Scaling Business While Staying on a Mission with Brooke MacLean

How do you scale a business while staying true to your mission? How do you avoid losing sight of the main thing when growth demands more resources, new strategies, and greater flexibility? As businesses expand, it's easy to get caught up in metrics, profits, and operations, but staying aligned with your core values and purpose is crucial for long-term success.

In this episode we sit down with Brooke McLean, CEO of MarketWake, to discuss the art of growing a business with purpose. Brooke shares her journey of building MarketWake, a fast-growing agency that’s made waves in both the marketing and entrepreneurial spaces. From harnessing the power of data and intuition to navigating the peaks and valleys of scaling, Brooke dives deep into the lessons learned along the way. She also reveals insights from MarketWake’s first acquisition and how staying committed to their mission has shaped their success.

If you’re looking for strategies to scale without losing sight of what matters, this episode is for you:

[01:51] How Marketwake Started

[03:30] Defining Growth for Clients

[06:02] Growth Challenges

[08:53] MarketWake’s Mission

[11:52] The Role of Data in Growth

[14:18] MarketWake’s First Acquisition

[17:43] Journey of Being a Female Entrepreneur

[20:33] Importance of Culture in the Company

[23:09] What Does Winning Mean?

Connect with Brooke:

Email: brooke.maclean@marketwake.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/brookebmaclean/

Website: www.marketwake.com/

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/brookebmaclean

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Transcript

00:00

So there's marketing that focuses on acquisition, and then there's also marketing that focuses on loyalty. And if you're not balancing the two, you're gonna be churning customers at a very, very quick rate, which means you've got to hyper drive your acquisition marketing in order to just backfill the clients that you're losing. If you're not losing clients, if you're focused on loyalty, if you focus on the lifetime value of a customer, then your acquisition, every net new client is net new growth, instead of kind of backfilling a leaky bucket, if you will.

00:29

Intuition still matters. And I believe very strongly that there is not enough data in the world to supersede a level of intuition. And you need to balance those two and be cognizant of it and really develop your intuition. Because I think that sometimes we can get a bit too reliant on the data and we lose ourselves in our creativity, our intuition, our gut feel. Because sometimes it's the gut feel that gets us ahead of the market. And sometimes data is a little bit retroactive.

00:56

It can be forward looking, but sometimes it's retroactive. Welcome to The Takeover with Tim and Cindy, where we show you how to dominate every area of life and business. Let's get winning. Welcome back to The Takeover with Tim and Cindy. Today, ladies and gents, you are in for a treat because on the show, we have Brooke McLean, who is the CEO of a fast growing...

01:22

foundational trailblazing agency called MarketWake. And it is making waves in the entrepreneurial space, but also in the marketing space. So Brooke, welcome to the show. I'm thrilled to be here. Finally, I love your podcast and it's exciting to be a part of it. Yes, today Brooke, we're gonna talk all about growth, what it's been like to grow and scale your agency, how you think about growth with your clients as well. And really, I wanna pick your brain because there's so much that you've achieved.

01:51

selfishly I want some of those lessons learned, but I also know that our audience is going to get so much insight and so much value with some of those lessons that you have to share. So why don't you kind of take us back to how MarketWake started? Well, so we really launched in 2017, but the idea came to fruition in 2015. I, at the time, was working with a company. It was a software company going through a big pivot. It had existed for about five years.

02:18

And they really wanted to go in a new direction. And so I was hired in as a CEO to be a hired gun to help it turn around. When you're doing that, when you're playing that role, it was the first time I had ever been a CEO. We're dealing with a new platform, new clients, new customers, investors having to raise money, build marketing from scratch. It's a very intense 15 months for me to learn as much as I possibly could. And through that experience, realized that the agency life was...

02:45

lacking. I was underwhelmed by what I saw. And what I saw was people were either very creative, and they came to me with a lot of ideas, or they were very analytical. And they came to me with a lot of reporting, but never did the two really meet. And they weren't really pushing limits about what I felt digital marketing could be. So once I left that company and got it to a good place, MarketWake launched really in 2017. And we have bootstrapped our way the entire time.

