Unlocking Digital Success with Kasy Allen: Coffee Talks and AI Insights -3

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Melody [: 00:00:00

Why hello, BizFit. I'm Melody, your lady of business. And today on the Business Misfits, we are going to talk to Kasy Allen. Kasy is the owner of West Agate Digital. She is an expert in digital marketing and business strategy. She's also the COO of Wheatley Creek Services, which she co owns with her husband. She has a passion for the service industries, digital marketing. She's a leader.

Melody [: 00:00:28

She's a creative, and she's definitely a misfit. We met this summer at an event and I got a chance to talk to her for a few minutes. She had worked with my company previously, and it was really fun talking to her. She's really passionate about what she knows. And anytime I meet somebody who knows a lot of things that I don't know, I wanna know everything in their brain. So I took it upon myself to invite her for this episode, and I hope you enjoy my conversation with Kasy Allen. Hello, business human. Are you a misfit? A person who wants to make a difference in this business world.

Melody [: 00:01:09

Are you one of the unconventional? The visionaries? The quiet innovators? The heart centered leaders? The purpose driven, the community builders, the givers, then you are my people. I used to think business was a secret formula to be discovered and followed, but now I know it isn't a set of rules. It's an exciting creative adventure, and I wanna be on that adventure with you. I am your lady of business, Melody Edwards. Welcome to the Business Misfits podcast. Kasy, are you a business misfit?

Kasy Allen [: 00:01:48

I think so. When I was in high school, I was more part of, like, the punk group than I was, like, the organized groups in school. Always looking to stand out, be different, find other ways to do things that are outside of the norm. And I feel like I can bring that that same thought process to business because even though I have a strong background in digital marketing or or whatnot, there are paths that I'll follow. Right? I'll do an editorial calendar. I'll do social media, But I'm also going to find a way to do it better and different so that I stand out. So we're always looking for ways that we can be different.

Melody [: 00:02:22

How did you get to the point where you were able to release? Like, for me, what I found is if somebody is standing in front of me as an expert and they're telling me how to do something, I have a tendency to just believe them. Even though my gut might say, I don't think that's the right way for you, Melody. But they seem to know business, so you should probably do what they're saying. Have you ever encountered that in your business journey, or do you feel like it's always been pretty easy to figure out what's right for you?

Kasy Allen [: 00:02:52

I feel like that's kind of part of the whole misfits thing where it's like you may hear somebody say something, and you're like, I like it, maybe, but I need to, like, think on that one. Like, I'm not I don't jump on things. I think about it, let it sit. You know what I mean? And then and then if I like it the next day, then then I'll go with it. But I usually don't follow trends just because everybody's doing it. I like to see, like, maybe I'll try it and see if it works, but I'm gonna kinda go around and and just do my own thing and and stand out.

Melody [: 00:03:20

Yeah. I think of myself as being a stubborn contrarian because if there's a trend, I absolutely don't wanna do it. That's not always helpful. Sometimes my team has had me do trends just for social media or whatever, and I'll, like, do it because they say to do it, but it's not me. It's never been me.

Kasy Allen [: 00:03:40

That's like my 19 year old is like, mom, you need to get us on TikTok, and we need to follow all the trends, and that's how we're gonna get big on TikTok. And I'm like, I really don't feel like that's us.

Melody [: 00:03:50

Yeah. Although TikTok is fun, I'm not gonna say it's not.

Kasy Allen [: 00:03:53

Yeah.

Melody [: 00:03:54

We haven't done a dance video yet. The only dance video I ever did was very early in my TikTok career, and it was me with Whitney Houston playing on a dance with somebody, and then it said, me when my team tells me I have to make a dance video. And then I was just had my head down and my shoulders down, and I was just swaying side to side looking very sad because I didn't wanna.

Kasy Allen [: 00:04:17

That's a good one.

Melody [: 00:04:19

I thought it was good. I made it up. It wasn't a trend, but it never became a trend either. I wanted to ask you, like, kind of what is one of your strengths? Like, where do you feel like your strengths lie in business? And then where's an area of weakness?

Kasy Allen [: 00:04:34

For me, personally, not the business, but for me, personally, I think the strengths definitely come with my background in digital marketing that I can bring that to the table. And I and I've worked with large global companies all the way down to small businesses. So that definitely gives us a leg up. I really I come with knowledge in social media, email marketing, all kinds of digital marketing. So definitely a strength in also networking. Right? Using networking and community networking for growing our business as well. I think we're solid on that. Weaknesses, definitely, like, let's talk about a vision board that I created at the beginning of the year and that I go after, and, like, here's where we're going to level up.

