How to Navigate Difficult Business Relationships with Honesty, Negotiation, and Values - Zoe Share

Meet Zoe [00:00:00]

‍Jacob Harmon: thank you so much for joining me today. Zoe share. Is that how you pronounce your name? I should have asked that before we click the record

button.

Zoe Share: Share sharing is caring. That's what it's all about.

Jacob Harmon: That's an awesome last name. I kind of wish my last name was an actual verb. I think that'd be cool.

Zoe Share: It's been very useful in my career because before I started a marketing agency, I was a kindergarten teacher. So

Jacob Harmon: Oh, wow. Okay.

Zoe Share: Ms. Share Loves sharing and Ms. Share loves caring. and then now that I'm in marketing, it's all about sharing that post. And everyone just thinks it's my made up name, but it's my real name.

Jacob Harmon: Wow.  that's crazy.  and since you mentioned it, Going from a  kindergarten teacher to marketing professional. How does that work? Uh, and what skills transferred there? was your journey  getting into marketing?

Zoe Share: Yeah, that's a really commonly asked question because it does seem totally unrelated. so I, I have a bachelor's degree in English  literature and also a bachelor of education. And it was always my intention to become a teacher because I love literature and I wanted to open.

Children's worlds up with learning new ideas and meeting new characters and immersing themselves in other worlds. And essentially, I didn't like being a teacher and decided to go back to business school. So I got a master's in business. And no one understood why I was there. And I was just like, maybe we maybe I'll start a tutoring company or maybe I'll, you know, write a book or something.

Um, and by the end of the school year, at the end of my master's program, I was basically. Telling everybody what to do. Basically a bunch of my classmates started businesses and I was like, no, one's going to understand this. You have to make this more simple. Have you actually spoken to someone who would use this product or service?

And, um, I realized that marketing is an intersection between education, literature, and business, and. I fell in love with it because it really is about translating someone's big vision and to something that's more consumable, more bite-sized. And, uh, especially if there's something good behind it, uh, you know, social good behind it, then it's something that's a pleasure to sell and to teach people about.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah, I've never thought about the intersection between marketing and education. I don't know why it's super obvious. I mean, basically what you're doing is you're educating customers about your brand or your product, but I'm actually an education major myself. I went to school for Spanish teaching and I never actually ended up teaching.

I also got a degree in computer science and that pays a lot more. So I ended up more in the computer field.

‍The value of simplicity [00:03:01]

but that's super fascinating to me, that idea of education. And  I've heard it said that you don't really know something, unless you can explain it to a five-year-old, unless you can dumb it down to that level. So have you found that background in education and being able to work with kids useful in your marketing career?

Zoe Share: yes, short answer. Yes. Million times over and so many different ways. And, another expression people say is, keep it simple, stupid. sometimes people use jargon and try and make things sound much greater than they are. And, um, usually people can detect that pretty quickly. Um, You know, you can just a lot of kids who, I remember this one kid coming up to me when I was teaching, being like, you know, ms.

Share, you have a big red dot on your face. And I was like, yes, it's called a pimple. Thank you. Um, they're just so honest. They're so honest. And then all these grownups are just like tiptoeing around pretending they know each other's talking about. And what I've sort of learned is that you just have to say what you mean.

And, then things are a lot more simple because then you're not confused about what the intentions are. So yes, marketing and education have gone hand in hand, not only in how I lead, our team to help customers, but also in how I. Believe in leadership being an opportunity to guide my team to further grow and educate themselves.

Right. So how is  my company more marketable? How has each of the people who work for me more marketable? how do you invest in people in a way that makes them want to continue coming back to you? And that's internal and external because you know, everyone's always chasing acquisition.

A lot of it is about retention. And keeping people feeling connected and keeping people feeling safe that paired with negotiation, which you have to do a lot with small children, has, I think made me a much stronger business person.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah. So I've  been taking little notes here because there's a couple of things I'd like to dive into that you've mentioned.  but first

‍Communication and Honesty [00:05:12]

I kind of wish that my clients were as brutally honest as a five-year-old like  sometimes I'll send someone a, a project and I need some feedback on it and there's like, Oh yeah, it looks good.

