Marketing Happy Hour - Creating Value Alignment Between Brand and Creator | Molly Tracy of VRAI Digital

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

This week, Erica and Cassie connect with Molly Tracy, CEO and Founder of VRAI Digital, to chat all things influencer marketing and building a business in today's landscape. Here's a peek at what we cover in this episode: [00:03:31] - Molly shares her experience in influencer marketing (since 2012!) and the "why" behind her agency, VRAI Digital. [00:07:02] - Molly uncovers her top tips for brands looking to make the most out of influencer relationships today, and how to go beyond the transaction into a nurtured relationship that lasts. She also shares how to ensure that values align between brand and creator in every campaign. [00:15:07] - Molly reveals some of her favorite recent partnerships that her talent has been a part of, including campaigns with Sunday Riley, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Buy Buy Baby. She notes that genuine fandom translating into a paid opportunity and relationships that can carry through life stages are the keys to success in influencer partnerships. [00:17:04] - We discuss predictions for the influencer marketing industry, like the inevitable shift toward owned channels and the emergence of creator-led brands. [00:22:48] - Molly shares her best tips for getting your own business off the ground, no matter what industry you're in - hear why she says it's all about your network, and to ignore imposter syndrome at all costs. Grab a drink and listen in to this week's Marketing Happy Hour conversation! ----- Other episodes you'll enjoy if you enjoyed Molly's episode: The Dos and Don'ts of Working with Creators | Travel Influencer Francesca Murray of One Girl One World Re-Defining the Term "Influencer" | Nina Zadeh of Sidewalker Daily Understanding the Creator Economy | Kristen Bousquet of Your Soulcialmate ____ Say hi! DM us on Instagram and share your favorite moments from this episode - we can't wait to hear from you! NEW: Download the Dream Career Game Plan! NEW: Check out our website! NEW: Join our email list! Connect with Molly: Instagram | LinkedIn | vraidigital.com Follow MHH on Social: Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | TikTok Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter, Marketing Happy Hour Weekly: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/marketing-happy-hour-weekly-6950530577867427840/

you're listening to the marketing happy hour podcast where we discuss career and industry insights with our peers in marketing we're here to talk about it all like the ups and downs of working in social media how to build authentic relationships in the influencer and pr space managing a nine-to-five and a side hustle at the same time, how to be productive in your life and career without losing your sanity, and more. Ultimately, we're here to build a community with you because we're all trying to navigate the world of marketing together. Are you ready? Grab your favorite drink and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode.

Today we're joined by Molly Tracy, CEO and founder of Ray Digital. For four plus years, Molly has been building her talent management and influencer marketing agency aimed at amplifying female-founded brands and voices. Molly takes us through the journey of growing her brand and why launching fast and pivoting quickly is essential. In addition to hearing her amazing career tips, we discuss the influencer marketing space and the importance of aligning values between brand and creator. Plus, why for all businesses, own channels are so important, meaning those channels that your brand has complete control over, like your website and email list. Are you ready to dive in? I know I am. So grab your drink and let's get today's episode.

Hey, Molly, how are you? Hi, guys. I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great. So excited to finally connect with you. I know we had some rescheduling, so happy for you to be here. And thanks so much for being with us with that. But before we get started, I do have a very important question for you that we ask all of our guests, and that is what is in your glass this afternoon? Oh, I'm actually drinking a poppy. Um, my friend, I know they're the best. My friend does her influencer marketing over there. And like, she keeps me well stocked, which is like a very good friend to have. So my gosh, I am in love with poppy and their sweatsuit that they just came out with like the set with the pink. Like,

I don't like dying to get my hands on it yeah I understand exactly what you mean but I am still dying to get my hands on yeah amazing Cassie what do you have um so I have a United Sodas of America Blackberry Jam yes so one of our past guests actually recent guests from a couple weeks ago sent us these she's collaborating with them I think it's a newer brand, um, and sent us about 12 of their flavors. And so my husband and I have been slowly going through them. We're like ranking them and it's really fun. So this one's really great. Highly recommend. How about you? I also have that. And I love to, it's like a naturally flavored soda which is like something you don't really find that much and I mean poppy is right along the same lines as that it's um

