The Entrepreneur DNA - The Future of Marketing: AI, Ads, and What Still Works | Molly Lopez

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

If you’re a small to mid-sized business and you’re serious about growing, go check out https://www.sparomarketing.com and connect with Molly directly. n this episode of Entrepreneur DNA, I sit down with Molly Lopez, founder of Sparrow Marketing, to break down what actually works in advertising today and what most business owners are getting completely wrong. Molly shares her journey from working with massive brands like Royal Caribbean and Lennar to building an agency that helps small and mid-sized businesses access big-budget marketing strategies without the massive spend. We dive deep into how even a $1,000/month budget can generate real results if used correctly, and why most businesses fail before they even get started. She explains why marketing is not a fix for a broken business model and why proving your offer first is critical before scaling with ads. We also unpack what makes a “good” vs “bad” client, realistic timelines for results (3–6 months minimum), and how trust in the process is essential for success. Molly reveals where she would invest $50K today (hint: YouTube Shorts, Reddit, and X) and what’s becoming less effective, including the evolution of influencer marketing and why traditional approaches no longer convert like they used to. We also get into one of the biggest conversations in business right now—AI. Molly shares how agencies are leveraging AI today, why they’re still necessary, and how businesses can stay competitive in a rapidly changing landscape. Finally, we talk about the importance of personal branding, especially for service-based businesses, and why putting yourself out there is no longer optional if you want to win. This episode is a must-listen for any entrepreneur looking to grow smarter, spend better, and understand where marketing is actually heading About Molly: Molly Lopez is the Founder and CEO of Sparo Marketing, a Miami-based digital marketing agency focused on helping small to mid-sized businesses achieve big-budget results without the big-budget spend. She is a nationally recognized, technology-forward marketing expert with 10–15+ years of experience across paid media, social media, content marketing, and SEO. Throughout her career, Molly has worked with major global brands including Royal Caribbean, Lennar Homes, Sandals Resorts, Del Monte Fresh, and Aventura Mall, developing omnichannel growth strategies that drive measurable results. She founded Sparo in 2019 with the mission of making high-level marketing accessible and scalable for businesses of all sizes, helping startups, growing companies, and enterprise brands expand into new markets and accelerate revenue. Website:https://www.sparomarketing.com Instagram (Company):https://www.instagram.com/sparomarketing LinkedIn (Molly Lopez):https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollykatherinelopez LinkedIn (Company):https://www.linkedin.com/company/sparomarketing About Justin: Justin Colby is the host of The Entrepreneur DNA and The Science of Flipping podcasts and a best-selling author. He is a serial entrepreneur with over and a seasoned real estate investor with over 20 years of experience. Driven by a passion to help entrepreneurs thrive, Justin created the Entrepreneur DNA community to support business owners in building wealth, systems, and long-term freedom. Through his podcasts, books, education platforms, and hands-on mentorship, he continues to help entrepreneurs scale with clarity and confidence. Connect with Justin: Instagram: @thejustincolby YouTube: Justin Colby TikTok: @justincolbytsof LinkedIn: Justin Colby Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What is up, The Entrepreneur DNA? Welcome back to another incredible episode with an incredible guest before I get to her, as you know. The school community is out. The Entrepreneur DNA school community driven by the advisors, not me, the advisors just like this special lady I have in front of me, who you will hear from. She is going to be teaching you on advertising, marketing, budgets, ads in driving traffic. So go to school, sk-o-O-L-com forward slash the entrepreneur DNA, learn from these advisors is $25 a month. You can't afford not to be in it if you're growing your business. So today I have with me, Molly Lopez. She is the founder of Sparrow Marketing Agency. She actually helps businesses small, medium, and or large have the same type of quality in

marketing and advertising that the big businesses with multi-six figure budgets have. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I am pumped and excited to be here. I am too. Talk to us. about the power of advertising and why all businesses need to lead into marketing and advertising. Yeah. So part of the impetus of why I started my marketing agency about seven years ago now, I was working at what's now the biggest independent marketing firm in South Florida as a director. And we had a really cool roster of clients. I worked with a lot of, you know, household name brands. We were working with Royal Caribbean, Sandals Resorts, a bunch of the big hospitality brands, Lanar. which if you're in South Florida, those are all like, you know, the big players here.

