[Top Agency Series] Mastering Omnichannel Marketing With Humberto Bejarano

Humberto Bejarano is the President and Co-founder of Beanstalk Growth Marketing, an award-winning agency based in Calgary, Alberta. With over 25 years of combined experience, he has been instrumental in delivering innovative, data-driven marketing solutions across North America. Under his leadership, Beanstalk has earned multiple accolades, including the Canadian Choice Award for Calgary’s Best Marketing Agency and recognition from Clutch as a top advertising company in Alberta. Humberto’s commitment to excellence and client success drives the agency’s growth and industry impact.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [02:53] Humberto Bejarano shares an overview of Beanstalk Growth Marketing’s full-service offerings
• [03:31] Humberto’s career journey from media sales to founding Beanstalk
• [06:01] Securing Beanstalk’s first milestone clients through relationship building
• [06:57] The evolution of Beanstalk’s services
• [11:38] Common sales mistakes and the importance of understanding client pain points
• [13:06] Key hires and building out Beanstalk’s project management and creative teams
• [14:24] Tech tools and AI solutions Beanstalk uses to streamline processes
• [17:13] Humberto discusses Beanstalk’s customer success stories
• [23:40] Tips for improving your hiring process
• [29:51] The value of having mentors as an entrepreneur

In this episode…

Creating a sustainable, growth-oriented marketing agency can be challenging, especially in the ever-changing digital landscape. Many businesses struggle to balance branding, website development, and effective omnichannel strategies while staying profitable. So, how can companies streamline their marketing processes, foster strong client relationships, and adapt their strategies to meet changing demands?

Humberto Bejarano, a seasoned sales professional and marketing expert, offers practical insights on building a thriving digital agency through smart partnerships, data-driven decisions, and client-centric approaches. He emphasizes the importance of understanding client pain points before pitching solutions, creating cohesive omnichannel strategies that leverage multiple platforms, and continuously testing and optimizing based on performance data. Humberto also highlights the value of combining creative expertise with structured project management to ensure clear communication, consistent delivery, and client satisfaction.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Humberto Bejarano, Co-founder of Beanstalk Growth Marketing, about building and scaling a successful digital marketing agency. Humberto shares his experience merging companies, onboarding key team members, and adopting omnichannel marketing strategies. The conversation also covers effective sales processes, leveraging automation tools, and case studies of successful client transformations.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Humberto Bejarano on LinkedIn
• Beanstalk Growth Marketing

Special Mention(s):

• 30 Minutes to President’s Club

Related episode(s):

• “[Top Agency Series] Navigating a Merger and Becoming an End-to-End Digital Partner With Kevin Hourigan of Spinutech” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Sweet Process Series] How to Save Hundreds of Hours a Month Using Top Productivity Tools with Adi Klevit of Business Success Consulting Group” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable Moments:

• “We found that you shouldn’t just put your eggs into one basket. You should really diversify.”
• “It’s very valuable having a business partner, but it also can create a lot of headaches.”
• “We really like to understand how well you are with people — that’s crucial in sales.”
• “Accountability is a big part of our company, and we look for people who embrace that.”
• “You can’t just sit around and not do anything. You have to go get what you want.”

Action Steps:

1. Understand client pain points before pitching services: Taking time to uncover what challenges clients are facing allows for tailored solutions instead of generic sales pitches.
2. Diversify marketing strategies across multiple channels: By adopting omnichannel marketing, companies can gather data across platforms to see what works best and maximize ROI.
3. Build a culture of accountability within your team: Establishing clear responsibilities and holding everyone accountable ensures projects stay on track and client expectations are met.
4. Invest in automation and technology to streamline workflows: Automation not only improves efficiency, but also enhances communication and ensures consistency in project delivery.
5. Continuously evaluate and adapt your sales process: Regularly reviewing performance data and incorporating modern approaches can improve conversion rates and client satisfaction.

Episode Transcript

Intro 00:00

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 00:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here founder of Inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. Today is no different. I have Humberto Bejarano and you can check him out at beanstalk-growth.com to learn more. Before I formally introduce you, I’m going to share a couple other episodes people can check out on the podcast that have been some fan favorites since this is part of the Top Agency series.

I had Kevin Hourigan on. Kevin Hourigan runs Spinutech. He’s had an agency, HP, since 1995, so it was interesting to hear his experience of the business world, the internet, you know, world, the landscape of the agency world through the past couple of decades. So that was an interesting episode. Another one was Adi Klevett. Adi Klevett is an agency that does done-for-you SOPs for companies.

