#awinewith Natasha Williams
MEET Natasha Williams, Founder of Word of Mouth Digital
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:05):
So good. Natasha, welcome to Spark tv.
Natasha Williams (00:09):
Hi. Thank you for having me.
Danielle Lewis (00:11):
I'm so excited to chat with you. We've just been gas bagging for the last 10 minutes before you record, so I feel like this is going to be juicy.
Natasha Williams (00:19):
I think I'm a certified yapper for sure.
Danielle Lewis (00:23):
I love it. Let's start out by telling everyone who you are and what you do.
Natasha Williams (00:28):
So I'm t or Natasha, formally Natasha Williams, and I'm one of the co-founders of Word of Mouth Digital, which is a Sydney based boutique digital agency. We've been operating for nine years. I just founded it with my brother, who's also my business partner.
Danielle Lewis (00:50):
Amazing. Nine years in business. Congratulations. That's got to feel good or exhausting. Which one?
Natasha Williams (00:58):
I think I often forget how long it's been because when you're in the day to day everything, especially in digital, everything's new all the time, everything's changing. The business is constantly evolving, so sometimes I'm shocked that it's been so long and I had started a business when I was 18, so I've been sort of in the space for a very long time. So I just don't know any different, I guess.
Danielle Lewis (01:25):
Yeah, that's so true. And you're so right. Oh my god, we've got a new bloody social network that launches every year. Algorithms change all the time.
Natasha Williams (01:37):
I think every iteration is sort of a new birth of the business, so it never feels like, I'm like, oh my God, that's just dragging on.
Danielle Lewis (01:47):
Yeah, that's so good. I love it. So kind, what's your target customer and what kind of services do you specifically offer them?
Natasha Williams (01:56):
I mean, as a business in its totality, it's fairly rare where what I would consider pretty much full service end to end. My brother's side, he is in web dev, so his side of the business is tech development and my side of the business is marketing and all things associated. So in terms of who our client mix is, I'm pretty agnostic or who's our target audience. It's less about stage of business, less about your vertical and more about your approach to digital, your understanding of how it fits into your commercial mix and an appetite for growth and change and scale. So we service brands like big enterprise brands like Ultraceuticals or Solar Origin. We also have startups that spend $300 a month on meta ads. So it's pretty varied. It's more for me around, I have a no dickheads policy of clients that we work with. That's really important to me and more around mindset and how they approach
Danielle Lewis (03:07):
Business. That's really interesting. So my previous business, scrunch was an influencer marketing company, so agency and software platform. And it just used to make me laugh. People would ask for a proposal but be like, I hate influencers and I think they're their shit and I don't think they work. I'm like, well, why the fuck are you asking me and why would and I know going in that you don't think this is a good idea. So whatever we do you're going to be unhappy with. So I love that you vet clients based on mindset. That's so good.
Natasha Williams (03:42):
Well, it's, I think there's clients that maybe have either this is very common, been burnt by an agency,
(03:49):
That is probably the number one thing we see or don't understand digital, and I think when something feels very foreign to you, often the response is quite defensive or a little negative. So those kind of clients, that's an education process. I'm down for that. The clients that you're talking about that are like, I don't believe in digital. Okay, well why are you here? And I've learned when there is a path of least resistance and there has to be a little bit of resistance, but when it's a red flag and that's just at a stage in my life, I just don't have the time or energy. That's just the reality.
Danielle Lewis (04:31):
Yeah. It's also like 2025 people. When is digital not relevant? I was literally just sitting there thinking, okay, what industry would I not Google if I was a customer? It's
Natasha Williams (04:45):
Nothing.
Danielle Lewis (04:46):
Yeah, it's so bizarre. I know recently, so I relocated to a regional town in WA three years ago
(04:55):
And it was so funny. So when my husband was like, how do you feel about this move? I was like, well, I'll just jump on Instagram and I'll see what's there. And he's like, why are you looking at Instagram? Why wouldn't I look at Instagram? Totally. It was wild because nobody hears on it. Everyone's still stuck at Facebook and I've made it my mission to convince the town that every business in the town, they have to be on Instagram, move with the times people. But it does still shock me and I actually think it's cool from a business owner point of view because it's like no matter what industry you're in, there's still people who are just discovering what you do and just dipping their toes in the water. We think about digital and we're like, yeah, of course you have to have a digital strategy. You have to be online, you have to do all the things, but there are some businesses still dipping their toes in the water. So it's like you still always have this never ending stream of customers.
Natasha Williams (05:49):
I think there's always opportunity, and I think all digital is not right for all businesses, but there's always a piece of it that is, and like you say, it might be for instance, most Gen Z and younger, they don't really Google stuff anymore. They look it up on TikTok just like you looked it up on Instagram. So if they're looking for a restaurant review or whatever, I think it's just there's a certain level of enterprise client where there's a different approach and understanding of business and often that means we have to educate in a different way when it comes to digital.
