Julie Matzen Reveals What Most Marketers Get Wrong

Rich & Wendy 0:00
Hey, everyone is rich Bennett. Can you believe it? The show is turning 10 this year. I am so grateful for each and every one of you who've tuned in, shared an episode, or even joined the conversation over the years. You're the reason that this podcast has grown into what it is today. Together, we've shared laughs, tears, and moments that truly matter. So I want to thank you for being part of this journey. Let's make the next 10 years even better. Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios Hartford County living presents 

Conversations with Rich Bennett. 

Yes. No, no, no, no, no. It is. 

Rich Bennett 1:00
Imagine running a small business in today's fast-moving digital world, where AI is changing the rules of marketing almost daily. And you've expected to keep up with the team, budget, or time of the big players. It sounds impossible, right? Well, not if you know, Julie Madison. Julie is a powerhouse in the marketing world with over 25 years of experience working with brands like Sherwin Williams and Cricket. Cricket, that's the printer. Cricket, not Cricket, the cell phone common. 

Julie Matzen 1:33
Correct. That was the, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:34
She's the founder of Mayday Agency and co-founder of Borderline, a game changer platform connecting startup and small business owners to expert advisors. Helping them make smarter moves without turning or without burning through cash. Today we're diving into how AI is reshaping the future for small to mid-sized businesses as well as some other marketing things. And what many business owners are getting wrong when it comes to AI and marketing. And how Borderline is leveling the playing field in ways that just weren't possible a few years ago. So, this conversation is going to be packed with insights every entrepreneur needs to hear. Oh, and then I mentioned that I'm joined by my co-host, Michelle. 

Michelle Hayes 2:25
Hey everyone. 

Rich Bennett 2:26
I didn't, did I? 

Michelle Hayes 2:28
No, you didn't. 

Rich Bennett 2:28
Sorry. 

Michelle Hayes 2:28
You left me out. 

Rich Bennett 2:30
Thanks. Oh, I'm sorry. How you doing, Julie? 

Julie Matzen 2:36
Thanks for having me on this show. 

Rich Bennett 2:37
Oh, my pleasure. Before we get into the market and everything, one of the things I always like to find out is especially when it comes to marketing, was that your, when you were in school and high school? Was that what you always wanted to do? 

Julie Matzen 2:52
it's funny that you asked that. My senior in high school, they asked to do you like a vision board like what 

Rich Bennett 2:56
Yeah, 

Julie Matzen 2:56
you want your life to be, including when you think you're going to die, which I thought was a little dramatic, but anyway, I, I remember putting that I wanted to own an ad agency. And help like kids who don't have the funds or the means to, you know, grow their own businesses. I think that's what I was thinking. I probably a little bit too far when I was 18 doing this 

Rich Bennett 3:21
Right. 

Julie Matzen 3:21
vision board. And so, but I went into school for PR. Actually, my first career was in PR and I just, I just didn't do advertising. I didn't do what I was supposed to do or I, I don't know why at all. I ended up that way. But so fast forward 25 years, well, about 12 years ago, I decided I'm going to open up an ad agency. A lot of things happen in between, but, you know, it was a dream of mine and I just went for it. And there was many things I did not know, but I learned it and I hired the right people. You always hire people smarter than you. 

Rich Bennett 3:56
Right. 

Julie Matzen 3:56
And I was able to have my little dream and, you know, we got to work with aura. The ring for 

Rich Bennett 4:02
Oh, yeah. 

Julie Matzen 4:02
three years. We work with Yale smart locks. It's like the key padlock on your door. We work with Master Lock. Um, these amazing companies. And so I never dreamt that this would have happened. Um, so yeah, it's been 12 years in the making and, uh, to answer your question, that's where I kind of started PR. 

Rich Bennett 4:27
Now, and then I take it to the ad agency was Mayday. 

Julie Matzen 4:31
It's Mayday, correct. 

Rich Bennett 4:32
Okay. But with even running an ad agency, were you still doing PR? 

Julie Matzen 4:37
I didn't like PR. I didn't. 

Rich Bennett 4:41
I don't like earned media. Okay. 

Julie Matzen 4:41
I like paid media. It was like, I just just earned media. It's just too difficult to measure. It's hard to, you know, show companies ROI. It's stressful. So I love the paid world. 

Rich Bennett 4:55
Okay. It explained everybody what earned media. 

Julie Matzen 4:58
Oh yeah, still like basically you're pitching magazines to write about you and 

Rich Bennett 5:02
Right. 

Julie Matzen 5:02
a lot of people think that if you go on the today show, you're going to be a success overnight. No, 

Rich Bennett 5:09
no. 

Julie Matzen 5:09
Get rid of it in a big magazine. No, it's repetition and it's years and what's great about PR though is for SEO purposes. 

Rich Bennett 5:19
Right. 

Julie Matzen 5:19
So I always recommend to small businesses if you do PR do it knowing the goal is to be more clickable when you someone searches 

Rich Bennett 5:29
Right. 

Julie Matzen 5:30
you. 

Rich Bennett 5:30
Yeah, that's because I don't even want to mention the names of the 

magazines, but I'm getting emails all the time from certain ones that want to do. They say they want to do interviews with you and those same questions and then you have to write your answer. So basically you're interviewing yourself and they went and it's it seems like a lot of them are all owned by the same company and I did a couple of them, but what cracks me up is I still get emails from them it is if I would like to be featured and I every respond to back to the ones like you guys just featured me last year. Oh, we did. 

Julie Matzen 6:15
Yeah, I think again, those are so great to do though because of SEO again. 

Rich Bennett 6:20
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 6:21
But like I've had I've seen ones where they've asked you questions, you fill it out and then it asks you if you want to like buy the article or get it. 

Rich Bennett 6:30
Yes. 

Julie Matzen 6:31
For it and then you're like oh okay, but I did do one and it's been great like the the exposure is amazing like you Google my name was the first thing that pops up so 

Rich Bennett 6:41
for that magazine 

Julie Matzen 6:42
for that magazine. So yeah, it was with authority on medium.com and it was it was an article where I really just put it all out there about my history and and some really deep personal stuff and yeah, it's first thing that comes up. 

Rich Bennett 6:57
Well, and that's I think that's where a lot of podcasters podcasters are missing the boat as well because a lot of people a lot of podcasters will record the episode they'll edit the audio and video sometimes and just post it. They don't create sure notes. They don't create a blog post or anything and if they do they don't make it very SEO friendly and they have to because that's again when you search up somebody's name, if you do it correctly, it's going to pull like you up tied into the the podcast and vice versa and you know especially with those magazines you're rate the SEO does help 

but then you got to look at versus advertising how much business do you get from it? 

Julie Matzen 7:47
Advertising always wins. 

Rich Bennett 7:49
Yes, yeah, 

Julie Matzen 7:50
and you could make your advertising look like earned media. 

Rich Bennett 7:56
yeah, I see that live actually, 

Julie Matzen 7:58
Well, for 

Rich Bennett 7:59
I 

Julie Matzen 7:59
example, 

Rich Bennett 8:00
like that. I'm the honest 

Julie Matzen 8:02
on TikTok people are just taking clips of their podcast show 

Rich Bennett 8:06
with 

Julie Matzen 8:06
and using it as content. They probably don't even get concerned about podcast numbers on different platforms. They're using it as content and then you can boost that content like on Instagram and sponsor it. 

Rich Bennett 8:19
I mean 

Julie Matzen 8:19
Now all of a sudden it looks like an editorial piece but you paid for it to get out to the people you want to 

Rich Bennett 8:25
write 

Julie Matzen 8:26
so it's just how you look at like I always look at like what's the end goal and then you go and backwards. You know, a lot of people just start slapping stuff up and trying everything and you know, you got to be very clear about why you're doing something because you can waste a lot of time. 

Rich Bennett 8:41
Oh yeah, so you have Maidae agency and then borderline came afterwards, right? 

Julie Matzen 8:48
Yeah, so it was Maidae and then we started our own production company called on the fly. So now we offer our clients, TV spots and photo shoots. So that happened. That was the second part. 

