Company: Alder & Co.
Owners: Mal Alder
Year Started: 2018
Employees: 1 – 10
Welcome to another episode of “An Agency Story.” Today, we are excited to feature Mal Alder from Alder & Co., a full-service digital marketing agency specializing in helping small businesses and nonprofits thrive in their respective markets. Mal’s journey is a fascinating blend of passion, creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit.
In this episode, Mal shares her evolution from aspiring lawyer to creative writer and finally, to digital marketing agency owner. She delves into the inspiration behind starting Alder & Co. after the unexpected closure of her previous workplace. With a focus on small businesses and nonprofits, Mal explains how her upbringing, with parents who were also small business owners, deeply influenced her mission and values.
Listeners will find unique insights into the challenges and triumphs of running a small agency. Mal discusses the importance of honesty in digital marketing, the delicate balance of managing client expectations, and the need for agility in an ever-changing industry. She also highlights the significant growth of her agency, from working solo at her dining table to managing a team and securing high-profile clients like a local public transit system.
A particularly engaging moment in the episode is when Mal recounts the humorous anecdote of her office’s “memorial wall” for client-killed design concepts, a common pain point many in the industry can relate to. Her candid discussion about dealing with anxiety and imposter syndrome while leading a business offers a powerful and relatable narrative for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Tune in to hear Mal’s inspiring story, filled with practical advice, heartfelt moments, and a clear passion for supporting small businesses. This episode leaves listeners contemplating the importance of community, the value of honest work, and the resilience required to succeed in the entrepreneurial world.
Don’t miss this compelling episode of “An Agency Story” as Mal Alder shares her journey, insights, and the questions that drive her to continually push for success.
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Show Transcript
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:
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast. I’m your host Russel. In this episode we’re joined by Mal Alder, the founder of Alder and Co based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Mal shares her inspiring journey from creative writing and journalism to establishing a digital marketing agency dedicated to small businesses. You’ll certainly appreciate her dedication to results by zeroing in on business objectives. In addition, we dive into the benefits, while embracing limitations, of focusing on your own marketing presence as an agency. Discover how Alderson CO’s honest and trackable approach to digital marketing has made them a trusted partner for their clients. Enjoy this story. Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Mal Alder with Alder Co with us here today. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Mal.
Mal:
Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here.
Russel:
Excited to have you. Start us off, what does Alder Co do and who do you do it for?
Mal:
We’re a full service digital marketing agency that’s focused on helping small businesses and non profits. Our clients range anywhere from a local restaurant down the street to a distillery that serves people nationwide. It’s fun and a whirlwind to be in.
Russel:
Distilleries and restaurants probably have a lot of good perks that come with them. Gotta love that.
Mal:
It’s not the worst job.
Russel:
I imagine we’ll talk a lot more about your agency side of things, but I’m curious just more about your journey to start us off. Where was young Mal headed with her life? What did she want to be when she grew up?
Mal:
That’s an excellent question. I remember the first job I thought I wanted was to run a coffee shop, and that was before Starbucks was a thing. I’ll date myself there. Growing up, for a while, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, because my mom was a lawyer. She said I was too empathetic to be a good lawyer so I switched to really falling in love with creative writing and the writing process. I majored in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry in college. I minored in journalism because I’m nosy and I knew I wanted to tell stories. I was interning at our local newspaper in Knoxville, my senior year of college, and I was offered a job to stay on, or I answered a Craigslist ad for an in house writer for a digital marketing agency. At the time, the digital marketing agency paid like three dollars more an hour, so I went that route and here we are a little over 10 years later, still in the industry.
Russel:
Amazing. It sounds like you’ve enjoyed it. Sounds like you’re doing well at it. Shout out, as our conversation before we started recording, your school, your alma mater won the college world championship baseball series.
Mal:
We did. Go Vols.
Russel:
Yes. Got to feel good about that. Poor old A&M just got kicked a couple of times in the process, but sometimes we like to hear that. Awesome. Sounds like just a very tried and true career path to get to where you’re at today. How did you actually end up starting the agency?
Mal:
What I’ve learned lately, more entrepreneurial stories than not is I actually lost the job I had. I was working for an agency and the two principals decided to retire. Instead of selling the book of business, they just decided to close. I was approached with a crossroads of do I take another in house digital marketing role with a local credit union or do I try to go out on my own? I consulted a little on the side and moonlit a little bit on the side. After some great advice for some people who ran their own businesses, they gave me the push I needed to try. I always said, if I go broke, I’ll get an MBA and I’ll try again. But we turned six in December, which it’s crazy to believe. Don’t tell UT, but I won’t be re enrolling anytime soon.
