March 31, 2025 • 34 mins
Katherine Martín-Fisher welcomes Chandler Lyles to discuss his journey into entrepreneurship and the lessons learned from past business failures, leading to the creation of High Beam Marketing. They explore various marketing strategies, insights, and the challenges of branding and website optimization. Chandler shares his approach to tackling new business problems and compares organic versus paid social media marketing. The conversation highlights the importance of navigating business transitions, mentorship, and the significance of taking action and building a strong team. Chandler offers his perspective on the debate between marketing agencies and in-house marketing, and the episode concludes with ways to connect with him and a call to action.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
I am Catherine Martin Fisher, and I helpbusiness owners who have lost their vision
because they're struggling with cash flow,sales, marketing, which also affects their
company culture, by showing them to implementproven systems that increase their revenue by
30% in ninety days, and this allowing them toreignite the passion and that big dream that
(00:27):
they started with.
So the reason that I started this podcast wasto celebrate businesses who have overcome
adversity and have come out on the other sideof it.
And I want you to know that you are not alone.
Good afternoon.
This is Catherine, your host with the BeyondBusiness podcast, and I'm excited to introduce
(00:50):
you to Chandler Lyles.
So Chandler is an air force veteran.
He's a two time founder, and he's a he has adigital marketing advertising business, that
helps businesses all over the country.
I cannot wait to have a conversation withChandler and just find out a little bit more
about you.
Thank you so much for being with us here today.
(01:12):
Catherine, thank you for bringing me on.
This is, a long time coming.
You and I have talked several times now, andI'm excited that we actually to bring one of
our private conversations to the world.
This is gonna be good.
Awesome.
You know what?
You're so right.
We have been talking for quite a while, and Iam excited to just see what you have to offer
our audience in just some, you know, reallygood advice and and nuggets.
(01:33):
So what I like to do for our audience to leanin and get to know a little bit about you, I'd
love for you to just share what, you know, someof your early life experiences that helped you
to get to where you are and why you do what youdo today.
Yeah.
I you know, let's let's get into it.
Let's have a little therapy session here.
That sounds great.
I I started out I was an air force brat.
(01:54):
So my dad was in the the air force, and I wasborn in Georgia.
And I moved every three to four years growingup my entire life, including the craziest move
was the summer between my sophomore and junioryear of high school.
And so I think what that taught me growing upis that there is no social hierarchy anywhere.
There is there is only who you know and and whoyou don't.
(02:16):
And, it is as simple as asking people for theirname and and what do they like to do and all
those kind of things.
And I basically learned how to network at avery, very young age, and my dad was an air
force recruiter.
So my first job was licking envelopes to sendout mailers.
And so I think those two things combined tocreate this weird sort of outgoing personality
that I have now, which has suited me reallywell as an entrepreneur, and it it it helps to
(02:38):
be on camera now and all the things.
And and it's it's truly a a survive and advancetype story where you just, you know, you keep
facing new heart.
And so you don't know what to do.
You do what you know how to do, and I knew howto be in the military.
And so I joined the air force myself and didfour years there.
I got really lucky with that job within themilitary.
I was a contract specialist, which basicallymeant that I helped small business owners do
(03:01):
business with the government.
And that was the first time I was ever exposedto other entrepreneurs that looked and sounded
a lot like me.
And I had always thought that owning a businesswas only for either really wealthy people or
very special smart people.
And what you come to realize is that everyentrepreneur out there, every small business
(03:21):
owner out there is smart in their own way, butthey don't have, most of the time, a 200, IQ,
score.
And so you have this self limiting belief earlyon, and then all of a sudden, you're exposed to
new experiences, and now, okay.
Cool.
Maybe I can do this.
And that's how I ended up starting my firstbusiness, which was just a little barbecue
(03:41):
restaurant with my mom and dad.
And I did that for six years and grew it, andit was really, really successful.
We had a lot of a lot of fun, did some coolthings on television, learned a ton about
marketing and sales and operations and HR andall the things, led a team of about 25, had a
million dollar p and l with about a 15% marginon that business, and had an ego that was
(04:05):
basically out of control.
And what and what I ended up learning was thatyou don't get to win all the time in business
just because you won yesterday.
And what ended up happening was for six years,everybody told me how hard the restaurant
business was, and they can't believe we madeit.
And so I thought I could do no wrong.
And so instead of doing smart restaurantgrowing strategies where you open up the same
(04:28):
concept and you open up a bunch of them becausescale is really how you get money in the
restaurant business, I opened a brand newconcept that was a totally different concept.
It wasn't even closely related, totallydifferent skill set required to operate that
business, and it was a massive cash flowoperation.
It was it was a huge thing, and that businesswas killing us, and it took all the revenue out
(04:50):
of the barbecue restaurant.
It took everything we had just to keep it openas long as we did.
And so six months in, we basically decided toshut it all down, and that was kind of the
emotional precursor to us wanting to shut thewhole restaurant down in general.
And so six years of hard work essentiallydisappeared in six months because of one dumb
ego just driven decision that I made.
And then I got to take some time off and gowork for somebody else, and I got very lucky.
(05:12):
I ended up going to work for a guy named DaveRamsey down in, Nashville, Tennessee.
And he's got a very famous, radio show where hetalks about personal finances, but he has a lot
of other companies inside of that company.
It's about a thousand person team there.
And I ended up working on the Andre Leadershipbrand where they do b to b business coaching.
And so I got to hang out with a ton of smallbusiness owners kinda going back to my air
(05:33):
force days where I got reintegrated with othersmart people doing really well, and I got to
work with a lot of really smart marketers andand up my education in that space.
And then I also got lucky that I met my twocofounders for my current business which is
High Beam Marketing, And they were running thepaid media on, on Dave's team and or at least a
part of that team.
And so we sat down and we said what would itlook like to own an agency and and help other
(05:57):
small business owners talk about themselves andgrow their business.
Because what I realized in the barbecuebusiness was that a lot of people have really
great products and services depending on whatindustry you're in, but they don't know how to
talk about it.
And it's not the best known product that wins.
It's the or it's not the best, I don't wannasay this.
It's not the best product that wins inbusiness.
It's the best known product
(06:17):
that wins.
And so marketing is a great way to get morepeople to know about you, and that's that's
what we do now.
We help 1 to $10,000,000 business owners telltheir story, sell stuff, and grow.
So what would you say I love that you sharedall of that because in business, that's one of
the things that sometimes you you know, I lovethat you you you were able to say about, you
(06:40):
know, having that ego and making decisionssometimes that may not have been what was the
right decision, but what was the learningfactor?
What was the number one thing that you saidthat you can share with our audience that you
learned there?
I read a book after I closed the restaurant bySimon Sinek called The Infinite Game.
(07:00):
And if you've never read that book, I can giveit to you in one line.
It's a good book.
It's worth getting, but you get the premisebased on the the title.
Business is an infinite game.
Playing football is a finite game, and whatwhat a finite game is, it's a game that ends.
There's there's clear rules, there's clearboundaries, there's a time period, and there's
a scoring system.
And at the end, you know who won, you know wholost.
(07:22):
An infinite game is one that goes on foreverwith an unknown number of players in an unknown
world and an unknown set of rules, and it justgoes on and on and on and on.
And the last time I checked, my barbecuerestaurant was in Lexington, Kentucky.
They're still selling barbecue in Lexington.
It's just not from Lyle's Barbecue.
Right?
And so the infinite game of barbecue orrestaurants or whatever is still going on.
(07:45):
And I got a buddy out in Colorado that'scrushing it with, like, five or six locations
right now in the barbecue space, and his hisbusiness is going super well.
It has nothing to do with what my barbecuebusiness did.
Same economy.
We started around the same time.
Everything was the same, and he's still doingit.
And it's because, you know, he had a you know,he's a little older than me, a little wiser.
(08:06):
He had a better set of operating principlesthan I did.
And so what I took away from that book wasunderstanding that there is no finish line in
business.
There is no, if I just get there, everythingwill be okay.
Because every time you get to the nextperceived mountaintop, all you end up realizing
(08:26):
is that it's a giant plateau or if you wanna gofurther, there's gonna be another mountain to
climb.
And so really, you have to fall in love withthe journey as the old adage goes.
