Fresh: Hello, my name is Fereshteh Fattaahi. I go by Fresh. I am a cofounder of Advisor Roots, and I’d like to introduce you to my, my partner, Ben Daron. 

Ben: Hi, Fresh. 

Fresh: Hi, Ben. Nice to see you today. How are ya? 

Ben: I’m doing well. Um, it is a Friday, and I’m excited. This is our first podcast. I am in Long Beach, California. I just moved back here. And so it’s exciting. It’s a sunny Friday and, um, I’m glad to be doing a podcast and not just doing email today. So what about you? 

Fresh: I’m with you. It’s kind of fun. This is our inaugural podcast and, uh, we’ve been guests on podcasts before, but since this is a service that we offer, it kind of makes sense to hop on, create our own podcast, and start off by giving a little bit of background around who we are as individuals and also who Advisor Roots is: what we do and who we work with. 

Ben: Yeah. Fresh, where are you located? Since we are a remote company and all of our team is remote. Where are you at? 

Fresh: I am currently based in Kansas City, Missouri, but, um, the irony of our story is that we actually met while virtual. I was living in Los Angeles. We were connected by a mutual contact, Alli Dozet, while I was working out of the WeWork in Burbank, because I went to Alli with a need and she said, “I know just the person.” And this was back in 2017. And she introduced me to you. 

Ben: Yeah.

Fresh: For a website project I was working on, and I saw that you had a deeper skill set than simply building a website. You really thought about these things from an enterprise architectural level, and that has spurred many conversations over the years. And in 2020, we decided to form Advisor Roots out of the need for a one-stop creative partner shop for the people who we work with. 

Ben: I remember when Alli introduced us, thinking I… At this time, I was in, in a small town in Ohio, and I was working mainly with, uh, small businesses and individuals. And I remember seeing Slant Consulting and being like, “Wow, this is so cool,” like, I’ve never, this is like the big leagues, right? Like I’m, I’m working with consultants. And just from my background, that was like, it felt like my big break working with you. And it ended up that it was, um, because now we have a company together.

Fresh: Yeah! 

Ben: Um, but I, I remember that, um, as well, and just having, it was an exciting experience, and it still is exciting today. So…

Fresh: Absolutely. I think that the way that our, our partnership together has evolved and the people that we work with is a true testament to good connections and the ability to work with the best of the best, regardless of where you’re physically located or geographically located. 

Ben: Definitely. 

Fresh: But I know that the, the purpose of this call today is really to give a little bit of background of what we do and who we are. So let’s dive into the roots of our own story. And Ben, tell me a little bit about growing up and your background and what you did and how you landed where you are today.

Ben: Yeah. I grew up in rural Ohio. On a farm, uh, a small farm. I note that because there are… like, the farming industry is actually pretty complex, and it, it’s similar to some of the organizations we work with of, like, if you’re smaller, the resources that are available. And so I grew up in a small business, and I knew from early on that I did not want to stay in… I did not want to take over the farm, but I now can look back and deeply appreciate that experience. And recognize, like, the privileges I had of learning from all of that and seeing how my parents, you know, pivoted and tried new things. And, um, when things weren’t working, had to… they were just forced to do something else, right? And that’s truly what a small business does or what a business organization has to do to grow and to survive. And so I started working, I think in the fourth grade, I would pick green beans in the summer. And fortunately my parents paid me. And so that really motivated me. It was a big motivator to work, uh, because like I said, I didn’t really have a lot of interest in farming, but the, but earning money to go work was motivating for me. And so I took that summer’s work and saved up and bought my first computer. 

Fresh: Mmm. 