So she comes in, helps smooth out the onboarding process, client onboarding, staff onboarding, and helps document the processes. So we kind of geeked out on our favorite productivity tools softwares and everything like that. So that was an interesting episode as well. That and many more and inspired Insider.com. This episode is brought to you by Rise25.

At Rise 25, we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping you run your podcast. We’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the strategy, the accountability and the full execution. So we call ourselves the magic elves that run in the background to make it look easy for the company so they can create amazing content, creating amazing relationships, most importantly run their business. For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways on how I can give to my best relationships, and I found no better way. Over the past decade, to profile the people and the companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on.

So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should. If you have questions, go to rise25.com or email us at [email protected]. I’m excited to introduce Humberto Bejarano. He goes by HB. He’s co-founder of Beanstalk.

He leads business development and client success teams. They help companies with their growth marketing, such as the London Blue Mountain signs and many, many more. And I’m excited to dig in. HB. Thanks for joining me.

Humberto Bejarano 02:41

Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Dr. Jeremy.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 02:44

So just start us off and talk about Beanstalk growth marketing and what you do. I want to pull up the website so people can check it out.

Humberto Bejarano 02:53

Yeah, absolutely. So Beanstalk Growth Marketing is a full-service digital marketing business development agency. We’re based in Calgary, but we serve clients across Canada and the US. Where you’re kind of a full-service solution provider. So we do everything from branding and identity.

We build websites, we do social media, we have a media production team, SEO, you name it. So any business that’s kind of looking to, you know, either take a second opinion on or is looking to kind of grow in a different direction using omnichannel marketing strategies, that’s kind of what we do talk about.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 03:27

How did you decide to first start the agency?

Humberto Bejarano 03:31

Yeah, so I actually have been in the industry for quite a long time. I started 15 years ago. I actually worked for a large media company, and I was, you know, one of the top reps there. And I learned very quickly things that, you know, you shouldn’t do with your clients and things that you maybe should do. And basically, The, you know, things weren’t going the way that I really anticipated.

And so just prior to COVID, we kind of decided to — I merged with another person who also owned a nightlife and media event marketing company. And together we kind of built a company called Sound Alliance, which was more in the nightlife, creative, you know, nightlife, media event space. And we decided that there was no better opportunity than to pivot into the actual corporate world, help SMEs. And so we rebranded to Beanstalk. And ever since then, we’ve been fortunate enough to grow every year.

And although we’re a young agency, we’ve accomplished a lot.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 04:38

Talk about the decision to merge for a second. I know there’s people out there that maybe they’ve worked closely with other people. Maybe they refer clients back and forth. Talk about I mean, that’s a big decision. I mean, you could keep kind of going.

People can keep going down that path. But some decide to do that. Merge. Talk about why you decided to do it and how it went.

Humberto Bejarano 05:01

So are you specifically referring to making the jump to, you know, start the agency? Yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 05:06

To merge. You said you merged with another agency. The decision to merge because you’re bringing on essentially, you know, like a business partner at this point.

Humberto Bejarano 05:16

Yeah. So long story short, his company, you know, it wasn’t it didn’t have the potential to be doing the type of stuff that we could be doing at Beanstalk. So with my kind of experience with SMEs and his experience in the marketing event and, you know, he kind of had the structure already in place, we decided to kind of form those two. And I’ll tell you that it’s very valuable having a business partner. But it also can, you know, create a lot of headaches in the process.

But it’s good to have somebody that can challenge you and somebody that’s different than what you are right?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 05:55

When you first started the agency, what was the first milestone client for you?

Humberto Bejarano 06:01

So I don’t know if I should be sharing this, but I’ll share it anyway. So I built a lot of trust with some of the clients that I had previously at the other company, and based off of the, you know, the same thing that you said, which is really respecting your relationships. They trusted me. So I planted that seed and I did end up, you know, basically taking with me five of my larger clients. And that’s kind of what helped us get our foot forward with Beanstalk.

And it helped us actually with some recurring revenue where we were able to hire some more people, create some systems, etcetera, etcetera, and, and just went up from there.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 06:42

I know people of the evolution of this type of services they offer at their agency. I’m curious what that evolution looked like for you. What did you start in the beginning? What services were you offering compared to? I know you offer a lot more now. What did you start with?