Russel:
The folks you work with’s gain, UT’s loss. Very cool. How long were you contemplating this shift to actually start your own business?
Mal:
Candidly growing up, both my parents worked for themselves and they both worked out of the house, so I was familiar with feast or famine of being entrepreneurial or entrepreneurs and working for yourselves. I liked the stability of having a nine to five job and not being the last person to get the phone call when the house is on fire, so I was really reluctant. But I found out the beginning of October that the agency was closing and my last day was the last week of November. Right around Thanksgiving. I just decided to lean all in. I was fortunate enough to have a little bit of savings and I said, that’s my runway. If I run out of this before I can make up my half of the bills to my amazing then fiance now husband, then I’ll go try and get a job. I launched Alder Co with a Facebook post and we have been referral based ever since.
Russel:
It sounds like it’s no looking back in the end. Love what you shared there, what’s the worst that can happen, right? I go get a job, versus what’s the best that can happen, obviously, where you’re at today. What was that first year look like emotionally, business wise? What were just some of your thoughts and feelings when you think upon those early days?
Mal:
Definitely a lot of learning curves and learning opportunities. As I said, I was an English major with a journalism minor. I never took a business class, so I quickly adopted the two philosophies of don’t get sued, don’t get audited. If you’re a good person, hopefully money will work itself out. I am extremely appreciative to those clients that signed on with us at the beginning, most of which are still with us today and growing with us as we’ve evolved over the last few years.
Russel:
When you think back, what are those major evolution periods or transitions as you’ve gone through the business process. How differently does the business look today versus what it was when you first started?
Mal:
I remember when I first started, I worked most of my time right from the dining room table I’m at right now. Now we have an office building near downtown. I went from working with just myself and a couple contractors who would help supplement to work to now I have two full time employees and we’re looking at bringing on a third. Incredible to see the evolution. Some of the clients we have today are clients I never would have dreamed we would get almost six years ago. I think a good example is we recently developed a website for our local public transit system. Working from your dining room table, you don’t think you’re going to get a city contract, or you don’t think you’re going to work with a nationwide healthcare company. Seeing the different opportunities and the different industries we’ve been able to touch and work in has been really fun and really invigorating.
Russel:
And maybe even speak to that from a service perspective, like how differently is what you’re doing today from when you first started?
Mal:
We’ve always offered high quality service to our clients, but we’re definitely able to elevate it a little bit more. By growing our team, we’ve been able to expand beyond just like social media, website, and graphic design. We now have an ASI number, so we can help with promo items, merch, and we have a lot of great relationships with local vendors, including printing companies. We are able to position ourselves as that project management, one stop resource for our clients, which as a small business owner, that’s huge, or even for a nonprofit. You’re either the business owner who’s tired and burnt out, or you’re that department of one person who just needs some help. We’re able to step in and fill that gap for our clients.
Russel:
We’ll just follow down the train of growth and evolution. You personally, how have you grown and evolved and was there any kind of major investments you feel like you’ve made in yourself over the last six years?
Mal:
I think when you’re talking about being an entrepreneur, working for yourself, I think you’re doing a disservice if you don’t lean into at least acknowledging imposter syndrome. I’m pretty open that I have pretty big, like general anxiety disorder. I always remember even when I was doing a good job at the roles that I had, I was always that person who was just convinced doomsday I was going to get fired. Transitioning that into everything depending on me and then also having these employees where I understand their families depend on me and their wellbeing. Leaning into being able to trust myself and know what I do and know that I do it well and having that confidence. It’s been nice to step into that part of the leadership role of no longer being scared. There’s still scary things, but I no longer think the world’s falling apart.
Russel:
That sounds like just what you shared there of just a person that, maybe be prone to some anxiety that, that has been therapy for, just to build the confidence and all the challenges I imagine you’ve overcome to be where you’re at today. Do you see that same effect just in your personal day to day life, even more so than business?
Mal:
My friends will often joke, I have never necessarily been the shy person in personal settings. It’s always been related to just kind of career and in business. Being able to take ownership in my skills in a setting where I know I thrive in has, I helped me become a better, well rounded person, if that makes sense.
Russel:
If we can make this work in all aspects of our lives, we’re doing a good thing, so I love to hear that for you. One of the things you, you talk about a lot, and I can just tell is your passion for small business in particular. Where does that originate from? Why is that a focus for you?