Ben: And because I was really interested in technology and, like, creative work. And so I was like, “I’m… I want my own computer.” And I bought a Gateway computer because of, at the time it was all like cow branded. Uh, so living on a farm that was sort of a requirement, but yeah. I bought a computer. I started making business cards for, for businesses. I remember my granny, she worked at a factory and people had like, you know, small businesses, and she would be like, “Hey, I have this person that needs a business card.” And I would go to Rite Aid and get business card, printable, cut out things and design it and click out like clip art and, and make business cards. And then I eventually got into websites, um, for my parents, I built a website, and that just took off. I mean, that was in 2000… I can’t even remember the date, but yeah, like it was in the early 2000s. When, like, building your own website was still pretty unheard of at the time. Like, especially in rural Ohio, it just, like, people didn’t really have websites yet as small businesses. So that was really… I remember I built it in some like Microsoft builder at the time that had just come out and, and was one of the first maybe DIY options. And that took off, like, and so here in the, like, middle school and high school, you know, I was building websites because my parents’ connections with other farms or other businesses, they would see theirs and be like, “Wow, who did that?” and, and “How did you do that?” And so I think because I grew up in small business and then seeing the power of that, that made it impossible after college to work for a corporation. Um, I went to film school just to learn more about marketing, but I, I had so many different interests still. And so I worked in sales, and I did recruiting for a new college. I worked in project management. I did a lot of different jobs, and I always got stuck of, like, “but I grew up in this world where my parents could just go do something. Without asking anybody else.” And that’s a wonderful privilege to have. It also can be really exhausting ‘cause you, you hear that and you’re like, “Great, yeah, you’re a business owner. You can do whatever you want.” Um, yes, but no, uh, uh, but it, it does, like I think growing up in that, it was just really hard for me to like stick to a traditional nine-to-five environment where I… It didn’t move fast enough, to be honest. Like, my parents would just pivot and change based on the day and based how the business was going. And when you’re in that environment, it’s like, very much, a lot slower.

Fresh: Mhmm.

Ben: And that I just, I would get frustrated because I had so many ideas or I wanted to like help make things better. And so in 2013, I started Daron Creative, which was my first agency and started freelancing and working with small businesses and grew that up until 2020 when we started Advisor Roots. And from there, merged into Advisor Roots ‘cause that made sense. And but yeah, from, I just built websites and consulted on platforms and efficiency, and that was really great. But it’s also lonely as a business owner, so I was excited about this opportunity to come together and, and do this not alone and to have a team.

Fresh: Yeah, I think we’ve had so many, one-off phone calls and now I’m like, since I’m old school, I like to pick up the phone and call people. We have a whole team, so that’s not always an option. If we need something, you’ve built our systems on the backend so that we can operate remotely regardless of what we’re working on, which is fantastic. It’s definitely a adjustment for me because I like to pick up the phone, but then I realize that nobody has visibility into what we’re doing. And I think… 

Ben: It’s just so different from the two of us to like eight of us now or more of us. 

Fresh: Yeah. 

Ben: Um, it’s so different, but you have such a interesting story and background as well. You got to work in Hollywood, and I know people are always interested in that. So tell us about your background, Fresh. 

Fresh: Sure. So I, I was born and raised in Kansas City. Um, I moved to Los Angeles in 2008, which was an interesting time to be there, finish up college out there and needed some internship credits to graduate. And I figured, you know, The job market was terrible at that time. So it was a great time to plug in and do quote unquote “free work” with the intention of trying to find a job out of that. And also checking off the box for those college credits. So I ended up working for a life [insurance producer] who really had built his business around working directly with attorneys, CPAs, and other professional advisors towards, towards the common goals for a client, and they worked in the ultra-high-net-worth space and did some really interesting cutting-edge strategies using life insurance. So my exposure to life insurance was very different than your traditional property and casualty agent, traditional, um, you know, term life policies. I got to see how some of the coolest things could be put together. Um, and really enjoyed that internship and, and worked with them for about a year. But I also realized I wanted some, some corporate experience. So I took on an internship during my senior year at, uh, Sony Pictures in the studio, a lot in Culver City, working for international networks, finance, and got great corporate exposure was able to spend about three years working for them, uh, was hired on before I graduated. And really understood, or really had the opportunity to understand the architecture and the blueprint and the communication guidelines for how to operate within a large corporation. And from there, I, I went on to Universal Music Group and Capital Records and spent some time in distribution finance. We had 10 labels under us. I spent about a year at Capital Records, um, working on the… more of the artist side, so I got closer access to the creatives, which was really fun. And in 2015, I think, I reached back out to my old boss and said, “Hey, I wanna get back onto the small business side. I wanna make a bigger impact. I really liked working with you all. Do you have room in your organization for me again?” He said, “Sure, come on back. You can do… handle all of our new business.” Um, they were working on a 40 million finance case at the time, and, uh, were also starting a startup to help train advisors on what he had done to become so successful himself. The common thread that these people were looking for was help around marketing, like, “Where’s my next client coming from?” And this advisor who I worked for had this…

Ben: Mmm.