Rich Bennett 8:59
Oh wow. 

Julie Matzen 9:00
Yeah, because we're like why are we hiring production companies? We can do this ourselves. 

Rich Bennett 9:04
Right. 

Julie Matzen 9:04
So we've always, you know, we just have a team we've worked with for so long. It's just so dialed in and working with Maidae, you know, it's big brand. So it's big budgets and everyone that I work with it's a partner model. So I've never had an employee in 12 years. We were all remote, no overhead and it was until COVID happened, it was hard to explain. 

Rich Bennett 9:29
Right. 

Julie Matzen 9:30
And now it makes sense. Clients love it. They just love it because they're getting everyone on my team were all 20, 25 years plus left agency world to do our own thing. So we get our hands dirty and we do the work at a price that companies can afford. 

Rich Bennett 9:46
Right. 

Julie Matzen 9:46
So in looking at that model, how do you take it and make it accessible for on a mass scale. And that's how borderline kind of started. 

It kind of also came in the idea of like helping women small business owners who are they're kind of scared to ask the questions. They're scared to raise capital they don't know what they don't know and they get stuck. And so I also wanted to create an environment for it was easy to go to and find an expert and chat. So and often even in the agency world I found myself being a therapist with my clients 

Rich Bennett 10:25
yes 

Michelle Hayes 10:25
oh yeah 

Julie Matzen 10:26
you know because if you think about it you're in the safe zone you don't work there it's like having a therapist or a lawyer client confidentiality and it was always like I was helping more than just with their advertising or marketing I was like okay this is what I think you should do to advance your career this is what I think you should do write this letter so I was like empowering some of my clients and this is more of the smaller clients this is not the big brands and I thought oh my god I'm a therapist. So that's also the other reason why borderline was born was to give people 30 minutes or an hour and an affordable price to get the expertise they were not going to get anywhere else they can't hire an agency and they can't hire a CMO or director of marketing they just don't have those kind of budgets. 

Rich Bennett 11:18
I'm gonna keep quiet here for a minute because 

Michelle Hayes 11:20
see 

Rich Bennett 11:20
I off. Here's a Michelle's head just turned so Michelle started her own age while 

Michelle Hayes 11:28
good on and I have 

Rich Bennett 11:29
marketing firm 

Michelle Hayes 11:30
a shirt 

Rich Bennett 11:30
a year ago. 

Julie Matzen 11:32
Oh cool. 

Rich Bennett 11:33
Yeah so yeah when you when you were mentioning all that I'm just watching Michelle I'm like okay time for me to shut up because I Michelle's got questions. 

Michelle Hayes 11:42
So we we actually specialize in local small business and then we help nonprofits as well so we keep our prices low for everything marketing where one stop shop will do we'll do some of the production we've done headshots things like that and we do have them come in for a 30 minute console just to talk to me like do you do you need just that therapist moment and you're saying you're a therapist for your clients and I'm actually thinking of a couple clients that I can pull out of my head right now and I'm like wow I get it's the office politics sometimes 

Julie Matzen 12:19
and sometimes. Yep. 

Michelle Hayes 12:20
You know oh but I really want to advance my career here and you are a therapist I left a hairstyles career way back 

Julie Matzen 12:30
oh wow 

Michelle Hayes 12:31
20s and you were a behind the chair and it's funny how you know you can find that all through that different careers that you just hear a therapist as a woman honestly that's so funny 

Julie Matzen 12:46
said 

Michelle Hayes 12:46
but you 

Julie Matzen 12:46
I and then the therapy kind of goes different ways right so like yeah 

Michelle Hayes 12:51
oh 

Julie Matzen 12:51
uh client calls and says okay I have a brief I have this project I have this budget and then I'm I'm such a straight shooter I'm like why why are we spending this money go back to your boss and tell her this is a waste 

Michelle Hayes 13:06
oh yeah 

Julie Matzen 13:07
um or did you think about this and this so it's like brand therapy business therapy career therapy it's a lot of those things so borderline kind of covers so much like you can go on borderline because you have a specific question about Shopify we have a Shopify expert you know you don't always need to hire somebody to answer three questions you know it's like having a lawyer on retainer you're like I don't need a lawyer full time I just want to ask two questions 

Michelle Hayes 13:36
yeah 

Julie Matzen 13:37
and for 300 dollars if I talk to the media expert on borderline like Google shopping Google search you're like oh my god why am I spending ten dollars a click what am I doing wrong you book a session um Brad Delavas his name he's our media expert on borderline you book an hour with him you screens you look at your Google analytics and Brad's going to say why are you bidding on those words and you're going to go oh so he just saved you all this money and then he told you where like you discussed like okay what tell me more about your business have you thought about targeting this person or did you know you can overlay different markets to get more specific so a lot of people tend to like even like Google search like if they're a candle company they'll you know by the word candle no no 

Michelle Hayes 14:29
no 

Julie Matzen 14:30
it's so broad 

Michelle Hayes 14:32
we have 

Julie Matzen 14:32
and also you have to remember like how many people are gonna come up or here's another favorite people do Facebook advertising on their own and then they don't set the retargeting at a certain point and so do you ever gonna add over and over and over and over and you're so irritated that now you'll never We're by from that company. the average person that uses all these tools like Facebook makes it easy to do it yourself. But if you don't have the strategy sometimes it's even a little common sense because it's not innate to you, it's not your world. You're like I'm spending all this money and my ads aren't converting. And also you don't know that the tools on Facebook aren't giving you the complete picture. So there are so many things you just don't know. So someone spending $300 for an hour could make or save money. We also are offering subscriptions so that you could have a full board of advisors like I could check in on advertising and then I could talk to Marcy about strategy and then I can talk to Julie about branding and like I check in once a month with each of them. So we have different programs that you can use. Yeah and we also have a C suite. So if you we're trying to it's kind of like small businesses that are like ready to launch and have budget or medium sized businesses who want to do an audit. Like we're getting yeah like audit your team. I mean like and then AI this is a big part. Okay so you're using AI, you're creating your own website, you're creating your digital ads, you're on Canva, you're making all this great stuff and it looks cute but that's all it could be it's just cute. 

Rich Bennett 16:19
Right. 

Julie Matzen 16:20
You could be completely missing the mark on the message. 

Rich Bennett 16:23
Mm-hmm. 

Julie Matzen 16:24
You know or you don't understand the funnel strategy. So you could create all day long or have a junior team as a business owner and be like are they doing it right? These are young kids using AI like you could create all day but what's the strategy? Who's the target audience? Who are we making these for? So that's where Borderline comes in, you can afford that kind of like CMO level person or director level to look at all the work of your team and be like yeah they miss the mark here or no I wouldn't run those ads. They don't say anything. 

Michelle Hayes 16:58
I know that's my favorite question when we when we do client onboarding is who is your target audience? Tell me about your model client here and my favorite answer is oh everyone 

Julie Matzen 17:16
oh I was going to say that 

Michelle Hayes 17:17
everyone no that isn't 

Julie Matzen 17:20
every 

Michelle Hayes 17:21
the right 

Julie Matzen 17:22
No. No. No it's 

Michelle Hayes 17:23
answer. 

Julie Matzen 17:23
not. It's like jealously shark tank when they're like, it's a two billion dollar marketplace and it makes them upset every time someone does that like I'm like watch the show catch on. 

throw a big net out there in a ocean and see what happens 

Michelle Hayes 17:41
No. 

