Podcast appearances and mentions of sandra marshall

March 18, 2025 ~ From tranquil temples to vibrant urban markets, Sandra Marshall, senior director of field sales at Viking Cruises, shares insider stories, expert travel tips, and personal insights from her incredible adventures. Discover the hidden gems, rich culture, and breathtaking landscapes this region has to offer.

IN CLEAR FOCUS: Olivia Scott and guests explore the Barbie movie's enduring impact, discussing its marketing strategies, brand collaborations, and cultural significance. Olivia, a UCF student interning with Bigeye's strategy team, discusses the film's exploration of femininity, empowerment, and brand collaborations. Bigeye team members Sandra Marshall, Rhett Withey, and Savannah Santiago weigh in on creative marketing, the success of brand collaborations, and Barbie's appeal across generations.

This episode answers the common questions schools and parents have when changing from a whole-language or balanced literacy way of teaching to one supported by scientific evidence. “Why wasn't my older one taught reading this way” “Why have the take-home readers changed and why do the new ones look so basic compared to the old ones?” “Where have the levelled readers and Running Records gone?” “What's this stuff about phonological awareness?” “Why are the students and teachers doing activities that look like ‘rote learning' and ‘drill' in the classroom?” “What happened to “chunky monkey” and “flippy dolphin” and why must we insist on kids sounding out words now” “Why do parents now have to do a course before being able to volunteer to listen to kids read in the classroom?” “Why didn't my struggling 12-year-old get this type of intervention when they were in year one?” These are the types of questions that schools who have begun changing how they teach reading (and spelling) face from parents who have noticed the differences. They're excellent questions because when a school flicks the switch and starts to jettison a whole-language or balanced literacy way of teaching, there are highly noticeable changes. So as well as teaching the kids, schools are needing to also teach parents about what's happening. Some of these questions are very awkward to answer because the ugly truth is that there are students at the end of primary school who have missed out on this higher quality instruction. It's not fair, but it's inevitable. This fact breaks the heart of educators and we all look back, with much sadness when we think about what we did before, and the students we could have done better for. If any of us could turn back the clock, of course, we would have taught this way all along. Is this teaching just another trendy educational innovation that will soon pass? No! Phonics teaching dominated the landscape before whole language and its offspring, balanced literacy became the norm in schools. These ideologies were based on some understandable misconceptions. The popular thinking went like this: Because (most) kids learn to speak by being immersed in their mother tongue (naturally – with no repetitive explicit teaching needed), then reading instruction should also involve a similar immersion in the printed word, and learning to read must also be a natural process. This turned out to be a logical fallacy that gave us three decades of way too many struggling readers. So what came next? The U.S. published an inquiry into this situation in 2000, the U.K. did their own and then Australia also inquired into this in 2005. All three inquiries looked closely at current reading research. Some of this research was from brain imaging studies that were discovering that there are indeed, brain circuits (hardware) ready to go to learn spoken language. However, no such hardware had evolved in the brain that's ready to learn to read and write. There was nothing innate or natural about learning to read. The skills of reading and writing have to be carefully and meticulously welded on, through highly explicit teaching, to neural circuits that are designed for other tasks. So, these inquiries from the U.S., U.K. and Australia found the same thing: the teaching of reading needs to be highly structured, highly explicit, sequential and heavily based in phonics to get the best results for the maximum number of students. Following the release of the Australian inquiry's findings (2005), not one recommendation was implemented. Blows your mind but also gives you an idea of how deeply embedded whole language approaches were in the DNA of reading instruction and how anti-science the educational policymakers and teacher training institutions really were. There was also significant pushback from big corporations who had built very lucrative businesses based on selling whole language-based programs to schools. So, the vast majority of Australian schools continued on their merry way, doing the same thing. This wasn't malicious, it was just a failing of quality research to make its way into policy and classrooms and not at all uncommon in education. It was kind of like what's happening with climate science! Fast forward almost twenty years and only now are we seeing a groundswell of schools acting on the research in Australia. Listen to our previous podcast with Dr Sandra Marshall and you'll hear about what's caused this tectonic shift. We hope you enjoy(ed) this Dyscastia podcast and that it puts what is happening in schools into a helpful context. Links from Episode What are Michael and Bill talking about when they refer to ‘The Scouts'? Early in the podcast, Bill refers to the classic book “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the main character Scout, who explains in the story how reading just seemed to come to her, without any effort, simply by just sitting on her father's lap as he read. Scout becomes a metaphor for the 5-10% of students who will learn to read, without explicit, structured, phonics-based instruction. “I never deliberately learned to read, but somehow I had been wallowing illicitly in the daily papers. In the long hours of church–was it then I learned? I could not remember not being able to read hymns. Now that I was compelled to think about it, reading was something that just came to me, as learning to fasten the seat of my union suit without looking around, or achieving two bows from a snarl of shoelaces. I could not remember when the lines above Atticus's moving finger separated