Fresh: … just wonderful way of building relationships and making sure that everybody was on the same page. Everybody was very clear on what needed to happen and working for that startup was extremely eye opening on all of the different pieces that needed to be done in order to make that thing successful. And it was, and it still is today. In 20… middle of 2017, I decided that I wanted to work with more than just one advisor and kind of went off on my own and started, started a consulting agency because I didn’t actually know what I wanted to consult on, but I knew I was really good at organizing things and helping with communication. That’s really where my background in corporate finance and then working with all of the partners I worked with at Universal. I had 70 distribution partners. Um, that’s where a lot of that skillset came into play. So 2017, kind of went out on my own. 

Ben: Yeah.

Fresh: And, and then 2020, I mean, 2017 is really when you and I started working together; 2020, we formed Advisor Roots. 

Ben: Mhmm.

Fresh: So that’s my story. 

Ben: Well, and I, I have two thoughts on that, Fresh, ‘cause one: that’s your superpower, is organization and getting all the pieces together. And that’s why I think we initially… I was like, “Wow, I’ve never met anyone that does all these things in a website project that I don’t want to do, that I have to do with clients to make a website project successful.” So whenever you had a new project, I was like, “Yes, this is great. Like, I don’t have to organize all the things from the client. We can just build the site.” Right? And so I think that yeah, is definitely one of your super powers…

Fresh: Thank you.

Ben: … and comes from your background. It’s also interesting. You were at, um, Universal or Capital when, like… 

Fresh: Yeah.

Ben: … streaming came about. Right? So like you got to see that whole shift and see how like things change and, and that kind of business… 

Fresh: Oh, for sure. 

Ben: … as well. 

Fresh: So yeah, we went from almost all of our revenue was coming from downloads at that point. And it made the big shift into, you know, a lot of the revenue was coming from streaming services. Spotify was relatively new at that point. It wasn’t a huge player in the game yet. And we would watch the shift in how, how many streams would happen even though the money wasn’t coming through the same way. There was a giant shift there. And if you look at it…

Ben: Mmmm.

Fresh: … it’s kind of ironic that, you know, we just went through a pandemic… Or still going on. And there’s been a lot of shift of in-person meetings where you’re closing business into, “All right. How do we reach people?” But we’re not actually seeing as many people anymore, or we’re working in a hybrid environment. 

Ben: Yeah. 

Fresh: Business is always shifting.

Ben: Definitely. 

Fresh: It’s like, how are you staying ahead of, and making sure that you’re doing marketing in a way that’s still effective and that’s standing out from everybody else?

Ben: Yeah, I think that’s really important, ‘cause we’ve seen in 2020, we came together, and we thought, “We have no idea what this year is gonna look like with the start of the pandemic.” And then it turned out to be one of the busiest years ever because of that shift of everyone, every single business and individual moving online and needing to increase their brand presence or tell their story in a more unique way because it got so noisy of… There’s so many people now, and this is the only way people are, are consuming, that it got noisy and people weren’t able to have a voice as maybe easily as they were before. And so we saw a shift too, because people wanted help to tell their story better, or they wanted to make their website better so that it was more effective and things like that, so… And we’re still seeing that today, really, even in the hybrid or some people have gone back, like it’s still, I think now so important to think about. And I think it kind of where people up of, like, “Oh, my website’s not just done when I launch it. It has to be, you know, this is an ongoing… I need an ongoing marketing plan, or I need a strategy around this even afterwards to keep going. Because if not everyone else around me is, or everyone else online is doing that. So if I’m not doing that, that’s a gonna be a problem for my business.” 

Fresh: And I know we, we keep talking website, website, website, but we have learned over the years that the website is the home base, the visual branding and the corporate identity elements of it, all, everything stems back to that. If you’re trying to do any growth…

Ben: Yeah. 

Fresh: … your website’s not just a brochure. It’s so much more than that. If you actually take the time to build it that way, and it shouldn’t really be a brochure, if that’s what you’re doing for it, you know, that’s fine. But maybe look at, look at doing something to your LinkedIn, which is also SEO friendly. Um, but if you’re going to do a website, don’t just do it because you think you need to do it, spend the time…

Ben: Yeah.