Kasy Allen [: 00:05:12

And I know that these are personal things. These aren't things where the business is necessarily struggling. So, for example, my husband is really good at taking the team and being like, this is where we're falling behind, and this is where we need to go forward. Like, he's very stern, but he's also, very relatable. I feel like I could be stronger like that. I feel like I could be the one that steps in and is, like, the lion in the front of the room and is leading the entire team, where oftentimes I feel like I'm more on the HR side. And I'm like, let's talk about it and let's you know, which is really good because we're a small business that he's one side and I'm the other. But I feel like we could probably both learn from each other to be the opposite as well.

Kasy Allen [: 00:05:50

Yeah.

Melody [: 00:05:51

I kinda gave up on that part. I'd rather have, like, a strong leader. Like, I wanna buffer between me. I wanna be the inspiring person who has empathy, who gets to just be like the male of the company. And I have my Denise now who is the operations manager who kind of I don't think she's stern, but she's like keeping the order and the expectations. If that was my job, which it has been in the past, it takes tremendous amounts of energy. And I always think of I don't think of time as being the most valuable thing anymore in my life because I'm 47. I think of my energy because I don't have it the same way I used to.

Melody [: 00:06:27

And so if I have to shift my energy to be a thing that I'm not, I'd rather, like, get the right person there. So it sounds like you guys are actually in the right place. It is good to be more in that in term like, confidence wise, but I don't think it has to be. For me, it doesn't have to be the role I've decided. That's my way of cheating.

Kasy Allen [: 00:06:48

Yeah. And I agree. Like, it definitely pushes me outside of my comfort zone. Right? Like, as soon as you're, like, here's something bad happened and then you have to go talk to a client or you have to go talk to an employee, you're like,

Melody [: 00:06:59

oh, yes.

Kasy Allen [: 00:07:00

Like, you have to prep for that. You know what I mean? Where my husband's like, what are you prepping for? Just go talk. And you're like, for me, it's not just to talk.

Melody [: 00:07:08

No. There's so many things. I have, like my whole brain is going all over the place. Anything could happen. Usually, I mean, anything does not happen. Usually, those conversations go the way I think they're gonna go. I don't like the unknown.

Kasy Allen [: 00:07:20

Yeah. I don't either.

Melody [: 00:07:21

Yeah. I was asking, but I I'm pretty sure I haven't asked here, so I'll pretend I didn't ever ask you. This is gonna be a weird one because I'm just gonna keep referencing what I've already asked, but your 100 cups of coffee project that I've been seeing online, I'm really interested in that. How did that come about, and what are you doing?

Kasy Allen [: 00:07:42

I was at a conference recently, a business growth conference. And at the end of day 1, the person that was leading the day 1 asked the room if they had one business idea to share to help grow business. One of those ideas was a 100 cups of coffee. And the idea behind a 100 cups of coffee is to spend, let's say, the next year and have a 100 different cups of coffee with a 100 different people. The idea is to build community and maybe get some answers to complex problems. And I say complex problems only because when I started this so I'm on coffee number 17 as of today,

Melody [: 00:08:15

which is crazy you just started.

Kasy Allen [: 00:08:17

I know. It goes fast, but, I mean, a cup of coffee is, like, an hour, maybe 2 hours. Right? There's no agenda either. Right? I don't have questions answered or questions laid out. I'm not sending anything to these people other than just a meeting invite. And the majority of them are coming to me and asking if they can meet with me instead of me reaching out to them.

Melody [: 00:08:37

That's great. Yeah.

Kasy Allen [: 00:08:38

It's been very organic, and I've met with a lot of people that right now we're in a we're in a political year. So a lot of people that are running for either commissioner or trustee. And I'm meeting with these people and learning about complex problems, right, and their solution or not necessarily solution, but what why they're running and where how they think that they could they may be able to help fix these complex problems in our community. So I I I have met with those people, and it's great because now, like, I'm going into voting, and I'm so much more aware right now of the choices that I wanna make on that ballot than just winging it or doing doing a Google search. So it's definitely helped with that, but I think there's I've learned a lot more. I feel like there's a lot of more digging, and I'm on coffee almost number 20. So I've got a few more to go, but I'm sure I'll continue to learn it along the way.