Like, or it looks fine. And just like, I wish that you would just. Just tell me what you were thinking. And I think that goes into building trust and relationships is you have to be willing to communicate and you have to be willing to even then even the hard conversations, you have to be whole to say, Hey, you have a pimple on your face.

Right. Metaphorically. Um, and so, so is there anything we can do to encourage  more communication and more conversation either with clients or other businesses or, or people that we do business with?

Zoe Share: so I've been in business for six and a half years, and I still have a lot to learn. I started when I was quite young, but, and I'm still quite young, but I have a lot to learn still, but I think one of the things that I've learned really clearly is that okay. Communication and expectations go hand in hand.

So you have to be thinking to yourself, okay. As someone who's accountable and a leader, am I making myself clear? am I making my weaknesses and my questions vulnerable and open? so I'll give you an example of how I would do it. I'd say hi. Ad specialist. I don't know how to solve this problem.

The client is asking for this. I don't want to go back to them without consulting with you first.

and I nervous that the client's going to take advantage of me if we don't have a really simple explanation. And you're really like actually quite smart, smarter than me in these areas of, running ads and marketing.

I'm not a technical marketer. but I feel kind of embarrassed that I'm your boss, and I don't know how to do this. What can we do together to get to the best outcome so that. I am representing the company well, and you're proud of the work that you're doing because it's going to get results. And I find that when I lead in that way, um, I need, like I'm saying, I need a solution.

I understand that. I don't know how to solve it. I'm coming to you as a trusted expert. And also don't take advantage of the fact that I don't know what to do here. it's that combination of How you come to someone with a request and how you demonstrate how you want to be spoken to, um, and how you're willing to show up, even when it's uncomfortable and you don't know everything.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah. And I think admitting that you don't know is. Sometimes the hardest thing, we all get caught up in our egos or at least I know I do. And it's really easy to say, well, I'll figure it out. Right. I'll just spend some time Googling. Like I can learn, I can figure this out. But sometimes the most important thing is knowing when to just trust someone else to do it,

Zoe Share: It's so hard. It's so hard.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah.

Zoe Share: it's one of the hardest things, because at the end of the day, I am accountable to pay everyone's salaries on my team. And the bottom line is with me and the customer yells at me and the customer could Sue me and I have to be able to stand behind everything.

And so if I, you know, I'm not perfect, I try really hard to be vulnerable and honest and trust in people. Let them  fail and gracefully learn from it. Sometimes I'm like, Oh my gosh, I wish I hadn't let them fail because I could have saved myself a lot of pain. But then I recognize Zoe, if you don't let your team fail and land safely in your arms, then

you're, you're never going to be able to, you know, go, go home and be with your kid. So I can't, at some point you can't do everything because there's other things you want to accomplish in your life. So it's like, Oh, and so for me, I was three years into my business and I was pregnant and I was like, Oh, I cannot hold on to everything anymore.

I have to rest other people. I don't have a choice either. I trust other people or likely clients are going to leave.

Jacob Harmon: Wow. That's so applicable to me in my situation right now, I'm currently  a solo entrepreneur with my web design business. And I'm getting to that point where I know that I have to bring people on, and I know that I have to start outsourcing and it's kind of scary, but, but I think that it's exciting too.

Zoe Share: I could just do it better myself, but,

but then, Oh, but what could I learn from this other person that would challenge me and make me better? So, yeah. It's ego, but it's also fear.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah. In fact, I was talking to my wife just the other day and I said, I almost feel like, I don't know if you've ever been cliff jumping or on a high dive diving board, but I'm like, I feel like I'm on the edge of the cliff. Just about to jump into the water and it's exciting, but I'm terrified at the same time.