And it was cool. You know, we had $100,000 multi-million budgets and access to our latest and greatest tools. And I also at the time, part of my role included like screening the new business calls that would come into the agency. And I would talk to business owners who, you know, had a really cool food and beverage product they were trying to launch or a tech startup or. or, you know, like a mom and pop law firm. And we would get into a conversation about pricing. And nine times out of 10, you know, that person would be priced out of working with that agency and what we were doing. And I just kind of had this thought of like, man, all of these like smaller and middle's market, you know, businesses need the caliber of what we're doing here and like need the power of digital marketing behind them.

And I could do what I'm doing, you know, in this fancy agency really like with my laptop on my couch and make. this so much more accessible for people. And so that was a big reason like why I started. And, you know, it's proven to be a great business model for me. And we've been able to help dozens and dozens of businesses scale starting out with very little, you know, sometimes no more than a thousand dollars a month. It can be as a little. It can be that little. It really can be that little. What could what should be the proper expectation if is going to, and I understand, listen, most businesses shouldn't just go into the defense, right? You don't want to just say, I have 10 grand to spend, so I'm going to spend 10 grand, right?

But let's just talk about the person that literally is like, I'm on a shoestring budget. I have $1,000 a month. What should the proper expectations for the small business as $1,000 a month should be expecting when putting that into marketing? Yeah. So the analogy that I always love to use is if your audience is your bread, your media spend is your butter. So there's only a certain amount of like bread. you can cover with a finite amount of butter, right? Or it's going to be spread out too thin.

So there's a lot of different ways that you can make that piece of bread smaller so that your media spend actually has an impact. So if, you know, for example, if a law firm comes to us and they want to start a weed gen campaign and their budget is $1,000 a month, perfect. Well, you're probably not going to be able to target, you know, five different cities and six different practice areas with that budget. But if we start with one city and one practice area, can we, you know, take that $1,000 a month and get you 10 really solid leads, you know, from that ad budget and then start to scale? Yeah.

So really, like, you know, while there is probably a minimum threshold, it really depends on who you're trying to target. And, you know, just having your expectations in alignment of whatever your media spend is and kind of where you're starting out. Sparrow itself is more of a digital marketing agency or do you cover the whole spectrum? Yeah. So we are purely a digital agency. So probably like what you would consider in traditional advertising like a media buying agency. But we also do social media, which is a really broad umbrella of influencer marketing, community management, social growth, all those kind of things, social content creation as well. That's phenomenal.

Yeah. Yeah. And then so you actually can lean into someone, maybe like myself, right, has a president, You say, Justin, I think you could do some things that with our agency, we could really grow that presence. You'll actually help influencers, if you want to say that, grow their influence. So we don't work with individuals. So, like, I think personal branding is really its own beast. And I have awesome people in my network that I refer to that.

So our agency specializes in growing the brands and presences of, like, companies and entities that aren't tied to a single founder. So if you know, you're trying to build a personal brand for, you know, you as Justin, that's one thing. That's one part of the game. And then where we've really honed in our focus is for your actual like brand and company. So that's more where we're dialed in. What is the biggest mistake as small to medium size business can make in the marketing space? Ooh, I think hiring a marketing agency too soon. So there is a lot of clients that we still turn down. Um, specifically startups. Like a lot of startups will go out and, you know, do a fundraise or they'll get their

angel investment and all of a sudden they are sitting on, you know, half a million dollars, million dollars in cash. And they think that the like cheat code to launching a successful product or service or whatever it might be in the marketplace is, cool, let's go out and spend a bunch of money on ads. Let's hire a marketing agency. and like let's like do our go to market. But marketing is not a like band-aid for bad product, bad market fit, bad fulfillment,

bad customer service, like all these different things that really have to be proven out before you like pour fuel on the fire. And I'd say the biggest mistake that I see is companies thinking, oh, if I just start running a bunch of ads, I'm going to get clients or I'm going to get customers before they've really taken the time to prove out the success of that company. So I always tell people like sell to your friends, sell to your family, sell to the person next door, like prove out that you've got a valuable business model. Like do everything in your power to generate growth and generate momentum them without ads, without an agency.

And if you can get success doing that, then bring in an agency partner, then bring in some marketing firepower and use that to accelerate the success that you're already having. But if you skip that step and then you just like dive into, cool, I have this great idea. I'm going to go market it. Like proven recipe to crash and burn every time. What is the one thing, a small to medium size business? does what I want to say is like how are we bad clients if I run a small to medium size business and you're like okay great we're a good fit let's move forward how does a small

to medium sized business become a bad client to you with communication with you know what their expectations are how are we like bad that we need to make a shift so we can actually be a good client to you I love that question and the fact that like if you were my client asking that, I would be like, you're already a great client because so few clients are actually thinking about the like 50% that they bring to the table in an agency business like relationship. The number one thing is trust and expectations. Like if you really believe in the work that your agency is doing, trust them so that if, you know, there's a month where leads are down and the agency's optimizing campaigns or

whatever the case might be, like, hang in there and know that there's no such thing as overnight success. Like, there's no purple pill. Like, if I had that, like, I'd be, like, on a yacht in my... How did you read that? You'd have a very large business not working. Exactly. Exactly.