And I think that's one of those sayings thatprior to the restaurant closing, I understood
at a intellectual level, but now I understandit as, like, a deep emotional level where I'm
like, yeah.
It truly is about I enjoyed waking up thismorning, and I went to a chamber of commerce
(08:50):
event here in Cincinnati.
I'm enjoying being on this podcast with younow, and if it grows the business, great.
If if it doesn't, that's okay too.
I just I'm enjoying my day to day life, andthat is that's why we started the business was
to create both help customers and create a lifethat we would enjoy more.
So there is no finish line.
(09:10):
There is no magic.
Just enjoy where you're at today.
So Grant Cardone always says, it's like, youknow, in business, what you want is to create
new problems.
And so as you're journeying through managing,like, you when you're talking about the
infinite, you know, experience in business,it's so true, but you're also creating new
(09:33):
problems, and so that's why it's infinite.
It's always gonna be in that growth place.
So today, you help businesses.
So tell me what you're able to help businesseswith.
What is the gift that you offer in service toother businesses?
Yeah.
So my barbecue restaurant was bootstrapped fromthe ground up.
Literally started in a tent on the side of theroad.
(09:54):
It was me and my mom working in and out of thatbusiness every single day.
My dad dove in and out.
He was kind of the silent partner, had a job.
And we had no restaurant experience.
We didn't have business experience.
We had, like, we had work ethic, but we did notknow what we were doing.
And when you own a business, Catherine, as youknow, you're the chief everything officer.
You wear the HR hat.
You wear the operations hat.
You wear the sales hat, and you wear themarketing hat.
(10:15):
So there was two of us, and so we divided upwork, and I ended up taking on the marketing
role.
And as a part of that, what happened is wewould have salespeople come in, and they would
say, hey.
Do you wanna buy this radio ad?
Hey.
Do you wanna buy this billboard?
Hey.
Do you wanna buy this TV ad?
Do you wanna buy the back of this Krogerreceipt?
You put a coupon on there.
You know how many people shop at Kroger?
You can reach them.
Blah blah blah.
Eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs.
(10:36):
And I bought it all because I didn't knowanything.
And I was like, let's try it and see whatworks.
I need to get people into this location that's,that's killing me right now.
None of it worked.
None of it drove results, that we were we werehoping to get.
And it was only after I got further down theroad and had some time to actually reflect on
what was happening.
It's a phenomena that I see so many otherbusiness owners face, and especially if they're
(11:00):
out there saying marketing doesn't really work.
It's kind of a waste of money.
I just feel like I have to do it just to checka box.
It's not driving results.
The reason why is because you're suffering fromsomething called random acts of marketing.
Mhmm.
You just are throwing crap at a wall, andyou're hoping something sticks.
Catherine, as you know, small businessesstruggle with cash flow.
Cash flow is the number one reason thatbusiness closes in America today.
(11:22):
Number one, it's not even close.
If that's the fact, when you spend a dollar onmarketing, it has to come back at some point in
the next year, two years, something.
So even if you're running an awareness ad likea billboard, that that awareness should drive
conversion at some point in the next twelvemonths, or you better be really, financed well
by some private equity company or somethinglike that because my businesses never have
(11:46):
been.
We have to make every dollar stretch, andthat's sort of what high b marketing does now.
I saw that pain point in the marketplace aboutsmall business owners bootstrapping the thing.
They just don't know what they don't know aboutmarketing.
And so we come in and we say, okay.
You know, what is your current problem that yousolve and what customer do you solve it for?
And it can't be well, we do a little bit ofeverything.
(12:06):
That's garbage.
And it can't be we do it for a little bit ofeverybody.
That's garbage.
You need a specific problem for a specificgroup of people, and and you have to be
disciplined enough to narrow in on that orotherwise, you'll never actually be able to
market your business, and you'll kinda alwaysbe this meandering, you know, generality.
You'll never actually stick through toeverybody else.
Then after that, you have to make sure yourbrand is on point.
(12:27):
So first impressions matter a lot in business.
You know that.
So do your does your logo look like what yourcustomers want it to look like or what they
feel like they would trust that company to dobusiness with?
Because they have no experience with you.
They don't know you.
You're looking at your business this close toyour face.
You're in it every single day.
Your customers are living their own lives withall their own problems showing up time and time
(12:48):
and time again.
Your job as a marketer is to cut through that.
So when somebody stops looking at this problem,to look at what you're offering as a possible
solution to a problem, and the logo looks likeit was designed in PowerPoint in 1985, like,
that's a terrible first impression.
And you have to brand yourself in a way towhere it feels like a professional
organization.
So after you get your branding right, then yougotta build your website, and a website is all
(13:11):
about driving people to one specific action.
So if you go to highbmarketing.com right now,you'll be able to tell me what the action is,
and it's schedule a free ad audit call becausewe know that's a trigger point for
conversations which gets us business in thedoor.
It's one thing.
And there's other options there, but they'revery hidden.
And you gotta really be a high detail person tofind all the other things we have on the site.
I'm trying to get you to do one specific thing.
(13:32):
Another thing that'll happen on the website,this takes us to the next point, is we have a
trigger that pops up that says, hey.
Join our email list.
Email marketing is still the number one wayYes.
To maintain type of mind awareness with yourcustomer base that's already bought from you or
already had a conversation with you.
They've already interacted with you becausethey gave you that email address.
So showing up in their email inbox once a weekis a great way to stay on top of mind and to
(13:55):
build a little bit of awareness.
After that, you know, and we're sending thememails every single week, and it's not sales
emails.
You know, Catherine, we don't do, like, hey.
Buy my crap.
Buy my crap.
Buy my crap.
Like, write a little blog.
Write a little something.
Something interesting.
Something that makes them smile.
Something makes them feel an emotion, becauseemotion is how we get connection.
After that, then you've got to figure outcustomer acquisition cost on a performance
(14:17):
marketing level.
Like, so do we need to run Google Ads?
Do we need to run Facebook Ads?
And or if you're an e com business, are werunning Amazon ads?
Like, it's one of those three channels aregonna be your first major driver of revenue.
And don't do all three at the same time if yourbudget's limited.
Pick one and go with that.
And so how we would recommend doing that is ifyou have a high intent business, go with
(14:37):
Google.
Because somebody searching for something,they're hot, they're in the market right now,
they need the thing, buy the thing.
So run the ads there.
It's worth it.
Meta is great for awareness and conversion atthe same time.
So it's like I'm not really in the market for agreat example.
I took my son and daughter and wife to aMonster Jam show a couple weeks ago here in
Cincinnati.
Was not in the market for it.
(14:58):
Happened to see it on a Facebook ad, and I waslike, oh, that'll be cool.
Let me check that out.
And then I went and bought it.
And so that's that's another I wasn't searchingfor it on Google though, so that's a great way
to do that.
And then ecom, Amazon is the behemoth in theroom.
It's a frictionless buying experience.
So, like, you should definitely have yourproducts listed on Amazon and, like, it's a
great way to start getting sales in the door,build some cash so that you can go find other
(15:19):
distribution channels.
Now you notice that I have not said a singleword about using organic social media to grow
your business.
Here's the truth, and and I don't know how youfeel about this, Scott.
I don't think we talked about this beforehand,so I'd I'd love to know your thoughts.
Organic social media will not help you growyour business.
It just won't.
If you have a local painting company, it's notgonna help you to get a million views, and half
(15:43):
the views came from California, and half camefrom New York, and you're based in Chicago.
Right?
Paid ads help us pick a specific area orspecific targeted demo and run the content to
them constantly.
Organic social is great for top of mindawareness, but it's not great for driving sales
anymore.
See, because their shift happened in earlytwenty twenty essentially when TikTok came out.
(16:07):
Pre TikTok, every algorithm was follower based.
So if you had a thousand followers, you postedsomething, you know, Instagram was getting
about a 50% organic, traffic, per post.
Facebook was around 10%.
Then TikTok comes out and they introducedsomething called an interest based algorithm,
which is basically like, if you like dogs,we're gonna show you nothing but dogs.
(16:27):
If you like dogs and cats, we're gonna show younothing but dogs and cats.
If you're a plumbing company or you're amarketing or you're a whatever and you're
showing up on these algorithms, there's a verysmall number of people that are interested in
that.
And if you're again, back to the local businessthing, if you're running a local painting
company, I might be interested in how you do,like, cool paint hacks on the wall.
