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She walked away from negotiating $10 million contracts and everyone thought she was “absolutely insane.” Now she’s the secret weapon behind our agency’s transformation from high team churn to above-average retention in just one year.

In this behind-the-scenes conversation, Jenn Goodall reveals what really happens when you combine corporate systems with entrepreneurial vision, why some people actually thrive with accountability over freedom, and the leadership strategies that make teams want to stay.

Key Takeaways:

• Why we’re serving fewer clients but making more money—the counterintuitive decision that doubled our depth and retention (and why most agencies get this backwards)
• The “business hat” trick for difficult conversations—how asking one simple question before giving feedback completely changes how people receive criticism
• What separates clients who succeed from those who struggle—the proven offer test, the trust factor, and the emotional connection most people completely miss

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More ways Embodied Marketing can support you:

If you’re ready to hand off your entire marketing strategy (from funnels to ads to copy) and finally get the expert team you can trust, apply here and let’s talk: helpmystrategy.com

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Your reviews and feedback will not only help us continue to deliver great, helpful content, but it will also help us reach even more amazing entrepreneurs just like you.

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh: In today’s episode, I am joined by Jenn Goodall. She is head of our done for you team, director of operations.

Jenn Goodall: Everyone thought it was absolutely insane. They’re like, that’s ridiculous. Nobody walks away from a career like that. I’m like, ’cause I don’t want to do it anymore. My superpower is being able to predict and see around corners.

Emily Hirsh: We dove deep into leadership systems operations and really shared some behind the scenes moves and shifts that we’re making in our company.

Jenn Goodall: I mean, everybody has skills that are hidden too, right? And if they think like, well, my job is only this and so I’m just gonna stay here, then it limits the growth of the company.

They

Emily Hirsh: ask us our ideas, we give them our ideas, and then they actually use them.

Jenn Goodall: Super excited for where we’re headed and. So many cool ideas that we wanna bring to the client experience. So I’m really excited to bring all that stuff to life ’cause it’s gonna be next level.

Emily Hirsh: I know you’re gonna get so much value out of hearing the behind the scenes and getting to listen in on Jen’s incredible wisdom.

Embodied CEOs don’t chase trends. They pave the way they lead from within. Move by purpose, unshaken by noise. When you are the source, you do not need permission. Hello. Well welcome to the podcast Jen. Thank you for having me. I am so excited for this. Finally. It’s only been a year

Jenn Goodall: since we’ve been trying

Emily Hirsh: to make this

Jenn Goodall: happen.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah, right. And you are here in person. So Jen is head of our done for you head of the ads team and like she said, joined my team a year ago and I’m, I’m really excited to dive into this because Jen has a lot of corporate background and I’ve shared this with various people, you know, in connections in my life of like.

I really needed someone who had the corporate background to come in and operations, especially on the agency because it’s something that I, I obviously lack, and I think a lot of solo entrepreneurs lack, like when you started your business that way and you never really had corporate experience. And while there’s a lot of downside to corporate, there’s also a lot of like really great systems and structure that they have.

So you have brought so much value to the company. With your background, let’s start a little bit with your story. Sure. Your, your business that you had before and

Jenn Goodall: Yeah. So I went to university for economics and business, and then from there ended up working in a chocolate company. I worked there for a couple years and then moved to a.

Different chocolate company. So I was in the, you know, sweet chocolate and candy goodness for probably about 15 years. But that was a really cool experience. I started off in analytics category management, working with basically like the biggest retailers across the country, helping them design their stores.

Like where does, where, where should we put the chocolate so that people buy more of it, and which brands should we put on what shelf and you know, all the analytics and data. And so from there I ended up in want to get into sales. And I ended up moving up through the company and was a sales director, which was a really cool experience.

It’s funny ’cause my boss at the time was like, you’ll never get paid enough to manage people. Are you sure you’re ready for this? And I was like, yes, I need, I want this ’cause of course I wanna progress my career. But yeah, he was so funny. He is like, are you sure? ’cause yeah, dealing with people is like a whole other ball game, isn’t it?

So anyway, yeah, sales director and, but I, so I called on national accounts, sold in, you know, the products and stuff. But then I also managed a sales capabilities team. So I actually built it from the ground up. We didn’t have that at, I was working for Hershey. We didn’t have that at the time. So I developed that and it included like the consumer and shopper insights shopper in-store shopper experience, which was like building all the displays and like the cardboard kind of.

PDF, or what do you call ’em? Like, I can’t even remember. It’s been five years since I’ve been there, so I forget all the language, but just basically like cardboard displays and stuff. And then we had sales planning, so a lot of financial planning, a lot of like marketing, kind of promotional planning, that kind of thing.

And there was another, oh, go to market. So. How to bring a new product to market, how to ramp up the distribution, all of that. So planning at the retail level. So that was what I, my team and I did, which was such cool experience. And then, so when I brought that here, that was stuff that I was able to, um, that experience bring in to our internal planning, which was fun, right?

Yeah. Because I came in, I was like, oh, there’s all these opportunities for us to get better at planning. So that’s part of what I brought in. And then, so I, in 2019, I stepped away from that career after 12 years with Hershey. It was kind of like a pivotal decision moment. They were like. We, my boss left and he was the VP of sales and they said, you know, are you interested in this role?

If so, we’ll develop you into it. And at that moment I was just like, you know what? I don’t want, I don’t want that. Like, ’cause it was so much travel, being away from home. As a woman, I feel like we unfortunately have to make the decision, you know, are we gonna be, we’re gonna have a family or are we gonna do this career that basically keeps us away from home 50% of the time.

And yes, you could do both, but I just didn’t wanna be that kind of mom and I don’t judge anybody for that of course. But for me, it just didn’t feel right and I, so I chose. The family and I walked away from that career. Everyone thought it was absolutely insane. They’re like, that’s ridiculous. Nobody walks away from a career like that.

Like, why would you do that? And I’m like, because I don’t want to do it anymore and I wanna have a family. So that’s when I went on my own. At that time I had my own business that I was kind of working in the background, but I had never really given it like a good go. And I was like, I can do this. So I, you know, put my, all into my business and essentially it was two things.

One, it was, you know, network marketing. I was growing a team and, and had grown like a pretty substantial business. We did, you know, I grew it to about 2 million a year from the ground up. Myself. Like that was a pretty big accomplishment. ’cause now looking back, I’m like, I have no idea how I did that. ’cause so few people get any level of success in that business.

So I was like, that’s pretty cool. And then I also started selling digital products, creating my own funnels, running my own ads. And I was really interested in all of that. And I was learning, taking all the courses, listening to podcasts. That’s how I came across you. I started listening to your podcast.

You helped me a lot with just, you know, wrapping my head around the marketing and how to do it all. And I created a pretty successful business. And then I had my daughter after, you know, a long journey of fertility stuff, which is like a whole other story, but it was a really tough go for me just. I don’t know.

