on the podcast today. Thanks for sharing these three amazing stories. I appreciate it. Thanks for the listeners' appreciated and we will share a link to where people can learn more if they're interested in learning how to do some of these things, including selling from the stage as well, with the episode.

Speaker 1: 24:06

You've been listening to the Remarkable Marketing Podcast. Our passion is to bring you the marketing rock stars who share stories about the best marketing they've done, how it delivered and how they handled all the challenges that go along with it. And we do it all in 10 minutes. We only ask two things. First, visit the RemarkableMarketingio website for more great insights. Second, this podcast has been brought to you by the Next Generation Social Networking App, workverse. You can download and use the Workverse app for free to build your professional brand, become a paid expert advisor and discover the best business events to attend. Visit the Workverse app today. See you next time on the Remarkable Marketing Podcast.