And that's just kind of the feeling that I've had in getting to this point in my business,  where I have to start building a team, you know, and I have to start trusting in other people more. So thank you

Zoe Share: So during the pandemic,  we went from about eight or nine full-time staff to now we're at 12 to 13. So we've grown during the pandemic. Um, digital marketing services are in demand and I'm. Uh, continuing to grow my team.  and for me, you know, I guess as a piece of advice to you or to any of the listeners, it would be that When you go back to your mission and your values, which for me, is provide jobs to as many Canadians as I can, um, ethical jobs that they can wake up feeling good about. that's sort of like an internal guiding light for me. And then externally, how can I build communities that my clients feel really proud of as they create their own legacy?

I wake up every day. And I feel like I'm checking that off my list. And it took me time to realize that those were my values and those were the reasons I was doing what I was doing. and there's a lot of reasons for those, things that drive me. But that's what I would always encourage is understand what drives you, because it doesn't have to be the same thing that drives me, but that's how you're going to end up surrounding yourself with people who you can trust because.

They get it because they resonate with your mission and you and your values.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate that advice. And honestly,

‍Brand values and purpose [00:11:50]

it's interesting because so far every single guest I've had on this podcast, we ended up talking about values and really at the end of the day, that is the core of the brand. And if you have values and you always are going back to those values and  every decision that your business makes it's based on those values, that's how you create a powerful brand at the end of the day.

So

Zoe Share: Yeah, it's  a guide post. And. We don't do any, uh, social media marketing work, unless somebody is willing to invest in that type of work, because I'm not going to post something in a vacuum that doesn't go back to serving a wider mission. So you can say, you know, we're going to post something according to.

Uh, you know, uh, desired brand metric. Like we need to acquire this many followers in order for this many people to enter the pipeline, blah, blah. But at what cost, right? Like, do you really do is, is what you want 20 cents a click or is what you want 20 cents a click with a person who is connected to. Your company's value, purpose and mission because ultimately a conversion from someone who doesn't feel any sort of connection is not going to be one that brings regular revenue into your company.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah, so

Zoe Share: It's going to be, unless you're selling socks and you just need high volume and it doesn't matter that you're not connecting, but even a sock company probably will get repeat customers. More likely if the sock company is telling a story that is in line with, uh, consumers, you know, um, interests and, and, and things that they want to contribute to in the world.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah. Um, it's interesting that you bring up socks because I actually have a perfect example of a sock company. That's doing something right. Which is interesting. Um, but everyone has feet, right. And so you'd assume that a sock company doesn't really need to care too much because we'll shoot, everyone has feet or at least most people have feet.

And so let's just market to everyone. Um, but something that's interesting. I don't know if you've, have you ever heard of Bomba socks?

They, they advertise on a lot of podcasts, which is how I learned about them. But the interesting thing that they do is Bombas socks. Every sock you purchase, they donate a pair of socks to a homeless shelter. Um, because I guess socks are one of the socks are one of the most in demand thing and homeless shelters, which I didn't know

Zoe Share: Oh yeah. People, people, people are, are, you know, their mode of transportation is their feet and they're wearing out their shoes and socks regularly. Yeah.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah. And so I think that's a perfect example of how a commodity, something that everyone needs and something that you wouldn't think has a lot of brand value to it. You can create a really powerful brand around, even something like that.

Being “Good” [00:14:40]

‍Zoe Share: so this is,  what I deeply care about is, is how, how are consumers trusting you based on the way you're marketing your brand and, and something I struggled with as a marketer, um, And just like a person who's, I, I think I'm half decent. Um, be a little bit contradictory though, because people see marketers in a bit of a suspicious light, and they're looking for opportunities and they want to tell a good story and they want to position it in a certain way. So then again, it really does go back to. Okay, well, you're donating a certain amount of money to black lives matter. Well, would you have done that before the social justice movement happened on Instagram or is it only a decision you're making because, and you know, and that can really.

Lead to a brand being attacked and people calling them out and saying, you're disgusting. You're not trustworthy. You're you're not treating people the way you claim to be treating them, et cetera, et cetera, or to be celebrated. And unfortunately, in today's ecosystem,  because of all the suspicion and  all the hatred and all the fear, um, sometimes it's hard to know which company is doing it.

