Most agency owners have felt the sting of being ghosted after a great sales call, the kind where the conversation goes well, real interest seems to be there, a proposal goes out, and then nothing comes back.

It happens often enough that it gets treated as simply the cost of doing business, something you absorb by giving your best thinking away for free and hoping enough of it converts into paying work.

What that approach quietly costs, though, is time: hours that could have gone into your actual clients, your actual offer, or just having an evening back.

Daniela found her way to a different approach, but not by design. Like a lot of agency owners, she learned it the hard way, through the overwhelm of free consultations before building a sales process that leads not just to a signed client but to a 12-month retainer, and that process is what she unpacks in this episode of the Small But Mighty Agency podcast.

Daniela Furtado is the founder of Findable Digital Marketing, an agency that works exclusively with design and construction firms, though it took her years to arrive at that focus.

For a long stretch early on, she ran her business across two completely unrelated industries at once, and it wasn’t until she finally chose which one to build around that everything else, including the sales system she still uses today, became possible.

That system starts with an $800 consultation, an offer that both saves Daniela time and primes prospects for the retainer conversation that follows. She walks through the details in the episode, along with how she pitches a 12-month commitment in a way that rarely comes down to the number twelve at all.

It took Daniela two years to build this system. The episode covers what she learned in that time, so you do not have to spend two years finding out for yourself.

Show Notes:

-Findable Digital Marketing Website: findabledigitalmarketing.com

-Instagram: findabledigitalmarketing

-Daniela's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/daniela-pimentel-furtado

Get the full show notes and more information here: https://audreyjoykwan.com/podcast/ep157

Podcast Edits by Lindsay Curtis

You already know that search doesn't look the way it used to.

Buyers are no longer finding agencies through one clean path from Google search to website visit to inquiry.

They may discover you through an AI-generated answer, a Reddit thread, a local Facebook group, a directory, a review, a LinkedIn profile, or a blog post that answers a very specific question.

Darlene Moore from Drive Traffic is actively watching how visibility is shifting, and in this episode she shares what she's seeing on the ground right now — where decisions are actually being shaped, and what's working.

We talk about what makes content worth citing, why lived experience and specificity matter more than generic AI-generated content, and how you can use tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Reddit, and Search Console to understand where your buyers are actually looking for answers.

Show Notes:

-Website: drivetraffic.ca

-LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/darlene

Hey thanks for hanging out with me at the Small But Mighty Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode it would mean the world to me if you hit the follow or subscribe button in your podcast app and share it with a friend. And I’ll see you on the next one.

Get the full show notes and more information here: https://audreyjoykwan.com/podcast/ep156

Podcast Edits by Lindsay Curtis

There's a moment Joe Teo describes in this episode that will feel familiar to a lot of agency owners: revenue flattening, a growth channel that stopped working and no plan B.

For Joe, the CEO and co-founder of HeyOrca, that moment forced a question most marketers never think to ask: what if you'd built a growth strategy with no foundation underneath it?

In this episode, Joe breaks down how HeyOrca rebuilt their growth engine through community-led marketing after paid ads hit a wall, and what they learned about the difference between having an audience and building a community.

We get into:

• Why systems alone (newsletters, Slack groups, webinars) don't create community, and what actually does
• The shift from "what should we publish next?" to a question that changes everything
• How paid ads fit into a community-led strategy without becoming the whole strategy
• The participation signals worth tracking beyond likes and comments
• Why Joe thinks AI fatigue is pushing people toward something most marketers are underestimating

Joe is also the author of Community-Led Marketing, and his take on where trust, attention, and growth intersect right now is one I think you'll be thinking about long after the episode ends.

Show Notes:

-Website: heyorca.com

-Community-Led Marketing ebook: heyorca.com/ebook/community-led-marketing

-Joe Teo's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/josephteols

-HeyOrca's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/heyorca

Hey thanks for hanging out with me at the Small But Mighty Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode it would mean the world to me if you hit the follow or subscribe button in your podcast app and share it with a friend. And I’ll see you on the next one.

Get the full show notes and more information here: https://audreyjoykwan.com/podcast/ep155

Podcast Edits by Lindsay Curtis