Mal:
Circling back with my parents being small business owners, that’s really big. Just growing up, most of the jobs that I had when I was in college were always for locally owned businesses. I’m a big supporter in the lift one lift all mentality. Supporting local and getting involved in your community, whether that’s volunteering or, donating, whatever works best for you. I believe it’s our responsibility to help uplift the community around us. I always try to stay focused, super large corporations are fun to work on. You have really large budgets and everyone drives a Tesla. But, at the end of the day, that big box store will leave your community and never think twice about you, but it is that local restaurant, or that local distillery, or that small commercial insurance business that’s helping fellow small business owners navigate the crazy world of general liability and cybersecurity and things like that really make where you live matter. It’s important to me to help that aspect of our community thrive.
Russel:
Music to my ears. Which makes me think of we were talking again before we hit the record button. You’d made the statement that digital marketing is in, especially for small business has become the traveling snake oil sales person, I think is how you worded it of our modern era. Tell me more behind that thought process.
Mal:
You always hear people making fun of corporate buzzwords, but even just a few of the marketing ones that come to mind, SEO, PPC, SEM, KPI, ROI. All of these different acronyms. If you’re looking at someone who, again, like me, didn’t have a huge business background, they just knew what they love to do, they wanted to make a career out of it. It’s a lot to navigate, and it can be really confusing. I don’t know the last time you set up a Google ads campaign, but there’s so many extra buttons than there were two years ago. Then it’s staying on top of all of that. It’s really easy to feel overwhelmed or to get frustrated when you’re approaching things that you don’t understand, so then you tend to lean towards quote unquote experts. But unfortunately there are people in our space that aren’t as, I don’t want to say as trustworthy, aren’t necessarily out there trying to empower their clients as much as they are trying to profit off their clients. The tagline of our business is honest digital marketing with trackable results. I wholeheartedly believe that we’re not going to sell something to a client just because it makes us money. If it does not make sense and it does not tie into one of their business objectives, it’s not part of the strategy. We aren’t going to build a website for someone and say, the only way you’ll continue to have access to this website is if you pay us a monthly maintenance fee. I don’t think that’s fair. I tell our clients a lot, we’re going to be best friends forever, but if we break up, what’s yours is yours. Working with our clients and helping empower them so they understand what the metrics means instead of just showing a bunch of fluffy numbers to make it look like we’ve done our job. We’d like to tie it down back to actual moving the needle for them.
Russel:
There’s multiple reasons when I look back, even in my own agency journey that bigger clients, bigger budgets certainly allow agencies to flex their creative wings more, just give more opportunities to do things that might otherwise seem interesting, but also you’re less accountable to the results because the results are a lot more obfuscated or hidden per se of what it’s actual true impact. But when you’re working with a small business, it’s pretty hard to hide, whether or not you’re actually being effective for them to not, which is a lot harder, to produce and provide. How have you navigated that difficulty I would say that ultimately is inherent to how integral you are to that business’s success?
Mal:
Cause I mean, a hundred dollars can make or break a month for a small business. You want to be a responsible steward of their money. One of the things we do is we’re structured where we’re not necessarily service based. I think it’s important for us to be responsible stewards of our clients money. That’s why one of the things like we are, we’re so time based and we’re service based because, and that allows us to have a little bit more flexibility. For example, when you are working for a larger client, I understand living and dying by the scope of work because that’s how the agency can upsell or make more money or cover cost of scope creep. It all happens. But how we do it is actually, we set aside dedicated hours for each client per month based on the strategy and the campaign that we’ve put together. I know how many hours a month on average it takes me to run a successful paid ad campaign or a social media campaign, or how long it takes to make a series of social graphics. By having those hours, our clients then have access to all of the services that we offer. When things change, where they move quickly, which it often does in the digital marketing landscape. I think COVID’s a really good example of that. A lot of people who didn’t think social media mattered realize that’s the only way that they can talk to people and provide updates or suddenly everyone needed a website. By being able to be nimble, we’re able to adapt and grow with our clients as their needs change, which has been, from the feedback we’ve gotten, one of the reasons most of our clients love working with us.
Russel:
That flexibility is certainly key. I’ve talked with several folks about this lately. We think of stock prices and where a stock price is too high or real estate market and real estate is too high. As a thought from my perspective, we’re in this world where the price of marketing is high when we just talk about all the noise, right? If you even just think at a granular level, what a cost per click for a specific web design term is today versus what it was 10 years ago is vastly different. It’s way ahead of the pace of inflation. Long story short, the cost of marketing is high, which you could argue in some cases, do small businesses have the ability to make a meaningful impact if the overall market is higher? How do you look at the amount of things that probably need to be done to be successful, but do that in a way that’s profitable?
