IAM1083- CEO Disrupts the eCommerce Landscape for DTC Brands

Daniel Snow is the CEO and Founder of The Snow Agency, a performance and social media marketing agency that is disrupting the e-commerce landscape for DTC brands. Daniel is a proven expert having launched and scaled numerous viral eCommerce brands himself over the course of 3.5 years, generating over $50M in revenue.

• CEO Hack: (i) Following through and actively managing my team (ii) Being accountable
• CEO Nugget: Don't be scared to seek out help and ask questions (ii) Build your network for as long as possible
• CEO Defined: Being a great leader and leading by example

Website: https://thesnowagency.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielsnow24/

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00:14 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. GRACE values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

00:41 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Daniel Snow of the Snow Agency. Daniel, it's great to have you on the show.

00:50 – Daniel Snow

Thank you very much for having me. Happy to happy to, hopefully, provide some value.

00:56 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. You're doing so many awesome things. I'm sure we'll definitely get a really valuable episode. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Daniel so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Daniel is the CEO and founder of the Snow Agency, a performance and social media marketing agency that is disrupting the e-commerce landscape for d to C brands. Daniel is a proven expert having launched and scaled numerous viral ecommerce brands himself over the course of three point five years, generating over fifty million dollars in revenue. Daniel, great to have you on the show again. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:28 – Daniel Snow

I am. Let's get it going.

01:29 – Gresham Harkless

Let's do it then. So to kinda kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:38 – Daniel Snow

Yeah. I got started, in advertising. Well, first online through organic social media marketing. So I actually started when I was still in college growing large, social media communities, so to speak. So I was in an undergrad biology major, and, I've I found out during college, that you could actually make money online through your your phone. So started a a Twitter account at the time. I was fitness. I started a fitness Twitter account, trying to gain followers, and then monetize it. Long story short, it was able to grow millions of followers, learn how to start advertising, and and and finding different means to monetize the followers and eyeballs. So I got into affiliate marketing, got into some app marketing, made my own content blogs, and then finally started launching my own brands.

So, had a lot of experience and insight into many different avenues from the influencers and the advertisers and, content. And that's how when we started launching our own brands, we were so successful so quickly. The hard part for us was it was it was it was not the advertising, but just keeping up with all they had initially. Anyways, so just like you read off in the intro, we've continued, launching and scaling brands for our own brands for three and a half years, sold the brands, and then, decided to start servicing other clients, with all of the industry experience knowledge that we had applied to our own companies.

03:16 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I definitely appreciate that. And I think so many times you hear, you know, people, they don't build the successful brands, and then they just kinda jump into helping people. But I love that you've been able to have those successes and be able to kinda lean into that, get those skills and lessons, and be able to use that now for the clients that you work with, and that's absolutely huge. Yeah. Absolutely. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And so, I know I touched on it a little bit, but I wanna hear a little bit more from you and how you work with your clients. Could you take us through how you serve your clients, what that process looks like, and what exactly you're doing to make that impact?

03:51 – Daniel Snow

Yeah. Yeah. So all of our on our agency, we're full-service agencies. So we do everything from advertising and all the various platforms, to email marketing and SMS marketing. We also have a creative studio that does branded photos, branded videos, website design, direct response videos, etcetera. So we work on a la carte. You know, some clients do just content. Some concept clients do just Google. Some just email. Some everything. But what I like to think is that the reason why we're successful is that for all of our services, we are the ones providing the strategy to the clients versus I know a lot of other agencies out there are kind of always letting the clients tell them what to do.

We like to remind people, you know, if you if you hire an agency, you want our expertise. So, that's kinda like the way we think about things. Yeah. A lot of our strategies, especially on the advertising growth, are really content driven, just because now with how, you know, Facebook and all these other social media platforms are taking away a lot of the growth hacking, you know, audience strategies and bidding strategies and this and that. So all it really comes down to is the creative strategy and what you can do to optimize the customer experience on the website.