Julie Matzen 17:41
you'll be fishing for a while 

Rich Bennett 17:43
Yeah. Because 

Julie Matzen 17:43
but go to a pond that has like a million fish that are your fish and all of a sudden you know now we're talking 

Michelle Hayes 17:49
right 

Julie Matzen 17:50
so to your point you're absolutely right they think anybody's a customer and also I don't know you know depending on your product I always tell people don't be all thanks to all people say your product is for one group one specific person be really good at something and then expand later 

Michelle Hayes 18:12
yeah 

Julie Matzen 18:12
like you know I mean I can't say border lines for everyone I have to position it very specifically who that person is that needs it you know and of course we're doing some testing to see what messages resonate like AB testing is really important 

Rich Bennett 18:27
yeah 

Julie Matzen 18:28
I mean here I am who gives council to brands now creating my you know own startup so I still have to look at this as like I'm a small business owner now in a different way and so I myself is like what's gonna resonate that you can get your own board of advisors or therapist so we're running an ad campaign that's gonna have both messages and we're gonna see what resonates I'm an expert to a certain point but you don't know until you test that's why market research is so 

Rich Bennett 19:01
yeah 

Julie Matzen 19:02
important and we have a great market research person our name is Janet on borderline where you can like she'll coach you through how to do a survey because surveys are really important people just don't do you got it to your homework because if you're gonna spend 10 grand on an ad campaign you better know what message people are most interested in like what's gonna hook them people forget the website has to connect to the ad I could do this for hours so I'm gonna stop 

Michelle Hayes 19:27
now no no no you're good it's wonderful to hear someone else say all of the the things that I have been trying to you know I don't want to say beat into clients, but just someone else say it, because I feel like I just am a broken record sometimes just saying it and saying it and saying it. And that's why, you know, know what you're paying a marketing agency for is not creating one graphic. It is the research. It is the homework portion of all of that, the testing, the research, the telling you who you're actually supposed to market for because everyone's not a client. And all of that, like culminating into a full campaign. And that's what they see are the cute images. And you're like, no, no, it was everything behind those decisions that made that image, whether they're cute or, you know, asking a question, whatever they need. And then you're like, oh, yeah, well, now we need to progress down that funnel. Well, why the top was cute. And you just sit there and like rub your head, but I love hearing you say it. It's so nice to hear someone else say it. 

Julie Matzen 20:49
It's really hard to explain to somebody this upper funnel, mid funnel and bottom funnel. But if you can, like, if someone were to book me for an hour, I could spend one hour explaining it, and it would make all the world a difference. You know, there's different points of your sale cycle. And there should be different landing pages that support it. You know, 

Michelle Hayes 21:10
oh, yeah. 

Julie Matzen 21:12
And people also, even big companies do this. They use their website to sell, but people go to Amazon to purchase. 

So is my website e-commerce or is it education, and it can be education. And that's okay. It doesn't mean you're failing as an e-commerce. You have to look at the right tools of what's, or people are shopping. People make this mistake on social media, right? Like you're selling something. I mean, honestly, like, there's certain products. Like, why am I gonna follow you? I already 

Rich Bennett 21:48
bought 

Julie Matzen 21:49
it, like, you know, why I don't really need tips. It was a simple object that I bought. I don't need your content. But when I was shopping, I wanted to see your social with all the different colors you offer. If it was like a home decor item, like, it looks good in this environment, that environment. Okay, now you've got my attention. And I can shop. That's why the grid is important, I think, for Instagram, for brands. Think of it as shopping. But creating content to create content stake in your product. That's like a, I don't know, candle. I keep going candle. But how much, what are you going to do? Just like different candles and show videos? Like what, I mean, at what point is it, you know, 

Michelle Hayes 22:31
one 

Rich Bennett 22:31
house, yeah, I. 

Michelle Hayes 22:32
Sometimes you don't need. Sorry, Rich. 

Rich Bennett 22:35
Not good. 

Michelle Hayes 22:36
You like you were saying before you specialize in certain things, and you don't need to specialize in everything. Because then you're not specialized. 

Rich Bennett 22:44
I 

Michelle Hayes 22:44
know we've specifically 

recently, we had a client and they used the lovely word viral, and I was like, no, we're not, we don't promise that. We don't, we don't touch that personally. Our agency, we don't do TikTok at all. We don't mess with it. 

Rich Bennett 23:02
Viral, doesn't equal money in your 

Michelle Hayes 23:04
No, it doesn't, and I 

Rich Bennett 23:05
pocket. 

Michelle Hayes 23:05
don't touch TikTok personally, professionally. It's just not something that we want to tangle with. And I, I've never done it. So I don't specialize in it. Don't touch it. 

This, this, this client had a really, really lacking Instagram. And for what they need, they didn't need an Instagram. And they had a small budget because, you know, that's why they were coming to us, and I was like, we can get your, your Facebook heading to your website, we can get Facebook doing what we need to do. I think we need to ignore Instagram. You don't need an Instagram right now. And that was such a shock because I think out there, a lot of people are, you know, hearing the advice of, you need Facebook, you need an Instagram, you need a TikTok, you need all this. 

Rich Bennett 24:01
Get them all. 

Michelle Hayes 24:01
And like, you don't need it all. You need one that does really well. You 

Julie Matzen 24:06
need, you need to add, if you're not a content producer, you need ads 

Michelle Hayes 24:09
then. 

Julie Matzen 24:10
So I often say like, what benefit Instagram? For some people, it's a, it's like having a sign on your store. It's kind of like a block and tackle. but it's almost like you just have it to look professional and legit, to an influencer is going to check you out, or an investor is going to check you out, or a partner. So it's just smoke and mirrors to look button up, but to invest in somebody to post, like constantly creating content all the time, who are you talking to? You're not talking to new customers. So I always say, if you're going to have an Instagram page, use it as like your 

showpiece, your lookbook, your, you know, product shopping, but don't look at it as like, oh, I gotta have to post every day, I have to post something really interesting or reshare something on stories. No one, no one cares. 

Rich Bennett 25:10
I, 

Julie Matzen 25:10
focus 

Rich Bennett 25:10
we, 

Julie Matzen 25:11
your time somewhere else. 

Michelle Hayes 25:12
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 25:12
I want to go back in minute, because you were talking about how people will see all the Facebook posts and everything about products, but then go somewhere else to buy the product. And I am guilty of that because I love watching and following all these different barbecue companies and, and groups. And I get ideas and everything. And I follow them up, but when it's time to get a certain type of grill or the spices, I don't buy from them or are basically two places that I'll purchase from or technically three ones, the big orange building, and the other two are local and online. 

Julie Matzen 25:53
Well, yes, and 

Rich Bennett 25:54
don't 

Julie Matzen 25:54
this, 

Rich Bennett 25:54
push this stuff on Facebook. 

Julie Matzen 25:56
Okay, so here's the problem, immediately with small business owners and Facebook. Oh, by the way, everyone's guilty of this. 

They go to the analytics of Facebook and it says no conversions. And you're like, oh, Facebook's failing. You don't look at Facebook as a silo. You look at your business and you look at when you're running advertising holistically, you know, so an ad is driving clicks, but it doesn't drive sales. Well, to your point, they're leaving and going, buying somewhere else. It's still a win. 

Rich Bennett 26:29
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 26:29
So I think people who are too conversion heavy and look at the numbers too siloed get scared and stopped. But GlanceFuse on Amazon is a great way to show that you're advertising's working if you're on other mediums 

Rich Bennett 26:44
or 

Julie Matzen 26:45
channels rather. I mean, because someone went to Amazon and had a search for you and they knew you, they searched by your brand name. Well, where did they hear about you? Facebook. So you have to look at the whole picture. 

Rich Bennett 27:00
Right. 

Julie Matzen 27:00
you can't. And then also like, where did you hear about us? You know, those like when people, no one clicks the right one. So I don't 

Rich Bennett 27:06
Now 

Julie Matzen 27:06
even use that as value. 

Rich Bennett 27:08
Oh, I proved that theory wrong before. 

Julie Matzen 27:11
Yeah. I mean, I've worked with brands who have it and I'm like, oh, there's no way you, like, I know where they came in. 

Rich Bennett 27:18
So yeah, 

Julie Matzen 27:19
just people click whatever to get out of there. 

Rich Bennett 27:21
Yeah, the funny thing is, and I have shared this story before. But I did this with a card dealer when I was doing radio sales. It was a brand new radio station. And I just told them, I said, you know, they'd never heard of us that anyone advertise. I said, well, to me, a favor. I said, for the next couple of weeks, when people come to the door, ask them how they heard about you. And when I went back, they thanked me for running an ad form. I was like, what do you mean? You said, well, everybody said, they heard us on your radio station. We never ran an ad form. It's because it's the last station that people were listening to when they came in. don't always remember where they seen your ad 

Julie Matzen 28:05
People 

Rich Bennett 28:05
or whatever, but it does help. If you, if you weren't advertising on any other stations or whatever, chances are nobody's never heard of you or very few have heard of you. If you're not advertising the batch or product or your services, then yeah, a lot of people aren't going to know about you. 