Just to try and gain trust and which company is doing it with the intention of doing good, no matter how many followers they gain. Um, and this is something I spend a lot of time thinking about because you know, what comes first, the trust or the following and, and what do you, what do you have to do to get the following to trust you?

And like, again, what comes first? So it's, this is the ethical dilemma of the marketer, or at least the. Decent half decent marketer, you know, the one who has

Jacob Harmon: Good ones.

Zoe Share: moral center. Yeah. Well, I can't speak, I can't speak for everyone and I can't, I can't, again, there's, what's good. And what's bad means something different to every single person.

So, you know, how do you, how do you decide if you're even good or trustworthy? What if I'm not? No, like it, it just, it does become a bit of a mess when you're in marketing, especially.

Jacob Harmon: it's not black and white either. You know, like I think everybody has some good in them. And I think most people, I think there are exceptions, but most people have good intentions and they want to do good. But their actions don't always align with that. Right. And so it's, and it's hard. I,

Zoe Share: It's really hard. It's really hard. None of us should be the, this is the truth. Like it's,  like, we're becoming Batman. We're becoming vigilantes. You are worth being trust. Like you are worth trusting and you are not worth trusting. Your intentions are good. Your intentions aren't good.

Like, we can't be that, that judge. And yet as consumers we are. So it definitely is a bit of a blurry. For me, it's a bit of a blurry situation and something worth exploring and talking about, and I don't have all the answers, obviously, because if I did well, that would be quite interesting to see what would happen to me.

Um, it's, it's definitely an interesting topic though. Yeah.

Navigating hard client relationships [00:17:54]

‍Jacob Harmon: Yeah, that's super fascinating. So in my main question would be to you then, um, what should come first? The I, the trust should become before the following, right? Um, if I'm understanding you correctly, you should be a trustworthy person before people even know about you or know that you exist. Is that kind of the idea?

Zoe Share: I mean, that's the hope, but  I've gone through enough situations in my career where I was like, I think this is a good client to onboard. I think this person is aligned with my values. We've vetted them. They've vetted us. It feels like a good fit. And then a few weeks into the job. It's like, Oh, my God, we're not aligned at all.

our values are not aligned. this, this work order, um, although it was laid out with the best of intentions on both sides, it's pretty clear that what you said was your goal is really not your goal. And all you really want from this is a quick turnover.  to quick revenue. And I'm not saying that there's any problem with wanting revenue because money is what allows us to give back in many ways, money and time.

But,  that's definitely only a tricky thing. If someone can't be like, I would prefer someone to come to me and say, it looks that way. I have the intention of doing these things, but if I don't hit this goal of revenue by this date, Like that would lead to a different marketing strategy than one who would say, I want to build a community first.

Right? Like there are different strategies that hit different goals and different. I just would rather, you be honest about what you want, and the order it needs to take place in, in order for you to be successful,  than  just try and, win me over with your social good side and lie about.

The money, like people need to be honest about the revenue that they need to collect from a marketing campaign.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah.

Zoe Share: So at this 0.6 and a half years into the business, I say, look, I'm going to ask you some hard questions or my sales and the business development team is going to ask you some hard questions about what your goals really are.

And then we're going to ask you again in a few days, and then we're going to ask you again in a few days, and then we'll give you a contract to sign. Um, Because suddenly, suddenly a few days later, they're like, Oh no, these are my goals. Now these are my goals now. And okay. That would be a total. That's like a, that's a growth marketing strategy as opposed to a community marketing strategy.

And yes, they need to go hand in hand, but we might do more content and engagement ads first, or we might do. You know, uh, a drip campaign or a funnel first, depending on what the client is after in their goals. Does that make sense or is that a little too? Nitty-gritty

Jacob Harmon: No, no, I kind of want to get into the nitty gritty. I like this. Um, and honestly, so one of the big questions that I have is what do you do when you figure out that a client is misaligned?  do you ever fire clients because of that? or is it more of, okay, let's finish out this contract and then we'll, we'll not continue it after that.