into words. But I had stared at them all the evenings in my memory, listening to the news of the day, Bills to Be Enacted into Laws, the diaries of Lorenzo Dow – anything Atticus happened to be reading when I crawled into his lap every night.” (To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee, Chapter 2) https://youtu.be/sUdMm9oZ57U?t=2425 Nancy Young's Ladder of Reading An elegant model that illustrates the proportions of learners who need particular types of reading instruction. Bill and Michael talk in this Dyscastia podcast about the proportion of students who require a highly structured, phonics-based, intensive form of teaching. https://www.nancyyoung.ca/ladder-of-reading-and-writing Book: Language at The Speed of Sight – Mark Seidenberg Bill mentioned this book in explaining how education has developed a reputation for being ideologically driven and not well informed by research. Mark Seidenberg is a professor in the department of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. https://seidenbergreading.net/ Video: What's Wrong with Predictable or Repetitive Texts – Alison Clarke This is a stunning explainer on the importance of decodable reading material for early readers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiyzP3j7jbk&ab_channel=spelfabet The Three Cueing Systems (aka multi-cueing or searchlight model) A discredited word attack strategy (never actually was credited) but still widely taught, that encourages readers to attack unfamiliar words using: semantic cues (can I guess the word from the meaning of the words around it?) syntactic cues (can I guess the word from its place in the sentence?) and grapho-phonic cues (can I work out sounds from some of the phonemes I already know?) This is all good until you strike a word you've never seen (outside your sight word bank) or heard (outside your vocabulary) before. Old-school levelled readers are based on the 3-cueing strategy, therefore are a big reason Australian schools pump out a horrifying number of students who can't read. David Share's Self Teaching Hypothesis Mentioned by Bill when talking about the cohort of kids who get to point of reading development where the act of reading becomes ‘self-teaching'. The Five from Five website explains this very nicely: https://fivefromfive.com.au/the-self-teaching-hypothesis/ Schools that teach Reading and Spelling in a Research-Informed way: Picking a Winner A recent blog written by Bill about schools who've adopted reading research into what they teach how they teach, the common elements to their teaching approaches and the rationale for this. https://www.hansberryec.com.au/blog The whole-word based Dick and Jane series was used in Australian primary schools in the 70s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_and_Jane

In this episode, we talk to Dr Sandra Marshall, BMBS FRACGP Dip Child Health, a General Practitioner in South Australia and Chairperson of Code Read Dyslexia Network. Sandra shares her insights for parents and teachers on advocating for kids living with learning difficulties. Show notes Dr Sandra Marshall realized that there was a problem with how reading is taught in Australia when her own sons started to struggle in primary school. After trying to get help for her sons, Sandra found perhaps her most important calling and knew that the journey ahead wouldn't only mean advocating for her own boys but for kids and their parents all over Australia who were on the same journey. Sandra, a GP by day, donned her superhero cape, and by night became (at least in our opinion) the most influential figure in dyslexia and evidence-based teaching of reading advocacy in Australia. With unerring humility, patience and grit, Sandra and her muse and mentor, ex-principal Ophie Renner, rallied the troops – parents, teachers, principals, specialists in the area of reading (and the odd politician along the way) and set out on a remarkable journey. Fast forward a decade and a bit, and there has been a tectonic shift in how we teach reading in Australia. The earth shook when South Australia implemented the Phonics Screening Check (PSC), despite opposition from all of the expected places, but also from some surprising corners! The good doctor and her band of merry followers were instrumental in this, and now, South Australia is considered worldwide to be a leading light in the adoption of evidence-based teaching of literacy. In this interview, Michael and Bill talk with Sandra about the road behind, the long road ahead and importantly, how Sandra has been so incredibly successful at getting people on board and keeping them on board. Sandra has the special sauce in working with people to make change and has much to teach us all about how we can successfully advocate for our own children and also other vulnerable kids living with the Ds. Links from Episode Code Read Sandra is the Chair of Code Read – see the links below Code Read is reliant on continued fundraising to operate. Please register for the 2022 Equal Right to Read Virtual Run to support Sandra and others to continue advocating. https://codereadnetwork.org/get-involved/equal-write-to-read-virtual-run-back-in-march-2022/ So many parents don't know where to go, and as Sandra says, there's plenty of snake oil out there. This webpage gives guidance on where to go to get help: https://codereadnetwork.org/help-is-here/where-to-go/ or for incredible resources, go to: https://codereadnetwork.org/help-is-here/resources/ If you are in SA, you can also go to www.fullartonhouse.com.au, or if you are looking for a specialist tutor/teacher, you can find one at https://dyslexicstrengths.com.au/south-australian-literacy-specialists-tutor-register/ David Pescud's ABC' Conversations' Interview https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/conversations-david-pescud-rpt/8345200 David's was the impetus behind the formation of Code Read and financially backed the formation of this national body (as long as Sandra agreed to be the Chairperson!) David is interviewed by the amazing Richard Fielder on ABC's ‘Conversations.'   