the flavor I have is white grape it's actually really good yeah that one's good yes um well Molly we want to hear everything about Bray give us the lowdown on on what you've been doing, how you've built your agency, and just what's the why behind what you've built so far. Sure. So I started Vray in 2019. So this is our fourth year in business. April 5th is our four-year anniversary, which feels insane to me. Essentially, we are a talent management and influencer marketing agency which means that

we work with creators influencers and bloggers on expanding their portfolio and improving their sort of business footprint and then on the flip side we also work with brands on strategic influencer marketing integration so that's where my background lies before I started Bray and got into talent management I worked on the brand and agency side of influencer marketing strategy for eight years. So it's been really fun to kind of work on both sides of the industry and have insights into how that works. And yeah, my why behind the agency, oh gosh, I got into talent management because I really fell in love

with influencer marketing back in, I've been in it for a very long time. I'm going to age myself since 2012. So 11 years now. And for me, it was an immediate love affair with the fact that it was a female run industry. So when bloggers popped up on the scene, it was all females. It was female fashion bloggers and female home decor bloggers and female beauty bloggers. And, you know, we were working with people inside of agencies that were female account executives that were the ones that were advocating to their clients about why they should be implementing influencer into their marketing strategies. And then it was women on the C-suite level that were like being talking to the account executives who were then talking to us and then talking to the talent. So it was really this entire like industry that was dominated by women, advocated to women,

because we were selling and speaking to women and directly with the products. I love that. I thought it was the coolest thing. And being able to work with talent when I made the switch really was a light bulb moment for me where I felt like I able to work with talent when I made the switch really was a light bulb moment for me where I felt like I could really work with these women on one-on-one level and increase their business and really help them carve out a career for themselves that they were really passionate about. So I always loved influencer, but it honestly kind of got to the point where I felt like I got out of the brand and agency side and like right around 2018. So influencer was real, but it definitely was still a hard sell in. There was

a lot of brands that had, you know, we're not on board yet. We're not looking at really spending the dollars like they are now. It wasn't as commonplace. I mean, you can't launch a single brand or product without some sort of influencer strategy now. And that just didn't really exist back in 2018. So honestly, I found myself like having to advocate to a bunch of like old white male CMOs and CEOs about why they should pay this woman in Utah to talk about their product. And it just kind of got exhausting for me. I felt like I could be much more advantageous in moving the industry forward if I got on the talent side and could advocate on their behalf. So it's been great. I've loved it ever since. I haven't looked back. That is so cool. And so fun to hear how long you've been in the industry and how much it's changed. I think when things really started kicking off with influencer, of course there

was social media, but it was a lot of blogging, right? It was a lot of like getting products on online in different ways than we see now. So that's super cool to hear. Let's just dive right in with strategy a little bit and talk to us about, you know, what tips you might have for brands looking to get the most out of their relationships with influencers these days. Yeah, I think there's a couple of tips I can share. One is treat it like a partnership. I think that influencer marketing can be very transactional in the sense that, you know, you are paying somebody to promote your product and you are paying them for a service, but it truly is a relationship. You want to look at the creator as, you know,

somebody that is a part of your business and your overall marketing strategies. So I think oftentimes people who come from a very, maybe like traditional PR background or traditional advertising background struggle to kind of figure out where influencer fits into the piece because it isn't something where like, they're not traditional advertisers. They

are not billboards. They're not print magazines. They are not even paid social. You aren't just sort of taking your message and blueprinting it into an influencer. They really, their job is to adopt your message and convey it in a way that makes sense for their audience and in order to engage their audience. And so a lot of it becomes, you know, okay, here's the brief and these are the exact key messages and this is exactly what we want the content to look like and this is exactly what you want to say in it.