Danielle Lewis (06:29):
Yeah, I love it. And I love too that you've got the web dev side as well. I think that that's really interesting. One thing that I often see as people think about things in isolation, they go, I just need to be on TikTok or I just need to be on Instagram. I just need this. But it's actually, digital is an ecosystem. It all has to work together.
Natasha Williams (06:49):
And that is probably, I think one of our biggest selling points is like, firstly it's my brother. So I think we have a really, there's a lot of similarities in how we approach strategy just by nature of our DNAI suppose. But also often what will happen is marketing will come up with this great promo idea and then dev will say, that's not feasible in the timeline or whatever, or that's not how it works or that's not optimized for CRO because we're able to work, it means that we can eliminate a lot of those barriers. And also quite honestly, from a cost efficiency perspective, often web dev can be exorbitant for small business and we've made it our mission to make it. We don't have any maintenance contracts, it's all based on hourly project to make it as consumable for small business as possible so that they can have that full ecosystem and not be paying five 10 K month that he made his face is insane to me.
Danielle Lewis (07:54):
Yeah, totally. I love that. What's it like working with your brother as a co-founder?
Natasha Williams (08:00):
Well, I would say the first, also my brother and I and my husband, he moved out when we had our first baby, but we had effectively been living together for the last 12 years,
(08:15):
Done the business, he was traveling on and off. So we lived and worked together, particularly during Covid. So I would say the first five years is pretty tough. I'm not going to lie. We had a lot of fights. We were really in each other's pockets. And when you're starting a business that the early couple of years is very stressful, really high intensity, there's a lot on the line. But I think if anything, it's made our relationship much better overall professionally and not because we had to figure out a way to communicate that was more healthy and more professional in front of other people. And it meant that we then we have a much healthier cadence of listening to each other, taking on the feedback. Whereas in the past I would be defensive and be like, F you, no, you're my little brother or whatever. And I'm very grateful to be able to do something with my brother every day. It keeps us connected. I wouldn't want to be generating income and being successful if he wasn't and he feels the same way. So the fact that we can do that together is very special for me.
Danielle Lewis (09:29):
That's so cool and it's such a nice mission to be a part of each other's success.
Natasha Williams (09:37):
Totally. What's success if you can't share? We honestly, in the early days, I know, but we hired a lot of our friends and many of our friends still work in the business, all have equity because it's more fun if you get to share it with people you love. Right.
Danielle Lewis (09:55):
That's so cool. So what does your team look like now?
Natasha Williams (10:00):
So on the dev side there's around 20 PMs devs. Do you see traffic managers? And on the marketing side, I'm about the same. We recently hired Natalie who is effectively sort of like, she's our business mom, we call her, but effectively commercial director, CEO. We've got a head of digital. Most of our team, or in fact all of our team works remotely. We let go of our office during Covid for obvious reasons. And the team kind of works between Sydney, Melbourne, got two people up in Queensland, and then we have at any one time, probably four or five people in Bali. So my brother, his two right hand woman and man travel in and out of Bali pretty regularly and we're building an office there. So at any one time I would say there's at least five of them in Bali surfing and working. So it's a pretty varied, we're sprawled out. And part of that is honestly, I'm a mom now, so on the marketing side of things, there's eight moms in the team and that is part of my purpose or mission is to make a really flexible workspace for the most talented women I know to be able to execute what they can effectively but also pick up those kids from school or there's always at least one little human in the background of a zoom with a client. None of that bothers me at all. I think it adds to our success.
Danielle Lewis (11:46):
That's so awesome. And it's really interesting because never have we lived in a time where it's so easy to do that, but people, not everyone's on board yet.
Natasha Williams (11:58):
No. And in fact, I think there is, at least with some of the bigger businesses, a sort of reversion back to IRL and we've just kind of taken a stance that we will never have an office again. We will always be remote recruiters often find it's easy to recruit talent for us because we're very flexible and covid proved that it's possible. I'm not our team's mom, they're employer, and I trust 'em to get the work done. I don't care if you get it done at 1:00 AM or 10:00 AM if it gets done, it gets done.
Danielle Lewis (12:38):
It
Natasha Williams (12:38):
Be standing over your shoulder in the office.
Danielle Lewis (12:41):
Yeah, totally. Yeah, exactly. It's just wild how many people have gone, oh no, we have to go back to that way. It's like why? Things operated fine when everyone was remote. It's just really bizarre. I know. Do you have any tips for people who do manage remote teams? Has there been anything that, apart from being amazingly flexible, has there been anything that's been critical for you to making sure that people actually do the job that they were hired for?