I’m like such an independent person, hardworking, and I felt like when I became a mom, I wanted it so bad, but I didn’t realize how much of myself and my independence I would lose. And so it, it kind of threw me for a loop. My business kind of suffered as a result. It was a decision that I made. I was okay with it, but then at some point I was like, okay, I need to figure out what I’m doing.

So I guess that was my midlife crisis came a little early, but then I was like, you know what? I, I need to get outta the house. Or not even that, but like, I need to like do something that involves a team again. Like I missed the camaraderie of a team. And yeah. So I just thought, I’m gonna get back into work.

And then I came across, I think I came across one of your posts, maybe it was an email and a post on your Instagram, and I was like, woo. This sounds perfect. And yeah, the rest is history, so here I am.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. That’s so cool. I love doing this ’cause I didn’t know that you had that struggle when you became a mom and I very similarly felt the same way, like very independent, had full freedom and autonomy over my time and like there’s nothing that can prepare you.

No. Like, no one could have prepared me for what it was really like to then have a, a baby depend on me every minute of the day overnight it fell. It’s

Jenn Goodall: very like a lot, I’ve heard a lot of moms, they’re like, oh, I love the baby phase. And I’m like, it, it was so hard for me. I, I just, I didn’t know what to do with it because I was.

So independent and I just could do whatever I wanted before, and then I had no freedom. And I remember just getting so overwhelmed, like, just take this baby for half an hour, please. Like, and my husband would be like, relax, what’s the big deal? But he didn’t have another human attached to him 24 7, you know, so he couldn’t possibly have understood.

But yeah, it was really hard. That first 18 months was a lot. Yeah.

Emily Hirsh: For me too. Yeah. I, I share that. And you’re right, not everybody feels that way. Some people, I think when you are very like ambitious and driven and, you know, for me, probably like was running from something for a long time, right? Yeah. Like making myself really busy.

And then when I couldn’t anymore, I had to like actually be with myself in the stillness. Yeah. And in the like nothing. And that was. Really hard. So I feel like people who either don’t have that or heal that before they have kids, I think have an easier time. But when you are, I mean, I was like so productive in a day, like nonstop.

And then to have once having the baby, I was like, oh my gosh, I don’t actually wanna do this. Of course I loved my kid, but I was like, this sucks.

Jenn Goodall: I think to that point, like you either have it in you or you don’t to be some, like for me, it’s just part of who I am to be productive and to create and to achieve.

Right. And I think you’re exactly the same way, if you know from what I understand. Right. So it’s like you’re, if you’re that kind of person to be still and to not be producing some kind of result or achievement feels like you’re missing out. Mm-hmm. And so. I could never have been like a stay at home mom for a longer period of time than I was.

Emily Hirsh: So you did it for what, 18 months or longer?

Jenn Goodall: I got a, like a nanny that came in for a few hours a day. And so like first nap nanny would do the middle three hours, then second nap. So I ended up with a good chunk of like six or seven hours where I could work on my business. So that’s where I sort of started.

I think she was about a year old at that point, but that was a long year. I was like, I need to get back at it. Yeah, yeah. But by that time I kind of had lost some momentum in my business and then it just, I think marketing also shifted a lot. And so I was trying to catch up and I just felt like it was hard, you know?

And then I was like, you know what? Maybe I just wanna work for someone else again. ’cause another thing I discovered about myself, which was really interesting, when I was working in corporate, I’m like, I have this innate like motivation, like I’ll crush it if I do my own thing. And I used to think to myself, imagine how.

Big, I could create like a business, how amazing I could do if I just had my own thing and I put my time into that instead of working for someone else. But once I was left to my own devices, there were a lot of Netflix and chill moments and I was like, what’s wrong with me? Like, why can’t I find the motivation?

And I don’t know it. It’s just something about having the accountability of just knowing that you, you have to deliver for a team or to a goal or to a boss. Right. And for me, I thrive in that environment and I learned that about myself and now I know. So

Emily Hirsh: interesting. I wonder if, like, did you, when you had your business, did you feel like you didn’t know what to work?

Like there was like so much you didn’t know what to work on? Yeah. So you kind of were like, all right, I just won’t do anything right now.

Jenn Goodall: I think it was hard and I would make decisions, but I, I didn’t know if it was the right one. And I felt like if I had somebody who was like, no, you just need to do this, then you need to do that, then you need to do this in this order.

And then like, tr help me troubleshoot when I come up across some speed bump. And without that, there’s infinite number of decisions you can make. And it’s like, well, it’s gonna take me a long time to actually build this out. I don’t know if it’s the right thing. So I would do it. And then I kept hitting a wall, and then I was like, what the heck?

Like I, I basically needed. Yeah, a marketing mentor, somebody to help guide me, but I didn’t want to invest in that ’cause it, you know, it would be pretty costly. So I just, I just kept running up against the wall and I mean, a lot of things definitely worked, but I just felt like it shouldn’t be this hard, you know, it’s just something was, there was a gap and I just, I just was like, okay, this is not for me.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. And I mean, we have a handful of people on our team who have similar stories of having, having their own business and it’s lonely and there’s a lot of pressure and, you know, you have to make those decisions and know what to do next. And like that doesn’t stop. And then they come onto our team and we love those people.

Like,

Jenn Goodall: yeah. Yeah. And it’s hard being the only one in your business. Like you’re everything, you know, you’re the sales person, you’re the marketing person, you’re the social media manager, you’re the. Bookkeeper, you’re the, like, everything, you’re the funnel tech, you’re the ads manager. Like, it’s a lot. And to be really good at all of those things, you know, it’s a, it’s a huge, it’s, I mean, it’s almost

Emily Hirsh: impossible to be really good.

You, you, yeah. You try your best and until you can hopefully hire the, the help. Yeah. But it’s a lot. Yeah.

Jenn Goodall: And honestly, had I come across your program during that time, a hundred percent, I would’ve been like, thank goodness I need this so bad. Because Yeah. It’s just, it’s too hard to do it on.

Emily Hirsh: So what would you say is like your, your biggest superpowers, your strengths?

So when you, when you look back in corporate, like you were very successful, obviously. Mm-hmm.

Jenn Goodall: At your,

Emily Hirsh: your job at Hershey and before. Yeah. What are your strengths?

Jenn Goodall: My superpower is being able to predict and see around corners. I can start to sense like, okay, something’s coming and I think this is gonna be a problem and we need to put a plan in place to, to avoid this.

So yeah, just like predicting, projecting future potential issues and then putting plans in place to, to avoid having to deal with those things. I think that’s a superpower for sure. One thing I just, you know, I got really good at, I wouldn’t say I love doing it, but getting in front of the customer, which you know, was always a big retailer and for some reason they were, they were always like really kinda.

They had this persona, they were like, mean, and they had to put that on right. To try to make you nervous. ’cause we were negotiating mul, multimillion dollar contracts in meetings. And it was, it was terrifying. I would get so nervous going in, often my boss would be there and like, you know, you’re, he’s watching like, don’t screw it up, Jen.