Melody [: 00:09:29

Oh, yeah. And also it's like such a cool organic way of building a network. And you said that you're really good at networking. That's not something you struggle with. And I think you're good at making friends, but not necessarily networking in a business way or outside have a much bigger company. So, like, if I meet you and, you know, we're talking about what we do and I'll be like, you know, it's great to meet you. Okay. Bye.

Melody [: 00:09:56

We're best friends now. And then I kind of forget about all the other parts that go with it. And so I've really had to work on that part. Like, what give me some tips on how I can get better.

Kasy Allen [: 00:10:06

First off, I live in a very small community, but it's a ski town. So full time in Granby where I live is 2,500 people full time. But as soon as this area opens, we may go up to, like, 10,000 people. Right? That means we have a lot of people that come and go, but our full time residents that are here all the time, we're very small. So we have a lot of small businesses, and it's easier to network. But I feel like you can do the same in larger areas. And if you're gonna get involved with chambers or main street organizations or business organizations that are bringing businesses together, you can start to go to those events and then also community events. Right? So if there's, like, farmers market and meeting the people that are putting on the farmers market or the people that are behind the booth.

Kasy Allen [: 00:10:49

Right? So not just shopping, but, like, think about a local farmer and all their produce is there and where they got started with farming. Is the farm theirs? Did they get it handed down for family? Like, learning those stories and putting a friendship and a story behind a business instead of just shaking hands and nice to meet you and walking out of the room. And because I've done that, we are now like, in our community, when, like, we have a local group on Facebook, almost every town has that. Right? And when somebody is going on there and they're asking for a local suggestion for a local trades or a local business, now those businesses are now promoting us without us having to be there. So if somebody's like, hey. Does anybody have a recommendation for a local painter? I'll have 5 businesses that are pushing our name. Locals too and community members, but also businesses. So that networking is helping with organically generating leads on Facebook.

Melody [: 00:11:45

How do you remember everybody? That's my biggest problem. Yeah. Like, do you keep notes of people or do you just have a great memory? I know this sounds so basic, but I know there's people like me out there.

Kasy Allen [: 00:11:58

For the 100 cups of coffee, I go back afterwards and I make a little blurb. Right? Yeah. And then I post it into Facebook. So I am taking notes on that because it's a whole project. And at the end, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with it. I have some ideas. But so on that, I am taking notes. But in regards to, like, networking in general, I just keep getting to know them.

Kasy Allen [: 00:12:18

And then you see them again, and then you see them again, and you just make it a point to see them, and, like, they'll learn a little bit more each time. And it becomes like friends, you know, and so you're not taking notes. You're just getting to know people.

Melody [: 00:12:29

I think my problem is probably because I'm going to national events and meeting lots and lots of people. And so it gets really hard. Like, locally, maybe I'm actually good networking locally. I'm the person that everybody kinda knows. So I guess that's not the problem for me. It's really, I just need to have a better note taking system where I can capture my relationships better.

Kasy Allen [: 00:12:54

Yeah. Well, what's interesting is when you talk about your relationships on a national level, it is kind of its own little circle, its own little network. Right?

Melody [: 00:13:03

It is. Yeah. I do see a lot of the people a lot, but that's really specific to home service. I feel like as I've gone beyond that and I guess you do I do find my people. That's what it really comes down to is sometimes you're gonna find people who and it's not like I have to get along with everybody. I love what you do, which is just having conversations with anybody. That's how I am. I don't wanna, like, judge people based on their political beliefs or because we're all humans, and I we all have a human experience.

Melody [: 00:13:33

And so I think that's what we need more of. In the spaces though that we go to these conventions or conferences, it's very focused on it's hard to sometimes get attention, especially when you have a booth. So that's why I give out, like, cookies to people because people love cookies, and then I get to meet more people and just have conversations. So maybe I don't have to meet everybody in the world. Maybe that's my problem is I just wanna meet all the people, and I should be really focused on thank you for this therapy. This has been great help. Yeah. Do you ever deal with impostor syndrome? And if you do, how do you handle it?

Kasy Allen [: 00:14:10

Think everybody deals with imposter syndrome. We just don't talk about it. I feel like the higher up you get in ranks, I feel like it gets worse and worse and worse probably because you're you're growing a team under you, and you have more pressure to be the mentor to be in the position that you're teaching and you're growing instead of coming in, clocking in, and going home every day. So the bigger I grow my business and the more I network in my community with people that are CEOs and owners of companies and directors of organizations, like, the more I hear that imposter syndrome is is alive and well, unfortunately. But I feel like you can get through it, but you so how it I do it is I'm very goal oriented. I set goals for our business. I set goals for our employees. And in fact, it's goal week before 2025 hits.