So, like, any type of marketing takes time. There's no magic switch that I can just go flip on in Google or meta or any platform and just poof, instantly get you success. Like there's a science and an art to it. There's testing. There's testing different tactics. Even the algorithms themselves, you know, so much of what we're doing now is driven by AI. Like a lot of the manual media buying that, you know, was how we did things for the past decade is being replaced by big data signals and AI and these algorithms.

But even those algorithms aren't instantaneous. Like they rely on feedback and data points from those campaigns and, order to optimize those campaigns and reach your best customers. And that doesn't happen overnight, especially if you're working with small budgets. So if you chose the agency, you chose them for a reason, trust them, trust the process, and know that, you know, the results aren't going to be instantaneous. You know, some of the best results that we've gotten for clients have come six, nine, even 12 months into our relationship where we've done all these foundational things and then you hit that point in the bell curve and it starts paying off exponentially.

All businesses or industries probably could be different. So your answer may not be easy to answer, but give me the best you can to boil a plate the answer. What would be the proper expectation going into our relationship, say, hey, I want you to run my ads. I want you to be my agency. What is the proper length expectation? And then what would be the proper result type of expectation?

Again, bearing, you know, industries can be different. and then why I would be hiring you might be different depending upon the sector. But time and spend, what are the proper expectations as a blanket answer would you recommend? Yeah, so I always say three to six months, like three months to start seeing. I don't even think three months is, I say six. Yeah, yeah. It's really like you might be able to move the needle on three, but really like. I always say three for traction, six for optimization.

So like three months is like where you should start seeing some. progress, right? Like, the phone should be ringing. You should be getting, if it's lead Jen, you should be getting at least some leads. They might not be home run leads, but you're getting leads, right? Phones ringing, forms are being filled out. If we're not there in three months, that's like a, that's a red flag for me internally, you know, like, hey, what's, is this the wrong audience that we're targeting? Is this the wrong channel? Like, that's kind of a signal of like, okay, we need to make a big pivot. Yeah. And then I always say six months to feel. like, okay, you know, not only is the phone ringing, but I'm answering the phone and like,

oh my gosh, I just talk to someone who would be a perfect client, you know, or like if it's e-commerce, okay, I'm, you know, climbing out of that like break-even point and I'm starting to see, you know, 1.5 to 2, 2.5 ROS. So that's typically what we tell people, but of course it depends where you're starting from too, right? Like if you're starting out with, you know, a shitty website and like a bunch of foundational stuff that we have to fix, that can, of course, add on to that timeline. If I had a $50,000 budget today right now to go put into an agency and say, I'm ready to grow, where are you going to spend it? What platform and then what platforms are you avoiding? Totally depends on what kind of business are you. Okay. Yeah. I like that

industry because like I said, I'm trying to make it where everyone can gather. But the reality is what you do is very specific to the industry. Yeah. So, well, let me just say, So if I want you to grow this podcast as an example, said, I want to go do awareness for the podcast. Yeah. Because part of the podcast is this community that you just heard about, the school community, which will drive people in to learn from the advisors like yourself, right? If I say, I have 50 grand right now ready to go. I want to grow the brand, grow the podcast, grow the listening,

because that will lead into going to the community. And I have 50 grand right now. where would you be spending the money on what platforms? Where are you going to avoid it? Yeah. So for that specifically, I would say YouTube is going to be a gold mine for you, specifically YouTube shorts. If you're not utilizing YouTube shorts yet, this is like the hot ticket.