And if I screwed it up, it was like, then I had to go back and tell my team and my, the CEO that I didn’t close this $10 million program. Wow. Wow. And, and it was like, really press, like a lot of pressure. But I would go in and I would just sit there and for, I would just get, I don’t know if it was adrenaline or what it was, but I would just get in there and be like, okay.

And I would deliver the message. I would. Be able to position it in a way that made sense for them and us and be able to pivot and, you know, always be on my toes. ’cause they would throw things at you. One time somebody actually like slammed their fist on the table and I was like, oh, you know, but like, they’re aggressive.

But that taught me that, that basically I could go into any situation and be, you know, quick with solutions. So for example, now when, you know, when we’re talking to clients, if something didn’t work, like if, if a launch didn’t work or a funnel is not. Working the way that we had envisioned, I, I can very quickly be like, okay, here’s what we need to do next, and like, pivot, here’s the strategy.

And I think that is super valuable.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah.

Jenn Goodall: In, in the current, you know?

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. That’s role that I’m a huge strength. And, and that takes, I mean, you have to Yeah. Being able to like, pivot on the fly and know, and, you know, things evolve so fast and Yeah. Yeah. That’s,

Jenn Goodall: and the client wants to know that you’re confident, right?

So if it, if you’re like, hmm. I don’t know. Let me think about that. I’m not sure what we would do next. Then they’re going, Ooh, I’m paying you a lot of money for this, you know? But if you can come in and go, oh yeah, here’s what we’re doing next. This is gonna work. We’ve looked at the data, here’s what it’s telling us.

We’re gonna pivot to this. And they’re like, great. That’s amazing. Love it. And often I, I, you know, they just go, yeah, I’m, I’m in. Like, whatever you, you feel is best. ’cause I think they can sense that confidence and Yeah. So it, it works well.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. And you have the strategy background too, of like Yeah. Your own business and all of that.

To, to bring, so when you came on the team and after a little bit, like when we went into January, we did a lot of kind of overhauling all of those. Mm-hmm. Like we sat down and looked at our values. We looked at like where we’re going. We did the traction kind of model, and you brought that and then created kind of projections for us.

Let’s talk about that a little bit, like what we did, but also I’m curious in a sense of like. You’ve got the, the corporate background and the big company background, and then our company’s relat small, and our clients sometimes have even smaller companies, like, where’s the gaps that you see that entrepreneurs are missing when you blend those two?

Jenn Goodall: I think we spent a ton of time in the corporate world planning, and so when I came in I was like, okay, you know, I think it’s gonna be really beneficial to have a solid plan and then work. You know, we put in a a in place a weekly operations meeting where the various people come together and we talk through, okay, here’s what’s happening in this department.

Here’s what’s happening in that department. Here’s the bottlenecks, here’s the the biggest challenges, and like keeping everybody in the loop and then making those big decisions and keeping things moving forward. So I think having a plan and a goal. Was a big, was a big thing. And I know you guys had done that before, but I think just, yeah, not to the level though, elevating it.

And

Emily Hirsh: to be honest, we kind of like fell off of it like I used to have. Mm-hmm. More of like annual, quarterly, monthly. And then I think we got into a place where, I don’t know, we were just more like, yeah, we had the plans, but it was not as structured.

Jenn Goodall: I think as entrepreneurs we tend to do that. Like I fell into the same trap, right?

We would always get reminded like, don’t forget to plan. Make sure you have your goals. And I remember thinking like, ah, who cares if I have a goal? Like, it’s not, it’s just a number on a paper, like it doesn’t mean anything. But I think that’s a mistake. I think you need to make it mean something and you need to hold yourself accountable to actually doing the things that will deliver that.

So there’s the goal, but then you break it down and you’re like, okay, well, so we, we took our, we we did a tenure. Vision. We did a three year goal and then we said, here’s our one year goal. And then from there it was quarters. And then from there it was months. And then we even broke it down into weeks. And we had have the tracker for every week.

Are we on track? Right. And that’s, I think a big piece for entrepreneurs is you have to have the big picture goal, but you gotta break it down into the actions that are gonna get you there. Otherwise it’s just a number on the page. So I think that was a big thing that we did. And then, so we’ve got our, our weekly tracker, we’ve got our monthly tracker, it rolls up to the quarters, are we hitting the quarters?

And then we broke it down, like how many clients are we gonna have? What’s the revenue, what’s the, you know, all the things. And then from there we even took it a step further and went, okay, now what marketing plans and promotional calendar is gonna line up with that to make sure we deliver it? And then the events and all the things, right.

So it was very intentional and I think that’s a really. Important thing that needs to happen.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. And then, and we brought the team in on it too. And we do the, yeah, what do we call ’em? The

Jenn Goodall: town halls. Town halls, yeah. That’s a corporate thing. Town halls. Yeah. Quarter two town halls. But, but for me, that was a big thing that I, I wanted to bring too, was like really around the culture of it.

’cause going from working in person for my career to now it’s remote, and I was like, oh, how do we, how do we get people to buy into the vision? How do we get people to feel a sense of like, I’m part of something, I’m building this. We’re, I’m part of this team, I’m part of this family. And there’s a bigger goal here, and I don’t know if everybody feels this way, but for me personally, it’s, this isn’t like a job.

It’s, yes, I get a paycheck, it’s nice to have that, I need that for my family and whatever. But it’s bigger than that. It’s, it’s about having. Something I’m building towards an an accomplishment, something to feel proud of. It goes back to that you know who I am, right? Like I have to be achieving and.

Building something bigger, making an impact, otherwise it’s, doesn’t feel worth it, you know?

Emily Hirsh: Right. That purpose. And you’ve definitely brought the team more into like, here’s where we’re going.

Jenn Goodall: Mm-hmm.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. Here’s the conversations the leadership team is having. And I think it’s easy for myself and entrepreneurs.

It’s like, I think about this stuff all day, right? Like where we’re going and the ideas, but I don’t always share it.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah. It doesn’t connect necessarily. And I think that’s the part where, how do we pull everybody in and make sure that they not only know that there’s a bigger plan, but they feel a sense of ownership and accountability to being part of making it happen.

And I, I mean, you know, over the last year there’s been a lot of feedback where they’re like, yeah, I’m excited. I, I get it. I see where we’re going and I’m excited to be here. And I, I, you know, we’ve seen the, the employee retention. Be impacted in such a positive way. And I think that that’s because, you know, they feel a sense of loyalty and like they’re part of that, that bigger picture.

So

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. Yeah. Which is important. Everything’s so, so important. And for me, like having someone in the company to really spearhead that is, is critical because it doesn’t, I don’t know, it doesn’t come natural to me unless I were to put a lot of energy into it. But I feel like I’m, I’m always like in the content creation and the the visionary role that I don’t pause and do that, and it’s like, oh, you can’t read my mind, right?