Natasha Williams (13:09):
Yeah, I think ultimately there has to be a level of trust. And I think that any decent human being, when you give them the trust and confidence and empowerment to do what they need to do and a healthy, safe working environment, nine times out of 10 they're going to do it. And so I just trust in our team. I think a lot of it also just comes down to hiring for cultural fit. We've of course made lots of mistakes with hiring. That's been, I think my biggest challenge in business is hiring. But the people that we've kind of curated and have stuck around and the experts in their field genuinely have a love and passion for what they do. And I think that just comes down to culturally how we all come together and there's other ways to foster community. I think everyone really has each other's backs. We will do IRL meets where we can or fly people in to see us or send everyone little coffee, lunch date vouchers so they can hop online and we can chat. So I think we never want it to feel cheesy and forced. I think a lot of that sort of corporate coffee time wine type stuff can feel very forced and that's not our vibe, but I think just by nature of who Alex and I are, we've been able to curate a culture that reflects that.
Danielle Lewis (14:34):
Yeah, it's really interesting because I think back to when I worked in corporate and there was an expectation of doing Friday afternoon drinks, so that was forced. And then we moved to Covid remote virtual, and there was expectation that you would go to these virtual drinks
Natasha Williams (14:55):
So cringe.
Danielle Lewis (14:56):
Totally. And it's like you've just taken basically an in real life thing that people hated anyway, and then put it on Zoom. There wasn't any kind of consideration for what people actually wanted out of their workplace.
Natasha Williams (15:10):
No, no. I mean there might be people that enjoy it and more power to you, that's your vibe. But I think forced cultivation of community just never works. It will happen organically or it won't.
(15:28):
And so we've just been very lucky. I think part of it probably to be quite honest, is because it was formed like we are a family business first and foremost, and we initially built the business by hiring our friends. So I think there was already that element of sort of familiarity with our team that's allowed us to build. We never want to be one of those startup businesses that's like we're a family. That's not the vibe, but it is just about respect, inclusivity, we respect our team's time and I think just making sure that everyone feels supported.
Danielle Lewis (16:04):
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Now you mentioned hiring in a CEO slash
Natasha Williams (16:11):
Commercial director,
Danielle Lewis (16:12):
Commercial director. What was it like for you as one of the founders of the business kind of hiring a boss
Natasha Williams (16:20):
Sometimes that is our boss that was actually client and she has been formally a CEO director. She's a very accomplished person and I respect her immensely. And she kind of called me, she'd been made redundant in sort of unfortunate circumstances. She called me and said, do you need to consultant? I was like, fuck yes, I take you for whatever. And it kind of naturally evolved. So I think there are of course times where Alex or I both have a DHD, we will rail against the machine, but ultimately the proof is in the results. So we've had our most profitable year ever last year, quarter by quarter increasing on profit, on revenue, on efficiency, on scaling the team. And so I think I've never had a problem with letting from an ego perspective, letting stuff go if I think it's for the betterment of the team or the community.
(17:26):
And ultimately sometimes I'll say to her, I don't want to do that. Sorry. No, she just has to figure it out. But mostly if she puts a good case for then I'm like, okay, well I guess makes sense. I'll do that for you. But I mean look it certainly, I think because it was a slow transition between her consulting to her taking over some of that stuff that we'd built the trust that I wasn't like, oh, I'm handing over my baby to you. Whereas I think if we'd just gone straight into it, it would've been a much scarier scenario.
Danielle Lewis (18:02):
And I find it really interesting because I think sometimes founders, we feel like we have to be the person at the top in charge. And I think when you hiring A CEO, you kind of still are in charge. You can still point them in the right direction.
Natasha Williams (18:20):
Yeah, exactly.
Danielle Lewis (18:21):
But there is that weird thing of as founders, I think we think we need to be the be all and end all to our businesses if we don't know how to be chairman, board person, CEO, this person, this person. And there is a little bit of that ego like, oh my God, I've got to be at the helm of these things. But I find it so empowering because typically founders start businesses because they have some kind of creative skillset. They started it, they wanted to solve a problem, and sometimes the ops stuff is not their strong point
Natasha Williams (18:55):
To
Danielle Lewis (18:55):
Bringing in someone that can do the boring stuff. It's actually super empowering.
Natasha Williams (19:02):
I think that's exactly it is. I know. And I'm the first to admit I'm organized chaos. I could tell you any the conversion rate of any of our clients, it's all floating in my head, but I don't write anything down. I'm not great at communicating stuff to the team, and that's not fair to our team. That's shitty. So I have to acknowledge my shortcomings and there was this, I'm a very type personality of a control freak, but there's something very freeing about letting stuff go. And also knowing that someone is better than me at managing our cashflow. That's not my strong suit. I'm not an accountant. I dunno.
Danielle Lewis (19:54):
Totally. Yeah. So
Natasha Williams (19:57):
If anything it is once you can get to the point of letting go, it is very freeing and it's actually freed up my mental creative capacity to drive the business in ways that actually make more sense and have more value than me worrying about how to automate invoices in Xero or whatever.