And, like, there's cool content we could do toget you a bunch of views.
(16:49):
Right?
But it's not gonna help you grow your business.
It's gonna help you get awareness.
But awareness doesn't buy groceries.
Right?
It is the famous, like, likes don't buy, or paythe payroll.
Right?
But why we love to do organic social still isto figure out what the algorithm is gonna push
for you for free.
Because if you can post something that gets alot of views across the whole country, a paid
(17:10):
media team like somebody at High Beam couldcome in, take that content, strip the end of
it, change the call to action at the end tomake it an ad, and then run it as an ad in your
local market.
So you kinda get to test your creative for freeat scale Mhmm.
And then take the best performing stuff withoutall the, like you basically have a lot of
previously to this, you had a lot of peoplewith a lot of opinions about, like, oh, I think
(17:30):
this creative is good.
This is bad.
Blah blah blah blah blah.
Now you try it all, see what sticks, and thenrun that as an ad, and then you keep running as
an ad, drop your bottom 20, filter in the newstuff, test that, and then it's just constantly
an ad meritocracy essentially where you'retrying to see what's the best performing stuff.
So that is how you market a business.
That is my thesis.
We call it the high b marketing flywheel.
(17:52):
It will get you if you ever heard of the Paretoprinciple, 20% of your work gets you 80% of the
results.
This is 20% of the work.
You notice I didn't say anything about OTT.
I didn't say anything about display ads.
I didn't say anything about billboards.
I didn't say anything about radio or TV.
Those things work.
They will not work for people that listen tothis podcast because what you told me about the
ICP for this podcast is anybody from startupsto larger small business owners.
(18:17):
If you're gonna go run TV or billboards orwhatever, like, you're competing with Coca Cola
and Target.
Like, Coca Cola's ad budget this year is$9,000,000,000.
It's not you.
And so don't advertise like Coca Cola does.
That is a really bad idea.
Do the things we talked about in this flywheel.
Do it at a high level and just get better andbetter and better at it, and you'll never have
to even worry about all that other stuff.
(18:37):
And then all of a sudden you'll see resultsstart to come in where you go, hey.
Marketing actually works.
It's just I kinda like this.
People come up to me and say, oh, hey.
I saw your company.
I like that now.
Blah blah blah blah blah.
It's it it happens almost every time.
It's wild.
So I wanna go back to what you were saying withthe different ways of advertising in the
organic.
You know, just like organic things that youthen take back, repurpose, and then change it
(18:59):
into an ad.
So when you're dealing with someone who islet's just say you have a company that's kind
of in that mid place.
They've already grown.
They've done the whole start up thing.
They've been in business for quite a few yearsnow, and they're looking to expand.
So if you live in so small towns whereeverybody knows you, everybody knows your work,
(19:23):
everybody so because you started in a, youknow, a business where it was, like, kind of a
mom and pop kind of shop and you grew it, thenthat example, would you say that some of that
organic marketing actually actually is veryhelpful because you are very well known, you
just need to get, you know, and you and theyknow your story, then you're able to turn that
(19:43):
around into ads?
I I just wanna make sure our audienceunderstands what you're saying and maybe not
just discounting the whole organic piece.
Yeah.
I so the reason why I harp on organic socialmedia marketing is because everybody wants to
focus on it because it's free.
Because you have an iPhone, because you seesome influencer on the Internet go, hey.
(20:05):
You just are this is how you get out of 200view jail on TikTok, and this is how you blow
up on YouTube, and this is how you do this onLinkedIn.
And you ever notice that that stuff is whatreally is getting a lot of traction on these
platforms because people want to have thesemassive, you know, Kim Kardashian esque giant
personal brands where they can have massivedeals and drive revenue.
It's it's but it's not how you grow a business.
(20:28):
And so the reason why we do organic socialmedia is to just really test ad creative.
Like that's really what you should be doing,because think about it.
People are content creators now.
Like individuals are full time contentcreators.
That means they spend twenty four hours a day,seven days a week, thinking about how they can
make better content to get shown in thealgorithm for free because that's their job.
(20:52):
Their job is basically making modern day TVshows, except they don't get to pick when the
stuff gets distributed.
That's all up to the mystery algorithm on eachspecific platform.
You are running a business.
You're the CEO.
And so maybe you have like, unless you're gonnapay somebody full time to do this and figure it
out, which you can do, you just must be amassive business.
And based on what we talked about here, I don'tknow how many of those people are actually
(21:14):
here, in this podcast.
It could be.
People love to talk about organic social mediabecause there's a few, what I call survivors,
that have made a lot of money with it.
And they say, hey, this would work for you too,and all it does is cost you time.
You can't be afraid to spend money.
You've got to literally, this is a thisflywheel that I just walked you through is a
(21:35):
time tested thing.
It's how I ended up actually getting tractionin the barbecue restaurant, which finally took
us from, you know, about $400,000 a year insales to a million dollars a year in sales.
It's how we're growing Highbeam marketing, andit's how we've seen you you know, our ideal
customer at high beam is between 1 and$10,000,000 a year in revenue.
And every single time somebody's marketingdoesn't work out, it's because they've skipped
one of these steps.
(21:55):
Mhmm.
And when I do these, like, I do a lot of Q andA's.
I do a lot of speaking around the country.
And when I get asked questions at the end, it'sit's so it's honestly annoying, Catherine.
I I'm it's it's the thing I'm gonna go to warwith.
This is organic social media thing becauseeverybody wants to know, how do I make better
content to sell more stuff?
And it's just, to me, it's the wrong question.
(22:16):
It's not it's not the right question becausethere are more consistent ways to drive revenue
than organic social media.
You may get lucky.
You may be the one that it hits and you getcrazy organic growth, and hopefully you've got
a product you're selling nationwide, and youcan you can you can do something with the
nationwide traffic.
But a lot of people don't, and they still wannatalk about organic social media like it's
(22:39):
02/2014, and it's just not anymore.
And so really, organic social media to wrap allthis up, what I would focus on is trying a
whole bunch of different stuff on there, notspending a lot of money to produce that
content, seeing what the algorithm pushes forfree, and then turning that into an ad.
Got it.
Got it.
As you were transitioning in businesses, didyou have any mentors or coaches that you hired
(23:05):
along the way?
I am a big book guy.
If you're watching this this on video somewhereon the Internet right now, you can see behind
me there's a lot of books.
I'm huge on books.
I used to be bigger on podcasts and things likethat as well.
And there's a few select ones I might stillpick up, but I'm really more of a book guy now.
Because if you think about how much time,energy, and money goes into creating a book, it
(23:27):
has to be good or at least their best shotversus, like, if we're on a podcast, we can
have a three hour conversation and sort ofdrags on and I'm talking to you, Jocko Willink
out there, like, you know, let's shorten itdown a little bit, but it's a little long.
But the but but a book, somebody has takeneverything and distilled it down to one thing,
and then you can take something from it.
Now a lot of books end up being, like, half ofit's good, and then you can just put the book
(23:49):
down.
I used to be forcing myself to finish books,and now I found that, oh, I just get get what I
want out of it, and then I can put it down.
I don't owe this author anything because hewanted to fill a 250 page book for some reason.
I literally just read a book called GoodStrategy, Bad Strategy, and I got halfway
through it.
And I was, like, telling people.
I was, like, man, this is a really good book.
I think I'm gonna start recommending this topeople.
And the back half of the book just fell apart.
(24:10):
It just dragged on.
It didn't have the same density to it, but,like, the beginning part was really good.
There was really good nuggets in there that Itook away and I'm implementing in business now.
I don't really believe, at least in myexperience, I I never had a coach, I never had
any sort of mentors or anything like that.
I I consumed content from people around me onYouTube, and books, and podcasts.
(24:33):
Like I consumed a lot of it, And then based onthat information, I would go implement it in my
business, see what worked, and then throw awaywhat didn't, and then go back and do it again.
Not to say that's the right way to do it.
That's just how I've ended up doing it.
I'm cur Have you had mentors in yourprofessional career?
Where where do you fall on that?
So I I do I have.
(24:54):
I've had mentors, and I've taken lots and lotsof workshops and courses and listened to lots
of audibles, read lots of books.