03:13

And now we're about 60 people in a couple of different countries, which has been, I have hives sometimes, but other than that, it's great. Incredible. I mean, that's such fast growth from 2017. And what I understand about MarketWake is that you will actually, you teach growth. Like this is what you're helping your clients do as well is growth, right? And facilitating that. Tell us how you think about growth as it relates to your agency.

03:39

but also when you're helping your clients in their businesses as well. It's such a great question because there's a lot of layers to what growth is. And it also comes back to what do you think success looks like? Is success top line revenue? And sometimes it is when you're looking for an exit and you're really trying to grow. Is success profit? Where, hey, we're not as interested in top line revenue. We're really looking at optimization and making sure that we have profit in order to create more of a lifestyle company. Or is it in expansion, acquisition, M&A?

04:09

There are so many different layers and there's not one right answer and there's not necessarily one consistent answer. So what we do is we really come in and say, what is motivating you to grow? Why and then what is success look like? Because it does take a lot of different facets. Once we really start figuring out what growth looks like for a client, then we put in place the strategies that we need to get them there. And sometimes it truly is big brand awareness where they're like, we're not even looking to necessarily grow revenue.

04:37

We want as many people right now to know about us. And over time, that'll lead to revenue. And others are smaller. And they're like, no, if we don't get revenue right now, we're in a bad place in the next 15 months. Those are dramatically different strategies. Some are going to be a little bit more top of funnel, some bottom of funnel. And the way that we go about that shifts. And I think that that lends to needing to have a very agile take on what digital marketing can be. That's so good. Do you think that's

05:06

every business should in some way, shape or form, as you were talking about the different layers or the different ways you can think about growth, do you think every company should be focused on growth? Or is it like situation specific? The ones that we want to work with are focused on growth. Because if you're not moving forward, what are we doing here? But it's interesting because, especially in our sales process, well that and some companies aren't they're like, how do we stay where we are? How do we create a

05:36

place for that. Our motivation is to help people get to the next level. And the next level is hard. And there's so many peaks and valleys in this journey. And it doesn't matter if you're a hundred million dollar company or a one million dollar company, you are going to experience very similar peaks and valleys. So we are always looking for companies who want to get to the next peak and help them navigate what the valleys may look like in between. But that is exactly who we're looking for. It is interesting, though. Not every company is built for that. Very true. Yeah, I agree.

06:04

What would you say is some of the most challenging aspects that your agency has gone through in its growth mode? I think a lot of people focus on what it looks like to manage a startup. And there's so much content around what a startup looks like. And going through that phase for the first couple of years where we're all in it, we're all doing everything, we're all wearing a lot of different hats, I actually felt taken care of. I felt like I had a lot of mentors. I felt like a lot of people were there to help me.

06:33

After we kind of reached a phase of stable growth, where we're 50 plus people, we have decent revenues, that's when I started to feel like, oh my gosh, I don't have the support that I used to have. I don't have the content that I used to have. There's fewer people talking about these problems. So I would say these problems, these challenges that we're facing, it is how do you maintain profits? You can be a profitable business as you're looking to expand because you do have to kind of get wide for a while before you can grow tall again.

07:04

How do you manage people? I mean, we've had people who've been here for a really long time. Does that mean that they are able to take us to the next level? What is team management look like? How do you develop leaders and what is leadership look like? And then how do you balance management, people management with the need to innovate? Because once you start getting into a level where you need people managers to create processes and systems, it can clash with the need to innovate. And so how do you really?

07:31

balance innovation and the need for stability and process. That I think is where we've had to spend a lot of time figuring out how to navigate those two things. And what's interesting is even for our clients, when we come in, it's often because they are experienced that same friction. We've gotten really comfortable. And the things that we were doing a year ago aren't necessarily having the same kick that we need it to now. And what we find is they've lost some of that.

07:58

scrappy innovation that's really needed to get them to the next level. They need to start thinking like a startup again. But it's really hard to do that. It's easy to say, oh, think like a startup, act like a startup. But when you're moving so many different teams and departments and management and leadership, it is more cumbersome. So figuring out what the framework is has taken us a lot of time. I mean, you all are doing it and you're rocking it. But I love that you have that lesson learned. And I think...