Kasy Allen [: 00:14:58

Like, we're working on that right now. But, personally, I I have to have goals too. And, like, I'll set goals at the beginning of the year. I love vision boards. I'll create it, and I'll put it up in my bathroom, and I see it every day when I'm brushing my teeth and getting ready for the day, and it's top of mind. So for imposter syndrome, one of my one of my things was to improve public speaking, to be on more podcasts, to be in front of more people, and grow from talking in front of 5 people to 10 people to 20 people, and let's see where we go from there. So that's been my goal and to be confident in my expertise. If I've spent 20 years in digital marketing, I need to rely on that expertise and not be like, well, yeah, maybe this guy though owns a a digital marketing company, so he probably knows more.

Kasy Allen [: 00:15:42

No. I need to rely on my experience and not let that imposter syndrome try to overtake or overshadow me.

Melody [: 00:15:49

That's a good point. I feel like this is the year where I really am owning my own expertise and wisdom and understanding who I you know, really understanding who I am more. And it is because I've been around so many more high level people like CEOs and stuff and seeing that they don't have all the answers the way their facade says they do. You know what I mean?

Kasy Allen [: 00:16:13

Absolutely. Absolutely. And well said. When you start networking with the C level people, owners and directors, you're like, oh, you're exactly like me.

Melody [: 00:16:23

You just don't talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. For me, I really like to talk about it because I think in some people's eyes, it might make me look weaker that I'm talking about. But I think it's actually gonna make me, again, the people who are meant to be in my circle are gonna find me faster because I'm being real real about it. I'm talking about things that I wish people had talked about when I was growing up in business.

Kasy Allen [: 00:16:48

I agree.

Melody [: 00:17:00

So I'm gonna move to a different segment of this podcast. It's the timeline of your life. And what I really wanna know is there are certain things that happen or experiences that happen in our life that shape where we end up. Can you tell me about let me look. The year 2,005 and what happened in your life that

Kasy Allen [: 00:17:21

Yes. I had I was I had a young family, and I had a boss that took a chance on me. And when I went to him and said, I'm leaving and quitting, I was an event manager, which meant I worked every weekend and every holiday because I was doing weddings and and all these events there for people that were coming to a ski town. But I had a young family and I was done. So I went to him and I said, I'm putting in my 2 weeks notice. I've gotta figure out something where I can be home. And he says, have you ever thought about sales and marketing? And I said, no. And I at this time, I graduated it with my bachelor's degree in sociology.

Kasy Allen [: 00:17:55

So sociology, I thought of not sales and marketing, But there was a position that was opening up, and he says, I think you could be a good fit. I think you need to go into it. Here's some books. Start reading some books, and I'll mentor you, and I will teach you about sales and marketing. So I took it. I took the opportunity. I stepped into it, and it was a resort at the base area of the ski area, Winter Park Resort, and started learning sales and marketing. At that time, that's when SEO was becoming a thing.

Kasy Allen [: 00:18:21

People started learning what is Google and what is search engine optimization. And the Internet was buzzing. A lot little company came online called SEOmoz, and a little company came online called HubSpot, which are huge companies today, but they were tiny then. And they were putting out blog post after blog post teaching how to learn SEO and how to learn digital marketing. And I just embraced it all, and I learned it, and I loved it so much that I was like, I have to have somebody somebody has to see me and know, like, I know my stuff. I taught myself up until this point, but, like, I need to prove that I know what I'm doing. So I ended up going back to school, and I got my master's degree in digital marketing.

Melody [: 00:19:01

No kidding. I didn't know that. And that's kinda crazy because I've often thought about going back and getting my master's degree to to kinda prove to myself that I know because when you teach yourself something, there are a lot of basic things that you don't learn. I feel like, like, you can miss really basic business things that are not part of the Mickey Mouse or hacking it together when we're teaching ourselves.

Kasy Allen [: 00:19:25

Absolutely. And it was on my bucket list to do anyways, and so it's like, I'm doing it, and so I did.

Melody [: 00:19:32

That's so cool. I don't know if it's on my bucket list or not. I mean, it's in my head, so it's probably gonna happen at some point, but it's also a lot of work, and so it's not yet. That's what I'm gonna say. And also, I do wanna say that I find SEO to be very mysterious, Phil. I feel like I know a lot about digital marketing and I know nothing at all. And especially when it comes to SEO, it feels like I mean, I guess you're in a good line of work because I honestly have no clue. Is there like a simple way you can explain this to me?