This is the gold people. Listen right now. YouTube shorts is kind of like if you guys remember like how TikTok exploded during the pandemic and it was super easy to rack up views, like you could almost literally just like post anything on TikTok and it was so new and there were so few users that it's like you'd rack up thousands of views like that now it's not so easy right like like now it's super oversaturated and it's it's attention deficit like everything else but youtube shorts is i feel like that next platform specifically if your audience like leans like male so where like instagram skews a little more

female youtube short skews a little more male it's kind of like instagram reels for men. So I am a big fan of investing in YouTube ads, specifically like YouTube shorts right now. I also think another like dark horse that a lot of people are overlooking is Reddit, especially in the business community. I think that like as our, you know, timelines become more full of like overly produced, overly branded content. Like it's really like driving people into Reddit and into kind of more these like community-based platforms where people feel like I can find real advice and authentic advice. And so having a presence in Reddit, advertising in Reddit, the ads in Reddit are like extremely, extremely like native. And so I don't know, it's less intrusive, but I think that's a

great way to connect with the business community. And then X as well. And like advertising on X right now is dirt cheap. So I would probably, for this, like, scenario, include that in the media mix as well. What about, so I didn't know Reddit, a lot of you do ads. I don't know anything about Reddit. I'm not even on Reddit. But you can actually do ads in the same way you can for YouTube, Google, Facebook, same stuff. Yeah, yeah. And you can target things contextually. So, like, based on conversations people are having threads that you want to show up in and programmatically based on, you know, what their platform knows about their users as well. That seems like it would be specifically for me, that actually seems like in this general question, that actually would be very useful.

Because I'm sure there's a lot of business style questions that are in Reddit and the entrepreneur DNA and people like yourself as advisors are like, I need help. And then they look up marketing and then they hear this episode. Next you know, they reach out to you. Exactly. Yeah. Reddit is really a gold mine, not only for reaching people because it's become, you know, the go-to place where people are trying to find. answers. Like, you know, if you look at your Google search history, probably in just the past week, like so many of my searches now on like, da-da-da-da-da-da-reddit. Like I specifically want to see,

like, what are people talking about on Reddit about this? Because I don't want just like a canned or sponsored answer. Yeah. So not only like running ads there, but also like we're getting a lot of source material for our advertising from Reddit. So like what are the pain points that people in XYZ industry are talking about right now? Like, what are the challenges that, business owners or, you know, potential customers are facing with XYZ product. It's just such a good, like, raw breeding ground for that kind of inspiration and like real, having a real pulse on your audience. Yeah. What are you avoiding? What is oversaturated? What is not performing as well? Again, your answer might be industry specific, but maybe come up with an industry in your head.

Like what is not performing the way it used to in the advertising space? Yeah. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, not really a limb, but we do a lot of influencer marketing, but I'm going to say like influencer marketing, I think is really changing or more so and better said brands need to rethink how they're approaching influencer marketing. You know, if you think back to like, again, 10 years ago, 2016-ish, influencer marketing was like king, right? Like Kim Kardashian could post a single product and then has like $100 million valuation like overnight or, you know, all of these.

Lumpal and all the Paul brothers and they would just literally explode a brand. Exactly, exactly. And I think that that's still there for like. celebrity brands, but I think that a lot of like the, I'm going to get an influencer to post about my product and then instantly get sales from it is gone because we've been so desensitized to it, right? Like we are used to having these products like push to us, even if it's like a creator and influencer that we love. The minute we recognize like, oh, this person is like selling me this product like swipe skip like it's just really difficult to get kind of like those flash in

the pan moments out of influencer marketing anymore and so what we've been advising our clients and kind of dialing in on is more like using influencers to create the content right so like forget about their reach, forget about like, oh, when they posted it, it got so many engagements or I got so many, you know, clicks to my website, those days are gone. But this influencer talking about my product, if I can capture that asset, short form video, carousel posts, whatever the case might be, then blow that out with paid advertising where, you know, my CPMs are still great and the ROI is going to be great. That's where I think the real value of influencer marketing now is, is more like capture the third party endorsement, blow it out on your own channels because, you know,

consumers were just so desensitized to influencers like pushing products at us. It's, it's not the game that it used to be. You use the word celebrity, which I think is very poignant right now. I think everyone is an Instagram celebrity at this point, right? Like there are celebrities and then there are influencers. Yeah. I think society needs to start differentiating between the two. Kim Kardashian is a celebrity at this point. Now, she's influential because people look up to her. Women look up to her.

She has literally created millions of girls that try to look like her, right? She's created a whole industry, I feel like. But the influential side of it is, I think, something that people can still lean into. How do you actually offer value to the marketplace? You come from big business advertising and marketing, right? I believe, and I want your opinion on this, I believe the thing that they need to lean into a little bit more. I think they've historically always leaned into celebrities, right? They go hire Tom Brady and, you know, some insurance company now is Tom Brady being their spokesperson.