08:24

for our listeners that are in similar stages and similar phases. Some of those points that you mentioned, the people, innovation, right? Maintaining that startup mentality. It's all important things that need to happen in order to sustain, right? Continued growth. What I love about just learning more about you and MarketWake is you guys have a very unique mission. And I think sometimes when you hear about

08:47

company's mission. It's like, okay, that's great. But yours is very unique. And I think one thing that's really interesting is that you combine that mission, which I'd love for you to share with our listeners, with growth, and how you're scaling your agency and helping other people scale as well. So where did the inspiration for the mission come? Walk us through what that mission is and how it's contributed to your success. Yeah, our mission really started with the birth of MarketWake. I was trying to figure out what we were going to do, and was sitting on this dock in Lake Burton.

09:16

in Georgia. And I was watching all these boats go by and it was a beautiful experience and really trying to center myself, pray and think, okay, what does this next phase look like? And these boats were leaving awake and not too big of a wake. And then all of a sudden this tiny little bass boat came by and it was going the exact same speed as all the other boats. But that bass boat left awake so large that it shook the dock that I was on. And that's really when it hit is how do we help people leave a mark? How do we help them understand?

09:43

that they leave a wake in the world, that their life matters, that their business matters. And then how do we make sure that that week is positive? So we really exist to help connect people with the brands that they love. And in doing that, we combine data and creativity in order to create growth. And a lot of it comes back into what is your mark need to be. And what's interesting about that too is, think of the analogy, if you're in a boat, you're facing the lake or the ocean head, you are not seeing the wake that you leave behind.

10:12

All you see is open territory. And sometimes that can be really scary. Sometimes it's really exciting. Sometimes it's overwhelming. Sometimes it's lonely, but you are leaving awake. And so we help people figure out, okay, what is it the mark that you're making? And then how do we help you navigate ahead? And I think that that's a question that again, it goes back no matter what you're doing or how you're doing it. Those are really important questions at every single phase of the business to say, are you intimidated by what's next? Are you excited by what's next? Where are you going? Where are you navigating?

10:39

And then what's happening to the people behind you, whether it's in your team, in your culture or the marketplace around you, because it all has impact. So good. And I think that's even just relevant for individuals, right. And as you're thinking about your individual mission and individual vision that you have for your life, I mean, that is a gem right there. I love that it is. And it's also it's been really great for our culture, too, to be like, yes, MarketWake is going to have impact. But every single person here.

11:07

is going to impact each other and take that responsibility in a way that it's personal. And I think that that's been one of the reasons why we've had such a good culture is like, no, you are responsible for the impact that you leave on each other. And ideally, it's a good one and you need to own that. And so I think the best workplaces and some of the trips that we've experienced, all of that really comes down to us taking personal responsibility for the week that we leave. So good. At Pima, our company, there's two things we focus on. It's people.

11:36

right? Passion for people helping our teammates hit their personal, professional and financial goals. And then it's data. We're obsessed with the numbers. We're obsessed with data. And you speak about data so much, which I love. Tell us how you guys are all like tracking data and like what specific data points do you feel like companies need to be focused on? And if you want to give us this very high level, how has data made an impact in how you've grown your agency? It's everything. Well, and it's everything with a caveat that intuition still matters.

12:06

And I believe very strongly that there is not enough data in the world to supersede a level of intuition. And you need to balance those two and be cognizant of it and really develop your intuition because I think that sometimes we can get a bit too reliant on the data and we lose ourselves in our creativity, our intuition, our gut feel, because sometimes it's the gut feel that gets us ahead of the market. And sometimes data is a little bit retroactive. It can be forward looking, but sometimes it's retroactive.

12:34

Some of the data that we look at the most is lifetime value of a customer. And a lot of marketing is around what is the cost per acquisition. And I get that. What is cost per impression? What is cost per acquisition? What's our dollar value? What's our ROI? And if you're not also looking at the lifetime value of a customer, you're missing areas to create loyalty. And it completely changes what you can and should be spending in marketing. So there's marketing that focuses on acquisition.