Danielle Lewis (20:19):
Yeah, exactly. It's awesome when you can get to the point in business where you mentioned that you are a mom, how amazing that you can trust people to keep things going if you need to look after your family.
Natasha Williams (20:35):
Yeah, I mean that was kind of the whole point of doing it. Not the whole point, but a part of it was that I knew I wanted to have kids, and I mean obviously I trust my brother implicitly, but also Matt and Danny and the rest of our team that I can now take two months off in February and I won't have to worry.
Danielle Lewis (20:56):
The world won't end.
Natasha Williams (20:58):
How good. No one's going to die. It'll be fun.
Danielle Lewis (21:01):
Yes. That's so good. Oh my god, I love it. So gear change. Do you have any insight for 2025? So this will be going out probably early Feb, any insight in 2025 as to what is working right now to get more customers? So a lot of the women in business who are listening like big thing for the year is I need to make more money. Do you have any tips for people who are like, right, this is my year. I need to grow my business?
Natasha Williams (21:31):
Yeah, I mean, I dunno that it's necessarily, for me, 2025 is the year of we internally, word of mouth, we call it like there's money in your backyard. It doesn't necessarily mean there's more customers or new customers, although of course we always want to have a pipeline of new customers. I think there's often unexplored opportunity in your existing customer base, in your lapsed or churn customers, whether you're e-com or service based. That to me is the lowest cost, highest value to you as a business owner is to really review where those opportunities lie. And that's what we did in the last few quarters of 2024, very profitably. And then once you continue to scale that up, of course at the same time you're still piping in new customers. So that for me is loyalty, retention, adding value to your existing client base. What can you cross-sell, upsell that has immediate or actionable value to your existing clients? That to me makes the most sense.
Danielle Lewis (22:38):
That is so genius. So I'm an ex sales person and there's this crazy stat even about conversion rates and how converting a brand new lead is five to 20%. Converting an existing customer is like 50 to 60%. Exactly. Profitability, retaining customers. But I think we kind of go shiny new object. I've got to be on TikTok, I've got to be doing this this to try and get people to know about me to kind of the detriment of our existing customer base or Yeah. I'm like, people will talk to me about dancing on reels and not have emailed their email list in like six months.
Natasha Williams (23:19):
Exactly. And we see that all the time with our clients saying, what's the deal with TikTok? I'm like, well, let's review your Flavio flow strategy first. There's so many fundamental things that we exactly like you said, we're chasing the shiny all the time, and I've been guilty. It's not like I'm some sort of guru. I've also been guilty of this. But fundamentally, you often, I think you are running at status quo with your existing client base, and it might be shifting your offering or reviewing clients that are at risk of churn so that you don't lose that revenue. Or it might be lapsed happy customers that you can win back. There's so much you can do and that costs nothing but your time.
Danielle Lewis (24:08):
Yeah, I love that so much. This is the public service announcement for everyone to look in their own house. Fix their own house
Natasha Williams (24:16):
First. Yes, exactly.
Danielle Lewis (24:17):
Oh my God, that is so good. I love it. Such actionable ideas. Now, I always love to wrap up this podcast on one last piece of advice. So reflecting on your time in business, what would be a piece of advice that you would give to another woman on her business journey?
Natasha Williams (24:37):
I think the thing that I really try and practice most, more than anything is it's all around comparison. I actually don't look at any other agency, how they operate, what they do from a marketing perspective, what clients they have, unless I'm actively talking to them or we are working with them collaboratively. I found that it was detrimental to what I knew in my gut to be the pathway to success, and I think has a really negative impact for me, at least on my mental health. But I mean, so cliched comparison is a thief of joy, but for me it truly is. I think it also can detract from a successful strategy because you start to pull in these elements from other brands that don't necessarily make sense for you and your brand. So that for me has been the biggest lesson I've learned in business is to really trust in my own instincts in what makes sense for us.
Danielle Lewis (25:44):
Oh my God, I love that so much. I actually couldn't agree with you more. I've had that same thought around, well, if I just look at those other people who are doing similar things for similar audiences, I'm just going to be exactly like them, and then all I am is all we're doing is competing on the same crap. And I was like, actually turning a blind eye to them has been the thing that's helped me innovate and go, I want to be like, even some people are like, why don't you do this? They do. I'm like, because we're not them. I don't want to be them. I want to be over here. It has to be authentic
Natasha Williams (26:20):
To you. Otherwise, what's the point? Right? Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (26:24):
I love it so much. You are amazing. Natasha, thank you so much for sharing your story and your journey and your wisdom with the Spark community.
Natasha Williams (26:32):
Thanks for having me. And here's to an amazing 2025 for all of the spa community.
Danielle Lewis (26:37):
Yes, I love it.
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