Heritage - Wax Eloquent

Company: Wax Eloquent
Owners: Weston Wax
Year Started: 2017
Employees: 11-25 (Intermediate)

Welcome to An Agency Story podcast, I’m your host Russel.

In this episode we're joined by Weston Wax, the third generation owner of Wax Eloquent, based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Weston shares his compelling journey from managing a family printing business to transforming it into a digital marketing agency. From a very young age Weston was taught many lessons around entrepreneurship. From a family legacy he once avoided, to one he wholeheartedly embraces, this is a great story around how enriching an experience entrepreneurship can be.

Ups and downs included, you’ll enjoy Weston’s insights and memories from working for the business to owning it outright.

Tune in to hear Weston’s insights and the powerful lessons he’s learned along the way.

Enjoy the story.

Show Notes Insights

Adaptability and Diversification: Weston highlights the importance of adapting to industry changes and diversifying services. Transitioning from a traditional printing business to a digital marketing agency, Wax Eloquent embraced new technologies and expanded their service offerings to stay relevant and competitive. This underscores the need for agencies to continually evolve and diversify their offerings to meet changing market demands and client needs.

Leverage Family Business Values: Weston’s experience growing up in a family business instilled in him a strong sense of responsibility and pride. Involving family members in business discussions from a young age fostered a collaborative environment and a deep connection to the business. Marketing agency owners can take inspiration from this by creating a team culture that values open communication, collective problem-solving, and a sense of shared purpose, which can drive long-term success and employee satisfaction.

Transcript

0:02

Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. From the excitement of starting up the first big sale, passion, doubt, fear, freedom, and the emotional rollercoaster of growth, hear it all on An Agency Story podcast. An Agency Story podcast is hosted by Russel Dubree, successful agency owner with an eight figure exit turned business coach. Enjoy the next agency story.

Russel: 0:41

Welcome to An Agency Story this episode, we're joined by Western Wax, the third generation owner of Wax Eloquent based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Western shares his compelling journey from managing a family printing business to transforming it into a digital marketing agency. From a very young age, Western was taught many lessons around entrepreneurship from a family legacy he once avoided, to one he wholeheartedly embraces. This is a great story around how enriching an entrepreneur experience can be. Ups and downs included you'll enjoy Western's insights and memories from working for the business to owning it outright. Tune in to hear Western's insight and the powerful lessons he's learned along the way. Enjoy the story. Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Weston Wax with Wax Eloquent here with us today. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Weston.

Weston: 1:31

Absolutely, Russel. Appreciate it. Glad to be here.

Russel: 1:33

Certainly glad to have you. If you don't mind, kick us off. What does Wax Eloquent do and who do you do it for?

Weston: 1:40

Wax Eloquent is a digital marketing agency. We focus primarily on paid advertising on the meta platform and on the Google search platform. Who we do it for is most often businesses that are in the home services, or like residential services, the trades. Those are great clients for us where we can move the needle for them in terms of lead generation and revenue pretty quick. Think HVAC, plumbing, roofing, Water filtration, fencing, that kind of thing. Also we have a, a good bit of dental clientele as well. But those are the two verticals that we do the most of.

Russel: 2:14

Sometimes home services are very painful in themselves that they're the thing you don't want to have done. But I'm sure you make that easy for your customers, customers. You're a very unique business in terms of a lot of folks that come across and the, and that there's a long, rich history. This business wasn't started, maybe looks different today, but wasn't started yesterday. What's a quick kind of overview of the history before we get dive into all the good parts of it?

Weston: 2:37

We might be one of the few digital marketing agencies that say they are 58 years old.

Russel: 2:43

Yeah, that is not, I don't, you might be the oldest digital marketing agency I've come across.

Weston: 2:47

That is because we did not start as a digital marketing agency. My grandfather actually started a family business here in Murfreesboro, back in 1966. We've been in printing for most of our company history. Grandpa started it in the sixties, mom and dad bought it in the nineties, from grandma and grandpa. My wife and I here just recently purchased it from my mom and dad we've been in the industry and working In the business all these years. It wasn't a new transition into the job role, but ownership is a relatively new thing for us. We launched the agency seven years ago out of the family printing business.