13:02

And then there's also marketing that focuses on loyalty. And if you're not balancing the two, you're gonna be churning customers at a very, very quick rate, which means you've got to hyper drive your acquisition marketing in order to just backfill the clients that you're losing. If you're not losing clients, if you're focused on loyalty, if you focus on the lifetime value of a customer, then your acquisition, every net new client is net new growth instead of kind of backfilling a leaky bucket, if you will.

13:28

So when we are looking at a lifetime value of a customer, we say, okay, what is the first contract value? And then how many other contracts are they going to enter in the course of their tenure at our client? And if they average lifetime contract value is substantial, then we are willing to invest a whole lot more in acquisition marketing, because we know that it may be the first contract value is not going to be a great hack, but long-term it will be. And I think a lot of digital marketers

13:57

It's new information for them because they're so focused on MQL, SQL opportunities. First one, yes. The first one in and it's like, wait, but if you're nurturing them well, contract value over time is so much greater. So that's a huge KPI that we focus on. So good. That is one thing we preach. So, so much alignment. You all made an acquisition, which I'm excited for you to share. So tell us more about that acquisition and then also tell us how do you keep a pulse on the market?

14:25

What are some tips or some areas that you can share with us on like, you know, the difference between, okay, knowing when it's time to move and when it's time to take action and acquire say in this case, and when it's time to, hey, like the market's telling us not to make that kind of shift or that kind of move right now. Hey there, I've got to stop here for one quick second to ask you this question. Have you been enjoying the podcast? If so, make sure that you are subscribed and take that one extra step to please leave us a rating and a review.

14:54

wherever you are listening to the show. Not only does it help us continue to grow and impact more people, we'll make sure that we show up wherever you are listening as well. That's the intuition part, because it's hard. So we did make this acquisition and we've been looking for an acquisition for a while and we wanted a software more than a service. And one of the reasons why we wanted a software first is because in any acquisition, especially this is our first one, there's a lot of learnings that I...

15:23

understand that we were going to need to make of what does it look like to integrate a culture? What does it look like to integrate their clients? What does it look like to blend two different companies? And I think service based companies, so much of their business is their culture, positive or negative. It's how they think it's their process. It's how they serve their clients, what their philosophies and values are. To me, it's a little harder to learn what it looked like to do an acquisition in

15:52

starting out with the service companies because there's so many other factors. So we wanted a software first to say, okay, what is something that can help us grow exponentially and something that we can learn on and fail at or try? And so it led us to searching for a software company. We found Punchlist and immediately fell in love. It's a tool that is kind of, we call it the home for collaboration, but you can upload.

16:17

any kind of document into it, send it to your clients. You get asynchronous collaboration. It integrates with Asana, it integrates with Monday. So it streamlines all project management and allows us to get information from our clients back faster. Okay, great. It checked every single one of the boxes. We made the acquisition in November, December last year and we have learned so much. And one is I should have estimated a whole lot more dollars to invest in the marketing and sales after the fact.

16:44

Like you look at the acquisition price and you're like, okay, we can afford this. This is absolutely something we can do. I would times that by five for the first year because that's how much investment needs to go into building out a new program and to integrating teams and in rebuilding what it looks like to do marketing. So that is a learning. And then also reading the market of with agencies becoming really competitive because there's so many brilliant marketers out there. What is an edge?

17:14

that we can bring to the table that is unique to MarketWake, that's unique to our process. And a lot of that is in hospitality of making things as easy as possible for our clients to work with us. And the easier it is, the more they stay. Convenience wins. I really believe that across the board. People are looking for what's convenient. So we can find tools, processes, and systems that make working with us a no-brainer and convenient. That's the direction that we wanna go. And so that was...

17:43

brought us to Punch List. So good. Punch List sounds like an operations team stream. Just project management, customer success, everything in one place. It is. Our ops teams, our PMs, they're obsessed with it. And even when I send a scope out, internal scope out for our team to review before I send it to a client, they're like, why is that not in Punch List? Yeah, put it on. Follow my lead. Yeah. So good. So good.