Kasy Allen [: 00:20:05

I feel like I can explain it simply, but there is so much more to it. Right? Like, it's very complex, and there's, like, this whole technical side of it that you need to work with a developer to, like, really get your website optimized. But the simple version is if you go do a Google search and you see the things that are listed, the top thing that you see is what is optimized with a keyword to rank in Google. The thing under that is a description. We use those on a website on a one page, one page of a website to put in keywords so it ranks easier in Google. That's it. Really, that's the simplest part of it. Now we have to do that for every page on a website.

Kasy Allen [: 00:20:46

Mhmm.

Melody [: 00:20:48

And it's always changing too from what I understand.

Kasy Allen [: 00:20:52

It is. There's a lot more to it. There's local SEO where where we would be like, hey, you need to make sure to put put in your your local area terms. Right? There's link building, and you're building links back to your website. There's a lot. But at the simplest, if I was talking to a plumber and he just got started and he has a 3 page website, which is a tiny website, but, hey. It's a start. Let's just start with keywords.

Kasy Allen [: 00:21:16

Let's just keep it simple, and it's a really great start for helping getting to started ranking in Google.

Melody [: 00:21:22

Okay. That's actually really helpful for people to know. Having been in home service for my whole adult life for 30 years, coming into home service VA, which is not home service, it is not local, it's national now. It's almost like I've had to relearn a lot of basic things that I might have been comfortable with before. And now I'm like, I don't know. I'm figuring it out all over again in a different way for a different company. So I think organic marketing, I've always been pretty good at because I don't feel like I have to do a lot for that. It's like authentic almost.

Melody [: 00:21:57

When you start getting into the other kind, it's really hard. I overthink that like crazy, which is why we should work with agencies and people who know what they're doing.

Kasy Allen [: 00:22:08

Yeah. Absolutely. Especially with, like, social media right now. Right? Things are changing all the time. The net the platforms change all the time. The things that you could do in them change all the time, it can get overwhelming. I mean, I have tips on simplifying and everything, but it can be overwhelming because it's like, woah. Wait.

Kasy Allen [: 00:22:26

Now I have to optimize my website, and now I have the right blog post. And now, like, we're talking podcasts, and now we're talking social media, and you're like, woah. That's a lot.

Melody [: 00:22:33

It's too much.

Kasy Allen [: 00:22:34

Yeah. Concentrate on your website. That's step 1. Yeah. And then worry about social media later.

Melody [: 00:22:40

So over the past 2 years, I've been working a lot with AI, and I've been thinking, you know, and right now, people are doing it very badly. I have a suspicion that when the public finds out, because I think most consumers don't understand how often AI is being used in marketing talk and Facebook ads and all the things. If there's a rocket ship, it's AI. That's what you need to know. That's how I think of it at this point. How do you feel like that's gonna affect moving forward? How it's gonna affect the industry? I mean, personally, just so you know, I think it's really important to continue to be like, if you're a creative person, it's gonna be a tool in my mind to use to be more creative. But if you're not a creative person and you're just relying on it in a lazy way, I think that it's gonna backfire eventually. That's my hope at least because I'm I'm working hard to maintain my creativity.

Kasy Allen [: 00:23:34

Yeah. I think so too. And so a huge part of my background is writing. I wrote for thousands of businesses. Right? And I was writing. I didn't have an AI bot at all. Like, I'm sitting down. I'm closing an office, and I'm putting on headphones so I can tune everything out, and I'm writing, writing, writing.

Kasy Allen [: 00:23:50

So I have a passion for it. And to think that a robot can come in and, like, take that over, you're like, no. You can't just take that over. Well, it can, and it can be quite successful at it. And it starts to learn, and it knows as it learns more, it gets better and better and better. And you can teach it rules. I love AI. I we've been using it for over a year in our business.

Kasy Allen [: 00:24:10

We pay for the one where our team can share it, so it continues to learn from all of us. My husband is not a creative type, and he's not gonna do anything online. He's not gonna do any social media, but he writes emails. And when I told him it can prove your it can improve your emails you're sending out, he tested a few, and now he's hooked. So it's easy as making sure your emails the grammar is checked. It sounds professional. You can even tell it maybe you don't want to be professional. You want it to be laid back.

Kasy Allen [: 00:24:37

Whatever voice it is that you wanna have there, it can do it. So we today are using it with blog post and social media and video editing, but it can be as simple as editing emails. And I think that everybody in the business that is sending out content can use it to help improve their business. And I don't think we have to look at it as it's taking over, but it's going to make us more efficient.