Mal:
A lot of that is, again, tying it back to what those business objectives are and what is the easiest way for us to achieve that client goal. Where is the target market? Fortunately a lot of the small businesses we’re working with, they’re not looking at a nationwide campaign. If you’re able to really focus in and set your audience to a more targeted, data point, then it’s easier to have that money stretch a little bit further in Google AdWords, really leaning into those long tail keywords and niching out. But then also not being afraid of some of even the more traditional advertising patterns. If it makes the most sense, if you are a school and you’re wanting to market new families with kids in certain age ranges, you can still put the yard sign out, or you can send the postcard, or you can set up a tent at the citywide reading, children’s reading fair. Helping identify really what is the best way to promote. I see a lot of people with SEO, when SEO first came out, everyone’s like, we need a blog. It was like, that’s facts. But are you going to keep up with it? Are you going to follow it? Or they’ll say, we need to update all the keywords on our website often. I was like, that’s not how it works. You want your, these pages on your site to rank for certain keywords, you don’t want to then once a month go in and change all the keywords on the one page or you’re gonna confuse Google. If you’re wanting to get more traffic to your site, what are some of the ways we can actually like leverage that so you are maybe getting more organic traffic than you were originally. Do you have an email list set up? Let’s start collecting those and building from there. Do you have a loyalty program? Do you have, a rewards, a referral program? How, again, can we help you start working a little bit smarter?
Russel:
That’s definitely the key words I was just listening for there is just, be a little creative and sometimes less is more, especially when dollars are limited. As you said at the end, you’ve got to go uncover some rocks that maybe others didn’t think about which speaks to that creativity piece. All good elements, can really see where that’s critical. What should they say no to, to the whole point of the blog piece, right? It’s an easy one to think I have to have but there’s nothing worse than a blog that hasn’t been updated in the last two years. Including probably a lot of agencies out there, reminders to check in their blog and decide if they need it.
Mal:
I probably need to update mine, now that we talked about it. Or at least hide the dates on it. But that kind of goes through, I don’t trust marketers that are good at marketing themselves. They have too much time on their hands.
Russel:
I would probably challenge you on that. Where again, as I think this is a common, phrase in the agency space, the cobbler’s kid has no shoes. But I go back to say, one of the best things that folks can do is focus on themselves and that it’s actually not selfish. Here’s my gotcha there is, we’re going to push the boundaries harder for ourselves because we’re not as concerned. If we fail, we only have ourselves to blame. We’re not losing revenue. We’re not making anybody upset. It’s our own thing. But we’re learning so many lessons in that process that we can actually pull back to the client experience, that can help us further and actually be better for our clients. Some people feel like if they work on themselves, they’re taking away from the client. I tend to think it’s actually quite the opposite. But I do understand the sentiment behind what you say there for sure.
Mal:
It’s definitely a balance of, we’ll circle it back to again, business objectives. What are you trying to do and what are you trying to achieve? We lean a lot on our social media of promoting recent projects or client successes. But just the other day, our team, we do our weekly staff meeting now at one of our favorite local coffee shops. We were all walking out the door and we’re like, should’ve taken a photo. And we just didn’t. I was like, okay. It ebbs and it flows. There’s times where we look up and we’re like, we should probably update that blog, or we should probably at least show a little bit of proof of life on social media. But, then, you know, our clients always come first.
Russel:
And not unto like what you’re saying, like you’re saying, you’re a small business too. Just because you do the service, you don’t have unlimited resources to, do your own work. I think it’s all about what you’re saying there of eat your own medicine. And look, you’re talking to the guy that’s had an agency that built websites that, I think when we had a lot more time on our hands in the early days, we redid our website every other year. The last 10 years of when I was in the business, I think we maybe redid it twice and it was always, how do we get something out the door? That’s a little more updated where we’re at today. But, I honestly think if I’d go back in my agency journey, I would, I’d shut down the office for a month. I know that would be a pain and technically not feasible, but I would make the biggest, baddest, bestest website that I could possibly build for ourselves because, just to even just showcase our capabilities. We can even show clients what the potential can be cause we, again, we can’t always stretch those wings, um, on our clients’ websites or for a financial services business or something like that. That’s an interesting concept. I can totally appreciate, it’s easier said than done.