Like, this is where we’re going.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah. No, I think it was really smart to, to. Be able to, not everybody, not every CEO is gonna look and go, okay, what am I really good at and where, where are my opportunities or gaps? And then I wanna bring somebody in who’s good at the other stuff. So doing that I think is, is a really good move.

’cause then yeah, somebody else can bring that experience. The only way you get that experience is by doing so. You know, for me, I learned it in my career and I, I was able to bring it and it, it now feels easy for me to, to bring that stuff. And

Emily Hirsh: you’re naturally good at it. Like, I think you naturally think in a, in a very like, operational way.

Yeah. And there’s been other things where you’ve, we’ve had, okay, here’s a, you know, a struggle that we have and then you’ve come up with the kind of creative system mm-hmm. Or a solution that we should implement, which takes like depth. I think that’s another thing that I think you’re really good at is, is digging into a project with depth.

Mm-hmm. Whereas. For me, I like minimum effective and pass it on. And so I can keep, you know, building.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah. I’m not good at minimum. Yeah. I’m like, I’m too much of a perfectionist sometimes where I have to like stop myself and go, okay, the color doesn’t matter. The, you know, the font doesn’t matter. Like stop, you know?

So I have to stop myself to try to get myself to just 80 20 rule. ’cause otherwise I drown in the details. So that’s a bit of a opportunity for me. It always has been. That’s why we’re a good pair though. Yeah. Because I’m like, I’ll

Emily Hirsh: never drown in the details. Like

Jenn Goodall: I never looked at the details. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. Balance each other out.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. And so you manage a lot of our team, I mean our done for you team is the biggest side of the company. What are some like leadership, team building, team culture, I guess, thoughts, tips that you’d have for, for people?

Jenn Goodall: I think I. I think he said this the other day, like people literally are walking around with a sign on their forehead or you know, around their neck that says, I want to be seen.

And it’s true, like most people, well I would say if you ask a group of people, do you like to be recognized, half of them will say yes, and half of them will be like,

Emily Hirsh: oh, I don’t

Jenn Goodall: like it. Really, like, I like to be in the background. But really they like it. They just don’t wanna necessarily be put on stage and like have to be the center of attention.

But being recognized is such a big thing. And it doesn’t have to be a big flashy thing, but just, just saying like, Hey, I see you. I appreciate you. You know, that kind of thing is it goes so far doing little tiny things for people just so that they know. Like they just wanna know that. That you understand how hard they’re working or you know that they’re going above and beyond.

So just like, Hey, here’s, I was somewhere that used to just like give us a Starbucks gift card or something. And it wasn’t, it’s like, oh, it was $25. Like, but it wasn’t about that. It was just like, I see you, I appreciate you, and it’s just little things like that can go such a long way. Another thing is getting time.

So my boss taught me, he was like my mentor for about eight years at Hershey and I learned so much about leadership from him. He used to read the leadership books and like really practice this stuff, but one of the things was a weekly one-on-one. And, you know, of course I, I haven’t had the time or the capacity to do that to the level that I wanted to coming in.

’cause the team was quite big and there was only one of me. So I did it. I, you know, I do it with my core folks, but not everybody, unfortunately. But having a weekly one-on-one, where the first 10 minutes you do a quick, like, here’s, here’s what, like a quick agenda update. But then you say, what do you want to talk about?

And you, you give them the space and it, it’s whatever they wanna talk about. And it can literally be anything like, you wanna talk about what you did this weekend? Great. You wanna talk about a project that you’re struggling with, you need help or a client or whatever. Fine. Like it’s your time. And I think that was a really, really good learning from him and something that just builds connection.

And I think having, I was gonna say, it’s just connection.

Emily Hirsh: Having

Jenn Goodall: connection, building trust with your team and just being a human, you know, and, and letting them know, like, I struggle too. I think vulnerability is a big thing. There is a fine line when you’re managing a team because you don’t want to become too close to them, where you lose the ability to give them feedback when it’s needed and to, you know, help them continue to, to build their skills through that coaching and mentorship and feedback, which can be hard, but I learned a little trick that I, I kind of kept in my back pocket, which was like, okay, can I put my business hat on for a minute?

And they go, yeah, yeah. So I’m basically asking permission to like, go into business mode and then I’ll give them the feedback and then I’m like, okay. Take the business hat off, like we can go back to normal. But I like that because I ask permission to give them feedback. ’cause people sometimes aren’t in a good, the place for it.

And I mean I’ve rarely had someone say like, no, but sometimes the person will say, you know what, can we just do that a little later? Like, I’m in a weird spot right now. I’m like, yep, no problem. Because someone has to be in, in the place to actually accept the feedback. They have to be in the right mindset to receive it.

Yeah. So, so yeah, recognition is big one-on-one meetings and then having like a team connection, which we do such a great job with. We have our huddles, they’re short and sweet, but it keeps that remote team connected and we have some fun, right? We ask questions or we do like some silly fun activities and everybody laughs and you get to know people’s personalities and I think that’s really fun.

So.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. And that’s something where we talked about yesterday. ’cause it’s, it’s challenging with a remote. Like there’s not this in person. You just cannot replicate through Zoom. But you can do your best at it. And I think that, yeah, that connection, the laughing the, the people, that’s what, that’s what it’s really about.

And like to feel, and also I think as you were saying, like to feel seen it’s seen on what they’re doing, but also heard on their opinions. Yeah. And like, this is what I think we could do better, or this is what’s not working and being a part of those solutions. Mm-hmm. And ideas.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good point.

Making sure that they are able to bring ideas. The other thing too is, you know, a team can tend to get kind of stuck in the weeds and they become like tasked. Lists check. They check things off that list, right? And they get just stuck in the details and they, it, you know, how do you bring them up and out sometimes to get them to think bigger?

And I mean, everybody has skills that are hidden too, right? And if they think like, well, my job is only this and so I’m just gonna stay here, then it limits the growth of the company because like, they might have ideas that they could share. So you have to give them a platform to do that. And I think those town halls are a great place to do that.

So inviting them to provide their feedback and, and bring ideas. We’ve added in our AI acceleration meetings. Right. So how are you guys utilizing AI in your role? What cool tools have you come across? You know what? Result have you created? And so many cool ideas come outta that. And I’m like, oh, I didn’t even know that that was a tool, you know, or I, I didn’t think of that application.

Right. And so, so much learning can come from sharing that way. But yeah, giving them the platform maybe in, you know, the group, the weekly group team meetings as well. It’s like, tell me what’s working. I love to do that. Like, guys, this is open forum. I want to hear from you. I don’t be shy, no judgment. I want to hear what’s working, what’s not, what do you think we could be doing differently?

What could we do better? And, and they’ll tell you if, if they feel comfortable to do that. So yeah, I think that’s important.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah, it, it’s like that is like the key is that like be seen and be heard and be a part of something. At the last retreat I held. In Austin, we went to this new like Mineral Springs place and literally every employee there was like incredible, like they were like, how was your experience?