Melody [: 00:25:02

I think it makes us a lot more efficient and it also look, writing, I love writing, I love ideas. It's really hard for me to start with a blank page. And so, you know, I've been writing a book and the way that I've used AI, I'm dyslexic, so writing is also just generally hard, and I've been voicing out all of my stuff with Loom.

Kasy Allen [: 00:25:23

Oh, cool.

Melody [: 00:25:24

And so I can talk. You hear me? I can talk it out.

Kasy Allen [: 00:25:27

Yeah.

Melody [: 00:25:28

But I'm using AI to help me edit the stuff out. I don't want it to take away my words at all. I don't want because it has a tendency to want to, like, make it more AIified. And so my my structure for my rules for it are you don't change my words. We just reorganize where they need to go and things like that. So I'm using it as a tool to help me do this thing that would be almost impossible, I think. Nothing's impossible, but it would be wanted to write a book for 20 years. So once I figured out a way to use this, it just made it so much easier for me.

Melody [: 00:26:03

It's still not easy though. I will say that.

Kasy Allen [: 00:26:05

Yeah. I love that. And I love that you're making it still be your authentic self. Right? Yes. You're teaching it to no. No. No. I don't need your thoughts and ideas.

Kasy Allen [: 00:26:16

You have to take my thoughts and ideas and make the grammar better or make the thought better. I like that.

Melody [: 00:26:22

Absolutely. And I've also right from the start, I didn't want it to say my words for me. And so I created the mail bot, which is literally just, if my team wants to make something where they're saying that I'm gonna say it, and it's coming from AI, from my trained chatbot or whatever, then they have to say it's the mail bot and not Mel. And that's my way of being able to differentiate that. When it's me, it's authentically me. When it's the mail bot, it's a funny robot that is still trained on my stuff, but it's not me. Because I think that's gonna be important. I don't trust like, if even if somebody's assistant is writing me under their name, it makes me not trust them a little bit, you know? And I don't want anybody not to I don't wanna lose that trust with people because my integrity is really important to me.

Melody [: 00:27:11

So it'll be interesting to see what happens with this as we move forward, but it's definitely a great tool. And for creative people, for anybody who's scared of AI, I just think of it as creative conversations with the robot who lies to you a lot. You can't trust it all the time.

Kasy Allen [: 00:27:29

I will come back and write down, like, I have, like, about this person. What did I learn? What are my takeaways? Those are my 3 prompts, and then I will write it all down. And then I will take that, and then I'll put it into Chat GPT and be like, can you help me form this into a story in my voice and tone?

Melody [: 00:27:46

It does good. It does. Yeah. I mean, I definitely use it for those purposes, but it's not you. Right? It's a little bit not you. It's a little bit not me. So I think people tend to be lazy, and they're always looking for gold. And I think that it's gonna be so much more important as we continue to use AI just to keep our voices, to keep our creativity, to keep our authenticity.

Melody [: 00:28:10

And so we're kind of ahead of everybody right now on that. Not everybody. Yeah. But a lot of the Internet from what I've noticed saying, especially on Facebook. Yeah. Because it's really bad.

Kasy Allen [: 00:28:22

We'll see where it goes.

Melody [: 00:28:24

Yeah. We'll see. I'm gonna ask you one more date, which is I think it was 2018.

Kasy Allen [: 00:28:31

Yeah. So from 2005 to 2018, I'm working in digital marketing and working with big global companies and national companies. And around 2018, I joined with a digital agency. It was a local digital agency. They had maybe a 150 clients building websites, doing their SEO, doing their digital marketing. And I onboarded as the in house SEO strategist, and I had to do reporting for a 100 clients per month, all in the, like, small local businesses, 90% in the home service industry, and the other 10 were maybe, like, yoga or other things, but it was all in the home service industry. I was helping plumbers and HVAC and landscapers, a lot of landscapers on, here's my website. Now what? And it was really neat to spend that time with them and show them that we can make these small changes and completely change their website to making it a lead generator and bringing in leads organically from Google instead of spending money on ads.

Melody [: 00:29:31

That's really cool. And that's kind of how you got into the home service space?

Kasy Allen [: 00:29:36

Yeah. Absolutely. So I helped all of those clients. And so today, I'm helping clients personally. And then also my I work with my husband's company, Wheatley Creek Services. So I manage our website and all of our digital marketing and media efforts, Wheatley Creek. But I also have a side business. It's called West Agate.