Uh, how do, how do you usually deal with those types of situations when.

Zoe Share: Yeah. It's really hard. Um, it is a case by case basis, though. We do have guidelines and process around what we do. Try and do, when something feels misaligned, you know, here's a red flag. We want to get back on the same page as this client. Let's take these steps, that client's customer success representative would alert the business development team and sort of say the client's not happy.

we expected them to be happy from this report, but they're not, and I need some help. You know, looking at this again, and then if it escalates, which, which it does, um, You know, to the point where, you know, uh, about six or eight weeks ago, I sent my, uh, I do a weekly vision meeting with my team.

and at the end of every vision meeting, I send sort of a question of the week, something to think about something that I want their insights on, um, because I, I really do value hearing from my team. And a few weeks ago, it was the end of the vision session survey was what does disrespect mean to you?

And what does respect mean to you? And the last question in the survey was how much would someone have to be paying schmooze my company every month for you to deal or tolerate with disrespect. And, um, I got, you know, I got 12 different answers. Um, some that said. Well, I, I like, I liked the hard questions I do.

I'm not going to shy away from them because I want to build a business that's gonna last. Um, and people who want to keep showing up to work every day. So I,  asked, and one person said there isn't, I wouldn't take a cent to be like, peanut. Nothing is worth being like, Fire, every client who disrespects me type of thing.

Um, someone else said, they'd have to be paying over 10,000 a month. Someone else said that it has to be paying over 20,000 a month. You know, someone else said. Well, depends on what the disrespect is. Um, right. So you start to unpack that and realize that what breaks someone's trust breaks their ability to do a job for a client, their thresholds are different based on their life experiences.

So, uh, you know, my answer to the question, would be, I. And this is, this is brutally honest. Um, I think, see this being like the, the bite for the podcast. So we share this is brutally honest, find out what she said. Um, so what I'm going to say about my brutally honest opinion about this is that if I fired every client who I felt disrespected by at some point, I probably wouldn't have very many clients.

Um, there are moments, awkward moments where you're like, did you just kind of call me stupid? Did you just question my math skills? Like, you know, and, and I'm not saying, I'm not saying I wouldn't have any clients, but it definitely weeds out the list much faster than it's like, you know? Well, do you want to have a business?

But there's definitely been cases where I would say I had to make three or four very hard firing client decisions in the last six and a half years. Mostly when they were swearing at us or harassing us with, with like very inappropriate emails.

Jacob Harmon: Hmm. Yeah, it's interesting. I love these like ethical dilemma type questions because it really makes you think. And honestly, I'm not sure what my answer to that would be. I've , I'm kind of sitting here thinking, okay, if I got that questionnaire, what would I be writing? And at the end of the day, like you said, Every relationship is going to have its ups and downs, personal relationships and business relationships.

It's like, if, if I wanted to get a divorce every time my wife and I had a disagreement like that would cause we we'd have been two years ago. Right. And so

Zoe Share: time to time. Sure. But I've probably, I've also probably disrespected you, right? Like it's, I'm not perfect.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah, and I think no relationship is. And if we, if we put that metaphor over into business, I think every business relationship isn't going to be perfect either. And so the real question is first, how do we deal with those misalignments? How do we, um, address the issues and how do we move on from there?

You know,

Zoe Share: Yeah. And I think, I think, again, it goes back to sort of saying. At the core, like, you know, being able to say we started this relationship with trust and respect for each other, and we're at a point now where it feels like that Goodwill has been lost. And, uh, you know, in order to salvage what we have left here.

And because I respect you, this is I think, a good time to make a transition plan. Um, you know, that's, that's the language I would be using, but it it's. It likely you're at that stage, they feel disrespected by, right. So, you know, who's right and who's wrong. And it, the point is it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. Who's right. And who's wrong. It matters how  you resolve it and the integrity you bring to resolving it. Like, are you gonna resolve it by being. You know, it it's ultimately like everything is a negotiation, right. Even,  building trust.