And and as you, I don't necessarily alwaysfinish a completed book, and I will take the
book, highlight what is important to me whilelistening it to on audio, and and then I am
(25:17):
able to implement those things in my business,in my life, and then also in in supporting and
helping others because not everyone is a, youknow, is seeking knowledge all the time.
And so, so I'm able to, you know, transformthat and help others.
But then through, I would say, all the mentorsthat I've ever had are because I've taken
(25:40):
courses with them and been able to do eventswith them personally.
And so that's been, you know, my take and alsothrough life experience, which is always the
best gift that we have is the mistakes that wemake and learning and, you know, failing
forward, continuing to move on.
Yeah.
I I think there's this problem withentrepreneurs sometimes where we get addicted
(26:05):
to consumption.
It's like all we wanna do is plan perfectly.
We wanna get all the information we possiblycan.
And so we just spend a lot of time planning andgathering and collecting, at least I do in my
my worst days when I'm not being verydisciplined of, like, going out and taking
action.
And that's why I try to avoid courses andthings like that.
(26:25):
It's like it's just so much better to shortenthe iteration cycle where it's like you get the
idea, you go implement it, what's the dataactually tell you, make a new idea, go
implement it, and then just keep on rotatingthat around.
And same.
At that I mean, that I mean, that's what you dowhen you're gathering information is because
you're looking to implement it and and takeaction.
(26:45):
So yes.
So, I like that.
So what would you say is something superimportant that you would want to leave our
audience with as as a nugget or a teachablethat they can take and, as you said, implement
and go out into the marketplace and andactually put into action?
(27:07):
I'll tell you that the biggest lesson I tookaway from my first business as a mistake was
underestimating how important the people on myteam were, the the people that were actually on
my payroll.
I thought that if I could just build a goodenough system or market the business well
enough or have a good enough product that Icould get away with not having to pay for top
(27:30):
talent.
And it's it's, you know, I'm empathetic torestaurant owners because it's such a small
margin business that it's really hard toacquire top talent.
I mean, we had a pretty good work environment,but we still had staff turnover of every 90
days.
Either college, high school kids moving on,restaurant industry staff is notorious for
coming and going, and it just is what it is.
(27:53):
Now with High Beam, you know, it's a muchdifferent business, much higher margins.
We can afford, you know, top tier talent.
I have I cannot explain how much better thisbusiness has run since day one because of the
people that are involved with it.
And if you have if you have any problems inyour business, it's probably a people problem.
(28:14):
It's either you have the wrong person on theteam, or you have the wrong person with the
wrong knowledge on the team, or you haven'tfound the right person with the right knowledge
yet.
Like, there it's something people oriented.
And if you if you look at everything as apeople problem first, you know, because
entrepreneurs, we start out as problem solvers.
Especially if you bootstrap the company.
Your brain has basically learned that if youfind a problem and you just find a way to solve
(28:38):
it on your own, that that will lead to success.
That will get you to a certain level.
You can't go beyond that level unless you learna new skill and completely throw the other one
away, really, where you go, I have found thisnew problem.
Who do I know that can go solve this?
And that's the thing that I have taken away.
(28:59):
And if I could if I could tell anybody to doone thing, it is find the right people, put
them on the bus as Jim Collins says, in theright seats, and then you'll get out of their
way.
Learn how to be a better leader because that'struly what's gonna differentiate you between a
million dollar business and a hundred milliondollar business.
That's right.
That's right.
So tell our audience how would they find you,how would they do business with you, and what
(29:23):
would you offer them for them to, you know,just get started?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you can connect with me on LinkedIn,Chandler Lyles.
You can go on Instagram, all the social medianetworks.
We try to practice what we preach from acontent production standpoint.
So I'm on all the networks.
You can go I would love for you to go tohighbmarketing.com and join our newsletter.
We send out a weekly email.
Again, practice what we preach.
It's it's my favorite thing I get to do everysingle week where I write a little bit of
(29:46):
secret, content for everybody that's on thatlist.
And it's just a little marketing nugget.
Again, keeping us top of mind for you whenyou're ready to to hire us for marketing
services.
And then if you are actually out there runningpaid ads right now and you're spending at least
$10,000 a month and you think that the agencyyou're working with might be a little sketchy,
which by the way is eighty five percent of myclients have this problem before they come to
us.
You're running the ads yourself and you thinkyou can do it better, again, to what we just
(30:09):
talked about, like, find better people to runyour ads.
It may be us, it may not.
Or you don't think marketing works at all, andyou have one of these three problems, like,
fill out the contact form on our site, and wedo a free ad audit where we basically have a
200 checklist.
We look at all your ads like a mechanic lookingat a car, and we're gonna give you every
single, what are they, the warning lights thatcome up on the dashboard?
Like you're gonna have a lot of them.
(30:30):
And you're gonna be shocked about I mean thisindustry, Catherine, it's it's insane.
I was just talking to somebody this morningabout this.
Accountants go to school for three years, andthey have to get certifications.
And the barrier to entry to become anaccountant and actually be able to do
bookkeeping and file taxes and all the thingsis so high.
The barrier to become a marketer is I'm amarketer, and I put it on my Instagram bio and
(30:51):
my LinkedIn, and now I'm a, you know, whatever.
And so it's it's the it's the hill.
It's I underestimated how bad it was, and Iused to be a brick and mortar business owner,
so I knew it wasn't great.
But now that I'm in it and I have to deal withpeople all the time where everybody has that
barrier when we first meet them where they'relike, you're just another marketing guy.
It's not the same blah blah blah.
So, yeah, that would be my recommendation to dobusiness with us.
(31:16):
Okay.
Well, I thank you so much for this time.
And you know what?
High it's High Beam?
Mhmm.
Highbeam.com?
Highbeammarketing.com.
High beam marketing Com.
So for our audience, there's lots of nuggetsthat have been learned here today, and we're
just so thankful, Chandler, for just being withus, for sharing all of this information, and
(31:38):
for really helping people to understand wheretheir marketing dollars should go and and just
really looking at an agency sometimes.
Now I will ask you this last question becausethis is good.
What is the difference between a marketerversus having an agency
Mhmm.
And why you would want that?
(31:59):
Because that's I forgot that that's animportant thing to understand for business
owners.
The difference in having an in house marketerand an agency is specialization.
So what most small business owners do is theystart by I do all the marketing.
I do everything myself.
I'm the guy that wears all the hats.
They then go out and wanna delegate that pieceto somebody else, and they hire a in house
(32:25):
marketer who's called a marketing director,marketing manager, one of these titles.
And this person is now the everything marketer.
They're having to write emails.
They're having to write copy.
They're having to make creative.
They're doing graphic design and video andemail and and paid ads and organic social
strategy and they're wearing way too many hats.
And so you've basically just taken a good inhouse marketing manager builds the plan for the
(32:48):
business, and then they go out and findspecialist agencies to help them fulfill the
plan.
And that's where Highbeam comes in.
We do really well with business owners thatalready have a marketing plan that they
understand or a marketing leader on the teamthat's owning that plan.
And we come in and we just do the paid mediapiece.
So we're gonna help you run better meta ads orGoogle ads or Amazon ads, even TikTok now is a
(33:09):
thing.
And so if you if you expect an agency to doeverything well, it's it's it's not that it
can't be done.
It's just really it's really hard to do.
And so if you find an agency that specializesin certain things and that's all they do and
that's all they think about, like HighbeamMhmm.
Mhmm.
It tends to get better results in that specificarea of the flywheel that we talked about.
(33:30):
So in this instance, I would have a websitemanagement company.
I would have an email marketing company.
I would have us as paid ads because, you know,I think we're the best in the business.
Obviously, I'm biased.
And then eventually, I would have a creativeagency that would help you make better content.
Alright.
So you got it now.
I love that.
Thank you so much for sharing all of that.
(33:50):
That really does help our audience inunderstanding just the differences between
having a marketer and having an agency with thespecialists, and the specialists are gonna
help.
So thank you, Chandler.
Thank you for this time and for these nuggets.
And, again, this is Catherine, your host withthe Beyond Business podcast.
Looking forward to our next recording.
(34:15):
Well, if you made it to this point, then youmade it to the end, and you are my star.
And I just wanna thank you from the bottom ofmy heart.
I hope that you enjoyed the conversation withtoday's guest.
And if you did, please leave us a review onApple Podcasts and Spotify and share this
episode with others who may be interested inthis topic.