So those are really the two most important things we're thinking through when we work with every single client are really trying to understand what what why customers buy the various products, and why they don't so that we can present those in in our content on the website, etcetera. As we found, that's really, like, the best way to get customers to resonate with the products as they see the advertisements. So yeah.

05:36 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Well, I appreciate you for breaking that down and sharing, you know, all the different pieces. And it's so funny as you were talking about, you know, that strategy piece, how important that is. I just was envisioning, and maybe just because I'm a little hungry, it's just like you go to the the supermarket and you get all the ingredients, but you don't know how to put them together, and you need that strategy piece so that you actually can get what you saw on the Food Network. So it's so important from a, you know, a marketing perspective that it's not just about, oh, I have access to Facebook or I have access to Instagram or I know about my website or something like that. That strategy piece takes it to another level, and that's really when you start to see the impact that you ultimately hope to make.

06:13 – Daniel Snow

Yeah. You said very well.

06:15 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. And so, would you consider that to be what I call your secret sauce? It could be for you personally or the business or a combination of both, but is it that ability to understand, the changes to have that success and to translate that to to being able to help the clients that you work with?

06:31 – Daniel Snow

Yeah. I would say our secret sauce also is just really being able to problem solve. I think that every single client has as I see it, it's just ongoing. Like, where is the the factor that, you know, that can be improved upon? Like, you mentioned content, website, this, that, and then all the underlying things behind content. You can't say all the content's not working. Let's do something else. Like, you have to break it down, into into each kind of component of that. Same with the website, same with the ad buying process, etcetera, etcetera. So I think the fact that we're just able to consistently problem solve and think through problems and kind of a, a meticulous kinda matters is really what makes us good at what we do. Yeah.

07:19 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I feel like that's so necessary for just about all businesses, but definitely in marketing to be able to kinda tap into that. Because I think so many times people wanna do something and do it for the next, you know, fifteen years. But I think understanding that you can always improve and look at those things that you can improve upon as you kinda mentioned the growth hacking to some degree within, you know, the businesses and the and the marketing that you're doing so that people can have and see the success and continue to maybe even improve from where they thought they could before.

07:48 – Daniel Snow

Yeah. Absolutely.

07:50 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

08:01 – Daniel Snow

I think that the thing for me that makes me or at least the company as a CEO is, I would say, is just what I call, like, actively managing, which means following through. I think that for many leaders, it doesn't have to be a CEO. It could be your managers managers in the company, or even just your employees in the company. If you're not following through and actively managing your team, which then translates to the rest of your team, things just don't progress. And I know this happens a lot, in in in in throughout throughout just many companies. People say, oh, I asked the person for this. You know? And you asked, well, why didn't it get done? You know, there was no follow-through.

So for me as as the CEO, I think that's just literally one of the most important things because that can be emulated in every single facet of the business. You know, sales, HR, recruiting, day-to-day. For us, advertising, working with clients, The follow-through is, like, one of the most important parts of the entire job. The other thing for me as the CEO, which I try to have in the rest of our company, is to just be accountable, you know, to be able to own up to a mistake. If you're making a mistake, take ownership of your work, which hopefully translates to the rest of the company as well, especially an agency. You know, agencies get a bad rep for, treating clients like a clients, not like your your own business. So that's really kind of like one of the most important, foundations I try to set for for my company.

09:34 – Gresham Harkless

And, I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It could be around marketing or it might be something you would tell a client or if you have to do a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

09:46 – Daniel Snow

I would say the the number one most important thing is, to to not be scared to to seek out help and ask questions. I know a lot of times as CEO, you think that you know, you could kind of just, like, feel like you have the not ability, but, like, you kind of has this, like, thought process of all. Let me try to figure out. Let me try to figure out. But really the fastest way to learn something new or the fastest way to implement something is to really leverage, experts, because you can't figure out everything yourself. You can't be the expert in everything simultaneously.