I've actually even written a script for you and it feels very one-sided. So I would say treating it as a partnership, know that there's a human being behind every single influencer is also really helpful. I would say second tip would be definitely give them the creative freedom for all the reasons that I just mentioned to you. There is nobody that knows their audience better than the creator itself. They have spent years cultivating that audience and spent years talking to them and creating

content for them that they, you know, have been able to find compelling and content that their audience wants to see. And so I think, you know, a lot of times when influencer content sort of falls flat, I think it's a lot of times because the brand had their hands a little bit too heavy in the creative process. So trust that, trust that they know what they're doing, trust that they know how to speak to their creators. And honestly, you're hiring them because you do believe in their content strategy and you do believe in their audience. So don't lose sight of that and just make sure that that trust remains. And then I would say my third tip would really be, be upfront about what your goals are in the very beginning. I think that the idea of blogger, influencer, content creator, UGC creator

gets mumbled and they're so very vastly different. I know that we try to sometimes use them interchangeably in the industry, but they really are different and they all serve different purposes. So for us, especially working on the talent management side, it's always my first question is what is your goal? Do you want to drive sales? Are you looking for content that you can, you know, repurpose on your own social or your own e-com? Are you looking for content that you want to whitelist or use in paid ads? Are you looking to drive traffic to a website? Are you looking to drive email signups? Every creator is going to be able to give you a different outcome. So you wouldn't want to hire, you know, quote unquote, a content creator, somebody that creates engaging informational or funny content to necessarily maybe sell a product or necessarily

drive signups for your email newsletter. That's not what their purpose is. That's not the purpose of their content serves. And vice versa. Like you might have a creator who can convert like crazy and really sell her audience on a product that she's passionate about. But maybe her content isn't something

that you'd probably use in whitelisting. She's got a different camera style or she uses different filters or she has a specific way that she likes to speak to her audience. Maybe she doesn't do face to camera and she just does pan overs. Whereas like in whitelisting ads, you probably want something face to camera. So being really upfront about

what you're looking for and what your main sort of KPI is for your campaign could only help you better choose creators to help you serve that. Yeah. Such good advice. I, I feel like we overlook that so many times and brands go into these relationships and they just get excited about working with a specific creator, but they haven't taken a step back and figured out all of these different elements. We spoke to another guest recently and she said kind of something very similar of just having all of your criteria and your expectations aligned first and then presenting those to the creator up front. So then they know if it's a good fit for them is just so helpful for the partnership. And so that kind of goes

into my next question here, which is how do you know that an influencer and brand are a good fit for each other? I'm sure a lot of this pre-vetting and brainstorming can help determine that, but what do you think outside of just setting expectations? Yeah, I think outside of your goal expectations, a lot of it comes down to values. So is it something where your values as a creator and the brand align? For instance, like I have a gal who only will focus

on clean and non-toxic and cruelty-free beauty. So she will not focus. She's a vegan. So she absolutely will not focus on anything that's tested on animals. And we've turned on a lot of beauty partnerships because they don't have the same ethics that she does. So I think ethics is really important. I think certainly, again, going back to goals and really having an understanding of what

that creator is good at and what sort of like and I always say she because we represent mostly female so um I'll continue to say she but um you know what is she what's her specialty um and does that really make sense for the campaign that you're looking at um I would say like those are really like my two things like making sure that you really feel value aligned with that brand and it's everything from you know it could be does this brand donate to a charity that I really appreciate or we actually just did a campaign with Sunday right I thought this was so cool I'm going to shout them out we did a campaign with Sunday Riley the other day and after the campaign wrapped they have a charity that they work with that helps to plant trees. And they planted a tree in her name and sent her a certificate. And I was like, this is like the coolest thing ever. Yeah. Like I think that's the thing. I feel like brands

are always looking for like, how can we build deeper relationships with our partners? And what can we do that goes beyond sort of this standard issue of like you know payment content payment content like that's such a great way like ask the creator like can we make a donation in your name or is there something that's close to your heart that we can help support um you know are you running any events on the community level in your community that we can be a part of. I think there's so many interesting ways that you can, you know, sort of create relationships with your creators that go outside of like fancy trips or obviously paid collabs. Like there's, there's really, there's neat ways that you can kind of find, find a way to connect. Yeah. I worked for a beauty brand and we had a lot

of influencer relationships that we were, you know, cultivating and nurturing. And one of the things that we always did was like make note of all the big milestones in their life, birthday, anniversary, child's birthday or dog's birthday or whatever. And we would just send them something really cute whenever those occasions come up or came up. So I definitely agree with that. I think it's super important to, you know, continue the relationship outside of just the work that's being exchanged. So love that. I think, I think that's how you really build relationships and that takes you out of that sort of, you know, transactional relationship that, that you could have with that creator. It builds something a little bit more real. Yeah, 100%. And I love that you mentioned Sunday Riley, huge fans over here, but that kind of touches on the next question I have for you. And that is just tell us about some of your favorite partnerships. I'm very excited to hear about