Julie Matzen 28:24
What 

Rich Bennett 28:25
we're doing right here is a big form of it, a big type of it as well. And people are missing a boat on this as well. 

Julie Matzen 28:31
Well, also, you know, you can do things, you could bread crumbs to test something. 

Rich Bennett 28:38
Mm hmm. 

Julie Matzen 28:38
Like if you're a local store, flower shop and you advertise on the local radio, and it's like, okay, at the end of the commercial spot, you go, when you come in, say the word tulip and you get 20% off, you'll know it was from that spot. 

Rich Bennett 28:53
Well, yeah, yeah. 

Julie Matzen 28:54
You got to, if you want to make it measurable, 

Rich Bennett 28:56
got be creative. 

Julie Matzen 28:57
You got to get creative. And you got to offer incentives. We don't do that enough. Like on borderline, we have gift cards. And I've been giving people gift cards like go book an hour with someone, try it out. I mean, 

Rich Bennett 29:09
we're in 

Julie Matzen 29:09
we 

Rich Bennett 29:09
it. 

Julie Matzen 29:09
still, 

Rich Bennett 29:09
What? 

Julie Matzen 29:10
We still compensate with the consultants and pay them. But yeah, I mean, no, no. There's not like a button. Go get a gift card on. 

Rich Bennett 29:17
Oh, 

Julie Matzen 29:17
no, no, this is not a free for all let me be clear. But in beta, We're just using it as a way to test. 

Rich Bennett 29:27
Okay, yeah, and I know you we've had haven't even talked about everything that borderline 

offers and as you were talking to Michelle. I'm going through your website and I'm like 

Holy cow any business that wants to start up You guys basically provide it all Yes And the one that's blown me really blew me away And if you can hit on this a little I think it's very important because I see you see a lot of people that will start a business and 

they don't do this and that's a business plan. 

Julie Matzen 30:06
Yes, they don't do a business plan and they jump into execution 

Rich Bennett 30:12
Uh-huh, 

Julie Matzen 30:12
guys 

Rich Bennett 30:13
and you 

Julie Matzen 30:13
so 

Rich Bennett 30:13
for that like 

Julie Matzen 30:16
Yeah, so like you don't know what you just don't know what you don't know So, you know you start with an advisor who we so we offer like start up checklist 

Rich Bennett 30:27
Mm-hmm, 

Julie Matzen 30:27
and then we offer companies that just need advertising ready to go so like in the startup world You know, we like to have it be like an hour call where we ask all the questions like Okay, so do you have a business plan? No 

Okay, stop where you're at stop trying to build a website on Wix and Put together this business plan and 

Our portal that we've been working on that which is launching in a few weeks There'll be an area where the advisor is going to probably upload a worksheet and Say here all the things you need to answer and like answer these questions and book me again next month And we'll go through the answers. So you can use your session to brainstorm look at creative look at copy You know, that's your hour. You can do anything. You know you can ask anything But I think for startups. It's going to be the advisor asking the questions like Why are you spending money? You know or a big one. Did you go on USPTO dot gov and see if somebody else has that name? Because when you get a cease-cissist in us. What is it cease-census letter? You're gonna be really like uh-oh 

Rich Bennett 31:41
Oh, oh, 

Michelle Hayes 31:41
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 31:41
yeah 

Julie Matzen 31:42
or you go and hire a lawyer and spend All this money setting up your S corp when you could do it on legal zoom for $300 

Rich Bennett 31:50
See, and I think a lot of people don't I 

don't understand people You know, they say why I and why would I spend $300 on legal zoom and Where I can just get a lawyer well a lawyer's gonna cost you a lot more than that a 

Julie Matzen 32:04
lot more and it's all templatized now. You don't need and then like Here's some like here's some hard lessons. We learned In like the state of California if you hire somebody 1099 

Very specific rules. You have take taxes out and play employer tax Small businesses can't afford employees they get freelancers if somebody's working for you specifically for a certain amount of hours They don't classify as their own company. You have to take taxes out and you will get in big trouble 

Michelle Hayes 32:38
But 

Julie Matzen 32:39
something so simple as that is on the startup checklist that we share It's just you just don't know yet You also don't know that if you have an employee in another state. You might need workers comp 

because if they get up off from their desk and fall they could say I fell at work you just you gotta be prepared for all scenarios and 

Insurance kind of insurance. Do you need we have an insurance expert on our site highly recommend you take an hour with the insurance expert 

And we have and we have a trademark lawyer on there. If you need trademark. 

Rich Bennett 33:14
Oh 

Julie Matzen 33:15
So we have a quiz on the site So if you do get started the quiz is going to take you through and ask you all the questions and then give you the right people to work with Because if you go searching on your own you have like wait. I need I need this. Oh no, I know it So we make it so like here's five people to work with you know book one or 

book all five Or call us you can also message us. We do offer a curation So like if you want to talk for 15 minutes More than happy to talk to someone to be like okay, you really need holly right now on your board book of book her first or 

You need general advice across the board. You need a generalist or you know It sounds like you just need a Shopify expert like some people just don't know what they need and it small businesses It keeps you up at night here. It's like three in the morning and you wake up in a panic and you're like oh my god Am I wasting all my money on this do I really or an RFP somebody came to us on borderline Who was hiring an agency that just does Amazon buying? They didn't know if they were getting charged too much, they didn't know if the metrics they were providing were good. So they used borderline as our Amazon buyer expert, Nick Turner, to look at the report, look at the proposal. And he came back, like, asked them this question, asked them this question, asked them this question. And he did. And then, you know, he did a follow-up. And, you know, Nick is like, OK, good. I feel better about you hiring them. You need a gut check. You need validation. You need an audit. You need-- you just need someone to look at and say, you're doing the right thing. Or why are you wasting this money? 

Rich Bennett 35:03
Right. 

Julie Matzen 35:04
Because you'll just be entrepreneurs or just like, well, I mean, it's happened to me. I started a business in my early 20s that failed miserably. And I had no senior advice. And I would just sit there, like, staring at the ceiling, like, what am I doing? You know, also, you want to start a business. When do you jump 

Rich Bennett 35:24
ship? Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 35:27
Yeah. Yeah. And 

Rich Bennett 35:27
I 

Julie Matzen 35:27
I have to-- 

Rich Bennett 35:27
don't think about that. 

Julie Matzen 35:29
What, how much money do you have in the bank to survive? 

Rich Bennett 35:31
And, 

Julie Matzen 35:32
you know, I could tell you, like, the five stages of starting a business, excitement, fear. You know, and then it goes into excitement again, because you launch, and then waiting. I'm a failure. It's not working. No, you just got to know it takes time 

Rich Bennett 35:50
Right. 

Julie Matzen 35:50
to the tipping point. And that tipping point could take two years. 

Rich Bennett 35:53
Yeah. All right. So, Julie, because this all just blows me away. And 

I don't know if you can remember the exact moment, but I'm sure you probably just sitting around drinking coffee or whatever. And you came up with this bright idea for Borderline. Walk us through to how you came up. Because I don't know if any other companies that are doing what you're doing. And if there are, I've never heard of them. But what were you doing the moment when you decided and thought about creating this? 

Julie Matzen 36:27
Well, I was like, we should do seminars and help women. So, we did. 

Rich Bennett 36:32
Mm-hmm. 

Julie Matzen 36:32
We did a seminar. It was 10 women. And I used some of their three people in the audience. And we did like a brand session. And I was like, how do I digital-- how do I make this available to everyone? Because you can't have seminars all the time. 

Rich Bennett 36:46
Right. 

Julie Matzen 36:47
So then, it was like-- this was two years in the making. And I would spend an hour thinking about it. I think I did more thinking than doing. And I just kept thinking about it and asking questions from people. What do you think? What do you think? And I would like-- I would pitch it to random people, just to see how they would respond. 