Russel: 3:22

Wow. I actually do think you're the first third gen. I've had a couple of second generation conversations on the show, but the first, third generation, owner that I've come across. I imagine there just has to be a lot of things surrounding that, but, let's go back to your story. What I understand is you didn't necessarily have ambitions when you were growing up of running an agency, but here you are. What did young Weston hope he was going to do with his life and career?

Weston: 3:48

I went to college actually for church ministry, and I went to Union University out in West Tennessee. My major was church history and I minored in music. My intent was to go in a ministerial full time vocational ministry in a church role as a worship pastor, some sort of pastor associate or something to help on a church staff. I finished out my school years doing that. That's the degrees that I graduated in. I didn't do any switch or transition during school. I met my wife my senior year of college, and we moved back to Murfreesboro because we had this family business, that had been in the family all these years. My second oldest brother was running, the sales and operations side of the business at that point. My dad was still very much a general manager and really running the show, but, my brother, Justin was who I was spending the most time with. I was just in a CSR role and my intent was to come home from college, make a little bit of money because we graduated, I graduated completely broke. The intent was to make a little bit of money and then head off to seminary. It was really a two year plan. We were planning to be here for two years and then jet off.

Russel: 4:50

You grew up in this, pastoral focus, ministry. Growing up, just being part of a family business, were you automatically inclined, I don't want to be any part of that. What are your memories as a young age and how you thought about the business?

Weston: 5:02

There is no negative connotations or feelings towards the business. It has always been, even for my other siblings who have nothing to do with the business at this point, I think all of us have like a sense of family pride and pleasure in the business that it's been here. It's provided for a lot of people over the years. That was always there even for me not intended to do anything long term career wise with it. I still really loved and appreciated the business it had provided work for me, throughout all of high school and college. Sometimes it was love hate because you know, I felt like there was never any, there was never a lack of things to put little Weston to work doing. I definitely remember going back to school and feeling like, oh, I can finally rest. It's no longer summer. It's no longer spring break. It's no longer Christmas break. I can finally relax at school. Because breaks when you're in a family business, a small family business, breaks just mean free child labor, you know?

Russel: 5:54

It's like the modern day farmer or the modern day, how farming used to be for folks. I guess that's literally why we have the school system we do is so you could work on the farm in the summer. That's hilarious.

Weston: 6:03

Thinking through the way I felt about the business, even now, some of my earliest childhood memories are sitting around the dinner table with mom and dad and my siblings problem solving for the business. I'm an eight year old, a nine year old, and there's a personnel issue or there's a client issue. Mom and dad talked about pretty much everything in front of us at all times. We're just listening, caught up in too, sucked up into that conversation. My dad's a great kind of Socratic, teacher method. He would just kind of field questions or put the question out to the family, what would you guys do in this situation? We have this key employee who's doing this, how would you handle that? I remember, being asked those questions at a really young age and feeling really affirmed and validated to have opinions and to try to contribute at a really young age. I'm sure most of my answers were very that, an eight year old answer. But mom and dad did a great job of affirming and making us feel like we were a part of that conversation and we are contributors. It is truly some of my earliest memories and some of my greatest memories are really revolve and center around the business being a part of the family and something that we were tribal in. This is our, our thing that we're in it together.

Russel: 7:08

That's really cool. Makes me wish I would have done that with my kids, even though I don't think I had any intention of them being involved in business or they wanted to, but just to bring them along that journey. You talk about, when I just hear the notion of family business, I mean, this sounds as family business as family business gets, obviously the generational aspect working there in the summer. It sounds like your siblings were involved. Going back to getting closer to, the evolution, what was the transition like, eventually when this short term plan of I'm coming back to make some money turned into a long term plan?