Like what could we be doing better? And just so friendly, so excited to be there. It was just like a mineral springs, right? Like these people working the like front desk in the pool are probably getting paid $20 an hour, 20, you know? I don’t know, not a lot, but it was so profound that I literally asked like three of them, like.

Why do you love it here so much? Yeah. You know, and that’s all their answers, like every time, because they’re building it, so it’s like it’s brand new, just open and they’re adding and it’s like this special spot. ’cause I guess it’s like the only mineral springs in Texas. So they’re like, every time we go away for the weekend and come back, like something else is being added and they’re listening to us and they’re, yeah, that’s cool.

You know, adding things and I mean, it was like Morgan was there, but she’s like, I’m gonna go ask the ceo. Yeah. Like, what are you doing? But I think it’s literally that it’s like they see it growing, like it’s not stagnant. It’s actually something special. Probably the people who come there are like, this is amazing.

This is so cool. And they feel like they are a part of it.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah.

Emily Hirsh: And then he was like, you know, they ask us our ideas, we give them our ideas, and then they actually use them.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah. So they’re making an impact. That’s it. Like people just need to know. That they’re contributing to something. I mean, what is life really about?

It’s about connection, relationships, and making a contribution, building things. So, yeah, even if it’s not your own thing, you still wanna be doing that. Like, not everybody has it in them to be an entrepreneur. So most people in this world work for somebody else. So yeah, you have to give people this space to feel like they’re contributing and, and building something.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. And, and I can’t emphasize enough like putting As, as the CEO, as an entrepreneur, putting the energy into that because, I mean, our team is incredible. Like what, what we, what we can do for clients and the impact that we can have. It is so far beyond me. 10% of what we do in a day. I couldn’t do, like, I could get us 10% of the way there.

The team does the rest of the 90%. And so any amount of energy that we put into team, both like the new team members we bring in and the talent that we search for, but also the culture of the existing team pays off. Mm-hmm. More than anything else. Yeah, totally. Because marketing is definitely important, but then it’s like then keeping our clients and serving our clients is one of the best marketing tactics you can have.

Right? Yeah. Because of referrals. So, you know, and I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons as a leader.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah.

Emily Hirsh: As a young leader. But I think one of my best things I have done is surround myself with people like you who have more experience than me and can do it better than me, and I can learn from, and also delegate it too, like delegate a lot of the team management and leadership too, because I’m never gonna be a great.

Manager of 10 people, you know, not, yeah. Nobody should manage 10 people, but you know, five people. Yeah. Because I don’t like meetings and I don’t, you know that. Yeah. You know, so

Jenn Goodall: that’s the thing. You, you find people that are good at something and that enjoy it and everybody, if they can do the thing that they love to do right, then everybody’s in a good place.

Everybody’s happy, and yeah. I think that’s the perfect formula. Right?

Emily Hirsh: Yeah.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah.

Emily Hirsh: Let’s switch to talking a little bit about like our delivery. Mm-hmm. And the done for you side. I’d love for you to, to just weigh in on like what you feel like we do really well and what you, you know, you’ve implemented when you came on, like you updated our onboarding.

Mm-hmm. We’re constantly approving systems on the team and just like your vision for that and the behind the scenes of it.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah. Yeah. So when I came in, definitely, yeah, the first thing I sunk my teeth into was the client onboarding, onboarding process for our elite clients and just streamlining that. And it’s one thing to, to come in from an outside and look at it and go, yeah, this makes sense.

But then once you’re in it, of course, that’s where the real evolution happens, right? And you’re like, you know, that doesn’t quite feel right. And I think the, the biggest focus is, of course, on the client experience, right? So you wanna make sure the client feels a, like the process is smooth, that they’re getting the value that they came for.

And of course, the results are there. That’s just an obvious one. But it’s like, how can we make this smoother for them? You know, take out the bumps, smooth it out, make it more efficient, make it easier for them. So that’s really what we focus on. And just finding ways to, you know, do we, do we want to communicate with them via this platform or can, is there a different platform that can smooth that out?

So looking at that or creating dashboard where everything can be in one place. So that’s, you know, things that we look at and now it’s like, how can we look, how can we leverage ai? So that’s like the big thing now that of course we’re all focusing on is how can we leverage AI to move faster? Because if we can move faster, we can deliver results faster.

And I mean that’s really the winning formula, right? So I think being nimble and being able to pivot quicker is the biggest thing for me. Now that. I wanna focus the most attention on. ’cause we have the foundations in place, right? We’ve got the tools, we’ve got the messaging is solid. The, the, the funnel strategy is solid.

The, all of those elements are there and our process is pretty smooth. But now it’s like, how do we go faster?

Emily Hirsh: Yeah, faster and maintain that, that quality and really, like speed is huge right now with AI and how much can we adapt it as a team and, and I think. One other thing if we wanna share behind the scenes that we’ve done in the last six months, is really look at our delivery for Elite and say, we wanna be able to provide more depth.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And actually give our team more space, especially the success managers who are account managers, essentially more space to have less clients to go deeper and to really, like, the way that marketing has gone is it’s like, it’s not just about one funnel or your ads, right? It’s this whole holistic picture.

And we’re seeing that with clients where it’s like it’s critical to success to have the funnels, the live launches, the content strategy, the email marketing, the bonuses, the offer, positioning, the messaging, all of it. And so. I love sharing behind the scenes on the podcast, but we actually like raised our elite prices so that we could literally put more resources Yeah.

Into higher level clients. And then if, if they’re not ready for that, like they go into our expand program Yeah.

Jenn Goodall: There’s, there’s different offers that service the client where they’re at. So I think that makes so much sense. Right. And then when you’re ready, the idea being you start here and then you get the success that you need to then evolve into the next program.

So I think that’s perfect. But yeah, I mean, since I’ve been here, we’ve cut the number of clients that a success manager is accountable for by half, you know, and I think that is, speaks a lot to the amount, the level of depth that we’re now able to go to, because that’s what’s required these days. I mean, marketing has changed so much.

You used to be able to, you know, in the early days you could just throw it out there and. Um, you could sell just about anything if you had a, a decent funnel. But now it’s like there are, everybody has funnels, right? It’s, it’s not that new anymore. And so how do you stand out and your messaging and your offer positioning and the strategy you have, you have to try different things.

The first thing might not be the thing that works. You ought to pivot quickly. You have to try the different approaches. But once you figure it out, then you can really pour gas on the fire and go. But you need to be able to go to that depth in order to get there.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah, and I think, I think it’s like good for us to talk about this.

’cause even with ai, we are lowering the amount and we have that a success manager, account manager takes, because AI can’t do the level of. Of thinking, and I don’t actually think it ever will be able to like, I think it can help come up with little ideas, but you’ve gotta be the creator still behind the marketing strategy.