Negotiation [00:26:53]

‍Jacob Harmon: Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes I think negotiation scares me a little bit and I think it scares a lot of people.

Zoe Share: Yeah. It's a scary word. But what it ultimately means is saying what you need listening and then being strategic about figuring out a solution, right?

Jacob Harmon: yeah. And that goes back to being brutally honest, right? Uh, in a negotiation, you have to be willing to say, this is what I need. And then they have to say, this is what I need. And then you kind of just work together to compromise on that

Zoe Share: And that's where I would go back and say, I'm so grateful that I have a background in education and business because in teacher's college, we read about negotiating to help children be successful. Um, and that framing of negotiating to help people be successful. That's that's something I'll take with me wherever I go, because it doesn't mean I'm playing games.

It means that there's a goal in mind of getting people to success. So, you know, even in my head, I'm like, Oh my God, I'm being manipulative right now. Oh my God, am I I'm being too nice right now. I'm being a pushover right now.  so the narrative in your head is part of that negotiation too. You have to decide and negotiate with yourself. You know what? No, I am showing up in this way and I'm deciding that this is not being rude and this is not being. A pushover it's somewhere in the middle and I have to go to bed at night being comfortable with that.

So like, I'm having an internal negotiation about how I want to show up,

Jacob Harmon: Yeah. And I love that phrase, negotiating to success or negotiating towards success. I don't know exactly what you said there, but it makes me not dislike that negotiation word. It kind of makes negotiation and be like, Oh wait, we're just working together towards a common goal. And it's

Zoe Share: well, even if you just introduce that, even if you just introduce that language with a client and say, let's negotiate about like let's negotiate so we can be, the both of us can be the most successful possible

Jacob Harmon: Yeah. Yeah. I

Zoe Share: you teaching them that  it's okay for you to both have needs and say what you want.

Like part of the negotiation is how many rounds of edits. Because we both know in the creative industry that it could be a squillion rounds of edits and then you'll never make any money on the product you've sold because you've had to edit it eight per squillion times. So you do have to negotiate about that and you have to say, this is a negotiation around amount of edits in the, in this price, because.

I have experienced and know that this is what can either cause your budget to get out of control or it can cause my budget to get out of control. , it's both of your budget. It's not just the client's budget. It's your time budget.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah, well, and at the end of the day, it's framing it in. We want this to be win-win, you know, and I think any good business, any good business person wants it to be win-win. I think a lot of times there are business people that get bad raps, or oftentimes they think of like car salesman, right? It's like the, the classic sleazy business person.

Um, and. But it doesn't need to be that way. I mean, at the end of the day, business is providing value for someone else and they're providing value back to you in return. It's a, it's a symbiotic relationship.

Zoe Share: street. Yeah. And so that's why contracts and negotiation and saying, look, we have a great relationship. It's based on trust and mutual respect and trust and mutual respect are laid out clearly in a contract.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah. This is awesome.  I'm loving this conversation. This is great. Thank you. Um,

‍Learn to be a good consumer [00:30:43]

is there any thing that you'd like to dive into in the marketing world? So I'm kind of opening up the doors wide open here, um, that we haven't talked about yet, or any questions that I should have asked that I haven't, before we kind of wrap things up.

Zoe Share: I, I don't, I think the only thing I would say to you or any listener is. Don't be so quick to trust the ads that you see, you know, like Laura taught, we've been talking about being the service provider or the client, but what about being the consumer? Who's seeing this content all the time.

Um, as consumers, it is important that we're also thinking responsibly about who to trust and. Where we're going to put our money. And I think, the gift of 2020 is that people are being a bit more discerning about where they're putting their money because they understand that local businesses are struggling and they understand et cetera, et cetera.

that there's a lot of political friction and they understand all these different things, right. What's going on in the world right now. And so my hope would be that. Consumers are able to start, you know, there's, there's these like, you know, trust and cause marketing metrics that come out, like how important is this to consumers?