Rich Bennett 37:04
Right. 

Julie Matzen 37:05
That's another good thing. Pitch your idea to people randomly and switch it up and see when people go, oh my god, it's great. Or they go, huh? So it was a lot of thinking. And then, I have an advantage, though, that most people don't have. I own an ad agency. 

Rich Bennett 37:21
Oh. 

Julie Matzen 37:22
All the talent is here. I have the best creatives. I have the best web designers. I have the best everything. So we collectively, as a group, cloned ourselves online. And then, when I started talking to my network of 25 years, lot of consultants that I was meeting left their jobs, but still want to talk. They don't want to do the work, but they want to talk. 

Rich Bennett 37:46
a 

Julie Matzen 37:46
I was like, do you want to join the platform? Next thing I know, we had 30 people, all like top notch. 

So we just worked on the website little by little. Again, it took a long time, but I had the time. I 

Rich Bennett 38:00
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 38:00
wasn't in a rush. 

I think people are just like, I have an idea. I'm going to quit my job. I'm going to do it. No. Take your time. You know, 

Rich Bennett 38:12
how long did you start borderline? 

Julie Matzen 38:14
Well, in my 

Rich Bennett 38:16
about 

Julie Matzen 38:16
head, I thought it seven months if that 

Rich Bennett 38:19
counts. I 

Julie Matzen 38:20
don't know if that 

Michelle Hayes 38:21
counts. 

Rich Bennett 38:22
We 

Julie Matzen 38:24
started really putting the website together, and we navigation, we did the thought process. We started last August. 

Rich Bennett 38:33
Really? 

Julie Matzen 38:34
Yeah. It's taken a minute. It's the chicken or the egg. You can't have customers if you don't have consultants. We call them advisors, by the way, 

because if you go to borderline and there's three people you're like, oh, this doesn't look good. And also, we're very clear. Borderline is not a marketplace. 

Rich Bennett 38:52
You 

Julie Matzen 38:52
have to be approved and bet it's beyond there, or else we're not maintaining quality of service. 

Rich Bennett 38:59
Exactly. 

Julie Matzen 38:59
This isn't Airbnb. You know, 

Rich Bennett 39:02
go 

Julie Matzen 39:02
where I 

Rich Bennett 39:03
to what's 

Julie Matzen 39:03
could 

Rich Bennett 39:03
been 

Julie Matzen 39:04
the, we go, if this was Airbnb, it would be because I went to everyone's house and said it's a great house to rent. 

Rich Bennett 39:10
What's been the biggest challenge so far? 

Or has there been, 

Julie Matzen 39:16
oh, yeah, the biggest challenge is 

I'm really good at offering advice, 

Rich Bennett 39:23
but when 

Julie Matzen 39:24
it's your own thing, I can't see the forest for the trees. 

And then I'm like, this is what I must feel like. 

It's, I've pivoted, we've pivoted like eight times already. 

Rich Bennett 39:38
right. 

Julie Matzen 39:38
That's another thing. People don't pivot. You have to pivot. 

Michelle Hayes 39:42
You do. 

Julie Matzen 39:42
You think you know, you don't know, 

Rich Bennett 39:44
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 39:44
and you got to listen to people. 

Rich Bennett 39:47
All right. So when when it comes to advertising, 

I've been doing it. 

Michelle Hayes 39:57
the way, 

Rich Bennett 39:58
By 

Michelle Hayes 39:58
he helps me through everything that we've been through. We had a year in June. So we're not far, not far ahead of you on border lines there, but Rich is my, my mentor and my wonderful advisor and my business. So I've got him on my side, 

Julie Matzen 40:15
is, 

Michelle Hayes 40:15
which 

Julie Matzen 40:16
that's your, he's your borderline guy. Yep. 

Michelle Hayes 40:18
He is. He really is. And I have a few other advisors, but he's my favorite. 

Rich Bennett 40:22
I never thought about it down. 

Julie Matzen 40:24
Everyone should have a board of advisors, but most companies can't afford and they don't have equity. 

Michelle Hayes 40:30
He knows my husband's family. And, you know, he kind of, you know, adopted me through that. So he stuck with me. 

Rich Bennett 40:36
I inherited her. Like, oh, God. 

Julie Matzen 40:39
Everyone. The mentor, because you get stuck 

Rich Bennett 40:41
Thank you for 

Michelle Hayes 40:41
with the wedding. 

Rich Bennett 40:42
saying that. Yes. 

Julie Matzen 40:43
Get stuck. 

Rich Bennett 40:44
Everybody does. Um, with advertising, because like I said, I've been doing it since 

the 80s of the 1980s, not the 1880s. Of you say anything. Um, but what's been the, the biggest change? Because you've been doing it for 25 years, right? 

Julie Matzen 41:03
PR for 17 advertising for last 12, 

Rich Bennett 41:07
all right. So 12 years. What's been the biggest change you've seen so far? And what do you think the future has to offer for everybody in advertising? 

Julie Matzen 41:19
Well I think social media changed advertising. 

Rich Bennett 41:23
I 

Julie Matzen 41:23
mean, that's, you know, you would go advertising a magazine, you would advertise on TV. So what's changed and what's going to continue changing is the measurement. That's the biggest change. Like when we buy TV for our clients, we buy it on a platform where we can trace you from watching the TV spot all the way to purchase. 

Rich Bennett 41:48
Oh wow. 

Julie Matzen 41:49
So it's measurement, which is the double edge sword, as I said earlier, because you look at things in a different, too siloed. 

Rich Bennett 41:57
um, 

Julie Matzen 41:58
Also what's changed a lot is like Facebook, not letting like when you go on your phone, iPhone or pretty much everyone's on an iPhone, it says, ask apps not to track. So you're not getting the data of who is buying, like you can't, you're not connecting the ad to the buyer. Its attribution is a huge issue for people. So if it's not the first click, it's really hard to... And I'm not an expert in buying. That's Brad DeLava. I'm 

Rich Bennett 42:27
team. 

Julie Matzen 42:27
my And he's on borderline. He's one of the most amazing media suppliers. He's just amazing. But I think that's a big shift, also making advertising look like content. It's 

Rich Bennett 42:40
Right. 

Julie Matzen 42:40
just doesn't look... It's not everything has to be an ad. And here's another big change that I saw in an opportunity. People think that you have to be super creative. You ever see a super bull ad and you're like, "Oh my God, that was the best ad." And then I ask you, "Oh, what was it?" You're like, "Oh, I think it was an insurance company." But then you saw an ad that was not that exciting, but it showed you how a product worked and how it would benefit your life. And it showed you something you didn't know you needed. You might be more apt by that product than the cutesy commercial. 

Rich Bennett 43:14
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 43:15
So I think the way people look at advertising has changed. 

Podcasts have really changed advertising. I mean, I just how podcasts have blown up. But also, nobody, you know, you have to make sure you're not. Which I've totally been guilty of this for the last 40 minutes. Rambling. 

Rich Bennett 43:36
Oh no, you're doing fine. 

Julie Matzen 43:37
I never know. I'm like, I'm like, am I oversharing? 

Rich Bennett 43:41
No. 

Julie Matzen 43:42
No. I don't want to. 

Rich Bennett 43:43
No, here's in all honesty, Julie, the thing is and I do this because I like to learn things. And if I'm learning, then I know my listeners are. And how if I'm doing rambling on, I really can't learn from you. So ramble on, ramble. 

Julie Matzen 44:01
I always find I was like, I think I use these opportunities to like give as many tips as possible. Because I mean, that is why I started borderline. I love talking and giving advice. It's something that I love. And one thing we're really passionate about, which we haven't launched yet, is we to work with schools and young entrepreneur groups because they don't have a place to go. These kids don't have a place to go. So a nonprofit approached us like, hey, could you, you know, we can customize our portal to a school. And they give me with advisors because I used to mentor a Chapman University in California. But I couldn't help everyone. 

Rich Bennett 44:44
Right. 