Kasy Allen [: 00:29:53

Digital.com, I believe. So but West Agate, and I help local service companies, build their website, contractors as well, and rank in our local area.

Melody [: 00:30:02

That's really cool. One of the things about home service is that we have a lot of people who come in who can do a thing. There's not a lot of business mindset to start with because we don't get trained on that in school or trade school or whatever. And so you know how to do the thing really well, and eventually you have to grow because you've reached your capacity, and then you have your website. And a lot of times they don't understand some of the basic things. Like, what I always talk about is that, you know, in the residential space, 80% of your clients are women who are making the decisions for the household for that money, but we don't design for women. Like, a guy is usually designing his logo based on what he thinks is cool and not necessarily what's gonna attract the people. Same for the website.

Melody [: 00:30:43

You know? So I think it's really important. And the trades have like when I started, it was the Wild West and it's still a little bit of the Wild West, but I feel like in the last decade, it's gotten so much more organized. There's more coaching, there's more training, And so people are more business minded and wanting to learn more. But we need professionals, and we need people who are gonna help us make our stuff good so that we are seen, so that we can grow, so we can get employees.

Kasy Allen [: 00:31:12

Yeah. So I'll add to that. 1 of my 100 Cups of Coffee, I met with and she's in our local community. We actually Wheatley Creek Services, we went through a logo change about a month 2 months ago. Our previous logo, I'm sure you can still find it on the online, but it was our name, and it, of course, had a picture of a house, and it had some tools on it. Totally normal what you expect from a handyman home service company. That's the logo that's gonna get created. Right?

Melody [: 00:31:37

Yeah.

Kasy Allen [: 00:31:38

But I took a step back, and my marketing brain is like but it doesn't actually embrace anything about us. It doesn't embrace our local community. It doesn't embrace our roots. It doesn't embrace anything about who we are. And we have a really good story to tell. We live in a very small mountain community. Water is a really big deal to us. Our name is Wheatley Creek, which is an actual creek that my family's homesteaded on.

Kasy Allen [: 00:32:01

Why are we not embracing these things? Yeah. So I went to a graphic designer, talked to him about what I wanted to do, and we redid our logo. And we when we launched it, everybody's like, wow, this logo is so amazing. Like, I want your swag. I want your key chains. And you're like, what? You want my stuff? So at one of my 100 cups of coffee, I was sitting down with another local business, and she said, you took a brand that is in your head, like a stale warehouse that's dirty and dusty, and it's like, I'll call you when I need you, but I don't, like, really need to talk to you. And you took it to something that's fun, and, like, people wanna wear your shirts. Like, how amazing is it that you can take and completely change something that is stale and make it like, I wanna talk about what you're doing.

Kasy Allen [: 00:32:47

That's branding and marketing.

Melody [: 00:32:49

It is. You're right. When we had the pandemic, up till then, I was one of those people who didn't have any brand on their vehicles because I was like, I don't want people to know what I'm doing, which is so dumb. I don't know. It was just something inside of me, old stuff, and I needed to brand that year. I went on all in on anything I'd ever wanted to do because I had nothing to lose. It was the first time in my life I thought I might lose my business. And so my branding became a picture of what we call Rosie Mel, which is me, but as Rosie the Riveter on a van, bright colors, very simple design.

Kasy Allen [: 00:33:24

Oh, I love it.

Melody [: 00:33:25

And that's what happened to us because there's no women on vans. There's no it's just very noticeable, and it feels friendly. Right? And so you give people a feeling with your brands, and people ask me for shirts and things like that, and it was the coolest thing ever. I loved that brand.

Kasy Allen [: 00:33:43

Yeah. We have 4 vehicles. We have 1 van and 3 Subarus to go around town. And even though, like, in my town I live in, it's 2,500, we service the entire county, which is probably 10,000 local people. Anyways, us buzzing around our entire community, people are like, you guys are everywhere.

Melody [: 00:34:00

Right.

Kasy Allen [: 00:34:01

We only have 4 vehicles, but we look like we're big, and that's okay.

Melody [: 00:34:05

Yeah. It's pretty cool. It does a lot more than I would have ever known that it did. So

Kasy Allen [: 00:34:11

Yeah. Absolutely.

Melody [: 00:34:12

Okay. One last thing that I wanna ask you. It's basically a this or that. I call it the misfit minute, but it's actually gonna be 2 minutes because nobody can do it in a minute. It's just either or questions. I always like to say, we are not one thing, but whatever your brain tells you is like, yep, that's more me. The more me question or answer. Okay.