South Australian Evidence-Based Teaching of Literacy Study Tour: Salisbury Primary School Sandra discusses the need for teachers to be able to go into other schools doing great things in the teaching literacy space. We do something like this, and we're pretty good at it! Email Bill bill@hansberryec.com.au to express interest in this professional learning opportunity. A shout to everyone involved over the journey – all DAGBAGS, Dyslexia SA, Code Read DAGBAGS/Dyslexia SA members/admins/and helpers along the way: Adrian Borg Alex Ward Alexander Edmondson Allison Quinlan Allyson Dutshke Amy Bunder Andrew McPhail Andrew McPhail Angela Weeks Anna Bampton Anne Bampton Annette Brock Belinda Pringle Bill Hansberry Chantal Denier Cherie Collings Christopher Pyne Claire Morrison Colleen Stevens David Pitt David Pescud Deb Fairey Denis Donovan Denise Sawyer Donna Willett Dr Judy Gould Dr Bartek Rajkowski Dr Marie Gould Eleanor Gardner Eliza Bampton Estelle Chapple Felicity Clarke Gail Darby Jackie French James Magnoson James Peterkin Jan Done Jane Rajkowski Janice James- Valentine Janice McPhail Janice Ritchie Jeni Ferris Jo Bakker John Gardner MP John Ide John Skelly Karen Hodson Karen McKenzie Katherine Bruggeman Kathryn Krieg Kay Bosworth Kerrie Dellar Kerry Williams Kylie Budarick Kylie Fotheringham Kylie Halford Kym Reynolds Lana Grundy Lance Hatcher Lauren Poole Leanne James Lyn Martin Mark Le Messurier Mel Whiting Melinda Firth Melissah Ernesti Natalie Nolan Neil McKay Nick Champion MP Nicola Rathman Ophie Renner Patricia Dent Paul Bennett Paula Montroy Phil Parker Rachel Shephard Robert Klose Robert Smedley Roslyn Conboy Sandra Tidswell Sandra Tidswell Sandy Mamerow Sandy Russo Sarah Antoney Sarah Wormald Scott Bryant Sharon Holmes Stacey Bradtke Stephanie Mallen Sue de Biasi Sue Teusner Susan Close MP Suzy Barlow Tom Fotheringham Tony Piccolo MP Tracey Bradley Tracy McInerney Tracy Wilson Tricia Gardner Trudie Symonds Vanessa O'Brien Viv Wright

Sunday Evening, 19th September 2021 Testimony: Sandra Marshall www.lifeboatfellowship.com This audio was recorded at the Lifeboat Fellowship, Grange Corner, Moy. For further copies or information please visit our website at www.lifeboatfellowship.com or write to.... Lifeboat Fellowship, Old Moy Road, Dungannon, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland, BT71 6PX

A Classic WWII Romantic Thriller That Was Made Into the 1940s Film Noir Masterpiece Starring Barbara Stanwyck and Errol Flynn! After learning her husband is dead, Sandra Marshall visits his remote family estate to claim her inheritance. There, Sandra faces a cold reception from her husband's uncle, research scientist Mark Caldwell, who is also the administrator of his rather large inheritance. For some reason her husband had never told his uncle about their wedding and he accuses Sandra of lying about the marriage, but allows her to stay until he can verify her story. However, her husband's teenage niece, Julie, welcomes Sandra with open arms. But soon tells Sandra that Mark is holding her prisoner and that strange things are going on in the sealed-off area of the mansion where he does his research. Julie also implies the other family members and servants are not telling the truth about the circumstances of Sandra's husband's death. Mark defends himself by saying Julie has an overactive imagination, leaving Sandra to wonder who and what she can believe. Sandra determines to find out for herself. Not realizing that in doing so she will become marked for murder by one of the most brilliant and scheming intellects she has ever encountered. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Hometown Radio 10/06/20 5p: Sandra Marshall-Erninger wants to be the next SLO mayor

Justin Ramb is President and Sandra Marshal, VP of Client Services, at Bigeye, a full-service B2B and B2C agency that focuses on audiences, creative work, media and analytics, and data.  Understand audience:  Use primary and secondary research to discover who they are, where they consume media, what they look like, and what triggers them to convert Develop marketing personas that match two or three target audience personas Test strategies against those personas to ensure activities align with objectives B2B:  Use current customer data to develop lookalike audience and personas based on existing data Develop personas based on where company wants to head. Is it looking to capture new clients or new types of clients? Supplement data with key stakeholder interviews, additional research, online research, and quantitative/qualitative research. B2C: Bigeye utilizes specialized tools to learn about a client's audience and customers Creative: As part of persona development, the agency tests messaging, colors, headlines, and photography for optimal audience response. Rather than resent the parameters of defined personas, the creative team appreciates understanding the target audience. Media and Analytics  As part of persona development, the agency explores media usage. Media develops a persona-based media plan and begins placement in that media Utilizing Google Analytics and custom dashboards, the Analytics team tracks establishes targets and KPIs Data  24/7 analytics data provides information about how things are performing.  Data answered the questions: Where can things be optimized? How are conversions going? Do the real audiences align with those targeted?  Bigeye started in 2002. In this interview, Justin describes the chaos of those early years and the ultimate discovery that the agency's greatest success was driven by hiring team members who were committed, skilled, and aligned with the agency's direction. Sandra added that the agency also has to “arm” new employees with “the appropriate support,” foster a sense of collaboration, and avoid over-siloization.  Justin outlines the updated review and review cycle program (structured through a program called Lattice) the agency uses to keep everything running smoothly. Every two weeks team members submit a four-question online survey that covers how they're doing, what roadblocks they have, and anything they want their manager to know. Every quarter, team members submit three or four agency- and personal-growth goals. These are used to project the agency's direction in the subsequent quarter. Finding a mentor, someone a step or two ahead, can help a startup avoid pitfalls. Justin comments that if you find an outside counsel and can afford that person, it's probably not too early. He also mentions ways to find such help for free. He says strategic, balanced growth is healthy growth and believes that a company that is not growing is dying. Justin and Sandra can be found on their agency's website at Bigeyeagency.com, where visitors will find an “incredibly updated” blog.  Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by Justin Ramb, President of Bigeye, and Sandra Marshall, VP of Client Services at Bigeye, and they are based in Orlando, Florida. Welcome to the podcast, Justin and Sandra. JUSTIN: Thanks for having us. SANDRA: Thank you, Rob. ROB: Absolutely. Excellent to have you here. Why don't you start off by telling us about Bigeye, and what is your superpower? JUSTIN: Bigeye is a full-service ad agency in Orlando. We do a lot of different services. Full service, but we definitely focus on four key areas of audience, creative, media and analytics, and then data. We're very focused on that and serve a variety of clients all over the country and several around the world. ROB: Very cool. Is there any particular vertical or size of client that tends to be in your sweet spot? JUSTIN: We serve a lot of different clients. Whether it's a startup, a D2C, somebody just getting off the ground that's looking for a really comprehensive strategy moving forward to launch their product or service, or all the way up to very large CPG brands that support lots of different brands under them. So, we've got a wide variety. We have engagements that mostly focus on multiple pieces and customer journey, brand development, execution, media, and then the analytics and optimization. That full spectrum is what we focus on with our clients. ROB: Right on. Knowing your pillars does provide part of the story, so maybe it's interesting if we step through those a little bit piece by piece. When you talk about audience, what does Bigeye talk about when they're talking about audience? JUSTIN: We're really focused on audience. We believe that's the start of almost all of our engagements, all of our initiatives – really looking at, who is the audience we're going after for that product or service? It's really important to understand that audience, who they are, where they consume media, what they look like, and what are their triggers to convert. We spend a lot of resources upfront to understand that audience. We've got a whole insights team, led here by our Vice President of Insights, Adrian Tennant, and he leads the team to really dive into that, both in a primary research way, or we'll grab secondary research as well. That will then also get us into audience personas and developing those personas to have a target of two or three personas we're going after, and we'll always match what we're doing back up to those personas to make sure we're always leading with that strategy. SANDRA: And Rob, it's really been incredible to see how well that's resonated with our clients. To see them be able to relate to an actual person and some of the persona development that we've done has really set a phenomenal foundation for many of our projects. Keeping that person in mind for the duration and the lifecycle of the work together has been really, really compelling. ROB: It's truly critical. You mentioned the startup side of the world; a lot of times when startups are asked to articulate their audience, it almost feels like an exercise in creative writing rather than in fact. Helping them dial that in seems like it would vary quite widely by customer. You mentioned that primary and secondary research. I'd imagine on the consumer side, you may have datasets at your disposal that the client might not even have, or maybe something within their data that they don't know. But then on the B2B side, are you diving in sometimes and interviewing their existing customers, their potential customers, and going deep on that personal level there? JUSTIN: Absolutely. On the B2C side, we spend a lot of time looking at that audience and customer with some really great tools that we have at our disposal to get to who they are. On the B2B side, it is important to grab the current customer data. We can develop a lookalike audience and really develop that persona based on existing data, and/or there may be businesses that are looking to capture new clients, new types of clients, and that's where we'll go through quite a few exercises with the client to understand those and develop personas based on where they want to head. We'll supplement that with key stakeholder interviews, additional research, online research, quantitative/qualitative research. We always want to make sure that we're matching it back up to solid data. ROB: You put creative second in that list, and I'm sure that's no coincidence. It sounds to me like given that focus on audience, the creative has a deep, deep link to the audience that's being targeted. Number one, how do you think about creative? And number two, how do you help the creative types to view that audience information as a useful constraint rather than maybe a limitation on their creative juices? JUSTIN: We find that a lot of the work that we do actually arms creative to produce better creative. They love to understand exactly the customer, the audience that they're designing for. After we define those personas, we will often then go to another step before we get into creative of researching and serving audiences to make sure that we're creating creative for them. We'll test messaging, we'll test colors, we'll test headlines, we'll test photography, and we'll find out what those audiences most resonate with. We have all that data; we will then turn that over to our creative team, and then they'll match that up to what they're envisioning to create for them. They absolutely love it. It probably initially was like, “Wait, what's going on here? We'll design what we want to design,” but now they've come to really appreciate having some solid information before diving deep into what they do. ROB: That definitely makes sense. Stepping through, you talk about media and analytics. Those are both words I think that have known meanings, but they mean perhaps different things to different people. What do media and analytics mean within the world of Bigeye? JUSTIN: We will continue the journey with our customers and clients. We've now created the creative; it's all matched back up to the personas, and in that persona development, we're also understanding where they consume media. Where most can we get in front of them? Obviously, in today's world, it's a lot of different places. Yes, it's Facebook, it's Instagram, but it's also driving down the road. People still commute. Out of home is still important. It may be a lot of