Fine. They pay Tom, Tom does it, whatever. How do you bring someone that can be influential in the space of that business and create value to the marketplace rather than just the celebrity they're marketing? That I think is where I would hire an agency like you because I believe my brand is important as a company, but who's the person in my case, it would be me, that like can be the value, the influential person. Does that make sense? Are people leaning into that? Are businesses, small businesses leaning into that or leaning away from that? I think a lot of smaller businesses don't know where to start with. that, right? Like, I think like everything, you know, we just talked about like, oh, Tom Brady or whether it's, you know, Alex Earl or Kim Kardashian, like feels so out of reach. I don't think people are thinking about it that way, like on a micro level of like who in my space do I actually have access to and have the ability to connect with who can be influential.

So I actually I really like how you put it of like how can small and mid-sized businesses do this. And like, no, you're not going to be able to go out and get Tom Brady. But even like if you're a local business, you know, is there someone who's a local podcaster, local newscaster, you know, maybe not like someone who is publicly facing influential, but who has the network of. people that you're trying to access behind the scenes, you know, even like us, sitting down, doing this podcast, how can you connect with influencers in your space and leverage that to your advantage without thinking in terms of like, you know, oh, celebrity, like it's this or nothing. Yeah. Well, so I want to lean into the popular topic, AI, because it's everywhere.

So are marketing agencies becoming office? obsolete with the power of AI now? I would say that we are in this very kind of eye of the storm moment for marketing agencies where it is a very, very unique and profitable and opportunistic or, you know, a window of opportunity. Sure. Because here's how the industry works, right? Like marketing agencies are always going to move faster than in-house marketing teams and clients, right?

Like we have more tools, more people. We're 100% laser focused on one thing, which is marketing, right? So I would say that like, for instance, like my team, our use of AI and integration of AI into our marketing workflows is probably like two or three years like ahead of where most of our clients are. And that works to our advantage because we're able to get more done, higher quality outputs, same amount of people power, same amount of time. But like, I don't want to say like our clients are none the wiser because it's not like it's not transparent. Like it's not like, oh, we're, you know, doing these like things like deceptively. But like we're leveraging all these amazing AI tools and providing the value back to our clients because our clients just aren't there yet. like in terms of the like technological edge.

I think in a couple years that that's, that gap is going to close where internal marketing teams and brands are going to have those tools directly at their fingertips. And I think it is going to put a lot of pressure on marketing agencies. I don't think that the agency model is going to become obsolete because, you know, everyone has used this analogy, but it's like, you know, even you have the invention of the car, but somebody still has to drive it, right? Like there's still going to be a need for that human element of strategy and direction and creating the inputs that are going to create the outputs. But is it going to put pressure on the agency space?

100%, right? Like, you know, oh, hey, oh, we don't need to pay the agency to build that landing page. You know, I can just put into a prompt into, you know, Claude or chat or Adobe and, you know, within minutes have the landing page. So brands are going to catch up to that. And that's something that, you know, like I'm very aware of and have been thinking about in my business of like, how do we future proof? How do we, you know, adopt technologies that are going to put us ahead of the game so that when that, you know, crunch comes, when that wave catches up to us, we're in a good position and, you know, we're not going to kind of be taken out by it. I'm sure it's a daily thought on top of your mind, right? But where have you gotten so far? Like, how do you become futureproof? How do the marketing agencies become future proof? As at this moment in time, what is going through your head on how you can do that for yourself? Yep. So with an agency or any service-based business model, right? Like you're trading other people's time for money. That's the whole name of the game. So how do you create arbitrage? How do you create margin? there. So there's really two things that we're focused on. One is integration of technology and

automation. So how can we do the same things but faster and with less manpower, less hours, right? So leveraging AI tools, whether that's, you know, within our project planning platforms, whether that's in our ad buying, our creative processes, using them smartly and when they make sense, I think there's definitely a case of like sometimes over reliance on on AI but letting AI do what it does best and amplify the outputs of what we're putting in and then also staffing. So we're in a really unique part of the country here in Miami. We have a ton of access to Latin America. And that's been a huge boon for my agency is outsourcing and hiring. team members from Latin America. So we actually have like a satellite office in Bogota where I've got

my media buyers and a bunch of really great marketers. Just like awesome, awesome talent. Same time zone. And definitely like, you know, cost of living. Way less there. So it's it's advantageous to kind of have the functions of my team that can be based in Latam. In Latam, it's a win-win. I think any industry is going to have this question. Like, how do we make it through AI? I literally had a conversation yesterday where there's some AI coming out in the sales vertical. And I think most sales people are like, oh, you can never really affect sales. Like, it's always a personal business.