(34:36):
Also, please feel free to let us know whattopics you'd like to see covered in future
episodes.
Get in touch in the comments or in RocketGrowth social media platforms.
To have conversations with me, my booking linkis in the comments.
See you next week for all for a all newepisode.
I am Catherine Martin Fisher, and I helpbusiness owners who have lost their vision
because they're struggling with cash flow,sales, marketing, which also affects their
company culture, by showing them to implementproven systems that increase their revenue by
30% in ninety days, and this allowing them toreignite the passion and that big dream that
(00:27):
they started with.
So the reason that I started this podcast wasto celebrate businesses who have overcome
adversity and have come out on the other sideof it.
And I want you to know that you are not alone.
Good afternoon.
This is Catherine, your host with the BeyondBusiness podcast, and I'm excited to introduce
(00:50):
you to Chandler Lyles.
So Chandler is an air force veteran.
He's a two time founder, and he's a he has adigital marketing advertising business, that
helps businesses all over the country.
I cannot wait to have a conversation withChandler and just find out a little bit more
about you.
Thank you so much for being with us here today.
(01:12):
Catherine, thank you for bringing me on.
This is, a long time coming.
You and I have talked several times now, andI'm excited that we actually to bring one of
our private conversations to the world.
This is gonna be good.
Awesome.
You know what?
You're so right.
We have been talking for quite a while, and Iam excited to just see what you have to offer
our audience in just some, you know, reallygood advice and and nuggets.
(01:33):
So what I like to do for our audience to leanin and get to know a little bit about you, I'd
love for you to just share what, you know, someof your early life experiences that helped you
to get to where you are and why you do what youdo today.
Yeah.
I you know, let's let's get into it.
Let's have a little therapy session here.
That sounds great.
I I started out I was an air force brat.
(01:54):
So my dad was in the the air force, and I wasborn in Georgia.
And I moved every three to four years growingup my entire life, including the craziest move
was the summer between my sophomore and junioryear of high school.
And so I think what that taught me growing upis that there is no social hierarchy anywhere.
There is there is only who you know and and whoyou don't.
(02:16):
And, it is as simple as asking people for theirname and and what do they like to do and all
those kind of things.
And I basically learned how to network at avery, very young age, and my dad was an air
force recruiter.
So my first job was licking envelopes to sendout mailers.
And so I think those two things combined tocreate this weird sort of outgoing personality
that I have now, which has suited me reallywell as an entrepreneur, and it it it helps to
(02:38):
be on camera now and all the things.
And and it's it's truly a a survive and advancetype story where you just, you know, you keep
facing new heart.
And so you don't know what to do.
You do what you know how to do, and I knew howto be in the military.
And so I joined the air force myself and didfour years there.
I got really lucky with that job within themilitary.
I was a contract specialist, which basicallymeant that I helped small business owners do
(03:01):
business with the government.
And that was the first time I was ever exposedto other entrepreneurs that looked and sounded
a lot like me.
And I had always thought that owning a businesswas only for either really wealthy people or
very special smart people.
And what you come to realize is that everyentrepreneur out there, every small business
(03:21):
owner out there is smart in their own way, butthey don't have, most of the time, a 200, IQ,
score.
And so you have this self limiting belief earlyon, and then all of a sudden, you're exposed to
new experiences, and now, okay.
Cool.
Maybe I can do this.
And that's how I ended up starting my firstbusiness, which was just a little barbecue
(03:41):
restaurant with my mom and dad.
And I did that for six years and grew it, andit was really, really successful.
We had a lot of a lot of fun, did some coolthings on television, learned a ton about
marketing and sales and operations and HR andall the things, led a team of about 25, had a
million dollar p and l with about a 15% marginon that business, and had an ego that was
(04:05):
basically out of control.
And what and what I ended up learning was thatyou don't get to win all the time in business
just because you won yesterday.
And what ended up happening was for six years,everybody told me how hard the restaurant
business was, and they can't believe we madeit.
And so I thought I could do no wrong.
And so instead of doing smart restaurantgrowing strategies where you open up the same
(04:28):
concept and you open up a bunch of them becausescale is really how you get money in the
restaurant business, I opened a brand newconcept that was a totally different concept.
It wasn't even closely related, totallydifferent skill set required to operate that
business, and it was a massive cash flowoperation.
It was it was a huge thing, and that businesswas killing us, and it took all the revenue out
(04:50):
of the barbecue restaurant.
It took everything we had just to keep it openas long as we did.
And so six months in, we basically decided toshut it all down, and that was kind of the
emotional precursor to us wanting to shut thewhole restaurant down in general.
And so six years of hard work essentiallydisappeared in six months because of one dumb
ego just driven decision that I made.
And then I got to take some time off and gowork for somebody else, and I got very lucky.
(05:12):
I ended up going to work for a guy named DaveRamsey down in, Nashville, Tennessee.
And he's got a very famous, radio show where hetalks about personal finances, but he has a lot
of other companies inside of that company.
It's about a thousand person team there.
And I ended up working on the Andre Leadershipbrand where they do b to b business coaching.
And so I got to hang out with a ton of smallbusiness owners kinda going back to my air
(05:33):
force days where I got reintegrated with othersmart people doing really well, and I got to
work with a lot of really smart marketers andand up my education in that space.
And then I also got lucky that I met my twocofounders for my current business which is
High Beam Marketing, And they were running thepaid media on, on Dave's team and or at least a
part of that team.
And so we sat down and we said what would itlook like to own an agency and and help other
(05:57):
small business owners talk about themselves andgrow their business.
Because what I realized in the barbecuebusiness was that a lot of people have really
great products and services depending on whatindustry you're in, but they don't know how to
talk about it.
And it's not the best known product that wins.
It's the or it's not the best, I don't wannasay this.
It's not the best product that wins inbusiness.
It's the best known product
(06:17):
that wins.
And so marketing is a great way to get morepeople to know about you, and that's that's
what we do now.
We help 1 to $10,000,000 business owners telltheir story, sell stuff, and grow.
So what would you say I love that you sharedall of that because in business, that's one of
the things that sometimes you you know, I lovethat you you you were able to say about, you
(06:40):
know, having that ego and making decisionssometimes that may not have been what was the
right decision, but what was the learningfactor?
What was the number one thing that you saidthat you can share with our audience that you
learned there?
I read a book after I closed the restaurant bySimon Sinek called The Infinite Game.
(07:00):
And if you've never read that book, I can giveit to you in one line.
It's a good book.
It's worth getting, but you get the premisebased on the the title.
Business is an infinite game.
Playing football is a finite game, and whatwhat a finite game is, it's a game that ends.
There's there's clear rules, there's clearboundaries, there's a time period, and there's
a scoring system.
And at the end, you know who won, you know wholost.
(07:22):
An infinite game is one that goes on foreverwith an unknown number of players in an unknown
world and an unknown set of rules, and it justgoes on and on and on and on.
And the last time I checked, my barbecuerestaurant was in Lexington, Kentucky.
They're still selling barbecue in Lexington.
It's just not from Lyle's Barbecue.
Right?
And so the infinite game of barbecue orrestaurants or whatever is still going on.
(07:45):
And I got a buddy out in Colorado that'scrushing it with, like, five or six locations
right now in the barbecue space, and his hisbusiness is going super well.
It has nothing to do with what my barbecuebusiness did.
Same economy.
We started around the same time.
Everything was the same, and he's still doingit.
And it's because, you know, he had a you know,he's a little older than me, a little wiser.
(08:06):
He had a better set of operating principlesthan I did.
And so what I took away from that book wasunderstanding that there is no finish line in
business.
There is no, if I just get there, everythingwill be okay.
Because every time you get to the nextperceived mountaintop, all you end up realizing
(08:26):
is that it's a giant plateau or if you wanna gofurther, there's gonna be another mountain to
climb.
And so really, you have to fall in love withthe journey as the old adage goes.
And I think that's one of those sayings thatprior to the restaurant closing, I understood
at a intellectual level, but now I understandit as, like, a deep emotional level where I'm
like, yeah.
It truly is about I enjoyed waking up thismorning, and I went to a chamber of commerce
(08:50):
event here in Cincinnati.
I'm enjoying being on this podcast with younow, and if it grows the business, great.