other platforms. So, we will develop a media plan, again based on the personas, and then begin to place that media and watch it through the analytics team. ROB: Got it. Then analytics in that case is useful as part of the planning process, whereas data is probably completing that loop and tying the results back to the business objectives? JUSTIN: We watch that data, those analytics, nonstop. It is so important in the 24/7 world to watch how things are performing. Where can we perform optimizations? How are conversions going? Are we matching up to the audiences that we've outlined? It's really important that we're looking at those analytics. We create custom dashboards. We go beyond just relying on Google Analytics and we create those custom dashboards specifically for the targets and the KPIs that have been outlined early on in the process. ROB: That entire story makes sense. Tell us a little bit about the origin of Bigeye. How did you end up starting this thing in the beginning? JUSTIN: We started back in 2002, pre-internet, pre a lot of things nowadays. Frankly, it took quite a few years to figure out what the hell we were doing. It was a lot of trial and error. Figured out what we did best, what we did worst, and ultimately what we ended up finding was what caused the most success was to hire properly. Bring on team members that were not only committed, not only skilled, but really were part of where we were headed as an agency. We brought on Sandra in the client services and account department and we brought on Seth Segura, our creative director. Still here today, and really defined, where do we want to go? That's what has led us to the focus of audience, creative, and media. ROB: Was one of those practices more prominent in the earliest of days? JUSTIN: Hiring was just so important. Again, it took us a number of years to realize it was all about who was going to be on the bus with us. We knew that we had to get the seats filled, and frankly a lot of what we do can be taught. There is some skill to it, but a lot of it can be taught. So, understanding the aptitude and attitude of people that we were hiring, and was it part of the culture that we wanted to build at Bigeye? SANDRA: I think to add to that, too, one thing that we identified early on was not only did we have to look for those good cultural fits and those amazing skillsets, but we also had to make sure that we were arming the people we were bringing in with the appropriate support and other members of the team to make sure all the wheels were continuing to run smoothly and there was an incredible sense of collaboration with everybody. We did not want everybody to be working in silos. We wanted to really make sure that there was the appropriate amount of department building that was also occurring while we were looking for this incredible talent. JUSTIN: One of the big “ahas” for us was doing better reviews and review cycles. It was really interesting to me. To the fault of our own, we were doing a really bad job at performance reviews. We've done it multiple different ways through the years. We've done annual reviews, we've done anniversary reviews, we've done 360 reviews. Oftentimes we'd forget about it until somebody said, “Hey, can I get my annual review?” I do think that's pretty common in agencies. We're running hard, clients are demanding things, things are changing, so the review cycle and performance reviews was something we realized if we were going to grow, we needed to make sure we put something in place that could help that. So we did. Now we're on a great schedule. We do two-week sprints where we do updates every two weeks. Team members will submit a four-question online survey – how they're doing, what roadblocks they have, anything they want their manager to know. So, we've got these pulse checks with our team members. Two weeks in agency life can feel like a year, so we wanted to make sure that we were touching base. Then we do quarterly reviews. We ask our team members to develop three or four goals for the quarter, all aligned with the growth of the agency, but also personal growth. We meet with them on a quarter basis, we review the quarters, and then we project where we want to head for the next quarter. And then we'll do the annual review, which obviously is the bigger one and more extensive, but critically important to continue to check in on the growth and the development of our team members, but also of the agency. ROB: Right. I think people coming from some agencies would perhaps be a little bit shocked by that level of regularity, if you're able to actually keep it in sync. How did you come to that degree of structure? Do you have a disposition towards structure and you just had to form the idea, or were there some tools that came into play to help you arrive at some of those conclusions? JUSTIN: The “aha” was when a team member came to Sandra and I and said, “Hey, can I get my annual review?” and we said, “That's not right. We need to put something in place and we need to stick by it.” We did a lot of searching and we ended up with a tool called Lattice. Lattice is an online tool that allows such great structure, but a lot of flexibility. You can customize what works best for your agency. We have found it to be incredibly successful. SANDRA: It's helpful to not find ourselves in an annual review where surprises are being uncovered about not only employee progress, but as a manager, how we could've helped them better through the past year. So, these reoccurring checkpoints really help us as leaders to be able to know where we can step in and either coach better or help to refocus energy. I think it's definitely a two-way street in all of these reviews. ROB: That definitely makes sense. You said the agency started in 2002, and that was certainly one “aha” moment. What are some other things, when you look back at the journey, that you see that you might have done differently if you were starting from scratch that you learned along the way? Maybe some lessons learned? JUSTIN: I'd say two things. One, looking back, I would've been quicker to bring in outside counsel, somebody that can give us wisdom, that can consult with us, can look at our business, can look at our processes. Bring them in and really allow them to take a look at everything. We did that about two years ago. We brought a gentleman in from Boston and allowed him to look at every single