Weston: 7:38

We had been there for a couple years and my brother Justin who we all thought was going to run with the business he decided that he wanted to pursue a different career opportunity. Announced that to the to the family. At the time it was also really challenging moment in the business. We were not thriving or excelling in terms of revenue or opportunities. The morale was a little bit on the low side. Justin wanted to go pursue something else and I was really the front office face of the business at that point in terms of my customer service and that type of thing. I just felt like I couldn't leave. Felt very trapped at that point. I think I've mentioned it to you Russel, whenever we first talked, my, my brother actually looked at me and said like, hey, I hope you don't feel like you're George Bailey from, It's a Wonderful Life here. Stuck with the building and loans. I was talking with Mary that night, we were laying in bed and I was like, I, I do. That's exactly what I feel like is I feel like, we're just stuck here now. Through that conversation, we came to the point like, but, he did have a wonderful life and it, is movie worthy eventually. Out of duty and obligation, not out of any sense of like joy or desire, we just stuck it out, just to try to like piece things together and hold the fort down until things got on better footing for mom and dad. Where we could feel better about leaving. Even at Justin's transition, we still had every intention of leaving eventually. But as, you know, providence would have it, a lot of good things started happening within a year or so of that. My dad at that point, because it was a challenging time, my dad was really leaning hard on me to, for a lot of leadership and direction and in different things. He gave me like carte blanche authority to do whatever I needed to do, in terms of hiring and firing and, strategy, tactical decisions. I feel super blessed to have been in that situation where there was a long history of success in the business that we could count on. There is already a reputation for the family business that we could lean on and I had enough bandwidth to be able to experiment a little bit and I was like 24. I didn't have to make a ton of money, at that point. We were able to experiment in that situation.

Russel: 9:41

You mentioned this taking over the business when it wasn't doing so well, but it also sounds like that, that autonomy and, some of the leeway that your father gave you that, gave you a hand in turning things around. What was that evolution or what was that turning around that you started to focus on?

Weston: 9:58

That was three years before we launched the agency, the marketing agency. At that time we, I really cut my teeth on sales in the print industry and spent more time on that side. We just, out of desperation, just started, making all the cold calls, sending out all the emails, calling on people that we really had no business calling on that were too big of clients for our size print shop. We just started getting some yeses in that process. Wouldn't you know, they turn into great clients and revenue rebounded pretty significantly. We doubled our revenue in about a year, from that kind of sentimental moment. It was just a very positive turn, but it was really all in print. We did a little bit of signage as well. From that position of strength is when we started looking towards, digital marketing and kind of changing the the makeup and the, the diversity of the products and services that we offered. 2014 was kind of that low moment, and by 2017, early in that year, we were already thinking towards what can we do to diversify in terms of our services and our products, because even with some, business growth, there was no denying that the print industry was on a decline, is on a decline, is probably not going to turn around, is getting more and more competitive. The margin is getting thinner and thinner. For me at that point, I was already thinking, hey, this is probably going to be a career for me. I'm probably going to stick it out with Wax for the foreseeable future. 20 years from now, it's not going to be print going to be putting food on the table and putting kids through school. We were trying to think of how can we be, still relevant in 2017. For us, that answer wasn't print. It was marketing and being that service provider.

Russel: 11:28

Was that a difficult shift, to make? You're talking about a legacy of a business had been what, around 50 years at that point. You're going to be the catalyst of transition. From an emotional perspective, from an actual execution perspective, what was that even like?

Weston: 11:42

I will say not at all from an emotional perspective, definitely from an execution perspective, but from an emotional perspective, if my dad is anything, it is practical and entrepreneurial. Most entrepreneurs, true entrepreneurs, when they find potential opportunity for revenue and diversification, they're not gonna buck too much at that opportunity, even if it's, legacy being upended and changing and that kind of thing. It is true my grandpa, I'm sure he had no idea what we were doing or what voodoo these young marketing cats are doing. We're selling ideas. I don't even, like what is this? That transition from like a commoditized product to a value based service, that was difficult. In my own mind, for the way that I thought about business and the way that I was, prospecting after people, that was a difficult challenge to make that jump. Even seven years into it, there's still a little bit of transition and challenge in that, but that was the main issue going from product to service.