Julie Matzen 44:44
Not everyone could call me. So, you know, it's like. helping numbers. So, yeah, that's 

Rich Bennett 44:50
That's 

Julie Matzen 44:50
something we're going to be really passionate. And I know all the consultants a lot of us are, a lot of people are retired and to give back, like you want to give back. Like I know, and I know that because I know all the consultants personally on the platform because I've got to know them, if they applied and they didn't know them before. And they're like, I just want to give back. So they like knowing that they're helping people. 

Rich Bennett 45:12
That's great. And there's a lot of young people still in high school even, even middle school. That are young entrepreneurs. 

Julie Matzen 45:21
So many. And who's giving an 18 year old a million dollars in capital? 

Rich Bennett 45:29
Nobody. 

Julie Matzen 45:31
Oh, it 

Rich Bennett 45:32
surprised. 

Julie Matzen 45:32
And do you know how many people raising capital don't realize they don't need to raise capital? 

Rich Bennett 45:38
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 45:38
That's a big one if you're a startup. 

Big one. 

Rich Bennett 45:44
And I don't know if you can answer this or not, but I was thinking about this the other day. When it comes to somebody wanting to start a business and they they're looking for investors. What's the biggest mistake they make when they bring on an investor? Let's 

Julie Matzen 46:02
say, they don't think through what the expectations are going to be in the pressure. 

I brought an investor on borderline, they're going to be like, okay, how come there aren't more customers this week? 

Rich Bennett 46:16
If 

Julie Matzen 46:16
We want you to focus on this, where my gut tells me this business is going to grow organically. It's going to be a word of mouth business. Our customer service is going to be white glove and it'll pay off in the long run. And also when you get money, you have to spend it. 

Rich Bennett 46:35
You 

Julie Matzen 46:36
know, like, hey, I just gave you a million dollars. What are you doing with it? Well, I don't really need a million dollars. Like, why did I raise a million dollars? Now, I feel pressure to spend it. So now I spend it on a huge ad campaign. I'm like, oh, I've got to go take a big addout. I got to do this. I go do that to get the numbers in. And then you're like, oh, I just blew it all and to find out I was going after the wrong market. So I got, for borderline, I actually got an SBA loan. 

Rich Bennett 47:04
Oh, 

Julie Matzen 47:04
I'm a big fan of debt. Is it horrible? I mean, don't... 

horrible? 

Rich Bennett 47:10
Is that horrible? No, 

Julie Matzen 47:11
it's horrible. 

Michelle Hayes 47:11
I don't think... 

Rich Bennett 47:12
Not 

Michelle Hayes 47:12
Horrible 

Rich Bennett 47:12
really. 

Michelle Hayes 47:13
if you know how to manage it. I mean, 

Julie Matzen 47:15
you have to know how to manage it. 

Rich Bennett 47:16
They'd remember that you got to pay it back. 

Julie Matzen 47:19
And loans, they just don't give it out to anybody. But sofie is good. I really like sofie. 

Rich Bennett 47:26
So 

Julie Matzen 47:26
big fan of sofie. But I used a company called Trulient. 

I 

Rich Bennett 47:32
don't know. Okay, now I know who you're talking 

Julie Matzen 47:34
And I worked with them and they helped me so much put the business and you needed a business plan and you had to have forecast numbers. Like, you don't realize the process to raise money if you're going to go to an investor or take out a loan, 

Rich Bennett 47:46
about. 

Julie Matzen 47:47
same process. And if you have no revenue, you've really got to prove your case that you've got something. So it's not easy either. But you got to bootstrap as much as possible because every time you raise capital, you're diluting yourself. And everyone you brought on. You know, I think sometimes it's great to ask for people to give their services for a little equity. You know, you maybe it shouldn't be investors you're pitching. Maybe it's an advisor. 

Rich Bennett 48:21
Right. 

Julie Matzen 48:21
But or somebody that does the work. Like, hey, I need a media buyer that knows what they're doing. I don't have eight grand a month to pay you. Can I give you some points in my company in exchange for free services for six months? I mean, there's different ways to get creative to get money, to get, you know, time as money. But you need manufacturing. You know, it depends what your businesses, every business is different. 

Rich Bennett 48:48
Right. 

Julie Matzen 48:48
If you need capital, I think it's because you're in a position that you need to accelerate not start. You've got to do a lot of it yourself. 

And not to, like, you know, you've credit to borderline. But I mean, this is why we created it, you know, to give you the expert advice you can't afford. So you don't make mistakes. 

Rich Bennett 49:11
What does somebody wants to become an advisor with borderline? What do they do? 

Julie Matzen 49:16
They can apply. There's a link there to apply. 

Rich Bennett 49:18
Oh, but but you I take you research them thoroughly as well. 

Julie Matzen 49:25
Well, if we don't know them because our network is pretty like we have former clients on borderline, by the way. 

Rich Bennett 49:31
Right. 

Julie Matzen 49:34
We're getting to the point where we just got some people to apply that we don't know. So we're doing like trial runs. 

Rich Bennett 49:40
Like, 

Julie Matzen 49:40
how are you on camera? What kind of advisor are you giving me? Because you don't want someone who it's like when you hire, you know, a mental therapist and you have your first call and you're like, I don't feel like I got anything out of that. They were 

Rich Bennett 49:54
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 49:54
kind of all over the place or know, but we also have it before your call. You fill out a questionnaire. So 

Rich Bennett 50:02
you 

Julie Matzen 50:02
the advisors read stuff about you before you go on. So you're not wasting time. So back to your question. Yeah. Everyone's vetted. 

in some cases, we'll do background checks It's a process, and we're 

Rich Bennett 50:16
because 

Julie Matzen 50:16
keeping 

Rich Bennett 50:16
we don't want it. 

Julie Matzen 50:16
it small. And I also don't want like five 20 advisors that are Shopify experts. 

Rich Bennett 50:22
Because 

Julie Matzen 50:23
now you're like which one? 

Rich Bennett 50:26
The other thing too, and I bring this up because we did a record around table recording 

about marketing not too long ago and come to find out the one person on there, 

how can I see this polite me. 

It took a lot of clients for a ride. 

Julie Matzen 50:49
It 

Rich Bennett 50:49
But 

Julie Matzen 50:50
happens. 

Rich Bennett 50:51
a lot of people didn't research, I guess they didn't research thoroughly on this. Because you know, you see it all the time, it's like everybody's a social media expert. Everybody's a website design expert and all this. Thanks to those that one platform you mentioned that you can drag and drop and you're not an expert. 

But I'm glad that you guys do have it. Because the other thing too, and again this is the business part. 

I guess it's very good to read how you're with the background checks and everything because are you concerned where an advisor 

would leave and try to take those clients with them? 

Julie Matzen 51:40
Oh, 

Rich Bennett 51:40
That. 

Julie Matzen 51:41
this is another business model for Borderline they didn't tell you about. 

Rich Bennett 51:45
Oh, okay. 

I felt like her... Hercules! Hercules. 

Julie Matzen 51:51
So... so we have to take care of the customers, the clients, and we 

Rich Bennett 51:55
Okay, 

Julie Matzen 51:55
have to take care of our advisors, right. We have to take care of them. So we kind of want you to go have platform. 

Yeah, we want you to get a new client out of this, and maybe you know, they want you to go on retainer and be their ad agency or something. Because a lot of these, a lot of advisors own their own small businesses as well. So we take 10% of billable hours for the first six months. So we do get something out of it because we brought you the customer. 

Rich Bennett 52:24
Okay. 

Julie Matzen 52:25
But we want you to be successful. We want you use Borderline as your own marketing vehicle. 

So we don't... It's and it is, it will be, it's kind of an honor system, 

Rich Bennett 52:38
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 52:38
but that's why we only have the best consultants that we know. use the platform. Like there's something like Airbnb, people do this all the time. They go to Airbnb, the message, 

Rich Bennett 52:52
We'll 

Julie Matzen 52:52
and they're like, "Okay, I'll pay you on the platform, but can I pay you directly for two nights?" So you don't get charged the fees. I mean, people do that all the time. 