your answer to this, but what have been some of your favorite things to work on recently? I mean, I think the best partnerships are the ones that are born organically. You know, I would say most of the partnerships that I work on, probably over 80% of them were born from some sort of organic affinity. You know, they had been posting about the brand for a really long time and using it and sharing it with their audience. Those are always really fun to dream and so amazing. And, you know, you watch them go from like being engaged to getting married, to buying their first home, to having babies. And it's just like, it's like watching, you know, your friends grow up in front of you. But so partnerships that we've had that have been able to kind of carry through their life stages. So like we've worked with brands like Bed Bath & Beyond where we did our wedding registry and

then Bye Bye Baby where we did the baby registry. And it's just like a really fun journey that we've been able to share. So I think that those are like my most favorite because those are revolved around all the most amazing moments that happen in these women's lives. That's so awesome. I love that so much. And I think that's so important to the longer term partnerships, you know, the more touch points that even that influencer or creators audience has with

the brand. I mean, it's more top of mind. It's they're more becoming more aware of all the different aspects or all the different offerings that that brand has throughout all these different stages of life. So they can also then grow with the brand. I love that so much. Yeah. Let's just chat a little bit about what predictions you have

for the influencer marketing industry in the coming years. Obviously we're seeing a lot of exploding growth on TikTok. I'm sure that you're paying attention to that and just would love to hear from your perspective in it every single day. What are some predictions that you have? I'm paying too close attention to TikTok. Every day I'm telling myself I need to delete this app. And I like, I just cover it as like, oh, it's research. It is, but it's also like, we'll suck you in. Trends. I think, I mean, speaking of TikTok, I think everybody, you know, there's been rumblings about it being banned in the US and that's, I feel like all I've ever heard anyone talk about for the last three or four days. Um, I think there will be a trend

towards, you know, a shift towards owned channels. I am always a proponent of having some sort of channels. Most of the women that I work with are OG bloggers. So like they do still have an active blog. Um, you know, I think it's, it's always scary to build your business on borrowed space. So we think that we will see like a resurgence of people going back to newsletter or blog or podcasts and having some sort of, some sort of owned something there. I hope I'm a proponent of it. So I hope we see more of that. Other predictions. I mean, I think I'm, I'm really intrigued to see how creators are going to continue to diversify, um, not just content, but also revenue streams. Um, I think, you know,

every sort of this impeding recession that we may or may not be going through with having everyone take really hard looks at their business. And I think also brands and agencies really look at how they're spending money. Um, and you know, what does that look like for the creator economy? If we start to pull back on brand partnerships, again, building a business off of a single revenue stream is, it's a really shaky way to have any sort of longevity. And so whether it's launching your own product, which I think a lot of people have done really well, it's a great way to kind of capitalize off of the community that you've built and they want to support you. really well. It's a great way to kind of capitalize off of the community that you've built and they

want to support you. And so whether it's launching your own tangible product or some sort of like e-course would be really interesting. I'm always intrigued to see, oh gosh, there's like new affiliate platforms popping up every single day with new technology. And so seeing people adopt more of those, I think is going to be really interesting. Yeah. I'm just excited to see different ways that, that influencers are going to have to sort of shift out of their comfort zone a little bit in terms of their content and what's kind of been status quo for them and see how they can kind of shake it up. Totally. I love that so much. I know we've seen a lot of like, like you mentioned that creator-led brand emergence

that I guess you would call it, like with someone who I think has done a really good job with that is the TikToker, Chris Olson. He now has a coffee brand. His whole shtick was like buying coffee for celebrities and flying it across country to them. And now he has his own brand that he can do that with. And I know he's also working with some major like stars to kind of develop their TikTok personalities and things

like that. So I think that's a really cool thing that he's been able to bring to life. And I think a lot more creators are going to lean towards that as well. Like you said, I love that. Yeah. And I'm, I'm glad you said about the own channels thing. I don't think we talk about that enough because it's so true. We could wake up tomorrow and Tik TOK could just be gone. And if you've built your whole platform and your whole business on Tik TOK, like it would absolutely break my heart to wake up and see like someone's whole, you know, world that they've created is just is gone. So, um, I tell people all the time, I'm like email lists, like you said, world that they've created is just, is gone. So I tell people all the time, I'm like, email lists, like you said, blogging, like there's a number of things that you can own,