If if it doesn't, that's okay too.
I just I'm enjoying my day to day life, andthat is that's why we started the business was
to create both help customers and create a lifethat we would enjoy more.
So there is no finish line.
(09:10):
There is no magic.
Just enjoy where you're at today.
So Grant Cardone always says, it's like, youknow, in business, what you want is to create
new problems.
And so as you're journeying through managing,like, you when you're talking about the
infinite, you know, experience in business,it's so true, but you're also creating new
(09:33):
problems, and so that's why it's infinite.
It's always gonna be in that growth place.
So today, you help businesses.
So tell me what you're able to help businesseswith.
What is the gift that you offer in service toother businesses?
Yeah.
So my barbecue restaurant was bootstrapped fromthe ground up.
Literally started in a tent on the side of theroad.
(09:54):
It was me and my mom working in and out of thatbusiness every single day.
My dad dove in and out.
He was kind of the silent partner, had a job.
And we had no restaurant experience.
We didn't have business experience.
We had, like, we had work ethic, but we did notknow what we were doing.
And when you own a business, Catherine, as youknow, you're the chief everything officer.
You wear the HR hat.
You wear the operations hat.
You wear the sales hat, and you wear themarketing hat.
(10:15):
So there was two of us, and so we divided upwork, and I ended up taking on the marketing
role.
And as a part of that, what happened is wewould have salespeople come in, and they would
say, hey.
Do you wanna buy this radio ad?
Hey.
Do you wanna buy this billboard?
Hey.
Do you wanna buy this TV ad?
Do you wanna buy the back of this Krogerreceipt?
You put a coupon on there.
You know how many people shop at Kroger?
You can reach them.
Blah blah blah.
Eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs.
(10:36):
And I bought it all because I didn't knowanything.
And I was like, let's try it and see whatworks.
I need to get people into this location that's,that's killing me right now.
None of it worked.
None of it drove results, that we were we werehoping to get.
And it was only after I got further down theroad and had some time to actually reflect on
what was happening.
It's a phenomena that I see so many otherbusiness owners face, and especially if they're
(11:00):
out there saying marketing doesn't really work.
It's kind of a waste of money.
I just feel like I have to do it just to checka box.
It's not driving results.
The reason why is because you're suffering fromsomething called random acts of marketing.
Mhmm.
You just are throwing crap at a wall, andyou're hoping something sticks.
Catherine, as you know, small businessesstruggle with cash flow.
Cash flow is the number one reason thatbusiness closes in America today.
(11:22):
Number one, it's not even close.
If that's the fact, when you spend a dollar onmarketing, it has to come back at some point in
the next year, two years, something.
So even if you're running an awareness ad likea billboard, that that awareness should drive
conversion at some point in the next twelvemonths, or you better be really, financed well
by some private equity company or somethinglike that because my businesses never have
(11:46):
been.
We have to make every dollar stretch, andthat's sort of what high b marketing does now.
I saw that pain point in the marketplace aboutsmall business owners bootstrapping the thing.
They just don't know what they don't know aboutmarketing.
And so we come in and we say, okay.
You know, what is your current problem that yousolve and what customer do you solve it for?
And it can't be well, we do a little bit ofeverything.
(12:06):
That's garbage.
And it can't be we do it for a little bit ofeverybody.
That's garbage.
You need a specific problem for a specificgroup of people, and and you have to be
disciplined enough to narrow in on that orotherwise, you'll never actually be able to
market your business, and you'll kinda alwaysbe this meandering, you know, generality.
You'll never actually stick through toeverybody else.
Then after that, you have to make sure yourbrand is on point.
(12:27):
So first impressions matter a lot in business.
You know that.
So do your does your logo look like what yourcustomers want it to look like or what they
feel like they would trust that company to dobusiness with?
Because they have no experience with you.
They don't know you.
You're looking at your business this close toyour face.
You're in it every single day.
Your customers are living their own lives withall their own problems showing up time and time
(12:48):
and time again.
Your job as a marketer is to cut through that.
So when somebody stops looking at this problem,to look at what you're offering as a possible
solution to a problem, and the logo looks likeit was designed in PowerPoint in 1985, like,
that's a terrible first impression.
And you have to brand yourself in a way towhere it feels like a professional
organization.
So after you get your branding right, then yougotta build your website, and a website is all
(13:11):
about driving people to one specific action.
So if you go to highbmarketing.com right now,you'll be able to tell me what the action is,
and it's schedule a free ad audit call becausewe know that's a trigger point for
conversations which gets us business in thedoor.
It's one thing.
And there's other options there, but they'revery hidden.
And you gotta really be a high detail person tofind all the other things we have on the site.
I'm trying to get you to do one specific thing.
(13:32):
Another thing that'll happen on the website,this takes us to the next point, is we have a
trigger that pops up that says, hey.
Join our email list.
Email marketing is still the number one wayYes.
To maintain type of mind awareness with yourcustomer base that's already bought from you or
already had a conversation with you.
They've already interacted with you becausethey gave you that email address.
So showing up in their email inbox once a weekis a great way to stay on top of mind and to
(13:55):
build a little bit of awareness.
After that, you know, and we're sending thememails every single week, and it's not sales
emails.
You know, Catherine, we don't do, like, hey.
Buy my crap.
Buy my crap.
Buy my crap.
Like, write a little blog.
Write a little something.
Something interesting.
Something that makes them smile.
Something makes them feel an emotion, becauseemotion is how we get connection.
After that, then you've got to figure outcustomer acquisition cost on a performance
(14:17):
marketing level.
Like, so do we need to run Google Ads?
Do we need to run Facebook Ads?
And or if you're an e com business, are werunning Amazon ads?
Like, it's one of those three channels aregonna be your first major driver of revenue.
And don't do all three at the same time if yourbudget's limited.
Pick one and go with that.
And so how we would recommend doing that is ifyou have a high intent business, go with
(14:37):
Google.
Because somebody searching for something,they're hot, they're in the market right now,
they need the thing, buy the thing.
So run the ads there.
It's worth it.
Meta is great for awareness and conversion atthe same time.
So it's like I'm not really in the market for agreat example.
I took my son and daughter and wife to aMonster Jam show a couple weeks ago here in
Cincinnati.
Was not in the market for it.
(14:58):
Happened to see it on a Facebook ad, and I waslike, oh, that'll be cool.
Let me check that out.
And then I went and bought it.
And so that's that's another I wasn't searchingfor it on Google though, so that's a great way
to do that.
And then ecom, Amazon is the behemoth in theroom.
It's a frictionless buying experience.
So, like, you should definitely have yourproducts listed on Amazon and, like, it's a
great way to start getting sales in the door,build some cash so that you can go find other
(15:19):
distribution channels.
Now you notice that I have not said a singleword about using organic social media to grow
your business.
Here's the truth, and and I don't know how youfeel about this, Scott.
I don't think we talked about this beforehand,so I'd I'd love to know your thoughts.
Organic social media will not help you growyour business.
It just won't.
If you have a local painting company, it's notgonna help you to get a million views, and half
(15:43):
the views came from California, and half camefrom New York, and you're based in Chicago.
Right?
Paid ads help us pick a specific area orspecific targeted demo and run the content to
them constantly.
Organic social is great for top of mindawareness, but it's not great for driving sales
anymore.
See, because their shift happened in earlytwenty twenty essentially when TikTok came out.
(16:07):
Pre TikTok, every algorithm was follower based.
So if you had a thousand followers, you postedsomething, you know, Instagram was getting
about a 50% organic, traffic, per post.
Facebook was around 10%.
Then TikTok comes out and they introducedsomething called an interest based algorithm,
which is basically like, if you like dogs,we're gonna show you nothing but dogs.
(16:27):
If you like dogs and cats, we're gonna show younothing but dogs and cats.
If you're a plumbing company or you're amarketing or you're a whatever and you're
showing up on these algorithms, there's a verysmall number of people that are interested in
that.
And if you're again, back to the local businessthing, if you're running a local painting
company, I might be interested in how you do,like, cool paint hacks on the wall.
And, like, there's cool content we could do toget you a bunch of views.
(16:49):
Right?
But it's not gonna help you grow your business.
It's gonna help you get awareness.
But awareness doesn't buy groceries.
Right?
It is the famous, like, likes don't buy, or paythe payroll.