thing of the agency and to give us his feedback and his thoughts and his perspective about what we were doing – what we were doing well and what needed to be tweaked. I wish we would've done that much earlier. There was so much wisdom that came out of that. It was critical. Secondly, I would say really defining our focus. What are the services that we really want to focus on moving forward over the next couple years? What are the industries we want to focus on? I do think agencies are prone to take anything and everything as long as it pays the bills, and yes, that's important – but to really internally know as a team, “this is where we're headed, both in an industry focus and in the services that we want to offer,” and then align everything with that. ROB: When you mention that outside counsel, I imagine this sort of person can go by many different titles – some sort of a consultant, perhaps a coach, that sort of thing. I think there are some people you're not sure if you can trust, so how did you identify someone that you could trust to speak into the business in that way? JUSTIN: We wanted somebody that knew our business, was not in our business, but that can consult with us on the business. We found a gentleman who does search consulting, works with procurement departments for agencies, and allowed him to come in and really pick everything apart. He was a part consultant, he was a part coach, mentor to me and to Sandra and the leadership team. He was just really critical as we moved forward with the incredible growth that we've had over the last couple years. ROB: That part is exciting. It sounds like you've more than gotten your money's worth for whatever the arrangement was. I think sometimes when I talk to folks who are earlier in their agency journey, there comes a point where they're not sure when they should start spending what could be a significant amount of money on this type of help. How would you think about when is too early to start squeezing that outside counsel to help you get outside your business and grow? JUSTIN: Great question. I don't think it's ever too early if you can afford it, but I also think there are some ways to get some counsel that may not be so expensive or structured. I know, early on in the agency, we sought out people, other agency owners, to connect with. We didn't feel like there was some sort of competition there. We could have lunch with them and really talk shop and get some wisdom from each other. It wasn't a formal thing, but we got together to at least have some counsel because we were young, we were small, they were larger, they had already been through the ups and downs. I think that was really important to have as well, which a lot of people can do if they search, especially nowadays where you can jump on a Zoom call or something like that. ROB: That's a good way to frame the current environment in terms of the opportunity as well as the constraints. I think it's really helpful what you said there. It's twofold – one is finding the people a step or two ahead of you and looking to them for some ways to move forward, and also, I think what you said about if you can afford the person, it's probably not too early – I think that creates something a lot of businesses may want to find earlier than they do, which is a lens of profitability, a lens of healthy margins. How have you thought about healthy growth, especially as your team has grown? JUSTIN: Healthy growth to me and to the leadership team at Bigeye is strategic and it's balanced. We want to grow. If you're not growing, you're dying, so we want to make sure we continue to grow. We've been blessed and fortunate over the last couple years to grow rapidly, but we will continue to do that strategically, and we'll do it in a balanced way. We're not here to drive our team to burnout. We're going to have a work-life balance. We're going to make sure folks get out of here on time to go to their families and other things. Now, everybody's going to be available and be able to communicate, and afterhours, because clients will need something, but we're going to do this growth in the right way. We're not here to drive everyone to burnout to then go sell the agency. That is not the focus for us. We're going to continue to grow and develop a really great agency in the U.S. ROB: Then you also mentioned the importance of focus as one of the lessons that you've learned. Have there been lines of service or particular types of work that you have shut down? If so, what did you shut down and how did you realize that you needed to? JUSTIN: Sandra, correct me if I'm wrong – I don't know that we've shut down any services. We have fine-tuned our services in the sense that we know the ones that will be a win-win for both us and the client. There are services or engagements where if it's maybe a one-off engagement, that's probably not the right fit for us. We're looking for multiple initiatives, a longer-term engagement than just doing a website or something like that. SANDRA: In addition to that, too, I think we've identified through that when we need to acknowledge that it's not necessarily our expertise per se, or if we know of someone who may be doing it better than us, we're not shy to admit, “We want to make sure this is achieving the ultimate goal that you have, so let's bring in either a partner or some outside help and counsel to be a part of this project together.” ROB: That makes sense. A lot of times when it comes to partnering, you see a spectrum. Some agencies have a strong preference towards white-labeling their partnerships; some of them have a strong preference towards always surfacing and strictly saying “this is a partner,” and some of them tend to go somewhere in between. How have you thought about that decisioning process about if it's explicitly always a partnership, almost always a white-label, or in between? JUSTIN: Most of the time nowadays we're comfortable in our own skin, and we'll do a partnership. I think most clients nowadays have multiple agencies that they're working with. They understand that not every agency can offer everything. They're okay with having those partnerships as long as the agency is managing it; they don't want another thing to manage. And they appreciate the fact that we say, “That's probably not our most expertise, and we'd like to bring in this partner to walk alongside this journey with us.” They definitely