that you can create that has a lot more security versus like Instagram, Facebook, you know, TikTok, all these channels that who knows what could happen in a week or two from now. So yeah, thank you for sharing that. Yeah. And you also have to think about intentionality behind that. So for me, a follow is a quick follow and it's very easy to do that. I think that if anybody looked at their Tik TOK and Instagram, you'd probably be able to say like, there's at least a hundred, some people on there that you did not know that you followed an old follow that you just didn't get rid of or whatever the case might be. Whereas the intentionality of like purposely visiting your website is completely different than stumbling across, you know, your stories or your in feed or purposely opt rate or even your listen rate on a podcast than it is to even see what

your followers are or what your story views are. It's just the intentionality of what the consumer is hoping to do with you and their engagement in those mediums. And they are even on a TikTok or Instagram. It's much more powerful, I think. Yeah, no, totally agree, Especially with the podcasting too. That's been an interesting thing for us to navigate, just speaking with brand partners and having to communicate that. Cause it's still a new thing. And even email, everyone's like, isn't email dead

or blogs dead? Like, are people still watching this stuff and like reading this stuff? And we're like, yes, they are. And here's why. And like, here's the data behind it. So coming back to a data too, and just doing your research and figuring out where your audience lies, what they want to consume and how they want to consume it is always super important. But Molly, I want to switch gears really quickly here for a second and just talk about just you building your business, the experience there. A lot of our listeners are in the world of corporate America, but some of them are either starting side hustles or they want to just completely launch a business and leave the corporate world. Do you have any tips for just getting started? You know, the first stages in

your business, what you did that kind of put you on the path towards success? Yeah. My biggest advice is launch fast, pivot quickly. I think a lot of people get very bogged down in the idea of starting a business and feeling like I need to have a business plan. And do I have a website and do I have social And do I have branding and colors and logos and fonts? And like, you could do, I mean, you could build your business plan and your pitch deck for years and never launch your business. I think the most important, when I started my business, I had, I had zero business plan. It's four years in, I still don't have a thorough business plan. I never did a branding document for myself. I've done them for all of my clients, my entire life still don't have one for Bray. I did not have a website. I did not have colors. I did not have branding. The only thing that I had was the idea that I knew that

I was really, really good at my job. Like I knew I was really good at my job and I had all the confidence that I could do it on my own, knowing that I had been doing it in an agency setting for the last eight years. And I was very fortunate that at my previous agency, I really, I was the only one in the influencer marketing department. I was able to operate in my own silo. I really carved out that department at the agency. And so I was sort of already kind of operating solo anyway. So stepping into my own entity was not as big of a shift for me.

But I think the number one piece of advice is like advices do not get bogged down in everything that you think that you should have ready for your business and just get started. Your clients are the most important thing. Do not spend your time putting together a pitch deck. Do not spend your time putting together business plans. You need to go out and hustle and find clients. Like your time is much more valuable spent, like taking meetings, a second piece of advice. Actually, I will say second piece of advice, sit down and make a list of every single person that you know ever and all of their contact information.

When I started my own business, I made a list of every brand I'd ever been in touch with, every photographer, every videographer, every social media person, every branding person. And I just took coffees with everyone. Who do you know? Who are you working with now? Who could potentially be needing something? Who can you connect me with? So it's all about your network for sure. And I think that your time is just much more valuable, valuably spent doing that than it is being like, I wonder what color I should have my branding because your branding will totally change. Like I did my branding, I don't know, like six months into Bray and I just

redid my branding, totally new logo, all new colors. Like that is going to shift. Like your business plan also will shift. When I started Bray, I thought that 80% of our business would be actually on the brand side of things. I loved that part of the industry. I love strategy. I still sort of, I would say like have those bones in my body where I like, I love the strategy piece of it. And then thought, you know, 20% would be talent management and it's totally flip-flopped.