Humberto Bejarano 06:57

Yeah. So the kind of lowest hanging fruit is, has always been websites. When we first started the agency we were selling websites for, I think it was 99 bucks a month for 12 months.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 07:10

So no upfront cost. It was just $99 bucks a month.

Humberto Bejarano 07:13

$99 bucks a month for 12 months. And, you know, it was very kind of templated sites. But, you know, as we kind of developed and grew, we realized that that was not sustainable. And so we started offering more kind of custom solutions. You know, offering still the templated but more customizing it according to what the client’s needs were.

And then also, you know, different clients require different, you know, features, accessibility, etc.. So it’s one of those things that you learn very quickly that, you know, $99 a month on a one-year contract is not really a scalable business. Right.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 07:56

Yeah. So you started off you did a lot of websites, web dev. Then what was the next service that you discovered. From there that you offered.

Humberto Bejarano 08:04

We kind of always started offering, you know, the website, your paid advertising. So you know, your Google ads, Facebook ads, Meta ads, et cetera. And, and SEO because they kind of all go hand in hand. But where we really started to kind of take a different approach is when we started to create and look at the power of omnichannel marketing, which is basically leveraging all of the platforms that are out there to form one cohesive strategy. And that started kind of transitioning the results that we were getting for some of our clients.

And it kind of springboarded, you know, some of our successes. And so we found that, you know, you shouldn’t just put your eggs into one basket. You should really diversify and try everything and use data to see what sticks and pivot from what doesn’t stick. Right.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 08:57

I’m curious. You know, a lot of people I talk to, it’s not like when they were young, they’re like, I want to be an agency owner someday. When you were growing up early on, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Humberto Bejarano 09:10

Oh, I wanted to be a lot of different things. I mean, I definitely wanted to be some sort of, you know, my dad was an engineer, so he wanted me to, to go in that realm. I didn’t want to, you know, I wanted to be everything from an astronaut to a rapper to a celebrity, an actor. So I had a lot of kind of —

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 09:39

Did you ever — were you in a band or did you rap at some point or no?

Humberto Bejarano 09:42

I did.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 09:43

I’m not going to ask you right now to do it, but I have asked people on the show to wrap one. One guy, Greg Roulette, told me he opened for Bone Thugs n Harmony. And so I’m like, okay, do something. He did not do it, but I did clip I found on YouTube of him rapping, and I put it on the back end of the interview. So if I find some I don’t know if there’s a video out there, but I’ll, I’ll scour it.

Humberto Bejarano 10:10

No, I don’t, I don’t think there’s anything out there or I hope not, at least for my sake. But no, I mean, you know, I always knew very young that I was very kind of effective in sales. I just always did really well in sales. So, you know, my earlier I sold everything from cable and internet to, you know, cat wires and solar panels, etcetera. So was it.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 10:38

Door-to-door is like for those because I know people who do like door-to-door like solar stuff and it’s hardcore.

Humberto Bejarano 10:46

Yeah. No, I never did anything door to door. It was always over the phone or email. Right. I’ve always kind of been a very good emailer, I guess.

Been pretty good with, with words on a page. So, you know, I always knew that I was going to end up in some sort of sales capacity role. And along with my, you know, my business partner now, he came from the oil and gas world where, you know, he took a lot of training in regards to project management. And so he kind of handles the project management side of things while I kind of lead our business development and sales teams.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 11:21

What do you find mistakes that people make in sales? I’m sure you’re training the team. You get I mean, we all get pitched a lot. We get on the phone. What are mistakes that you find people or companies are making with their sales process?

Humberto Bejarano 11:38

The biggest thing we teach our sales reps is that you don’t need to go into something and just automatically product pitch or promo pitch. You really need to take it a step back and just really understand, you know, their pain points, right? So whether you’re talking to a specific industry and then providing those solutions as part of those pain points while you’re actually pitching. And, you know, resonating with, you know, somebody that is facing those same problems, it becomes a different conversation. You know, you’re no longer trying to sell them something.

You’re just letting them know, hey, we understand you. And you know, we’re providing a solution to help you, you know, fix what the issues are, right?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 12:23

So it kind of goes into understanding the pain points, providing solutions and educating them on, you know, how it could help essentially. Absolutely.