Mal:
I remember when we first started, I quick needed a website. We specialize in WordPress websites, and I had this old theme that I had bought years ago for my online digital portfolio, and I just finagled that to work. It was such a limited theme, I had to get into the CSS to even update the colors of the headings. It took at least probably four years for us to finally build a site that actually emulated our brand and explained the services that we offer. It’s definitely a growth and I respect what you’re saying where, lean in, biggest, baddest. Cause there’s a lot of learning in developing those new tools, but we spin it because we don’t industry niche. We work for a wide variety. From business to business and business to consumer and in the education and in the government space. I always appreciate those projects that we work on because then in themselves, they’re puzzles. We worked on the public transit, how do we integrate with Google transit or live map tracking for their buses? Or developing that parent portal for a school or tying in the third party sales platform for online liquor distribution for our distillery. It’s those tools that we can show again, telling the story of what we can do through telling about our client successes is just the route that we’ve taken with it.
Russel:
I love your approach to business. I always love someone that, that doesn’t lose sight of and takes the focus on small business. I’m really curious where to go from here. What is the big goal? What are you trying to achieve?
Mal:
It’s an excellent question. I think you asked me this when we first started talking and I still don’t have a clear definition. I know I don’t want to grow to be this huge agency with staff of 20 plus people. It’d be really cool to have a legacy of moving on, but I don’t have any kids that are no Alders behind me to step in and take over Alder Co. The mission of the company, and I’m fortunate that my staff agrees, it’s just do the best we can with the time that we’re given while we’re here. As long as clients will allow us to continue to work with them, we’re going to still be here and delivering high quality work for them.
Russel:
Nothing wrong with that. Do good work. Continue your mission and purpose, can’t wait to see how that continues to shape out for you. Last question for you, Mal, are entrepreneurs born or are they made?
Mal:
Whew. I think you have to have something in you to make it work. I’ve talked to a few friends about this recently, or you’ll hear people say, oh, I could never work for myself. That said, if you’re presented with an opportunity of it’s either don’t eat or make up your own job, people will find a way to survive. But there is an innate drive because entrepreneurship forever will always be the most rewarding but the most isolating thing you’ll ever do. Understanding at the end of the day, if things aren’t going right, or things aren’t going well, you have to figure it out. You can lean on your support system and the people around you, but not everyone’s going to know everything. Some people are fortunate where they do have business partners. I don’t. It could be a different story for them, but I think you have to have just an innate hunger for success. Through that, you’re born through the fire or forged in the fire, I should say, of survival.
Russel:
Forge in the fire of survival. That needs to be a song for business owners. Not a songwriter, but if anyone is out there listening, write a song about that, I’ll pay for it maybe.
Mal:
It’ll be the new intro song for the podcast.
Russel:
There we go, yeah. Maybe I’ll create a new jingle that I like a good rock song. That sounds like a good rock song. I can see that being a good intro. That’s a great idea. If people want to know more about Alder Co, where can they go?
Mal:
We’re tagged@TheAlderCo on all social media platforms or our website, thealderco.com. You want to see a bunch of photos of my dogs, you can follow me at MalNotMel. but yeah.
Russel:
That’s your username is Mal, not Mel.
Mal:
Mm hmm. Mal, short for Mallory isn’t as common as like Mel and Melanie. When I needed to come up with a handle, I was like, Mal, not Mel. For a while, I had a whole shrine in my office of things that had just misspelled my name.
Russel:
I imagine a lot of people are feeling your pain out there that have hard to spell names. Me, not entirely different. Certainly appreciate that. Thank you so much for coming on the show today to share your story, Mal. Love what you’re doing. Hope you do it for many, many more businesses for many, many years to come. I look forward to seeing how that goes for you. Thank you for taking the time to share it with us today.
Mal:
Yes, and thank you again for the opportunity. I really appreciate it.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of An Agency Story podcast where we share real stories of marketing agency owners from around the world. Are you interested in being a guest on the show? Send an email to podcast@performancefaction.com. An Agency Story is brought to you by Performance Faction. Performance Faction offers services to help agency owners grow their business to 5 million dollars and more in revenue. To learn more, visit performancefaction.com.
Mal:
Our internal office joke is you’re talking about digital marketing, some of it being more accessible and kind of everyone has an opinion who, and everyone thinks that they can do it. My designer and I, we’ve often joked at our office, we want to put up an in memoriam wall, designs we’ve loved that client edits have killed.
Russel:
I imagine every agency has more than its fair share of cemetery for designs that could have been, just seems part of the agency life, but I feel your pain there.
Mal:
Cause it’s without fail, you send three concepts, one you love, they’re going to pick the one you like the least.
Russel:
It is a little true.