Fresh: … and make sure that you’re doing it for the right reasons and that you’re fully leveraging it as a marketing and business development tool. Ben, would you like to tell us a little bit about the agency, and we can touch on The Community as well?

Ben: Yeah. So the agency is really where, where we started. Um, we started building websites together and worked on many projects together and then realized in 2020 that it would just be much more efficient to come together and… in a legal company structure. And we had also been working with a lot of other experts at that time for things like branding and design and copywriting and email marketing. And… I mean, the list can literally keep going on, but we had all of these experts and wanted to simplify that experience for our clients. So instead of sending them to, you know, sign five different contracts to get their project done, we wanted to be able to streamline that and just have them sign one and be able to help manage that because we love our creatives. We love our Experts, but it’s also, we understand that it is a lot to run the business side as well. And so we’re able to offer that support for them to help streamline things for their business as well as for our clients. So we’ve been doing that since 2020. We have people that are internal and external now. So what we mean by that is we do have like an internal team where some of those Experts are full time with us. And then we’ve got our external team, which are people that come on on a per-project basis. And for us. It doesn’t really matter. Clients get the same experience. We get the same experience, um, no matter which side of the business you’re working with. Um, but it allows us to leverage the best of the best and do some really cool things for our clients. And so we do everything from websites to branding, to, like I said, copywriting and design, and most of the time our clients are long-term relationships. 

Fresh: Mhmm.

Ben: We work with people over and over again, it seems like. So because we build such a solid foundation at the beginning. We’re not like the typical agency just trying to get new projects and selling anything and everything. Uh, Fresh, you have a phrase that I love when we work with clients and we are telling them not to do something. What’s your favorite phrase?

Fresh: I like to tell our clients that we are their marketing CF-No. We’re going to tell them what they may not buy, because we wanna make sure that their marketing dollars are spent on the right. It may not be the things that they were sold. 

Ben: And I love that, ‘cause I think, you know, early on a lot of our projects came from failed… other failed projects.

Fresh: Yeah.

Ben: They had engaged someone else and had a really negative experience. And so it’s important for us to like prioritize saying no to things that we know aren’t going to be effective or, yeah, saying no to ideas or software or, you know, making sure we do the, the due diligence first, before we just jump into things and not just selling everything that we can sell.

Fresh: Absolutely. And I think also a lot of the experts who we do partner with those are experts in our eyes because they’re people who we have hired to do work for us in the past. So we’ve actually had the experience of, you know, going through a full project with them to do something for our own business, saw their talent and their communication skills and realize that we could leverage them to help others who are in our network, who need that help, but we realize that’s not something that we are experts in. So we’ve kind of pulled all of the different people who are in, who are experts in their own lane and brought them under the umbrella for the agency-side…

Ben: Yeah.

Fresh: … which is how Ben and I started off. I like to go and talk to people. I like to go and identify opportunities and figure out ways that we can solve a problem together, not just in a task oriented way, but in a “how do we think outside the box and how do we go out and figure out a way that we can accomplish the goal” without just going to a single shop and saying, “This is what’s on the shelf.” And the irony is a lot of our clients, that they operate the same way; they operate in an independent, open architecture platform. So they’re not just going to what’s on their shelves to sell to a client. And we do the same thing. 

Ben: Yeah. I think that’s so important of, like, all of our clients are selling at the end of the day, their knowledge, right? They don’t have a product, they don’t have… necessarily services. I mean, some of them do, but at the end of the day, they’re, they’re selling knowledge, and I think that’s so unique from or different… and why a lot of agencies find it difficult to support these clients because their, their story is so layered, and they’re not just able to spin up a lead magnet with, you know, generating a ton of leads and buying online. Like, their sales process is a lot longer, or they have to build trust to be able to reach people because they are selling advice and that on the line can be very tricky or just take a lot more effort. And so I think like, whether they’re in the financial space or legal space or coaching or consultants, like, all of them have that same problem. And so I think what’s also really cool is the team that we’ve built is able to support that layered storytelling…

Fresh: Mhmm.