And because we have seen the need for that like ecosystem, right? All the components working together, the messaging, the strategy, the emails, the content, the brand that requires a lot of depth. So even with AI and increasing speed, and maybe there’s other areas like let’s say copywriting, right, that we’ve been able to increase capacity in a person.

All of our copy is not just ai, it’s touched by a human, but with AI they can produce more. But with a success manager, we’ve actually lessened the amount of clients. And I think anyone who is familiar with service businesses, like that’s a big struggle is, is making sure the team doesn’t burn out. Because especially in marketing.

It never stops. Right. The, the ads run all weekend. Yeah. They run on the holidays. The launches are high pressure, and so we, you know, I’ll share transparently, like churn of success managers has been a problem that we’ve had. And so to solve that, we’ve tried to create more space, more capacity for them to not burn them out, because it is high pressure, like when you’re dealing with a big launch budget and it’s somebody else’s money, and it’s like a lot of pieces have to come together.

So I just think that’s a good perspective to share because I think a lot of people are like, how do we cut team? How do we, you know, lessen? But in some areas you actually need more depth right now. Yeah,

Jenn Goodall: yeah. No, we’re, yeah, we’re going the other way because yeah, it, you’re right. The, the pressure is a lot, not, it’s not just the big budgets and, and the number of clients, but it’s like.

Stuff happens all hours of the day. You know, if a, I don’t know if an ad Facebook likes to do funny things with their accounts, right? They’ll disable it or they’ll stop the ads for some reason. And if you catch that at nine o’clock at night, you gotta fix that. ’cause it has an impact if you’re, especially if you’re in a launch period.

So we’re always on guard. We’re always on call. We’re always there. And that can get draining too, right? So, yeah, I mean, it’s kind of the nature of the beast that there’s a lot of demands and burnout can happen. And so yeah, it’s just something that we’re cognizant of. And I think having really good people is one thing, which we have.

We have such a great team, but also just. Making sure that we’re listening to them and giving them the space that they need. So I think that’s been a big learning too, you know? And it

Emily Hirsh: also speaks to where marketing’s at, right? Yeah. Like I think the depth that you’re now required as a business owner to be successful with your marketing because of how much saturation there is, how much noise there is, how much competition there is, you need that depth.

And I look at even our own marketing, like the depth that you need to have in like the offer positioning and like the pivoting and adjusting. I don’t think we have a single client, maybe Mallory, but like a single client who hasn’t had to adjust their offer

Jenn Goodall: Yeah.

Emily Hirsh: In the last six to 12 months and adjust the positioning and adjust their strategy.

And that requires the depth and Yeah. And I think actually with ai, we’re gonna go where you need even more of that, because it’s even more just like mass produced content and mass produced offers that you’ve gotta now stand out from all of that,

Jenn Goodall: I think. Yeah, and I, I was saying this the other day, like the, I think the.

Magic combination is gonna be who can, who can combine the human element with AI and make that explode. Not like most companies that I see are either going all in on AI or all in on marketing or whatever, but how do you bring those two things together in a way that really leverages both? That’s gonna be the way to stand out.

’cause you’re right, like just throwing up an ad creative and copy that AI wrote and just pumping it out. Yeah, I mean, it’s a numbers game. Potentially if you did, if you just kept cranking those things out, something might hit. But I think more so people. I think the market is losing trust too, because they’re, they’re skeptical.

Like, is that real? Is that ai? I don’t know. It’s, it’s kind of hard to even know these days. But yeah, I think when you can really bring the human element and bring the emotion into it and really connect with the audience, that’s gonna be the thing that stands out. And that’s what we’re seeing is winning right now, is the, the messaging and the offers that solve the most painful problem and really makes the audience feel like, wow, I feel heard.

They’re talking to me. And so that’s where you have to get really.

Emily Hirsh: We’ve probably put the most amount of energy in the client accounts on messaging and offer positioning, would you say?

Jenn Goodall: Yeah, totally. Like a lot. Totally. And then

Emily Hirsh: once that’s dialed, everything else is actually pretty easy.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah, yeah. It’s the,

Emily Hirsh: it’s the messaging and we’ve put a lot into like meetings with the copywriter, meetings with the team, different angles, different testing.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah. And you know, it, marketing is, and I, I know a lot of clients, you know, they want it to be fast and I wish that it was something that we could just like boom and have the perfect answer right off the get go. Of course, when you’re been doing this a long time, you can figure it out easier than somebody who doesn’t have the experience Of course.

And so, yes, it’s faster, but it’s still a trial and error project. You know, you have to start with what you think might work and then you, you let the numbers tell the story. And you optimize and you tweak and you iterate from there. And you get closer eventually and you will nail it. But it, it, there’s so many variables

Emily Hirsh: and it’s a long game.

It’s like a game of building the list, building the audience. Yep. Building the brand. And like you said, you know the trust. We’re in a trust recession like you, so you’ve gotta play the long game. Yeah. Even if something’s working, we see more and more that people need multiple touchpoints before they buy.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah. Yeah. So

Emily Hirsh: that means multiple webinars, you know, multiple emails, they’ve opened content. And so again, goes back to the ecosystem and it’s really like the commitment to that ecosystem and the long game. And then, then it is just a system. It’s like you nail the messaging, you nail the offer positioning, you stay consistent, you’ll be successful every single time.

Mm-hmm. But the people who don’t get there, it’s ’cause they stopped.

Jenn Goodall: It’s so hard to be consistent. It is.

Emily Hirsh: Especially when

Jenn Goodall: something’s not working

Emily Hirsh: right. Yeah. Because everything in you is like, oh, this isn’t gonna work for me. I should stop doing this.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah. Yeah. That was as an entrepreneur, you know, like I always had the next cool idea and I was like, what about this?

And I remember my husband would be like, you keep changing your mind and you do this next thing, and then you do this next thing. He’s like, you’re not sticking with things. And he, he thought it was a bad thing. I was, you know, I would argue that, oh no, that, that’s just how it is. You gotta be innovative, you gotta pivot.

But now looking back, I’m like, no, I think he was right. I just was not consistent enough. I didn’t give it a chance, you know? And I would just give up too soon. So that is a big thing. And also your audience. When they see you showing up again and again while everybody else is falling off, they’re like, oh, interesting.

That person is not quitting. Like that’s big. That’s huge for trust building

Emily Hirsh: and then you build Yeah, the relationship, the credibility. Yeah. I mean that’s for sure. One of my like assets is, I’ve had this podcast for seven years. I’ve had my business date on and I have in every season. Still showed up. It might have changed a little bit, but still shown up.

Yeah. No matter what. And I think, I mean, it’s simple, but it’s hard.

Jenn Goodall: You could probably count on two hands and two feet. How many people still have a podcast after seven years?

Emily Hirsh: Right.

Jenn Goodall: Not many I’m sure. Yeah, so

Emily Hirsh: true. Yeah. And it’s evolved. The podcast has evolved. I’ve evolved, but I’ve stayed. Yeah, consistent, which is now we’re doing video.