95% of what we do is talent. And now I take 5% of it is just really consultancy on the brand side. So even that's completely different. If I would have like wasted my time putting all of that on paper, I would be way, way further behind than I am right now in my business. So you got to get it out there. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think that's so smart. And I didn't even think about, you know, making a list of every connection that you've ever made. I think that's so important. And we, we do that a lot on like LinkedIn and then

we go connect with them, but then we never actually reach out and go get coffee and have conversations. It's just more of like following along on that social platform. So I'm going to have to do that for some, some people. I feel like my big piece of advice for new entrepreneurs is asking is free. Like, I think so many people are afraid to connect with somebody or, you know, pick their brain, or I don't know if I should ask for that. Like asking is free. Just ask like the worst that they can say is no. And if they say no, like that's fine. There's somebody else out there that is going to say yes. And I think that there's, I feel like when I first started my business, I definitely went through an idea of like imposter syndrome. I think we

all sort of do. If you don't, I find you to be very lucky. Please let me know what your childhood was like or whatever, back to where you are. But I think my biggest, I definitely suffered from that. I think every entrepreneur in their journey at one point is going to say, oh my biggest, I definitely suffered from that. I think every entrepreneur in their journey at one point is going to say, Oh my God, like, do I even know what I'm doing? And should I even be here? And I have, and, and you're looking around at everybody else being like, there's so much further ahead than me. And like, how did she get there? And I think that you just have to realize that like, a, everything is figureoutable. That's like my motto. Everything is figureoutable. It just is. And B, nobody knows what they're doing.

Like let you in on a secret. Nobody knows what they're doing. Like even in talent management, like everybody runs their business so differently. Their corporate structure is different. Their commission structure is different. The way that they build other teams is different. The way that they pitch is differently.

The way that they source talent is differently. There is not a blueprint. Nobody knows what they're doing. Everyone is figuring out as they go. And that was really helpful for me because I felt like I was just kind of like, well, shoot, maybe I really should, I don't know what I'm doing.

And so maybe I shouldn't be doing this when it's like, no one knows what they're doing. Like low key, nobody knows what they're doing. Yeah. So, so true. And I, I'm like, we need to clip that out and we need to just like project it everywhere because I've got all the like snaps for you because that's a hundred percent. What we are always talking about on this show is like, no one knows what they're doing.

We're figuring it out every single day. And I think that's totally okay. That's when the breakthrough comes. That's when you figure out what you're meant to do is when you're just like chugging along and trying to figure it out. So love that so much. Thank you for sharing. Well, we'd love to ask this question on the show and you kind of just answered it a little bit, but I'd love to know if there's anything else. What do you know now that you wish you knew earlier on in your career? I think it definitely has to do around. I think it definitely has to do around imposter syndrome. I would think that I really felt here's the thing about entrepreneurship that I feel like nobody tells you about is everyone tells you that entrepreneurship is lonely. I always thought that that meant like,

oh, it's because you're working by yourself, right? Like you're no longer in an office sitting and you typically, when you're first starting, at least like you don't have coworkers, you're not in an office setting, there's no camaraderie. Entrepreneurship is lonely in the sense that you have only yourself. So you need to be your own cheerleader. You don't have C-suites telling you like you nailed that presentation, like congrats, or you don't have a coworker being like, wow, you really killed that strategy. Like you have to do that for yourself. You have to hype yourself up. And if you're not prepared to do that, because you don't feel in a place of self-assuredness, entrepreneurship is going to be really hard. Like it's really a place where you kind of have to pull on like your big girl pants and like hype yourself. Like you got to root for

yourself. And I think that that's where we kind of get lost in this imposter syndrome because it's like, well, I don't have anyone hyping me up anymore. I don't know if I should be doing this. And so that was probably like my biggest lesson that I wish I had known before is like, you really have to be your own biggest cheerleader. And there's no reason not to be your own biggest cheerleader. There's like, there's going to be enough in your life and in business that is going to like be a struggle for you. The one thing that should remain constant for you is the fact that you think that you are the baddest bee ever like that should that should be your one thing um so yeah I would say I would say that I wish I had known that earlier also I will say like get a

great lawyer when you start a business like that's that's always a great thing to know like have a really good like counsel in your back pocket because you will run into like contracting and things like that. And you want someone in your pocket that knows really what they're doing. So yeah, I would say that has been my biggest piece of advice.