Ben: … in an effective way, because it just looks so different from e-commerce or local small business marketing.

Fresh: Yeah. And it looks very different too, from traditional funnel market, where they’re, you know, someone casts a giant net and then slowly people make their way down that funnel to a sale. That’s just not how a lot of the people that we work with operate, but unfortunately, a lot of them have been sold on this concept, and it doesn’t always work. A lot of it’s nurturing those relationships and, and identifying new opportunities through conversations. And then I guess we should probably touch on The Community a little bit too, because The Community is the thing we’re so excited about to be able to showcase a lot of our Experts with more people. 

Ben: Yeah

Fresh: And this was, this was absolutely Ben’s midnight hour idea last year.

Ben: I remember calling you or texting you. And I was like, “It’s so late. But I had this idea,” and it wasn’t even the end idea of what we came of, what The Community is today. But it really was… I remember we both were, it was in Q4 of last year, and we were both like, just trying to figure out what our next step was. And yeah, I had the idea. It was like 11 or 12 o’clock at night. It was so late. And I was like, “Are you still up?” And then we talked for like two hours because we were both so excited about it. 

Fresh: And Ben never texts me because he lives on every other platform. I’m old school. I pick up the phone, I call people, I text people, I email people. If Ben texts me, I’m gonna answer. And he did, and I’m glad that he did. This has evolved into the team that we have today and what we’re gonna be able to offer to more people. We’ve realized that there’s only so many hours in a day that Ben and I can consult or do website projects or ongoing strategy projects, LinkedIn profiles, anything where you are visible online. And so creating this community platform allows us to pull in our Experts into the same place where we can allow them to teach some of the people who, uh, we’ve been working with or would like to work with in the future. And it gives them a place where they can showcase their thought leadership, their expertise, and for organizations who have a marketing team, or they have marketing staff, this is a great place to show up to continuously keep your marketing efforts moving forward. It’s also extremely cost effective. So a lot of the, the items that we’ve done, one-on-one, with groups that are more pricey because you’re requiring us to physically be on the call and hand-hold throughout the process. These have been transformed into downloadable DIY products that are included in that community. And people can show up when they want to and how they want to. So there’s just a lot more flexibility there than being forced into a more strict contract where we’re working with them one-on-one. Ben please feel free to add. I’m sure I…

Ben: Lovingly…

Fresh: … I missed a few pieces there. 

Ben: I was gonna say lovingly forced into a, a consulting contract. 

Fresh: Yes, yes. 

Ben: Uh, yeah, whether… I think it’s funny ‘cause sometimes, um, the work that we do, clients dread it like, and we, we recognize that. And so sometimes our consulting is like we say hand-holding because it is, it’s… and we recognize ‘cause we’ve gone through the same process ourselves. It is time consuming, it’s very energy draining to think about this as a business owner and, and handle marketing. And so, yeah, I think The Community solves some of that. And that was really our goal is to help people on a larger scale and to make it, maybe, easier to do that, or give more support outside of our limited time and resources. So the podcast, um, today’s episode and the future episodes with all of our Experts, is kind of the first step into that. And then things like Coworking Office Hours inside of The Community where people can collaboratively come together with us there and pick our brains or ask us questions and learn from even each other of, and see, okay, they’re asking about this and that’s on our agenda for a month from now, but they’re able to get that insight in a way that makes it more collaborative and elevates all of our clients. And then still being able to have access to us one-on-one for obviously, like, confidential or specific information, proprietary information, but being able to get those general: “What email marketing software should I use? What should my website content look like?” Like, those general things that we get asked over and over again, and that… Our Experts are staying on top of trends and best practices because all of this shifts, right? It’s never done. And so to think that we can deliver our website and then walk away just isn’t realistic or effective. And so this is a way that people can stay plugged in with us to make sure that what they’re doing, if they do have a team or if they need more resources and wanna pull us back in, The Community’s a great way to just stay on top of all of that and know that you’ve got someone supporting you and you’ve got resources available whenever you need them, to take things next level, um, or to give your staff those resources.

Fresh: I think it’s also a great place to ask questions. You know, when you go into a big project where you’re needing to go and get something scoped out, a lot of times we don’t know what questions to even ask or what items you need to be looking for. I think throughout the years of Ben and I working together, like, we have seen so many different proposals and none of them compare the same stuff.