And I listened to this whole thing. And I said, oh, my God. Like, salespeople are in trouble. Like, bad. Because it is a robot talking. Unless you genuinely know is a robot. you might question it. Maybe like, is this AI?

Is it not? It was as good as I've ever heard anything. And I think even the sales industry is going to be in trouble here. Right. And so my point to that is every industry. Like it doesn't matter what you do. Minus as a moment in time, essentially like maybe a home builder, you're probably pretty safe this second.

But, you know, the financial industry is where you're getting crushed. So I ask that because I think any industry that can offer value to the clientele, And when I say value, I mean how do you become cheaper without sacrifice and quality? Exactly. How do you become easier so I don't have to go deal with my internal marketing team and manage them and have to deal with people and their issues? Because as a small to medium size business, hiring people, retaining people, managing people, dealing with their issues, they come in, they just broke up with their boyfriend and girlfriend. They're having a bet. Like, I have to deal with that.

when I hire you, I don't. I say, just let's get these ads rolling, let's get going. I don't have to deal with the bad day that's happening, right? So how do you, the question always becomes, in my opinion, regarding AI, how, if you're a service-based industry, how do you offer the service at a less, a lower price, but offer, don't waver on your value that you offer. And I think in your world, I think you kind of, to your first answer, you're kind of in an opportunistic zone, right?

You're actually able to leverage a lot of this AI. I run a marketing business through podcasting and social media. Yeah. I do not spend all my time looking at AI and deal with AI is why companies like you exist. I don't have more time to do that, right? So I think people need to reframe like, should I hire an agent? Do you have time to do it yourself? And then are you going to be nearly as good in putting in 12 hours a day working it versus Sparrow?

And that's the question that really needs to be asked. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And this is nothing new. Like, we've been through this before, right? Where, like, you know, it used to be you had to know HTML and you had to know code to build a website. And then, you know, WordPress and Squarespace and Wix and Webflow and Duda and all these platforms come along. And suddenly anybody can build a website. But do you have the time to do that?

And is the output going to be as good? good as if you hire somebody else to do it, right? And it's, it's like, it's going to be like that with AI just to an accelerated degree, right? But that, that question or like that need is always going to be there for sure from a lot of brands of, yeah, maybe I could build this website with AI. Maybe I could generate these ad creatives from AI, but do I even have the time to do that? Or do I even know, like, like, what does good look like, you know, like, Like, I could do this and it could suck. Like, am I qualified to evaluate the outputs even if I can do the inputs?

And just because it's there doesn't mean you should, right? I mean, just like anything, like I can. Is it even good? And I don't want good. I want great. I want someone like you can go to a doctor if your heart has murmurs. But if you're going to have heart surgery, do you want to just go to any surgeon or do you want to go to a heart surgeon?

Right, exactly. Like any surgeon might be able to fix your heart issue. But you know what? I want to go to an actual heart surgery. That's all they focus on is. Yeah. So talk to us about your clientele. I really want to lean into this idea because I believe in what you do, right?

So if you're out there contemplating, like, should I be looking into an agency, I definitely want you to reach out to Molly. And first of all, where can they find you, what platform? Where should they go to find you, Molly, to find Sparrow, the whole nine yards? Yeah. So sparrowmarketing.com. Sparrowmarketing.com. Easy peasy.

Reach out there. You can always follow me on social media too. Ali Catherine Lopez and yeah, I'd be happy to connect with you. We focus on six kind of core industries, which is still very broad. We're not like a one trick pony, one niche agency, which a lot of great agencies are. You know, they just do home services or they just do coaching or they just do whatever. So we do commercial real estate. So we work with like a lot of like real estate developers, commercial real estate brokerages,

hospitality and destination. So shopping centers, restaurants, malls, that sort of thing. Legal, law firms. Love law firms. Love them. Love them. Almost became an attorney really glad I didn't, but now I get to work with them. So that's always fun.

Medical, so like independent medical practices, surgical groups, even like bigger, like healthcare companies or like med tech. And then finance. So FinTech, financial services, investment firms, banks, that sort of thing. Now, some of these companies, small to medium, like law firms tend to be medium to large. Like, how do you, what do you qualify in terms of the size of scope? Because, right, you come from big business, right? You come from these really large companies. How do you justify it?