What I wish I had known earlier. It's just like nobody knew what they were doing. Everyone just figured it out. Yeah, yeah. No, I know both Erica and I have certainly been there. I, a little bit recently, and it comes in waves too. There's like days where you wake up and you're like, oh my gosh, like yesterday I had it all together, but today I'm like, I just, you know, and things happen,

things happen with clients that just set you off track, but you have to get yourself back on track. Remember why you're doing this in the first place and you'll snap, snap back into it really quickly. We also did a recording just an hour ago with someone else. And she said, one of her strategies is every day she's writing down her wins for the day. So it's not just like the end of the month, the end of the week. Like she has a notepad every single day where every time something good happens, she'll write it down.

And I was like, that is such a good strategy. Cause then you could just look down at your desk and you know, like, wow, look what all I accomplished today. And I've been accomplishing and like, I just need to keep that momentum going. So yeah. Good tip. I keep a hype folder in my photos. Yes. I like, so every, like I have an album in my photos. That's like, anytime a client texts me like, oh my gosh, Molly, like you are amazing. I can't believe we landed this deal. Or like, I'm so grateful for you. I couldn't do my business without you.

Like I'm screenshotting it and I just add it to that folder. And I like, same thing. I mean, I'm like you said, it comes in waves. I'm four years into my business. Like, you know, and it's a successful business. Like we have a hundred percent year over year growth. Like we've really grown an immense amount in four years. But last week I just had like a bout of imposter syndrome. I was just

like, Oh, like we're in the middle of trying to grow our team right now and trying to restructure and figure out what that looks like. And it was just kind of like this moment of gosh, like this is not my wheelhouse. Like I am not like HR is not really my thing. Growing a team is not really my thing. Like I am really, my strongest suit is talent and relationships. And so like, I even had it last week. It comes in waves. It does. Yeah. It happens to all of us. And thank you for sharing that. Cause I know a lot of times, like we just don't want to share that with people. Cause we want to make everything look like things are going well. And, and to your point, like even the biggest companies, like until you actually get an inside look,

you realize like, oh, things aren't all as together as we thought they were. You know, we seem very surprised by that, but it's so true. Like we're all just on this journey together. Keep your head up. Don't let those things stop you. So thank you for sharing that. Such good advice today. And so thank you for just coming on and sharing all of that with us today.

We're super excited to stay in touch with you and just see all that you personally have going on, but also with Bray. Um, so tell us where we can stay in touch with you online, uh, websites, all of the things. Oh, okay. Um, we're on IG at Bray digital. We do have a lot of fun over there. Um, LinkedIn definitely look me up on LinkedIn We do have a lot of fun over there. LinkedIn, definitely look me up on LinkedIn. I have a lot of fun on LinkedIn. I've committed to posting once a week this year, which I've stuck to, which doesn't seem like a lot,

but that is a lot for me because time management. And then at braydigital.com. Thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thanks for having me guys. It was fun. Thanks for listening to Marketing Happy Hour today. Following our conversation with Molly, here are a few action items I know all definitely be working on. Number one, work on developing those own channels.

Don't put all your eggs in one social media basket. If you haven't focused on building rich content out for your email or website audiences, now is the time to start. Number two, when building influencer partnerships, define all KPIs, goals, and creative requirements in advance. Deliver those to the creator early on in the partnerships. Number three, think about your brand values and the type of creator you need to work with to find alignment in the partnerships. Number three, think about your brand values and the type of creator you need to work with to find alignment in a partnership. And lastly, asking is free. So think about what you're looking to gain in your career and go ask for it. The worst manager or network

connection can say is no or not right now. That's all we have for you this week. Thank you for listening to Marketing Happy Hour. is no or not right now. That's all we have for you this week. Thank you for listening to Marketing Happy Hour. We are so excited to share that our first ever free Marketing Happy Hour digital resource is now available. Download the dream career game plan today at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. That's marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. This five-step workbook will guide you through defining your goals, building your network, diversifying your skills, influencing where you're at and investing in your growth. Cassie and I created this resource with marketing careers in mind, but the framework can be applied to any industry.

Our hope is that this workbook will help you truly elevate your career, whether you're in the market for a new position or just looking to make your mark in your current organization. No matter where this resource finds you, we are cheering you on every step of the way. So go check it out at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie to download and make your career dreams come true.