Yeah. And this is like 0.1 of video. We got 2.0 I think soon as we’ve been chatting. I’m curious from the client perspective, you see a lot of clients behind the scenes. I would love to know what you would say is like the most successful clients. What either like traits that they have as entrepreneurs and or components of their business.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah, for definitely, there’s a bunch of different components. One would be, I think you need to have a proven offer for sure. Where we tend to struggle in the past is where a client will come in and they think that the marketing is gonna be the, the answer to all of the things. But you can’t, like a good marketing system, it used to be that you could put good marketing on an offer that wasn’t the right one and.

It would sell that those times are gone. You know, it has to be a good offer that resonates with the right people. Yeah.

Emily Hirsh: Truly irresistible and

Jenn Goodall: truly, yeah, truly irresistible. So that has to be there. And so yeah, if, if that hasn’t happened yet, if you haven’t proven your offer yet, then that is the first step.

You have to do that first. And I, I mean like, I don’t want anybody coming in and investing in marketing services if they don’t have that. ’cause it’s just, it’s not fair to them, not fair to the team. Because then, you know, often it’s like, well why isn’t this working? You guys aren’t doing, you know what you’re supposed to do.

And that’s just not the case. It’s like, no, we can’t make it work if it’s not the right fit. You can’t put a square peg in a round hole. So that’s the first thing. And then I would say the clients that I see having the best results or the ones that. Really lean in to us being the experts, you know? ’cause when you think about it, they came to us ’cause they don’t have the capacity, they don’t have the experience, they don’t have the skills.

And so we do that for them. And when they, they just let us kind of lead the charge and be the experts and they don’t push back too much on it. That I think it, it tends to work the best. And, and the, and the other thing too is like they’re paying a certain amount of money, but when you add it up, you know, we were talking about this the other day, when you add it up.

It’s like you could never hire somebody to be full-time on, on your team. Yeah. Not even one person. One person You couldn’t afford, one person that could do all the things that a big team does when you know, so it’s the, the, the value that you get of having those levels of expert who bring all the parts together and deliver that to you when, you know now it’s like marketing is too difficult these days to to do it on your own.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah.

Jenn Goodall: And even if you bring a team in, you’d need a pretty big team because it’s to do it, it’s

Emily Hirsh: multiple skill sets of strategy. Copy the messaging, the Yeah, the design, the ads. Yeah. Yeah. And bringing that all together. And I mean, I totally agree with the offer. I’ve talked about that on here even recently of like, marketing’s easy once you have the, the proven offer.

Yeah. And. If you don’t have the proven offer yet, you can go in our expand program and prove it. ’cause you still need marketing to prove an offer. Like you’ve gotta get leads, you gotta get the feedback, you gotta try to sell it. But we’ve really gone to a place of Our done for You is only for people with that proven offer that we can go really deep on the ecosystem.

And we have some clients in the the VIP level where we’re doing everything. We’re like the CMO with the whole team. And I would add, like what I see as successful of our most successful clients is they’ve got like the whole brand. They’ve got the ecosystem. Yeah. Like if we think about our most successful clients, they’ve got the content and the nurturing happening and they show up for their audience.

And it’s a very much like collaborative relationship. Yeah. Like they still have that emotional connection. To their ideal customer. And then they bring that, like, there’s people I’m thinking of now, it’s like they bring that to the calls. Mm-hmm. So like, yes, trusting us as experts, but also going, well, I’ve been in my business like longer than anyone, and I have that emotional connection to my ideal customer.

And then our team can amplify that when, when someone lacks that emotional connection, it’s really hard for us to create the connection and create the good copy and the good messaging and the good positioning. But when you’re, you know, showing up and you really care about your impact and mm-hmm.

Creating that content and serving your audience and constantly, you know, I’m, I think about at me as a CEO, I’m constantly thinking about like, how can I serve our audience better? How can I serve our customers better? I’m deeply connected and I have the whole team who does. Like I’m basically a client, right?

I’ve got a team doing our marketing, but that connection I still have. Yeah. And that consistency that no one else can do but me.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah, a hundred percent. You can’t only run ads to a funnel if you, you have to be doing some of that. That nurturing, whether it’s a regular email, like email can be tricky because it can take a long time for it to pay off.

So it’s another one of those things that you do have to lean into even when there’s really not much coming back and you have to keep doing it consistently. But if you do that, your email list will become an asset and it compliments the ads. And the other thing is posting. You know, organic content, it doesn’t have to be that much.

And I know that that can be a thing that burns out an entrepreneur where they’re like, oh gosh, you know, I feel like I have to post content every single day. I know I felt that big time. Like I was constantly worried about posting. Now, I mean, I haven’t even checked my social media in like a year ’cause I have PTSD from having to post so often.

But, but if you do ads, you, you can get away from having to post so much. ’cause the ad can actually be designed like, we have a strategy, the omnipresent campaign, where it can actually strategically put the right content in front of your audience over a seven or 10 day period. And every day they will see a different one.

So every time they open up their Facebook, it’s like, oh, there’s, there’s Emily again. Like, wow, look at how much she’s posting. But what they don’t know is it’s actually an ad and you’re just dripping on them. Right. So that’s a really cool strategy that can take the pressure off of having to post all the time, but you do still have to post a little bit on your even once a week minimum.

But

Emily Hirsh: yeah, and if you have like a main form of content that helps a lot. Like a podcast or YouTube. Yeah. Because then that can drive your content creation, but

Jenn Goodall: then you’re not sitting there going, what do I post today? I think

Emily Hirsh: the longer form content is coming back. Yeah. Like I think like that, that’s why I’m doing these interviews too, is like, because think about the level of connection somebody has just from listening to one of these interviews that’s an hour long that they are, yeah.

Listening to me and a guest or whatever. And, and so if you are, you know, an entrepreneur, a CEO, like that’s where your time and energy should go. And then having the marketing team amplify that.

Jenn Goodall: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I found this, this group of people, like an AI community, and this young kid started just doing YouTube videos and in two years he’s built a business of $5 million because he shows up and he just does YouTube.

He doesn’t do any other platform. He just does YouTube videos and he shows up and he gives his, he shows them like, here’s what I’m doing. He took them on his journey with him and it’s like, wow. Absolutely incredible. His videos are nothing fancy, like he’s not doing any crazy editing. He’s just giving value and he’s showing up consistently and he built a massive business.

But yeah, I, I, I think, you know, building that personal brand. That’s still just as valuable as it’s ever been and, and it’s really important to do it. But I think that’s a good point. Like you don’t have to be everywhere. Pick one platform and be really good at that one thing. And you can take that content and you can repurpose it in simple ways elsewhere.

But don’t try to show up everywhere. ’cause that’s an easy way to burn yourself out. For sure.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. Especially if you don’t have a whole media team. Yeah. All right. Last kind of as we wrap up, I’m curious if there’s anything you’d share, like in the last year, but even maybe beyond of like, I always like to ask how people have grown as a person.