Like, what's your qualifier for, like, are you the right type of client for Sparrow? Yeah. So, I mean, we've worked with law firms like Greenberg-Try, which is one of the biggest lot firms in the world down to that. Unfortunately, I know them. That sucks. Whatever. Yeah, all the way down to like solo practitioners. We're helping the law firm scale right now. That's just, you know, one guy. But he's in a really interesting space where there's a lot of growth opportunity. And, you know, through the tactics that we have, we're able to help him capture that. So I think it comes down to just, you know, what is your business model, the type of clients that you're targeting. And with the tools that we have in our toolkit, are we the best partner? to help you.

And if the answer is yes and it's a go, then... Let's use this example. So I'm curious. I'm not a marketing agency in the way you are, but I really lean into marketing as why I built this podcast is to be able to become a marketing platform for all of my guests, right? If I'm a solo lawyer looking to build my law firm, as an advisor, if he came to me, it's a Justin wish I do, not having the expertise of you.

I'd say, I need you to become the brand. because people will hire your firm because of you versus the last name PLC, which I don't even know what you're talking about, but like they always have the last name PLC. Exactly. And so my suggestion is you need to lean into your personal brand as heavy as anything right now. You can do brand marketing for awareness of the law firm, but people need to know you and buy into you and they will hire the firm, right?

Are you, it seems like you're in agreement. What was your advice with this individual? Yeah. So there's kind of two different avenues that we're taking with this particular person. One, we're sitting down and we're making thought leadership style social media content for him on behalf of the firm and putting that out there. So people, you know, see his face, hear his voice, hear his expertise. Like he's building that value before they even, you know, go to the website or pick up the phone. And then we're also doing Google ads.

So just like. down and dirty traditional lead generation, you know, people searching for an attorney in the very specific types of niches that he serves where there's not a ton of competition, right? Like, it's one thing if like, you know, this is like a one man law firm. So as you can imagine, not a huge budget. But he's in a space where there's a ton of arbitrage. There's a ton of opportunity. And we can do that. You know, if he were like a personal injury lawyer, for instance, everywhere. You're going to be spending against behemoths, you know, like the Morgan and Morgans and the Anadry and Levines.

And it's like almost impossible to carve out a slice of that pie with traditional digital marketing tactics. But in another area that's, you know, a less saturated vertical, there might be a ton of runway. And we can help you take that, you know, with Google ads, with meta ads, with whatever the case might be. So if you are a small to medium size business trying to get it carve out a slice of that you know market share against the behemoth in your space what would be one or two strategies that you would suggest a small to medium size business through that it's it's tough it's it's really tough. I would say like you almost have to come up with something that is going to. really make you stand out from the pack. Like, if you are serious about breaking in and, like, growing. Like, if you're, for instance, a personal injury attorney, right?

Super hard to differentiate. Super competitive. You just have such established players that are going to outspend you hand over fist every single time. So, like, what can you do that's totally out of the box that's totally different? you know it's like the Gary V starting a wine YouTube channel like back in the day like it's like thinking of like what can I do is it a podcast is it a YouTube segment that I'm going to post every day is it like a bit am I going to like put on a you know purple suit and go downtown in the streets of

Miami and like interview people like what am I going to do like it almost kind of has to be something that's very different than like what everybody else is doing if you want to capture that attention like do that you know you just want to be another guy in a suit who's a personal injury attorney and go up against these guys like wish you the best wish you're not to be my yeah exactly yeah because you would set yourself up for failure right because at some point you're just going to be like i know i'm not going to break this if he's only going to sit behind a desk in a suit with a red tie and say call me right like then sparrow gets the the the, oh, you couldn't do it.

Exactly. I'm saying my, so I love what you're saying here because you're also kind of answering the other part that I previous said. You would have to really lean into your personal brand there. Yeah, yeah. And make it not about the firm and how you're going to be able to let us go, you know, get the insurance money for you. There's nothing you can say that the other guys aren't already saying and amplifying 10 times louder because they have the budget to do it. Right. But what they don't do, at least I don't see it, they don't go.

Instagram, real, like, educational, influential, influential, interview other people, their experience. What do you think about the angle? If you are trying to beat the big guy, like, shit talk them. Like, hey, you're tired of the big company, just trying to get business because of the big company. I'm going to actually hold your hand and get this done because I'm not the big company.

And minimize yourself in a respectful, value-driven way to say, I'll give you the value of not becoming a big bohemist. And I'm going to work with you to make sure that you get everything you deserve. Yeah, 100%. I love that. And I think that, like, there's fewer people than you would expect who are really willing to, like, go out on a limb and, like, do something that's going to be groundbreaking and kind of, like, ruffle some feathers. You know, to, like, to do that, you have to be willing to get some backlash. And, like, you have to have the stomach for it.