Right?
But why we love to do organic social still isto figure out what the algorithm is gonna push
for you for free.
Because if you can post something that gets alot of views across the whole country, a paid
(17:10):
media team like somebody at High Beam couldcome in, take that content, strip the end of
it, change the call to action at the end tomake it an ad, and then run it as an ad in your
local market.
So you kinda get to test your creative for freeat scale Mhmm.
And then take the best performing stuff withoutall the, like you basically have a lot of
previously to this, you had a lot of peoplewith a lot of opinions about, like, oh, I think
(17:30):
this creative is good.
This is bad.
Blah blah blah blah blah.
Now you try it all, see what sticks, and thenrun that as an ad, and then you keep running as
an ad, drop your bottom 20, filter in the newstuff, test that, and then it's just constantly
an ad meritocracy essentially where you'retrying to see what's the best performing stuff.
So that is how you market a business.
That is my thesis.
We call it the high b marketing flywheel.
(17:52):
It will get you if you ever heard of the Paretoprinciple, 20% of your work gets you 80% of the
results.
This is 20% of the work.
You notice I didn't say anything about OTT.
I didn't say anything about display ads.
I didn't say anything about billboards.
I didn't say anything about radio or TV.
Those things work.
They will not work for people that listen tothis podcast because what you told me about the
ICP for this podcast is anybody from startupsto larger small business owners.
(18:17):
If you're gonna go run TV or billboards orwhatever, like, you're competing with Coca Cola
and Target.
Like, Coca Cola's ad budget this year is$9,000,000,000.
It's not you.
And so don't advertise like Coca Cola does.
That is a really bad idea.
Do the things we talked about in this flywheel.
Do it at a high level and just get better andbetter and better at it, and you'll never have
to even worry about all that other stuff.
(18:37):
And then all of a sudden you'll see resultsstart to come in where you go, hey.
Marketing actually works.
It's just I kinda like this.
People come up to me and say, oh, hey.
I saw your company.
I like that now.
Blah blah blah blah blah.
It's it it happens almost every time.
It's wild.
So I wanna go back to what you were saying withthe different ways of advertising in the
organic.
You know, just like organic things that youthen take back, repurpose, and then change it
(18:59):
into an ad.
So when you're dealing with someone who islet's just say you have a company that's kind
of in that mid place.
They've already grown.
They've done the whole start up thing.
They've been in business for quite a few yearsnow, and they're looking to expand.
So if you live in so small towns whereeverybody knows you, everybody knows your work,
(19:23):
everybody so because you started in a, youknow, a business where it was, like, kind of a
mom and pop kind of shop and you grew it, thenthat example, would you say that some of that
organic marketing actually actually is veryhelpful because you are very well known, you
just need to get, you know, and you and theyknow your story, then you're able to turn that
(19:43):
around into ads?
I I just wanna make sure our audienceunderstands what you're saying and maybe not
just discounting the whole organic piece.
Yeah.
I so the reason why I harp on organic socialmedia marketing is because everybody wants to
focus on it because it's free.
Because you have an iPhone, because you seesome influencer on the Internet go, hey.
(20:05):
You just are this is how you get out of 200view jail on TikTok, and this is how you blow
up on YouTube, and this is how you do this onLinkedIn.
And you ever notice that that stuff is whatreally is getting a lot of traction on these
platforms because people want to have thesemassive, you know, Kim Kardashian esque giant
personal brands where they can have massivedeals and drive revenue.
It's it's but it's not how you grow a business.
(20:28):
And so the reason why we do organic socialmedia is to just really test ad creative.
Like that's really what you should be doing,because think about it.
People are content creators now.
Like individuals are full time contentcreators.
That means they spend twenty four hours a day,seven days a week, thinking about how they can
make better content to get shown in thealgorithm for free because that's their job.
(20:52):
Their job is basically making modern day TVshows, except they don't get to pick when the
stuff gets distributed.
That's all up to the mystery algorithm on eachspecific platform.
You are running a business.
You're the CEO.
And so maybe you have like, unless you're gonnapay somebody full time to do this and figure it
out, which you can do, you just must be amassive business.
And based on what we talked about here, I don'tknow how many of those people are actually
(21:14):
here, in this podcast.
It could be.
People love to talk about organic social mediabecause there's a few, what I call survivors,
that have made a lot of money with it.
And they say, hey, this would work for you too,and all it does is cost you time.
You can't be afraid to spend money.
You've got to literally, this is a thisflywheel that I just walked you through is a
(21:35):
time tested thing.
It's how I ended up actually getting tractionin the barbecue restaurant, which finally took
us from, you know, about $400,000 a year insales to a million dollars a year in sales.
It's how we're growing Highbeam marketing, andit's how we've seen you you know, our ideal
customer at high beam is between 1 and$10,000,000 a year in revenue.
And every single time somebody's marketingdoesn't work out, it's because they've skipped
one of these steps.
(21:55):
Mhmm.
And when I do these, like, I do a lot of Q andA's.
I do a lot of speaking around the country.
And when I get asked questions at the end, it'sit's so it's honestly annoying, Catherine.
I I'm it's it's the thing I'm gonna go to warwith.
This is organic social media thing becauseeverybody wants to know, how do I make better
content to sell more stuff?
And it's just, to me, it's the wrong question.
(22:16):
It's not it's not the right question becausethere are more consistent ways to drive revenue
than organic social media.
You may get lucky.
You may be the one that it hits and you getcrazy organic growth, and hopefully you've got
a product you're selling nationwide, and youcan you can you can do something with the
nationwide traffic.
But a lot of people don't, and they still wannatalk about organic social media like it's
(22:39):
02/2014, and it's just not anymore.
And so really, organic social media to wrap allthis up, what I would focus on is trying a
whole bunch of different stuff on there, notspending a lot of money to produce that
content, seeing what the algorithm pushes forfree, and then turning that into an ad.
Got it.
Got it.
As you were transitioning in businesses, didyou have any mentors or coaches that you hired
(23:05):
along the way?
I am a big book guy.
If you're watching this this on video somewhereon the Internet right now, you can see behind
me there's a lot of books.
I'm huge on books.
I used to be bigger on podcasts and things likethat as well.
And there's a few select ones I might stillpick up, but I'm really more of a book guy now.
Because if you think about how much time,energy, and money goes into creating a book, it
(23:27):
has to be good or at least their best shotversus, like, if we're on a podcast, we can
have a three hour conversation and sort ofdrags on and I'm talking to you, Jocko Willink
out there, like, you know, let's shorten itdown a little bit, but it's a little long.
But the but but a book, somebody has takeneverything and distilled it down to one thing,
and then you can take something from it.
Now a lot of books end up being, like, half ofit's good, and then you can just put the book
(23:49):
down.
I used to be forcing myself to finish books,and now I found that, oh, I just get get what I
want out of it, and then I can put it down.
I don't owe this author anything because hewanted to fill a 250 page book for some reason.
I literally just read a book called GoodStrategy, Bad Strategy, and I got halfway
through it.
And I was, like, telling people.
I was, like, man, this is a really good book.
I think I'm gonna start recommending this topeople.
And the back half of the book just fell apart.
(24:10):
It just dragged on.
It didn't have the same density to it, but,like, the beginning part was really good.
There was really good nuggets in there that Itook away and I'm implementing in business now.
I don't really believe, at least in myexperience, I I never had a coach, I never had
any sort of mentors or anything like that.
I I consumed content from people around me onYouTube, and books, and podcasts.
(24:33):
Like I consumed a lot of it, And then based onthat information, I would go implement it in my
business, see what worked, and then throw awaywhat didn't, and then go back and do it again.
Not to say that's the right way to do it.
That's just how I've ended up doing it.
I'm cur Have you had mentors in yourprofessional career?
Where where do you fall on that?
So I I do I have.
(24:54):
I've had mentors, and I've taken lots and lotsof workshops and courses and listened to lots
of audibles, read lots of books.
And and as you, I don't necessarily alwaysfinish a completed book, and I will take the
book, highlight what is important to me whilelistening it to on audio, and and then I am
(25:17):
able to implement those things in my business,in my life, and then also in in supporting and
helping others because not everyone is a, youknow, is seeking knowledge all the time.
And so, so I'm able to, you know, transformthat and help others.