Like I think so much of what we do in our career, whether it was your own business, your jobs here, like what you, how you have changed personally and your identity and how you show up.

Jenn Goodall: Hmm. That’s a tricky one. I don’t know. Like I, I think. One thing that I realized, just, I don’t know if it’s the time, like, you know, we went through COVID and everything changed in the world and we were all locked up for a while, right?

But I think for me, priorities are kind of shifting. Like I used to think it was just all about achievement and you know, how much money can I earn and how big of a career can I have? And for me that was like the most important thing when I was younger. And now of course I have my daughter and she’s three.

So like I’m in the thick of it. And I don’t know how the people do it who have multiple children, like Woo, three children. That’s a lot. I’m overwhelmed with one, but I love it so much and I’m really enjoying being a mom. And so for me now, it’s like I want to just hang out with her. I wanna spend time and I wanna travel more and just experience the world more with, you know, my daughter and my husband.

Hang out with friends. And so it’s weird. Like, it, it’s almost like I’m going back to like the things that were more important to me when I was really young. And then that kind of middle part, I sound old, but I’m saying all this, but that middle part of my life was like all about career, like work super hard, you know, weekends and nights and whatever.

And now I’m just like, I, I kind of feel like I just wanna enjoy a little bit more. So that’s a, been a shift. I’m really like, I’ve always been somebody who likes to learn. So I think I’ve just always watching, like I’ve YouTube video and learning and listening to podcasts and filling my brain with information.

So I think that’s always been the case and trying to do a little more reading just to slow down a little bit. But yeah, I mean, I. I don’t know. I don’t know how much I’ve changed really. I mean, other than just working in an agency, which I’ve never done before. So this is kind of a new world and adjusting and adapting to that kind of like boutique business versus a big corporate.

So that’s been a big learning for me and I think. Maybe the big thing there is that I’ve just learned to be a little bit more myself as opposed to like trying to be on in corporate all the time. That was, it was definitely, I always felt exhausted in my corporate life from that. ’cause you really did have to be on all the time and like wearing a suit and you know, dressing up.

And I would not do well in corporate. I, one funny story is, so I was part of the sales leadership team, so you know, we’d be sitting around the boardroom table and the CEO’s there and whatever, and this one new CEO came in and he was from a country across the world and he came over and not a lot of women at the table, right?

So here I am and I had like, I don’t know, a short sleeve shirt on and I have tattoos everywhere and he’s just like, I could see him looking at me and I was like,

Emily Hirsh: oh dear,

Jenn Goodall: I should have wore a jacket today. You know? And then afterwards my boss pulled me into a booth and he’s like, so this is really awkward, but.

CEO was just wondering if maybe you could just wear a jacket, and I was like, Hmm, absolutely not. You will not,

Emily Hirsh: did you not?

Jenn Goodall: I did not only because like that’s, no.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah,

Jenn Goodall: no, I’m not, you know, I’m not offending anybody really. Right. I’m in the office. I don’t ever wear a t-shirt if I’m going to the customer, like I’m obviously professional and, and no, I, no, that’s silly.

So I, man,

Emily Hirsh: I would not ever do well in corporate. Like, no, it’s not, you have to play the

Jenn Goodall: game. And I couldn’t, you know, there’s a lot of that stuff, right. But I was a little bit headstrong, but actually that kind of is what got me in there and, and I was one woman. I think there were two women out of all the directors.

And so if you’re gonna play at that. Table, you kind of have to have a little bit of edginess and grit. Right. And so I was like, I’m not gonna let go of that, actually. Yeah, no.

Emily Hirsh: And they were fine. They were like,

Jenn Goodall: okay. Yeah, it worked out. Yeah. The CEO and I became buds and we were joke together and it was because non issue, that’s what really

Emily Hirsh: matters, is like your skillset set and who you are as a person.

Not can you see a tattoo on your arm? Yeah. Yeah. That’s why I couldn’t do it. It’s like, this is just a waste of time. Yeah. Like

Jenn Goodall: why

Emily Hirsh: do we care about these things? Yeah.

Jenn Goodall: But that was what was normal for me. And so I learned to navigate that world. Yeah. And so, yeah, that’s, it’s been a change for sure. And

Emily Hirsh: yeah, I know here it’s like you’re the same per like, I want everyone to be the same person, like Yeah, yeah.

Here as you are in your regular life, like, I mean, obviously there’s professionalism, but you know, I think it’s, I love that about a smaller company. Yeah. You

Jenn Goodall: can be, you can be yourself.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah, exactly. Well, is there anything you feel like we didn’t cover that you wanna say?

Jenn Goodall: No, I don’t think so. I think, no, we talked about all the things and I think we covered it all.

Like I feel, I feel like where we’re headed as a company is super exciting. We’ve made a lot of really good changes. I love how open you are to, you know, listening to the feedback that comes from the team and, and the ideas that I bring in. I just think that’s so fun and yeah, it’s, it’s been great. So I’m really enjoying it and I’m super excited for where we’re headed and so many cool ideas that we wanna bring to the, to the client experience.

So I’m really excited to bring all that stuff to life ’cause it’s gonna be next level I think what. We’ve been talking about in terms of AI and bringing that into the client experience, and like, I think it’s gonna take the digital marketing game to the next level, and it’d be super cool if we could lead the charge on that.

So, yeah.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. I, I, yeah. Can’t say enough. Just incredible things about you and the value you’ve brought to our team. Like I said, the experience you had was like this perfect blend that I really needed at the time. And you have, I mean, the team would say it, but also like the numbers say it, right, like our client retention and our team retention has improved tremendously in the last year.

It wasn’t bad, but like significant improvement from it’s well above average now client retention in an agency and our team retention is a direct. Correlation to you and the systems you’ve brought, the experience you’ve brought, the care that you’ve brought to the team, and it’s been amazing to watch and so fun that you can be at these events.

Jenn Goodall: Yeah, I know. It’s so di it’s so much fun. Like I came in January and it, it just, it’s so different when you’re in person. It, it humanizes the whole experience and Yeah. We had so many laughs. It was awesome. Yeah. So super. We’re headed into the event tomorrow,

Emily Hirsh: so we’re excited. Yeah.

Jenn Goodall: I’m so happy to be here.

And yeah, I love, I love the job. I love the role, so thank you

Emily Hirsh: so much. And if anyone is an elite client, you’ll know Jen. She’s incredible. You get to work with me Yeah. And the team. Yeah. And maybe we’ll do a. In six months podcasts because I bet there will be so many AI updates. Oh my gosh. Updates.

Jenn Goodall: It’ll be different.

So next event, so different in January, we’ll

Emily Hirsh: probably do another one and we can talk about that. ’cause yeah, we’ve been brainstorming in lots that we’re gonna implement and lead the way on. Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much. Awesome. Thanks for having

me.