Like the more that consumers care about how trustworthy and how transparent companies are, the more businesses will have to be. Demonstrating with transparency, how they're trustworthy and how they're ethical. So it's on the companies, but it's also on the consumer to decide that it's worth, having a closer relationship or spending, you know, putting their money where their mouth is in terms of their beliefs,  to demonstrate to businesses that it is important to.

Be transparent, be ethical, lead with values. So I would just, I guess my final point would be, bring it back to the consumer's responsibility in all of

Jacob Harmon: Nice. Thank you for that. I think that that is important and it's just. Spending that extra couple of seconds to think about things, right. Instead of just clicking and buying or going straight to Amazon and purchasing, like

Zoe Share: Yeah. And I would say like, if, if it is about, you know, clicking and purchasing, there's, there's small things that I've made commitments to and I'm, again, I'm not perfect, but you know, I, I have young daughter and I, I really say if it's plastic, I'd prefer to buy it secondhand. Because I'm not going to be perfect.

I'm going to get, you know, wasteful containers with pop patrol characters on them that get thrown away in a few weeks. But if, if I,  you know, the yogurt containers with the characters on them, I have to buy those sometimes. So she's like, Ooh, yogurt. Um, but if I can get Lego pieces gently used and know that.

I'm I'm sparing the environment a little bit of plastic. Um, that gives me a little check Mark in my head that I've, I've just done one little thing a little bit better. Um, and there's a lot of things I feel guilty for not doing well enough, but I'm only one person. And if every person just takes a few tiny things, it could make, it could really make a difference.

Jacob Harmon: And at the end of the day, I think it's easy to get overwhelmed with all of the, the little things we might do that we don't, the don't necessarily align with our values. But like we said earlier, nobody's perfect, you know, and it's okay. As long as we're improving. And I did another podcast for awhile, I was doing a podcast called success quest, and it was all about becoming successful and improving and.

What I'm the big thing that I learned from that podcast was it's not about achieving success, but it's more about the journey because once you get there, you're going to want to get somewhere else. You know, there's always more that you can get to. And so really at the end of the day, I think it's just being a little better each day, as a business and as a consumer, just trying to do just a little bit better every day.

So

Zoe Share: Well, what will we put on this earth to do? Make it worse? I don't think so.

And if that's what you think then, um,

Jacob Harmon: Not the ideal client. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. So this has been a super enlightening conversation for me. I have learned so much and there's a lot of things I need to go, and I'll probably listen to this podcast a couple of times to try to

Zoe Share: Oh, I'm so glad it was really nice talking about it. These are the things that I think about day in and day out. And, uh, I'm really happy to have spent the time with you.

Jacob Harmon: Yeah. Well, thank you. And where can our listeners get in touch with you? If they want to maybe ask you some follow up questions or maybe they want to work with your brand or something, where can they find you?

Zoe Share: My best platform is LinkedIn. I prefer it the most. I find it the most professional and the least mentally draining, um, to say, to say it in a diplomatic way. I mean, I run a social media marketing agency, so obviously I'm on all the platforms, but LinkedIn is a great place to talk to me. And, you know, my name's Zoe share, and then my company is called schmooze and I'm sure you can include the link in the, in the description, but yeah, it's called schmooze, S C H M O O Zed.

Um, and I'm Canadian. So it's a.ca at the end. social news.ca and you know, I guess the only thing I'll leave you with on that note is. You're paying for schmooze. You're not paying for Zoe. So if you want to pay for Zoe, it's more expensive.

Jacob Harmon: Well, that's probably a whole nother topic. Maybe we'll have to have

Zoe Share: Oh, I totally got in touch with me. I'll send you in the right direction. And I've got an amazing team who is resilient and has my back and believes in my vision. And, uh, I I'd be very glad to answer any questions. Anyone has.

Jacob Harmon: Awesome. Well, thank you so much. So we, uh, I've heard it said before that Canadians are some of the nicest people on this world and from our conversation today, I think that's true. So thank you.

Zoe Share: my pleasure. Nice spending the time with you. Have a great night.

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