So for me, when we started just asking questions, networking with other companies that are even in similar environments, going out and seeking experts that can help with our department leaders, that's when things started to really just move faster in our company. So I would say that's number one. The other thing I realized is just I know you hear this a lot in college. Like, networking is the most important thing. But network even if you're not running an agency, your network, number one, takes time to build. So building it for as long as possible and making real connections with these people is, like, one of the most important fundamental things I think is being the CEO.

When it comes to, you know, raising money, finding clients, making great hires, really anything you can think of in your business. Like, even finding a new resource. Like, let's say you need a new, I don't know, head of a new department, new hire. You know? If you have a tremendous web network, that's what can help you make those hires. So just build that as early as possible. How do you build that? Go to go to events. Go out of your way to ask questions. Get active on social media. Building your own social media, profiles, and whatnot, is just, like, honestly, one of the most important things. You can be the, you know, the greatest networker in the world. Like, that can take you pretty far if you can build a team around that. So yeah.

11:51 – Gresham Harkless

That's absolutely huge. Was there something, that kinda sparked that for you, or is that something that was kinda ingrained in everything that you did?

11:57 – Daniel Snow

Not really. I think for me, it's something that's always that comes kinda naturally to me just because, like, I do enjoy meeting other people. I'm curious. I like asking questions. And then just realizing that and, you know, as my career began continuously matured, what's the, you know, the the the the one kind of pattern I noticed from the the the best CEOs were all that they have these phenomenal networks that they built out. And that's why they're getting the best clients. That's why they're getting the best referrals. That's why they're getting key hires. It's all from just that build that, you know, this tremendous network that they built, and built once again, building real connections with all these people.

12:43 – Gresham Harkless

So, yeah, I appreciate you for sharing that. And I love how you added in that building real connections because it's not just passing business cards and saying, oh, I know this person or connecting with this person on LinkedIn. It's it's getting to really know them, and that takes time and effort, and I appreciate you, for sharing that. And so I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quotes, unquote CEOs on the show. So, Daniel, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:08 – Daniel Snow

To me, being a CEO really means just just being a great leader and leading by example. It's very easy to see as a CEO, especially when you have a bunch of employees, that the company really is a reflection of your actions. And if you do something, other people will assume that they can act that way. And it's it's it's it's hard to see it, like, immediately, your actions, but over time, you can truly see how companies are a reflection of you as a leader. So to me, at a high level, that's just what it comes down to. It's just being a great leader for your company, leading by example, because a lot of times too.

You know, you're especially in any company, you're providing for people's families. You're providing for their personal, kinda financial lives, which then affect their personal lives and whatnot. So taking that, you know, really seriously and trying to create the best company possible, it's kinda like the right the, that it's kinda like the duty you have as that as the leader. So, kind of realizing how meaningful it is to be in that position is how I see it.

14:22 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. It's huge. And I love the word duty. I was thinking, like, when you were speaking of responsibility and kind of a charge that you have just to make sure that you are creating that the, I guess, that ripple effect that you ultimately hope to have. And as we kinda talked about the accountability piece earlier, if you are accountable, then the people around you are gonna be accountable as well too. And that kind of runs the gamut in so many different ways that you can kinda do that and create that vision within the organization.

And that manifests itself outside of the organization as well. So, Daniel, truly appreciate that definition, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find about all the awesome things you're working on.

15:07 – Daniel Snow

Yeah. Yeah. You know, if any any any listeners or whatnot or, you know, any direct consumers space, you're growing a brand, you're running an agency, anything in that in that line, happy to answer questions personally. You can follow me on Instagram. It's Dapper, d a p p e r. Twitter is I am Dan Snow or even email me at Dan Snowy g n c dot com. We'd love to connect with any of your listeners. And, yeah, once again, you know, hope anyone found anything, of value today, and thank you for having me.

15:41 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Appreciate you for taking some time out. Just to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes. But thank you so much for reminding us of how important it is to build relationships and connections and how, we should kinda do that, in a way by which we're creating such a great environment for our team members and and those that we're even working with. So thanks so much for embodying that and appreciate you for reminding us of it, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:05 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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