If people do that, we'll find out, you know, there's rules, 

Rich Bennett 53:07
Right. 

Julie Matzen 53:07
but, you know, we're also bringing all the advisors together on a community channel so that everyone can help each other. And also where we have creative services for our advisors. So if you're an advisor and you're retired and you just want to talk and they're like, but I need a website, please help me. And you're like, "I don't do websites." You can bring in our borderline creative services, we'll do the website under the guise of your leadership and you can keep your hours just to check in and say, "Hey, yeah, the team's doing great. I really like what's happening." So you can get the best of both worlds. And that's because we own an ad agency. So we're able to have a B and C team that are more affordable for a small business. So that we've thought this all through. It's just one big cycle and we figure if everyone helps each other out, 

Rich Bennett 53:59
yeah. 

Julie Matzen 53:59
And a lot of Gen X are out of jobs. They're being pushed out. 

Rich Bennett 54:03
Right. 

Julie Matzen 54:04
They don't have a home and we want to be that home for them. And we want it to be fun. We want it to be a community. Like, this is again why I don't want to get an investor. I don't want to be told I shouldn't be doing these things. 

Rich Bennett 54:15
Right. 

Julie Matzen 54:16
I mean, if you don't have a mission to do good and a mission to like make everybody money, you're not going to like just organically. It's just it naturally should grow. I think, you know, and you should start with that mission from day one, like Bombas. Buy a pair of socks. We give somebody else a pair of socks. It is ingrained in their mission. You know, you're not just they weren't like, we make great socks and then eight months later. Oh, by the way, if you buy this week, we'll give an extra pair. You're like, oh, nice marketing scheme. It's got to be at the heart of what you're doing. 

Rich Bennett 54:50
Right. 

Julie Matzen 54:50
So that's our core. 

Rich Bennett 54:53
So Borderline, from what I'm learning today, Borderline is not only there to help small businesses to help people launch their business. You're also helping the advisor. So you, you guys are like an ad agency slash advisor group. Basically everything when it comes to that. But also, when it comes to the advisors you have on board, you're also like a mastermind group slash networking group. 

That God, my God, I love that. 

Julie Matzen 55:28
Well, also okay. A lot of consultants have that family friend, 

Rich Bennett 55:32
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 55:33
or they're like, can you help me with my business? Can we just talk, or my cousin? Can you just talk to her? And you're like, I'm so sick of talking to people for free. It's annoying. But I don't want to ask for money. I'll send my borderline link, borderline link. Book me here. 

Rich Bennett 55:51
Oh, 

Julie Matzen 55:53
by the way, we take 15% from consultants. It's very low. Industry average would be like 25%. 

Rich Bennett 55:59
Yeah. Wow. 

Julie Matzen 56:02
Because we want you to use it. Like if we take 25%, you're not going to want to use your link. You know, 

Rich Bennett 56:09
are there any other surprises for us. 

Julie Matzen 56:12
No, the business is very multifaceted and it's a little confusing, but I'm trying to create value at every point in the journey. And borderline is like a lead gen for everybody until you find your home. And then we offer all the services of what you need going there. Otherwise, it's a marketplace. And that's not what we want to be. 

Rich Bennett 56:32
Right. Actually, because of everything that you guys offer and here it is, it's, we've only told for almost an hour. Oh my god, I'm just blown away by everything that you guys do. Have you guys thought about starting a podcast for 

Julie Matzen 56:46
it? We did. 

Rich Bennett 56:48
What? You started it, or you thought about it? 

Julie Matzen 56:52
That's why I have the microphone. 

Rich Bennett 56:54
Oh. 

Julie Matzen 56:57
And our 

Rich Bennett 56:58
Okay. 

Julie Matzen 56:58
first, wait, you're the left. Our first podcast. We interviewed the girl that helped us set up our podcast to help other people set up their podcast. 

Rich Bennett 57:08
That's brilliant. 

Julie Matzen 57:10
We haven't put it out yet. There's a lot of marketing. I'll be honest. I'm running an agency. I could 

Rich Bennett 57:17
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 57:17
only work on borderline and like a little increment. You know, like if the whole team works on borderline, but client work comes first. 

Rich Bennett 57:25
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 57:25
So should we be further along? Yeah. But it is what it is. 

Rich Bennett 57:31
Oh, you gotta let me know when the podcast launch. 

Julie Matzen 57:34
Well, I think we're going to use it more in ads. Like I told you that strategy. 

Rich Bennett 57:38
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 57:39
I don't know that people will follow us. I don't 

Rich Bennett 57:42
know. Oh, I think you'd be surprised. 

Julie Matzen 57:44
I mean, it'd be great. Be fun. I mean, I love it because I love giving tips. I don't know. It's fun. 

Rich Bennett 57:50
It's a if you look if you look at marketing podcast, 

it's amazing. The following they they get because 

people always want to learn that would just why a lot of people listen to podcasts. First of all. But, yeah, tips. Oh my god. People will take the listen to tips all day long. 

Julie Matzen 58:11
Yeah, that's what I kind of thought. And so we're doing a lot of like fire chats in the sense of like 

Rich Bennett 58:19
where 

Julie Matzen 58:19
I'm doing I stole this idea from plastic surgeons. Because they do these, do you ever see these or they're like micro needling or you know, this product that they're like micro needling. So like I kind of want to we're doing stuff like with the media buyer with Brad like Google shopping or Google search. Like just like fun. Like what's what's hot? What's new? Like 

Rich Bennett 58:41
Right. 

Julie Matzen 58:41
a scale one to 10? How much do you like this platform? That's a four. So, but they're quick because people have the attention span of the net. Like I have the 

Rich Bennett 58:52
That's 

Julie Matzen 58:52
attention. 

Rich Bennett 58:52
true. 

Julie Matzen 58:52
For someone who's babbling for an hour, I have the attention span of a net. So I've ruined myself on TikTok. Like I'm obsessed. And because I'm getting so much content, you know, I'm just absorbing it. So I also run it when I'm sleeping. I'm hoping I'm like learning while I'm sleeping. But anyway. 

Rich Bennett 59:10
That's not a bad idea. 

Julie Matzen 59:12
No, it's probably why I haven't saw Neal. 

Rich Bennett 59:18
Go ahead Michelle. Go ahead. 

Michelle Hayes 59:21
I had someone tell me, I guess it was about two weeks ago. They were like, if it's not entertaining, then why is it? Why is it being created? And 

Julie Matzen 59:31
Correct. 

Michelle Hayes 59:31
same goes for ads. Same goes for any type of content. If it's not entertaining, why are you putting it out? 

Julie Matzen 59:39
Or you have to cut to the chase. 

Michelle Hayes 59:41
Yeah. Too 

Julie Matzen 59:42
You cannot do like a 

Michelle Hayes 59:43
many 

Julie Matzen 59:43
huge 

Michelle Hayes 59:44
for-- with 

Julie Matzen 59:44
speech 

Michelle Hayes 59:45
nothing. 

Julie Matzen 59:46
And then they go, let's get into it. No. It's like five things you need for an ad. And then you see the graphics. One, two, three. Done. Pieces over. Nobody has time to hear a preemble. 

Michelle Hayes 1:00:00
No. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:01
All right. So one thing I want to hit because I mentioned it in the beginning, we really didn't hit on it a lot. What effect do you think that AI will have on small to medium-sized 

Julie Matzen 1:00:13
businesses? Well, AI is only as good as the information that we share as a society and put into it. So at what point is the AI tool going to give everyone the same website? Because you're going to go in and say, "Create a website like my competitor." Now you look like your competitor. And your competitor is like, "Oh great. 

You know what I mean? The prompts are really important. But video and photography is not there yet. 

You know, you could ask it to make you something and then you're like, "Oh, I still have to edit it or I still have to do this." Or, "Has sometimes just easier to start from scratch." Or, you know, again, it's other people's ideas that are in the data. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:55
It's, 

Julie Matzen 1:00:56
it's not fresh and new. So start with the fresh and new and then use AI to create it. Don't ask create AI to create it for you. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:07
No, you can't do that. 