Ben: Yeah.

Fresh: So even knowing what you need to ask, a lot of times, people are educated by going out and asking for a bunch of proposals. And unfortunately, agencies that realize that people are doing this and shopping will over-inflate those numbers a lot of times, because they realize they have to educate too on the backend of what everything means.

Ben: Yeah.

Fresh: So having The Community access is a great place to ask those questions that you may need to know to even get a proposal for something that’s a big investment, like a website. 

Ben: Definitely. So this is our first podcast. We don’t know what’s necessarily to come next, other than we’re bringing on experts and that’s going to be kind of the format. So this, this first episode is us and our background for people that don’t know us or don’t know our full story, but what are some of the topics that we’re gonna cover with the Experts in the coming episodes? 

Fresh: I know for sure we’re going to bring in some of our people who do the visual branding. So getting advice from people who, that’s what they do. They think of a new concept for logo, for fonts, for how it all needs to be put together so that you create a brand that you love, that you’re proud of. Um, I mean, look at, look at a brand like Nike: it’s so simple, but somebody thought of that, and now, and you see the swish you recognize that. I’m saying that, ‘cause I see it on your shirt, Ben. But then you also see… it’s totally true. 

Ben: That’s true.

Fresh: And you know, until you’ve gone through and you’ve spent the money and you’ve spent the time kind of falling in love with a brand that you build versus spending $50 on Fiverr or Upwork to get a logo that you’re like, “Eh, it’s good enough,” but you don’t love it. You don’t believe in it. You’re not gonna go sell that. It just doesn’t work that way. 

Ben: No, your audience or clients aren’t going to believe in it either at that point, right? Like part of what we do is authenticity and, like, telling the roots of your story. And if that is, like, if you cut corners or if you are trying to just put something out there, that’s generic and not really telling your story, even in a visual way. Then it’s not gonna be effective. 

Fresh: Absolutely. Um, we are also bringing in experts to talk through how to write a newsletter, how to write effective blog posts. We will have people on there around, um, ongoing marketing strategy, creating content calendars, some best practices around LinkedIn, and also, we’ll also be sharing some of our favorite technologies that we use. Um, favorite systems, favorite apps, and also how to, like, what steps are before going and buying a new software. Like, for example, maybe your goal is to start sending out a newsletter while there’s a lot of things to consider when you’re gonna do that. Number one: who’s writing the content, but number two: where’s it being sent from? And number three: where are you getting all those people from? Do you have a CRM in place? So we’re gonna dive into a lot of the, the pieces that aren’t always thought about when you’re thinking about a marketing strategy, but they need to be considered because if you’re using Outlook as your CRM, that’s not a CRM. It’s great for you… for sending emails. It’s not a CRM. You can’t really send out mass emails from there.

Ben: Yeah. 

Fresh: And we, we’ll also cover things like how do you create frameworks for when you meet new people at an event? For your follow up. A lot of what we do, isn’t around mass communication. I know I just mentioned that in sending out a newsletter, but if you’re sending out a newsletter, it is mass communication. But how do you think about those 10 people that you would invite to sit at your exclusive dinner table with you? How would those people wanna be communicated with? While we don’t believe in creating automation around all of these human touches, there are frameworks that we can put in place so you’re not recreating the wheel every time that you’ve met someone new. So, help document some processes and figure out what needs to be done in order to, uh, get to the point of making a decision on a system to buy. Did I cover everything there, Ben? I, I’m sure I’m missing a few… 

Ben: I think so. No. I mean that, that’s a lot of it. Um, and we honestly, like… There’s so many experts that we can bring on and so many different topics. Um, a lot of our Experts do multiple things too. So, like, they may come on one episode to talk about email marketing and then talk about blog writing in a future episode. So that’s what’s exciting about this is that we’re able to have a platform to share all of this that’s typically reserved for our consulting and one-on-one clients. And so we’re really excited to be able to share these things with a broader audience and allow people to learn from it and help leverage it for their business or organization, and, uh, take things to the next level or start something new and, um, help them be successful in their efforts as well.

Fresh: Absolutely. So thank you for taking the time today to listen to Ben and I talk about the roots of our story and we look forward to seeing you on our next podcast.