Russel: 12:40

Did you go to your existing client base from a print perspective? Were your clients your guinea pigs, I guess you could say in terms of, trying out these theories and these ideas of terms of a marketing service? How were you getting your clients and how are you reservicing them in that?

Weston: 12:51

That was one of the earliest bumps and learning curves that we found in the transition from product to service. We assumed, we're at that point. We're about 50 years old as a company and felt really confident in our client base. We had a large list of clients that we'd worked with through the years, a lot of recurring clients that have been spending money with us for decades at that point. The thought and the assumption was, hey, we're going to roll this service out and we're going to offer it to our client list. And because we do know that a lot of them are spending money with marketing firms and agencies. That was the quickest kind of pain point early on as we realized our client list, for the, I mean, the vast majority of them, ordering print was in like one section of their brain and like marketing direction, strategy, leadership, holistic approach to business was in a completely different side of the brain and often handled by completely different people. It did not translate into hey, we've got this huge client list. Let's start selling to them. That did not pan out pretty much at all. I think the first like hundred clients I remember, thinking through, I think we had less than 10 that came from my print, client list. That was eyeopening.

Russel: 13:56

It sounds like, and I don't know if you said explicitly, like the hope would have been that you could have transitioned all those that, but that wasn't the case. It's almost like you're starting a whole new business from scratch. Obviously you've got a lot of experience to pull from, but is that what it ended up feeling like?

Weston: 14:10

Not at all. It just didn't pan out that, that way at all. The process for selling print was, really based off of responsivity, just being really quick, being reliable in terms of deadlines and turnaround. Quality was assumed, but communication and reliability was pretty much the differentiator in the print industry. Those things were, were assumed at some level on the, the marketing side. But that was, for me, it was the first time that I realized like, hey, we can actually be qualitatively better or worse than another agency. We can be paid based off of the results that we produce for somebody. That had never been the case in print. That was a big change in my mind.

Russel: 14:47

I can imagine. Just the transactional, very specific, I'm buying this and you're giving me that nature of print versus this more strategic, just really a more difficult business. If I'm really looking at it, in terms of, the nuances of what you're doing and when you're doing it and how you're doing it. As you said, now doing it with completely different types of people. One of the things you were shared in there, and I think this is something a lot of agencies are going through, regardless of their origins is just continuing to move away from this service and this commodity that you're paying for and more about the value and the results and the solution that we're, gearing ourselves to achieving for clients. Not so much comparing even where you're at in the beginning, but just what are just some of the insights and things you're focusing on with that in mind as it relates to today?

Weston: 15:32

One of the things that we've embraced over the past, probably 2 years, maybe even since, Covid, is this idea that as the industry and as the landscape changes beneath you really rapidly. Our value in just being up to date and current with trends, on the technology side and on the marketing platform side, makes us inherently valuable to our end users and our clients. I think it was probably two years ago that, the Apple operating system updated and opted for, no tracking, across platforms and across devices or apps. That was a huge deal for us because we were really dependent on, the Meta platform for, or at that time, I guess, Facebook and Instagram, platforms. We had a lot of clients that were really big into that space, with a little bit more of a retail focus. That was a huge disruptor to that industry. We saw that coming, reacted to it in real time a little bit ahead of time, and were able to pivot along the way. Because just the value of knowing what's happening on the market and kind of, being ahead of the game a little bit makes you really valuable to the end user. Now that's still something that we're trying to constantly do. Search is a really big part of our lead generation process. Google is, their search algorithms are constantly updating, throughout the year, but there's a really significant one at the beginning of May where they integrated AI into it. Just understanding how that's going to impact, optimization of websites and how we get our clients to rank. Those are all really big, important things for our clients. We don't want to be caught sleeping on any of that. Just the value of kind of staying up to date and educated along the way has been really valuable to our clients. Ultimately rewarding for us too, as a business.