resonate with that and appreciate that. SANDRA: And actually, I'd say a good majority of our current clients were working with other partners and all playing in the sandbox together. So, it's been interesting the shift that's happened over the last couple years where that's almost become commonplace. I think really making sure that we are not only developing that relationship with the client, but really being appreciative of others involved, has also helped to create seamless, great projects. JUSTIN: That was probably a big “aha” of several years ago that the days of Agencies of Record are pretty much gone, from what I can tell. Clients have multiple agencies that they're using or vetting or working with, so they understand the partnership aspect and definitely appreciate it. ROB: That's a great point in serving the client well. Sometimes it may seem that what a client wants is a one-stop shop, but it's really worth clarifying. It's not that they want you to be superhuman. They may want you to be a trusted guide to help them find someone to do everything. They may not want multiple points of contact. They may not want multiple billing relationships. Or they may want all of that. It sounds like you can serve them well by figuring out how they want to be served and what it is that they're asking for, which is probably not for you to be Superman. JUSTIN: Absolutely. Almost everything we do, we do in-house. We're pretty control freak, so we like having folks here under one roof. We like to offer those services. Most of the clients that we work with understand that. They like that and really resonate with the fact that we can offer all those services to them, but also to work with other agencies as well. A lot of the clients come to us because they're just overwhelmed. There's so many things on their plate, there's so many platforms they want to be on. They want to stay ahead of the curve, but they're just trying to keep up with what's on their plate currently. So, they're coming to us to really help backfill a lot of the work that they know they need to be doing. ROB: That clearly makes sense. When you're looking ahead, what is coming up in either the marketing world in general or particularly for Bigeye that you're excited about? JUSTIN: I'm going to continue to say and double down on the idea of audience. Everything we do is going to tie back to audience. I believe for us, it is resonating. We will continue to do the persona development and tie it to creative and media. There's so much opportunity to understand and segment audiences. We can drill down to very, very micro levels of who we're trying to reach. I think we're just beginning that, and we'll continue to dive deeper into it. SANDRA: And because of that, too, I'll just add onto that, we've been able to engage with some really incredible brands. My hope and my outlook towards the future is that we build on those relationships with those incredible brands and we start to work with even bigger and larger brands as well, doing innovative projects and really working on incredible marketing strategies and initiatives for some really cool people. ROB: When you say audience, I can't help but think one of the audience platforms that is a little bit more in the news lately is Facebook, and some brands opting out of advertising on Facebook, and probably some other brands stepping in and maybe claiming some cheaper inventory there. How are you seeing clients think about Facebook in terms of what marketing they put there? JUSTIN: From our team and from clients, they're cautiously watching it. We've not had any clients or any recommendations to make major shifts in their media budgets because of what's going on there, but we are watching it. There are several things like that that we need to be mindful of and we need to be watching for our clients and making appropriate recommendations as we move forward with that media. We have not seen a dramatic downtick in the cost of that. It's still an expensive platform because of the targeting that Facebook has, but we'll continue to watch it. ROB: Got it. One thing I've seen, at least on the brand side, is some brands have maybe not shifted their overall budget, but they've shifted how they spend it. Some of them are scaling back on the brand advertising and drilling more into let's say driving ecommerce or some sort of online conversion, or more outcome-based and less of the potentially risky brand marketing. JUSTIN: Yes. Conversion is key, and everything we're doing leads to conversion in some way. Now, that doesn't mean that brand awareness is not important; it is, and placements like on YouTube, which tend to be more of a brand awareness play than a direct conversion – most people don't click the ad on YouTube – but you need to be there. That's where the audience is. It's the #2 search engine in the world. We know our brands that we work with need to be there, but we're focused on conversions along with making sure the brand stays relevant, stays top of mind, and all matching back to, where is that consumer going to consume that media? ROB: Super solid. Justin, Sandra, when people want to find you and Bigeye, where should they find you? JUSTIN: Bigeyeagency.com is where you can find us. There's a lot of information there. We keep our blog incredibly updated. A lot of great information there. ROB: Sounds great. Any last words you want to leave with our audience before we get on with your day? JUSTIN: Appreciate your time, and look forward to hearing feedback from folks. ROB: Sounds great. Thank you, both of you, for joining today. It's great to get to know you, and we'll all look forward to being down in Orlando for some fun things at some point, once we get through this whole pandemic thing. SANDRA: I hope so. Hope to see you, Rob. ROB: Sounds great. Be well. JUSTIN: Thanks, Rob. SANDRA: Thank you. JUSTIN: Bye. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

In Clear Focus this week: Bigeye's VP of Client Service, Sandra Marshall, reflects on her nine years with the agency. Sandra shares her secrets for developing and retaining successful client-agency relationships and offers advice for graduates and career-changers seeking their first agency AM position. Looking back at almost a decade with the agency, Sandra discusses the strategic approach to client development that has positioned Bigeye among the top advertising agencies in the Southeast. 