18:09

your journey as a female entrepreneur. So you started off in the tech space and then you transitioned to running your own agency. What have been some highlights of being like a female entrepreneur? I know that you mentioned intuition, which I love. Tell me some of the wins, the highlights of being like a female entrepreneur, boss in business, and then some of the challenges that you faced as well. I am a very feminine leader. And I think that that's one of the things that when I started coming up

18:39

I didn't know that you could be. You always like, oh, you have to be very strong and you have to prove yourself. And yes, absolutely you do. But you can also be fully you. And so as soon as I kind of I figured out, okay, being fully me is way better than trying to be a strong boss version of myself. I was able to really lean into my femininity as a leader because I think that there are unique advantages and leaning into my femininity as a leader.

19:03

And one of it is in developing culture and understanding, seeing the emotional impact of decisions and taking that into consideration, really leaning on intuition, and then asking for help. I think that women ask for help in ways that men don't, and I think it serves us better. And so we're able to find answers a whole lot faster. I use that to my advantage all the time. I have no problem asking for help. It's not a hit to my pride. It's not a hit to my ego. I need help. Who can help me? And I think that that is an advantage that

19:32

as a female, you can really lean into and not be afraid of. And I tell especially the women in my company, it doesn't make you look bad. It shouldn't make you feel like you have imposter syndrome if you're asking for help, if you're asking for advice. It means you're getting to the answer faster. It means you're not recreating the wheel. It gives you an edge. And I think so often one of the hard things about being a woman is you do kind of question yourself of, okay, I am kind of the only woman in the room. Am I?

20:00

an imposter here? Am I coming across like I know nothing? What is the perception of me? And if you can just let that go and lean into who you are and where you're at in your journey, I think it's wildly helpful and needed. We do need more women in leadership who are completely comfortable leaning into who we actually are and not trying to be anyone that we're not. Very well said. I love that. Your guys' culture and you know, you have your mission.

20:28

You have your values. I'm a firm believer that culture plays such a big role in growth and retaining talent and how you show up in the market as well. How did you all come up with the culture that MarketWake has today from the values that I saw posted on your website, your mission, you spoke a little bit about that. How important is culture in just day to day operations and how your team shows up? Oh my gosh, it's everything. It's everything, especially in services. I mean, it just...

20:56

It means so much to be able to collaborate with people that you trust. And one of my philosophies is that play is very important and adults do not carve out enough time to play. We take ourselves way too seriously and we don't give ourselves space to just be silly and play and creative. But when that happens, I mean, over and over and over, science points to the fact that it unlocks creativity, it unlocks dopamine and endorphins and connection in ways that you cannot facilitate while doing.

21:25

business. And when we're in this mode of doing business, we kind of lose touch with brainstorming with strategic thinking with our creative selves, and we start to become someone that maybe we're not. So we actually carve out a lot of space to play. We do retreats, we do outings, we travel together. When we hit our goals, we've gone to Iceland and New York and Belize, Jamaica, all these different countries together, even with their spouses because...

21:54

Their spouses and partners are a part of this journey, whether they realize that they are or not, just by supporting our employees. And so we go to all these places where we do not work during that time as much as we possibly can, and we actually just get to enjoy each other. And when you have a connection outside of work, especially when you're traveling together, you default to trust over suspicion. So when you get that slack, that feels a little short, because you know that person, their personality, you default to trusting them instead of being defensive.

22:22

Or when you get that email that fills maybe like a little bit off, you know who they are as a person. And so you give them the benefit of the doubt and it just makes for way less drama. And I think because there's way less drama and way less defensiveness going on, we're able to just move faster and grow faster and connect faster because there's no posturing. So good. I think not enough people emphasize that we call it a Pima non-time, which just means you're not working. You're not like.

22:50

plugged in, you have time to literally take a step back and let your mind roam and be free and think. And that's actually when you come up with the best ideas as well. And so I want to highlight that and pin it because it's so good and it's so true and it's needed. Whether you're an agency, whether you're an entrepreneur, like you need that time away to disconnect. It's when you come up with the best ideas. Exactly. Okay. So I...