Russel: 17:06

It sounds like you can sum that up and what you're saying of just constantly investing in your own R&D, for staying. We're in a knowledge business, so you're investing in your R&D as far as knowledge is concerned, but that has to be furthering you in terms of your, not only the work you're doing through clients, but how I imagine how you're talking to potential clients as well. The value sometimes probably even just comes out naturally in that process. That's fascinating. Does the business still do print today or how does that part of the business still look?

Weston: 17:32

We still do print. At this point, there's only three full time team members that are dedicated to the print side. Some of that, I mean, you talk about investing in continual R&D. If anything, I think we learned that a little bit just on the print side, as that industry has changed dramatically, investing in the new technology and new equipment on the print side translates to lower, labor costs or overhead or, fixed cost of goods as we're producing print product for our clients. With three people, we're doing about as much as we did with 10 people, 15 years ago. That's, interesting to be in that situation. Technology has allowed for us to do a lot of things on the print side, but we're still doing it. Of course I'm a little bit nostalgic and biased about print. But I definitely think printed tangible pieces, at least at this point, for the foreseeable future, are going to have some sort of value, in the marketing game. As we're trying to do, an omni channel, approach towards lead generation for our clients, print is normally a part of that game, a part of that strategy, and we're pretty well positioned to be able to execute on the print side.

Russel: 18:30

Very much sounds like you do. I ran as fast and far away from I could from anything print, coming up through the world as a web agency. We dabbled in print for a minute, not producing it, but just designing for it or whatever. This whole idea that something has to be perfect, you can't change it if you mess up. It's like, we want no part of this world. We stopped doing that pretty fast. One of the things that, thought was very interesting is just how you described your goal for the business, especially being in a generational business. What is that for the folks at home? How are you looking at the goals and the future of the business?

Weston: 19:03

I think that's interesting that even earlier, in this call, you had mentioned you didn't necessarily, hammer business at home, like to, to your kids. I think that's totally fine. I am so shaped by small business culture at the home that I really I want that for my kids in terms of an experience because it was so formative for me, but with that being said I actually never felt any pressure from my parents to take over the business up until the point where we were already in it. We were in it and at that point there was a lot of pressure. But growing up, I was the youngest of four and going to college. I really felt no sense of, obligation to go to the, to do the business. I just really appreciate it and valued, having the family business. When I think of what I want for my kids, I have three children of my own, and they're getting to that age where they, you can definitely comprehend they already sense, they already feel like this sense of pride in the family business. I want that to be formative and be a part of their life story. I want it to be educational and informative for them. I want them to feel some of the latent stress that I bring home. Some of that, that weightiness whenever we're, having conversations about bringing new team members on and potentially providing for another family, or letting somebody go and the gravity of a conversation like that and what that, does for a leader of an organization, I think, is really profound for a child to see in their parents. Even though my wife is not involved directly into the business, she's not here for any of the day to day ops, she definitely, she is invested and she is there for all the conversations with me. She knows the team members and if someone's going, she feels that. I want that so bad for my kids to see that and to feel that on a practical level. I think there's a lot of just good education that comes from business ownership, kind of understanding the financial and the PNL side of things. People management and all that is invaluable. About two weeks ago, my son who's 10 years old had a, like a homework assignment that he had to do some sort of math game. I was like, the math game today is going to be cash flow management. We're going to pull, I pulled like our general like cash flow projection for the next month. I was like, here's what needs to come in the bank for all this to work out. He's looking at these, these numbers and he didn't sleep at all that night, so I was really. I'm just kidding. No, I'm sure five minutes later he was already, he was, he had forgotten about it. But those conversations are really good for for the kids I think. As far as goals, I know that was the original question that you asked. It's just goals for what I want for the legacy to continue forward. I really want to have the business to be in a place where none of my three children feel obligated to take over the business so that it, so that it works for, for Mary and I, my wife and I. That is the challenge of family business. It's played out to this point where the next generation that, the generation beneath is the one who's gonna have essentially finance the retirement of the older generation. I think that's very natural and it's okay. But I feel a responsibility, kind of being third generation, and in a very real sense, having been born on third base. I feel like I'm positioned and have an opportunity to put the family business in a place to where the children beneath me don't have to do anything in the business. They can go make their own way and we can position the business in a place where one day we might sell it. I don't know what it is. I just want not have strings attached for our kids.