Yeah. I don't know if you know there's this company called big-ass fans, if you've ever heard of it. But like, I don't think so. Yes. And they're just the box fans, right? They're, they make these huge fans. They're literally, I think I got. Yeah.

Super successful company. They're based in Lexington, Kentucky, where I used to live. So I actually know a bunch of people who work there. But follow them on social media. I love their branding. I love their whole spiel. And like, that's their whole thing. They were like, we're just going to call, like, what do we do?

We make big-ass fans. Okay, we're going to call this company big-ass fans. And like, every, week they literally get letters from people being like, I would never buy from your company because of this crude language that's in your name. And, you know, and then they make a bit out of it. And they like, you know, photograph it and they like hang it on the wall or they post it on social media. Like, oh, you know, Brenda from Arkansas doesn't like the fact that we're called big ass fans and she's never going to buy from us. So you kind of have to have that mentality of like, this might not be for

everyone, but like I'm willing to put myself out there and like really stand out. I think and we'll leave it here, but I think everyone needs to put themselves out there. What are you doing right now as we're shooting this podcast? What is Molly Lopez doing? Yeah. Molly is on a podcast being introduced as Molly, that she is the founder of Sparrow, but you are leaning into your personal brand to get the message out there that there is a company Sparrow that can do marketing, advertising for small to medium-sized businesses with the quality of the big

business without having to spend of the business. Like, you're doing it. You're literally in the middle of doing what I believe to be the biggest differentiator. Yeah, this is something I've wrestled with for a long time. Like, even though like half my career is built on social media, I have such a love-hate relationship with social media. And I think that there's probably a lot of entrepreneurs out there who can relate to this, who are like, but I don't want to be the face of my brand. I don't want to put myself out there. And that can be for all different types of reasons.

I think for mine, like my Achilles heel is I'm a perfectionist. And so like even on my way here this morning, I was like, crap, I didn't have time. I didn't blow out my hair. My hair is going to look a mess or whatever. But like just embracing the messy progress of it and being like, okay, well, you know, like, F it. I'm just, I'm going to show up. I'm going to do it anyway. and I'm going to like make progress on this.

I've really had to get over that and like be like, you know what? No, I just I need to put myself out there. So whether it's like a, you know, like a, I think like whether it's like false humility, like, oh, I don't want to be the spotlight of my brand or like perfectionism or just like fear of the spotlight. I, you know, work with a bunch of entrepreneurs who are just like, I hate being on camera. I hate, you know, whatever the case. I hate doing podcasts.

I don't want to, I don't want to do that. That's not me. I think you're you're so right. Like personal branding, it's, it's really important, especially in like service based industries, you know, like you're going to go buy a couch. I don't really care that much about the founder of that couch company, you know, like what is what is he like, whatever. But if it's going to be someone that like I'm working with and I'm the thing I'm buying from them, like you, you know, if it's like your mastermind or, you know, your school community, I'm buying into. Justin's expertise and his ability to provide value to me, I want to know about him. I want to know about his character. I want to know about his experience. I want to make sure, you know, what I'm getting is legit. So especially for service-based businesses and entrepreneurs, I think that it's really important. And this is the year, this is honestly like the first year that I feel like I'm like, okay, I just need to go balls to the walls on this and like execute and, you know,

like post, do the podcast, do the interviews, do the press. I think like the thing that like, I come back to that helps me is like, well, if I don't, like, somebody else who's like less qualified is going to go take that megaphone and get their voice out there. And like, that could have been me. And I probably would give better advice or I probably would, you know, provide more value. So, yeah, like don't downplay yourself. Put yourself out there. Good for you.

And as you guys are watching, listen, she's doing exactly what she would be telling you to do. So reach out to Molly Lopez. Go to Sparrow. What's the website again? Sparrowmarketing.com. And Molly, your handle is... Molly, Catherine Lopez. It's kind of long.

But you'll find me. If you look... And there's not many Molly Lopez's in the world. And then look for Catherine in the middle. And make sure you give her a follow. Make sure you let her know, you heard her here. If you're a small to medium-sized business, I've been marketing now for almost two decades.

Make sure you're working the right person. I appreciate being on. Thank you so much for having me. This was awesome. Yeah. If this was helpful, or if you think someone you know needs to talk to Molly and get a hold of Sparrow,

Please share this with least two of your friends. We'll see you on the next episode. Peace.