Humberto Bejarano 12:33

Yeah. And get away from, you know, talking about who you are, what you’ve done. You know, anything about you specifically. You just got to listen, right. You’ve got to listen carefully and take all those arrows that they’re feeding you. And then eventually there’s a time where you’re going to throw those arrows back, right?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 12:51

Yeah. So it’s focusing on them, listening and really understanding where they’re coming from. Absolutely. Talk about the evolution of the growth of the team. Obviously, it started with you to begin with. And then what were some of the key positions you put in place.

Humberto Bejarano 13:06

Yeah. So I mean, you know, very early on we had to, you know, hire some developers. You know, at one point they were junior developers. Now we have junior developers, senior developers. We have a project management team.

So, you know, creative strategist, project managers, project coordinators. We have appointment-setting team. So anybody that is kind of interested in working with us, you know, our appointment-setting team will reach out. They’ll schedule a team with our marketing specialist to kind of understand the needs, make sure that it’s a good fit. And then we also have, you know, your ad managers, your SEO strategists.

We have UI/UX designers, we have graphic designers, you know, junior developers, senior developers as I mentioned, social media managers, etc.. And then along with our team, we’ve also invested very heavily in a lot of different software solutions, automation tools. To make sure that our company can be efficient and run the way it needs to. And so that we kind of don’t get lost in being able to fulfill our clients. Right.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 14:18

What are some of your favorite software or tools that you use from like a tech stack perspective?

Humberto Bejarano 14:24

We use a lot of things. So we use, you know, slack for communication. We use Trello for project management, obviously, Zapier for automation. We use zoom, Google Meet, Google Workspace. You know, we use a lot of AI tools.

I mean, you know, nobody, everybody that says that they don’t use AI, they’re lying. So your ChatGPT your Gemini’s, and there’s more and more tools that we use in regards to just very specific things within our projects as well. So for example, you know, your, you know, can’t even think right now, but there’s a lot of other tools that will do a lot of different things that are, you know, AI-generated tools. And there’s tons of them. I just can’t think of any in this moment.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 15:18

Yeah. No, I got it. Anyway. What about apps? Are there any like, personal, you know, apps on your phone that you or go to apps.

It could be fitness apps. It could be productivity apps. It could be business apps. But like what are some of your favorite? Do you have any favorite apps that you are using a lot on your personal phone?

Humberto Bejarano 15:39

It’s all work related, so Slack is all my app. Trello is all my app. Yeah, I don’t.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 15:49

I all the same tools just on all the.

Humberto Bejarano 15:51

Yeah, all the same tools. I mean I use like Fit Log for tracking my workouts and things. You know, I don’t track my food or anything like that. But you know, I’m not an Instagram or a Facebook user, but I do like Snapchat. I think it’s a little bit more.

You do yeah I do I’m just I guess I’m, I’m not super young, but I’m that younger generation that is more on —

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 16:17

Guess I picture like I don’t know my bias. I picture like a 12-year-old using Snapchat. I don’t, I don’t know if I even have a Snapchat account. Okay, maybe I’m just old, I don’t know, I don’t use TikTok.

Humberto Bejarano 16:30

Right? So I’m not a TikTok user. Yeah, but my wife, you know, she uses TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram. I just like Snapchat because you can see, it’s a little bit more personalized, and the people that you really want to see your things in your life are, you know, and I only share things about my daughter and stuff like that. But in regards to, you know, being invested in this world, I also think it’s very invasive. So I stay away off of social media as much as I can.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 17:00

Yeah. Let’s talk about a little bit about the work you do through some clients you’ve worked with. There was an interesting one, Medical Education Academy. And talk a little bit about what you did there.

Humberto Bejarano 17:13

Yeah. So, you know, we basically revitalized the website. One of the biggest things was, you know, there’s a lot of medical students that are looking to either get tutoring or have courses that will help them pass some of these complex medical exams. So we worked with a company where, you know, we kind of modernized their website, made it very easy for them to create a platform where students could ask questions. So we integrated, you know, WhatsApp and telegram.

We created the course options so you could purchase directly on the website. And they’re quickly becoming a national kind of player in medical education training. And so if anybody is, you know, wanting to, you know, get some courses for some medical education programs, you can check out Doctor Azeka. And I think it’s doctor. Yeah. Doctor Sica. They do, you know medical licensing exam preps.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 18:18

Put it in the chat if you could. Real quick. I’ll pull it up.

Humberto Bejarano 18:22

Yeah, absolutely. Give me one second.

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