Melody [: 00:34:35

Ready and begin. Early bird or night owl? Night owl. Introvert or extrovert? Introvert. More time or more money?

Kasy Allen [: 00:34:46

More time.

Melody [: 00:34:48

Type a or type ADD? Type a. Saver or spender? Saver. Workaholic or recovering workaholic? Recovering workaholic. Adventure or relaxing? Adventure. Things or experiences? Experiences. Phone call or text? Phone call. Plan ahead or go with the flow?

Kasy Allen [: 00:35:14

Go with the flow.

Melody [: 00:35:16

Hands on or delegator?

Kasy Allen [: 00:35:19

Hands on.

Melody [: 00:35:20

Compete or collaborate? Collaborate. Sweet or savory? Savory. Quick thinker or over thinker? Over thinker. Well, you didn't overthink this because you got really good. That was well done. I've had people not finish.

Kasy Allen [: 00:35:40

I feel like I need to explain, but I was try I was like, nope. I'm just gonna go with it. Because someone like, is it me now or is it how I wanna be? You know what I mean?

Melody [: 00:35:48

Same. Yeah. For, like, the question of what's the one that always triggers me? It's the hands on or delegator. I'm a delegator, but also I still struggle with letting go. You can be both things. Right?

Kasy Allen [: 00:36:02

Yeah. I feel like I'm hands on and I'm constantly being told let it go. I'm learning to be a delegator.

Melody [: 00:36:09

It's hard. It's not easy. And it's actually, as good as I am at it, Sometimes I don't even see the things that I'm not letting go of, but I get better and better the more it's a practice. Really, it's a practice. Well, that was really fun. Thank you for doing this podcast. I'm really glad. And I'm actually one thing that you have inspired me to do with your coffee, you know, a 100 cups of coffee.

Melody [: 00:36:33

I was at an event last week and somebody was talking about how they had just had a community barbecue. And I'm somebody who's very I'm a community builder. But in this cycle of politics right now, the elections and stuff, I had an idea that I wanna do like a election day coffee, where people can just come over, neighbors, whatever. I'm just gonna maybe I'll go near the place where we're doing our because I live in a small town too. Just having a cup of coffee with somebody who's different than me or different, you know, just to not forget that we are all just humans trying to figure this life out together.

Kasy Allen [: 00:37:11

And that's what's been really great about meeting with political leaders where it's like the first person I met with is like, oh my gosh. I'm meeting with a commissioner today. Like and everybody's like, oh, how do you feel? And I'm like, I don't know. And then I meet with her, and I'm like, it's just a person. It's just coffee. It's I mean, shouldn't she we we didn't necessarily even talk about her being a commissioner. Like, it came up. Right.

Kasy Allen [: 00:37:33

It cut some of the things that she wanted to talk about. She she brought up naturally in the conversation, but that wasn't it was I mean, we talked about family, and we talked about her the personal things she likes in life. And it was great. It was just a conversation. And then it just made it easy to flow and made it not uncomfortable at all.

Melody [: 00:37:50

Yeah. So I appreciate that you kind of put that in my head on accident of just like coffee is an easy thing. I just have to make all the coffee and bring all the coffee, but maybe it's just gonna be Dunkin' Donuts. So because they have those big coffee things.

Kasy Allen [: 00:38:04

Yeah. No pressure.

Melody [: 00:38:05

But thank you for being here today. It was really fun talking to you. You're definitely one of my bizfits, so I appreciate you.

Kasy Allen [: 00:38:12

Aw, thank you. Yeah. Thanks for having me, and I look forward to seeing this grow. Thank you.

Melody [: 00:38:17

Listen, Bizfit. If you believe in the mission of this podcast, I need you to like and subscribe right now. Pause this. Go find the podcast. You might already be there, which is easy. Just go like and subscribe. And if you really, really believe in it and you want Biz to unite and change the whole business world, please rate it.

Melody [: 00:38:35

Rating is the best way to get the word out to attract more like minded misfits like you and me so that we can overthrow the takers of this world who currently dominate the business universe. Now I know I sound like I'm some courageous lady of business. I am not. I can't do this alone, and I don't want to. I need you, and we need a coalition of fellow bizfits. So do it now. The quicker we take action, the quicker we can change our business world. Now let's go do great things, and I will see you next week.

Melody [: 00:39:05

I'm a misfit. I'm a misfit.