23:15

I'm a roller blader, which is like really lame. Oh, cool. Yeah. I think it's so typical. I love it. It's like the best pastime of the entire world. And so we have this like trail in Georgia and it's 18 miles or something like that. And when I tell you it is the most fun, just put on some music and rollerblade and you're just going so fast and you're in total flow mode. I'm like all of my big ideas come from overblading. Yeah. People ask me, oh yeah, how'd you come up with that? I'm like...

23:41

It was rollerblading. It was my Barbie dream, I guess. I don't know. It's actually nice. I love that. So good. What does winning Brooke mean to you? It's evolved actually over time. I think that a couple of years ago, I would have answered that to say, we're hundreds of million revenue. Everyone knows our name. We have massive influence. Like that would have been winning. I think winning now to me looks like creating a space.

24:11

that provides opportunity, wealth, and meaning for everyone that we encounter. And if we can provide opportunity, wealth, meaning, and areas for them to grow personally, professionally, and develop their character, while I believe in creating capital and business growth, I think if we can figure out a way to maintain that as we grow, that is what winning is for me now. Incredible, and I love that you mentioned it, it evolves.

24:37

You know, like that definition of winning with maybe when you started out is very different from what it is, it is now and allowing yourself to evolve in that definition for us. Like winning is a big theme and for every one of our teammates, it looks different, right? Yes, we have our company goals and what we're going towards and what our big mission and vision is. But as we're mentioning early on in the episode, each individual person having their definition of what

25:02

winning means, right? Whether it's hitting a personal goal, a financial goal, a professional goal, and constantly revisiting that definition because I think that also helps to inform what you focus on, what your next steps are, and what you prioritize. Exactly, and figuring out. So we do this for each team member. We say, okay, what are three goals, whether they're personal or professional, and then what is the reward that you want for that? And it really helps us understand, okay, what makes you tick, what motivates? And some people are like, oh, I really wanna go to

25:32

The Georgia Aquarium and other people are like, I really just need a day off, an extra PTO day. And we don't even track PTO. And we're like, okay, you can have that extra PTO day. That's like, oh, that's fine. It's like that now. Yeah, we can totally do that. It's like that now. I really want a musical instrument. And all of a sudden you start to realize, okay, in helping you reach your personal goals and figuring out what motivates you, it really helps us to develop each person in an individual basis. And I think that that has been huge in building a winning team.

26:01

Incredible. What are you working on now? What are you excited about right now? And how can people get in touch with you? We're excited about so much. There's so much that's going on in the world of marketing that's exciting. Really just nostalgic marketing, people kind of looking at what does it feel like to bring back a little bit of nostalgia in the middle of really pushing the boundaries of what entertaining social media is instead of just being like a bullhorn. How do we create better, more engaging, exciting content?

26:30

bringing in AI and data personalization. I mean, there's just so much that we're playing with and working on. But I think one of the things that's exciting is now that we've gotten one acquisition out of the way, we're looking at, okay, what does it look like to do another one? And then how do we expand our footprint more globally? So that's really our focus over the next 15 to 18 months. And then how do they get in touch? Email me directly. It's brooke.mcclain at marketwake.com or brooke at marketwake.com.

26:57

You can find us MarketWake.com anytime. I always tell people, whatever you need, even if it's just a brainstorm or spitball ideas, we're here for it because you just never know what can come from it. And we learn too, by doing that. Absolutely. Tell us about who your ideal perfect client is. What kind of companies are you looking to connect with? Companies that want to grow. That is the baseline. And then really we're split. We, a lot of B2C we work with, e-commerce companies.

27:27

direct to consumer. And then we do have a lot of B2B also where everything from software as a service to scrap metal. So we run the gamut of different clients that we serve, but truly if you are looking to grow and if you want digital to be a factor in that growth, that's the perfect time to reach out to us. Incredible. Thank you so much Brooke for this insightful conversation. Thank you for being so open.

27:52

and vulnerable and sharing so many insights and gems with our audience means so much. Oh, thank you so much for having me. And it's been amazing learning more about your company and your team and your philosophies, because I think that the world needs more of that. Absolutely. Thank you so much. We'll talk soon. Thanks. Bye.