But then through, I would say, all the mentorsthat I've ever had are because I've taken
(25:40):
courses with them and been able to do eventswith them personally.
And so that's been, you know, my take and alsothrough life experience, which is always the
best gift that we have is the mistakes that wemake and learning and, you know, failing
forward, continuing to move on.
Yeah.
I I think there's this problem withentrepreneurs sometimes where we get addicted
(26:05):
to consumption.
It's like all we wanna do is plan perfectly.
We wanna get all the information we possiblycan.
And so we just spend a lot of time planning andgathering and collecting, at least I do in my
my worst days when I'm not being verydisciplined of, like, going out and taking
action.
And that's why I try to avoid courses andthings like that.
(26:25):
It's like it's just so much better to shortenthe iteration cycle where it's like you get the
idea, you go implement it, what's the dataactually tell you, make a new idea, go
implement it, and then just keep on rotatingthat around.
And same.
At that I mean, that I mean, that's what you dowhen you're gathering information is because
you're looking to implement it and and takeaction.
(26:45):
So yes.
So, I like that.
So what would you say is something superimportant that you would want to leave our
audience with as as a nugget or a teachablethat they can take and, as you said, implement
and go out into the marketplace and andactually put into action?
(27:07):
I'll tell you that the biggest lesson I tookaway from my first business as a mistake was
underestimating how important the people on myteam were, the the people that were actually on
my payroll.
I thought that if I could just build a goodenough system or market the business well
enough or have a good enough product that Icould get away with not having to pay for top
(27:30):
talent.
And it's it's, you know, I'm empathetic torestaurant owners because it's such a small
margin business that it's really hard toacquire top talent.
I mean, we had a pretty good work environment,but we still had staff turnover of every 90
days.
Either college, high school kids moving on,restaurant industry staff is notorious for
coming and going, and it just is what it is.
(27:53):
Now with High Beam, you know, it's a muchdifferent business, much higher margins.
We can afford, you know, top tier talent.
I have I cannot explain how much better thisbusiness has run since day one because of the
people that are involved with it.
And if you have if you have any problems inyour business, it's probably a people problem.
(28:14):
It's either you have the wrong person on theteam, or you have the wrong person with the
wrong knowledge on the team, or you haven'tfound the right person with the right knowledge
yet.
Like, there it's something people oriented.
And if you if you look at everything as apeople problem first, you know, because
entrepreneurs, we start out as problem solvers.
Especially if you bootstrap the company.
Your brain has basically learned that if youfind a problem and you just find a way to solve
(28:38):
it on your own, that that will lead to success.
That will get you to a certain level.
You can't go beyond that level unless you learna new skill and completely throw the other one
away, really, where you go, I have found thisnew problem.
Who do I know that can go solve this?
And that's the thing that I have taken away.
(28:59):
And if I could if I could tell anybody to doone thing, it is find the right people, put
them on the bus as Jim Collins says, in theright seats, and then you'll get out of their
way.
Learn how to be a better leader because that'struly what's gonna differentiate you between a
million dollar business and a hundred milliondollar business.
That's right.
That's right.
So tell our audience how would they find you,how would they do business with you, and what
(29:23):
would you offer them for them to, you know,just get started?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you can connect with me on LinkedIn,Chandler Lyles.
You can go on Instagram, all the social medianetworks.
We try to practice what we preach from acontent production standpoint.
So I'm on all the networks.
You can go I would love for you to go tohighbmarketing.com and join our newsletter.
We send out a weekly email.
Again, practice what we preach.
It's it's my favorite thing I get to do everysingle week where I write a little bit of
(29:46):
secret, content for everybody that's on thatlist.
And it's just a little marketing nugget.
Again, keeping us top of mind for you whenyou're ready to to hire us for marketing
services.
And then if you are actually out there runningpaid ads right now and you're spending at least
$10,000 a month and you think that the agencyyou're working with might be a little sketchy,
which by the way is eighty five percent of myclients have this problem before they come to
us.
You're running the ads yourself and you thinkyou can do it better, again, to what we just
(30:09):
talked about, like, find better people to runyour ads.
It may be us, it may not.
Or you don't think marketing works at all, andyou have one of these three problems, like,
fill out the contact form on our site, and wedo a free ad audit where we basically have a
200 checklist.
We look at all your ads like a mechanic lookingat a car, and we're gonna give you every
single, what are they, the warning lights thatcome up on the dashboard?
Like you're gonna have a lot of them.
(30:30):
And you're gonna be shocked about I mean thisindustry, Catherine, it's it's insane.
I was just talking to somebody this morningabout this.
Accountants go to school for three years, andthey have to get certifications.
And the barrier to entry to become anaccountant and actually be able to do
bookkeeping and file taxes and all the thingsis so high.
The barrier to become a marketer is I'm amarketer, and I put it on my Instagram bio and
(30:51):
my LinkedIn, and now I'm a, you know, whatever.
And so it's it's the it's the hill.
It's I underestimated how bad it was, and Iused to be a brick and mortar business owner,
so I knew it wasn't great.
But now that I'm in it and I have to deal withpeople all the time where everybody has that
barrier when we first meet them where they'relike, you're just another marketing guy.
It's not the same blah blah blah.
So, yeah, that would be my recommendation to dobusiness with us.
(31:16):
Okay.
Well, I thank you so much for this time.
And you know what?
High it's High Beam?
Mhmm.
Highbeam.com?
Highbeammarketing.com.
High beam marketing Com.
So for our audience, there's lots of nuggetsthat have been learned here today, and we're
just so thankful, Chandler, for just being withus, for sharing all of this information, and
(31:38):
for really helping people to understand wheretheir marketing dollars should go and and just
really looking at an agency sometimes.
Now I will ask you this last question becausethis is good.
What is the difference between a marketerversus having an agency
Mhmm.
And why you would want that?
(31:59):
Because that's I forgot that that's animportant thing to understand for business
owners.
The difference in having an in house marketerand an agency is specialization.
So what most small business owners do is theystart by I do all the marketing.
I do everything myself.
I'm the guy that wears all the hats.
They then go out and wanna delegate that pieceto somebody else, and they hire a in house
(32:25):
marketer who's called a marketing director,marketing manager, one of these titles.
And this person is now the everything marketer.
They're having to write emails.
They're having to write copy.
They're having to make creative.
They're doing graphic design and video andemail and and paid ads and organic social
strategy and they're wearing way too many hats.
And so you've basically just taken a good inhouse marketing manager builds the plan for the
(32:48):
business, and then they go out and findspecialist agencies to help them fulfill the
plan.
And that's where Highbeam comes in.
We do really well with business owners thatalready have a marketing plan that they
understand or a marketing leader on the teamthat's owning that plan.
And we come in and we just do the paid mediapiece.
So we're gonna help you run better meta ads orGoogle ads or Amazon ads, even TikTok now is a
(33:09):
thing.
And so if you if you expect an agency to doeverything well, it's it's it's not that it
can't be done.
It's just really it's really hard to do.
And so if you find an agency that specializesin certain things and that's all they do and
that's all they think about, like HighbeamMhmm.
Mhmm.
It tends to get better results in that specificarea of the flywheel that we talked about.
(33:30):
So in this instance, I would have a websitemanagement company.
I would have an email marketing company.
I would have us as paid ads because, you know,I think we're the best in the business.
Obviously, I'm biased.
And then eventually, I would have a creativeagency that would help you make better content.
Alright.
So you got it now.
I love that.
Thank you so much for sharing all of that.
(33:50):
That really does help our audience inunderstanding just the differences between
having a marketer and having an agency with thespecialists, and the specialists are gonna
help.
So thank you, Chandler.
Thank you for this time and for these nuggets.
And, again, this is Catherine, your host withthe Beyond Business podcast.
Looking forward to our next recording.
(34:15):
Well, if you made it to this point, then youmade it to the end, and you are my star.
And I just wanna thank you from the bottom ofmy heart.
I hope that you enjoyed the conversation withtoday's guest.
And if you did, please leave us a review onApple Podcasts and Spotify and share this
episode with others who may be interested inthis topic.
(34:36):
Also, please feel free to let us know whattopics you'd like to see covered in future
episodes.
Get in touch in the comments or in RocketGrowth social media platforms.
To have conversations with me, my booking linkis in the comments.
See you next week for all for a all newepisode.
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