Russel: 22:16

There's probably a lot of, I don't even know how to describe it, probably just a lot of emotion tied into just that aspect, from your personal stance to, right? This thing that's been around for so long. I can feel sometimes, maybe sometimes the heaviness when you look at that, but I imagine just the idea behind, to not make it where someone has to, is probably going to guide you to a good place regardless. I love how you're approaching that. As someone that's gone through the school of hard knocks, or good knocks as well, that just has been surrounded by this notion of family business and so many aspects. Any pro tip out there for other folks in a similar situation in terms of how you make this whole family generational business thing work?

Weston: 22:54

I thought about I saw this question on the guide. I think it's a great question. Rather than answer, like, with a tactical strategic thing. I thought about answering this more from a philosophical, place. I don't know if I have a ton to get on the tactical and strategic place to this. Maybe that's why I didn't think of an answer there. I'm sure there you've had several other agency owners that are much, I'm looking at one. I'm talking to somebody who knows much more on the strategy and tactical side than I could ever really offer there. But on a philosophical thing, one thing that I've just learned from, my grandpa and my dad is that there is just plenty to go around, in terms of business and opportunity. Just like approaching the market with an attitude of abundance, and that there's a lot of provision out there and I don't feel the need to try to, I guess demean or degrade any of the other agencies. My experience in these past seven years, it's not a ton of experience, but my experience has been that most agencies, we are a dime a dozen. There's a ton of us, but most agencies have a very unique, style and flavor and, and offering. Typically the type of people and clients that are attracted to us and our model and our agency just might not be attracted to other agencies and vice versa. Having an attitude of, hey. We can benefit one another, we can pass on referrals, we can have kind of an open handed and open armed approach to working with other creative individuals and marketing professionals in the community. That has been a really, like, rewarding and satisfying way for me to do business in our community. I think it's good for the environment in your office, too. Like hey, we're gonna play nice with other agencies. That's resulted for us, it's resulted in some opportunities to white label our services with other agencies, to be able to run paid ads on behalf of other agencies. We've actually worked with other agencies for some of their creative work that we have, those skilled players on our teams. There are some agencies where that's their like first foot forward and it isn't ours. That I think ultimately serves our client better. If we're able to approach that with humility and grace and just not be, dog eat dog mentality. It has helped me sleep well at night in general.

Russel: 24:57

No, I love that. Not all tips are, so tactical as you might say. Honestly, I'm a big believer in guiding with philosophy because that can answer a hundred other tips and how you might approach things. We got to have those good philosophies out there. I think as an industry, we're moving in this direction that you shared because we are more finding our niche and our positioning behind, more specific solar services or types of clientele and things like that. We're getting there, but I do feel the pain in the early days. I don't think it was like this. It was dog eat dog. You wouldn't share. You wouldn't converse with another agency because we're all doing the same thing and, or trying to do the same thing. Some did it better than others, but, but so I think we're getting there, but that's always a good tip to remember. There's plenty of fish in the sea, focus on what you do best. And that will always lead you to a good place. Good reminder to all of us out there.

Weston: 25:42

One thing too, Russel, and and that's not born out of a lack of competition. I'm a very competitive family and I don't know if you're phrase of like losers look. I don't know if you've ever, you ever heard that but if you're like running in a race. You've got your lane to stay in, losers are the ones looking around to see like where everyone else. Winners are dedicated and focused on running their own race. There's a lot of that going on hey, just do what you do and do what's good. Do what's, what your agency is good at. Feel good about that and feel confident in that and don't worry about being, the biggest revenue agency in your town or community. Just excel at your craft. That'll most likely take care of all the other stuff. Comparison is the thief of joy. If you're spending too much time looking around, you just, you're just wasting time, wasting emotional energy.