Inspired by a love of nature and extensive travels to Europe, especially Italy, Arizona artist Sandra Marshall draws from a plethora of stored mental images she has captured over the years. Sandra's main focus is on contemporary botanical paintings – creating sought-after works of art that offer unique color combinations that are exquisitely rich and harmonious. Her flowers are rendered in rhythmic, organic  compositions in rich oils, and mixed media on canvas.    Her love for music is often depicted in her paintings with her botanicals that she has often been told look like they are dancing, and have a musical quality. Her awareness of rhythm and balance helps her to create fun energy that helps to convey the beauty all around her.Early on, Sandra showed a talent and love of color and art and always drew or painted -- receiving accolades from teachers and others who saw her work. After studying color, and painting in her early years in a private art institute with Jean Fitzhenry, she became accomplished in a variety of media including oils, pastels, acrylic and mixed media and later earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education with an emphasis in Art Education/Painting.    A New York native, Sandra is a master colorist and attributes her passion to childhood trips into New York City to visit the museums, and galleries. Sandra's Mom, an accomplished wildlife photographer and gardener, who always had an eye for composition, was a big influence in Sandra's love for nature and flowers. She also worked as an art director for 3-Ball Productions in Hollywood in addition to painting backdrops for the Disney Channel and working on set designs. Before marrying and starting a family back in the states, Sandra studied art in Italy, which led to co-creating an inventive company in Italy called “Porta a Porta”, which means door to door in Italian. Sandra would bring aspiring artists from the United States and fly them to Italy and while under her instruction, the students would learn to paint as they were surrounded by the stunning Tuscan Hillsides.   Sandra has used her combination of color mastery, painting and teaching skills to design a career that has been immensely satisfying for both herself and her clients. In addition to her works of art that she continues to push the boundaries of color and beauty, Sandra volunteers in schools with her successful “I Draw, You Draw program. Says Sandra,” My mind is constantly coming up new designs and ideas of things to paint and I enjoy sharing that enthusiasm with my students. The excitement of each new painting is like taking a voyage to an unknown place – the anticipation, exploration and the journey --- I can’t get enough!   4025 E. Chandler Blvd te 6 & 7 Phoenix, AZ 85048   480-247-6689 info@BeAnArtistAZ.com   http://www.beanartistaz.com/ http://www.sandramarshall.com/

Join us today for Women Lead Radio as Michelle Bergquist, your host of Women Who Lead, interviews Sandy Marshall, Founder & President at Project Scientist. Sandy and Michelle talk about the vision of Project Scientist. STEM as you know, is the focus in education on Science, Technology, and Engineering & Math. Sandy will share why need to change the view of “who” a scientist is and “what” a scientist does. Project Scientist Has Liftoff! Project Scientist exposes girls to a myriad of STEM topics and themes, female STEM Superstar role models who share their stories and passions with the girls, university campuses, and corporate partners who look to foster women's pursuit of STEM careers. Sandy shares her “why” on creating Project Scientist to change the world’s view of “who” a scientist is and “what” a scientist does. The vision of Project Scientist is to transform the face of STEM by nurturing today’s future scientists who will lead the world in solving tomorrow's greatest challenges! Sandy's passion for helping nonprofits that have the mission and infrastructure to make great social change, she started Sandra Marshall and Asociates— a consulting group focused on fueling social impactt. The organization is now on four University campuses serving over 800 girls annually.   As the CEO and Co-Founder of Connected Women of Influence, Michelle Bergquist is a passionate advocate for women in business. At Connected Women of Influence, we believe that more women need to lead in business and everything we do is center-focused on designing platforms, programs, connections and collaborative opportunities for b2b women to prosper, succeed and lead the way in business today!

Today we talk with Sandra from Viking River Cruises about some of the amazing experiences you can have on a River Cruise. We talk about the Rhine Getaway, Romantic Danube, Christmas Market Cruises, and Imperial Jewels of China. What is a river cruise like? Why would you want to take one? Tune in and find out why. For more information about Viking River Cruises please go to http://www.ConnectWithHelen.com to set up a time for us to connect.