Julie Matzen 1:01:08
No, but that's what people are doing. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:11
Create me and add. Yeah. They are and, and you can tell. I mean, you look at some of these ads. You can, especially if the image is you can tell if it's been AI created. And a grant, it's some of them are getting very good to wear. 

Julie Matzen 1:01:23
Oh, it's just going to get amazing. But again, 

Rich Bennett 1:01:26
the 

Julie Matzen 1:01:26
AI is only using what it knows from people who have shared stuff in the past. So, 

Rich Bennett 1:01:31
it's searching the Internet, 

Julie Matzen 1:01:33
it. It's not unique. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:34
doing 

Julie Matzen 1:01:35
It's not unique. That's 

Rich Bennett 1:01:36
No. 

Julie Matzen 1:01:36
why you will always still need advisors. So I feel like Borderline is AI proof in that kind of a way. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:43
Oh, yeah. So Michelle, before I get to my last question. Do you have any, well, actually tell everybody the website, "God, I even think about that. That's important." 

Julie Matzen 1:01:53
Oh, yeah. Bad market or me. 

Yeah. And it's board like a board of advisors, not like a border. So it's the border, 

B-O-A-R-D-L-I-N-E, dot-CO. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:10
What is the dot code thing? Is that new? 

Julie Matzen 1:02:13
Because every URL in the world is taken, and I realized that a URL is very, if people find us, it's because of an ad or someone's something to link. So I'm not concerned about 

Rich Bennett 1:02:28
it. Oh, I knew that. 

Julie Matzen 1:02:30
Is it annoying URL? Is it bad? Yeah, pretty much is really bad, but you know, at that point we were like, "I have to make a decision and I got to buy something." Because you could, you could, you could overthink it for weeks. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:41
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 1:02:42
Like, what, just buy it and what's the worse that happens? I get, we, we have some money, we buy a better name from somebody else and I just redirect it. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:50
Yeah, 

Julie Matzen 1:02:51
you don't have to be, no one has to be an A plus out of the You could be a C and work your way up to an A. People are scared to launch until things are perfect. I'm guilty of this, but it's my background. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:02
The other thing, too, is if you're at 100% or A plus, where else can you go but down? 

Julie Matzen 1:03:08
Yeah, I love, I love, I mean when I started made A, I had $5 in my bank account, $5. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:14
Wow. 

Julie Matzen 1:03:15
I bankrupt myself with my first business in my 20s. So when I quit my job, I just walked out because I mentally drained, I was in a bad place. And I was like, well, I have nowhere to go but up. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:28
There you go. Michelle, you have any more questions for Julie? 

Michelle Hayes 1:03:34
No, I'm good. Just a, 

Rich Bennett 1:03:36
all right. 

Michelle Hayes 1:03:37
Congratulations on, on coming from that. I actually got let go from my job last year and then four days later filed our LLC. So totally get that 

Julie Matzen 1:03:48
that sometimes getting pushed out is the door you need to walk through. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:52
I 

Julie Matzen 1:03:52
got all the time. 

Michelle Hayes 1:03:53
Thank them. I'm like, thanks for lighting that fire a little bit, a little bit faster for me because that's where I'm at. So just say a little prayer or send it this way because we're, I mean, we're in those, this first year, year and a half. 

Julie Matzen 1:04:09
Well, call me offline. Look, we could chat. I mean, 12 years of this, I could give you some tips. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:15
Oh, we had a group lunch 

Julie Matzen 1:04:17
or you could book me on borderline. I, I had to say that. just 

Rich Bennett 1:04:20
I'm 

Julie Matzen 1:04:21
joking. Call me. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:23
So Julie, we had a group lunch yesterday. Michelle told us how she's going to be doing an open house. And I suggested that she send a letter to that company that fired her thanking them. First of all, for letting her go because if it wasn't for them letting her go, she wouldn't be doing what she's doing now. And to invite them to the open house. 

Julie Matzen 1:04:48
I like that. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:51
See, Michelle. 

Julie Matzen 1:04:53
You know, why I bet they hire your services to outsource partner work when they can't afford to hire somebody. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:00
Oh, there you go. All right. So what is the next big thing for Julie? 

Julie Matzen 1:05:10
Growing this business, making it work, making it happen. That's it. I'm dedicating. I mean, I needed a exit plan. This is my exit plan. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:21
You're 

Julie Matzen 1:05:21
going to be 50 years old next year. I need a 

Rich Bennett 1:05:24
what? 

Michelle Hayes 1:05:25
You do 

Julie Matzen 1:05:26
Yeah. 

Michelle Hayes 1:05:26
not. 

Julie Matzen 1:05:27
Oh, thank you. 

Michelle Hayes 1:05:29
Kingur. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:30
No way. 

Julie Matzen 1:05:32
Yeah, the next year I'll be 50. So I had to think of like, What am I going to, how am I going to make money when I sleep? I, I can't be 65 giving people Facebook advice. No one's going to listen to me. They want to listen to what young kid. It's true. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:46
I waited a minute, that went well. I'm not 65 yet, but still wait a minute. 

Julie Matzen 1:05:51
No, but I'm talking about more like an 

Rich Bennett 1:05:53
I 

Julie Matzen 1:05:53
average. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:53
know. 

Julie Matzen 1:05:53
It's not. When you are 65 and you're just talking for an hour, nobody -- they don't want to talk to a kid, they want to talk to you. So that's the -- put -- I want to put myself in the value opportunity, not in a -- please hire me even though 

Rich Bennett 1:06:09
-- right. 

Julie Matzen 1:06:10
But, you know, that's what filters are for when you're on camera. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:14
The 60 -- 

Julie Matzen 1:06:15
blur out any wrinkles with the light filter. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:18
65, always you're going to be doing it. And while I'm already getting them now, you're going to start getting the phone calls about Medicare. 

Julie Matzen 1:06:26
And also, like, when you have your own business, like, you know, there's -- 401(k). I mean, who's matching it? Me? 

Rich Bennett 1:06:34
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 1:06:35
So 

Rich Bennett 1:06:35
Yeah. 

Julie Matzen 1:06:36
I had to come up with something that was going to 

continue beyond me being somewhere every day. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:43
I still can't 

Michelle Hayes 1:06:44
it. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:44
believe 

Michelle Hayes 1:06:44
Makes sense. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:45
That's okay. 

Julie Matzen 1:06:47
Thank you. Actually, I'm going to think about that all day, you mean, my day? 

Rich Bennett 1:06:50
It all honesty never mind if I tell you how I thought you really were than -- 

Julie Matzen 1:06:57
Oh, no, no, do tell. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:59
All right. So when I got the emails and everything, and they -- because when you said 25 years, I'm like, "Can 

that be? There ain't no way." 

Julie Matzen 1:07:11
Let's 

Rich Bennett 1:07:11
doing. 

Julie Matzen 1:07:11
start doing what I 

Rich Bennett 1:07:11
Because 

Julie Matzen 1:07:11
was 

Rich Bennett 1:07:11
it 

Julie Matzen 1:07:11
-- 

Rich Bennett 1:07:12
was 

Julie Matzen 1:07:12
20. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:13
I was thinking maybe mid to late 30s, in all honesty. 

Julie Matzen 1:07:19
Oh, no, 

Rich Bennett 1:07:20
-- 

Julie Matzen 1:07:20
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:20
When 

Julie Matzen 1:07:20
I 

Rich Bennett 1:07:20
I did the math with, you know, it's like -- but then after I did the math, it's like, "We need 25s, right, either." 

Julie Matzen 1:07:26
It's actually -- it's -- oops, it's 29 years, actually. Because I started when I was 20. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:32
Wow. 

Julie Matzen 1:07:33
Yeah, I interned right out in college to a PR firm. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:37
On that note, Julie, thanks so much. 

Julie Matzen 1:07:40
Thank you. This was so fun. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:42
Thank you for listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and learned something from it as I did. If you'd like to hear more conversations like this, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you have a moment, I'd love it if you could leave a review. It helps us reach more listeners and share more incredible stories. Don't forget to connect with us on social media or visit our website at 

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