Russel: 26:24

I love that. Comparison is the thief of joy. Great quote there. I think that is another benefit that gets talked about, it's what you're saying there too. If you focus on what you do best, your geographic community, isn't really always your clientele anymore. If you're the best home services agency out there or whatever, dentist agency out there that you're going to get clients from all over the place. The idea of, yeah, this finiteness is goes away. Great reminder. Comparison is a thief of joy. Absolutely love that. Would love to ask many more questions about your journey, but, we do have to wrap up at some point. Love the different answers I get to this question so I'll just ask, are entrepreneurs born or are they made?

Weston: 26:59

Think they're made. I think. You can hear my confidence in the answer. I don't really know. I can tell you this. People would look at me and say that I'm an entrepreneur, but I look at my dad and my grandpa and I'm like, those guys were entrepreneurs. We're doing the same thing. I think like by default I've fallen into this entrepreneur, role in, in title and function. But they, those guys are like cut different, like they are, they're definitely wired a little bit different. I can appreciate the ones who are saying, no, true entrepreneurs are just boring because they are. They're wired different than I am. But I do know that circumstances and necessity often produce entrepreneurship. I find myself in that situation where it's like, hey, I'm in, I fell into this place where I need to be an entrepreneur. How's that for a non answer?

Russel: 27:44

No, hey, every, everybody feels guilty about riding the fence on born and made or some mix, but it is the most common answer. No need to feel guilty at all. I think it's a, I think it's a great answer. It all points to just this idea that there's no one way to go about this. There's no one magical personality type or things like that. There's so many different ways to solve, going about, owning any business, but even particular, I think even the agency business, the thought leadership business. Love the answer. I personally think, even going back to our, a couple comments ago of just small business owners are the smartest people in the world. I will fight anyone, to stand behind that. There's rocket sciences but they, that's a different ballpark. I am always impressed by the amount of knowledge and skills it takes to run a small business and why is the important parcel to what I do today. Very fascinating conversation. If people want to know more about Wax Eloquent, where can they go?

Weston: 28:32

WaxEloquent.com.

Russel: 28:34

Thank you so much for everything you shared today, Wes. Absolute pleasure to get to hear your journey and your story and how you've navigated this whole thing. Look forward to the future years and and having Weston jr on a future iteration of the podcast.

Weston: 28:48

Thanks so much, Russel. I appreciate it, man. It's been a joy.

28:53

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Weston: 29:29

We do white label some things, some of our services and there's one of our, a really great client, who is turning around and white labeling our services. Has given us total like freedom and access to our, to the end user, like the end client. They're leaning on us for a lot of the communications and whatnot. We're taking zoom calls and doing all that kind of stuff. It's totally remote. I have a polo for this other company that we're white labeling it for in our conference room whenever we take their call as like a team. Everyone's like, we're doing like the mental check beforehand. We're like, okay, we're not Wax Eloquent, we're this other company We're this other company. We're gonna like, present that way. Everything in the conference room is branded Wax Eloquent. We're like, turn it we got like these cuts, everyone would like turning everything around and like trying to make sure the camera doesn't catch this artwork on the wall that's clearly Eloquent stuff. Separate Gmail accounts for all of this. That's been a joy and we all laugh about it every single time we do it. Just please don't let anyone slip, keep it buttoned up. That's been a joy to try to navigate that.

Russel: 30:24

That's fascinating, right? You hear about white labeling and I think in most cases that usually just means someone adopting an email address or something like that. But I love the passion and intensity of which you adopt this role as being this other company that. I imagine that speaks a lot to how you operate in general.

Weston: 30:39

We enjoy it, man. We enjoy it.