Clarity Driven Growth Systems For Women Founders | Riley Gray from Orcaach Agency

Rick: Pathmonk is the AI for website conversions. With increasing online competition, over 98% of website visitors don’t convert. The ability to successfully show you value proposition and support visitors in the buying journey separates you from the competition Online. Pathmonk qualifies and converse leads on your website by figuring out where they are in the buying journey and influencing them in key decision moments with relevant micro experiences like case studies, int videos, and much more stay relevant to your visitors and increase conversions by 50%.

By adding Pathmonk to your website in seconds that in the AI do all the work and finally increase convergence while you keep doing marketing as usual. Check us out on Pathmonk.com. Hey everybody. Welcome back to Pathmonk Presents. Today we’re joined by Riley Gray. She’s the founder of our Orcaach agency. Riley, welcome to the show.

Riley Gray: Hi. Nice to have, oh, can we start over?

Rick: Of course, you. Hey everybody. Welcome back to Pathmark Presents. Today we’re joined by Riley Gray. She’s the founder of Orcaach Agency. Riley, welcome to the show.

Riley Gray: Nice to have. Nice to be here. Okay, I now know what to say. Hi, Rick. Nice to be here.

Rick: Nice to have you ri and, I’m excited to get into it. Maybe we start with the basics. So tell us a little bit about Orcaach Orcaach Agency. Am I getting that by the way? Orcaach, right?

Riley Gray: You are. Yep. Orcaach like the whale.

Rick: Amazing. Okay. So just to make sure, and we were just talking about it offline. If you were explaining it to a friend over coffee, how would you describe what you do?

Riley Gray: Yes. So Orcaach is a woman founded growth company, built to scale women-owned businesses. My co-founder brings deep explorational operational expertise to the table while I bring in strategy and brand growth. And together we blend instinct and data to create scalable revenue systems for businesses out there looking to grow.

Rick: Okay. That’s awesome. It sounds like a great duo, especially with that skillset, right?

Riley Gray: Yes.

Rick: Is there a specific type of business that you like to work with? Or maybe industries where you feel your services really shine? And maybe one key problem you can help them solve.

Riley Gray: Absolutely. So I’ve had the privilege of working along service-based businesses and product-based businesses. My favorite towards the tail end of my marketing journey is product-based. It’s a little bit more agile to market due to the versatility of a product and the SKU numbers, so you’re able to tailor it to a person’s specific personality.

Versus service space where we notice that the need and the demand has to be there way long before a search inquiry is input into Google to locate that business. So we noticed that a lot of businesses who do not take marketing seriously in the service-based industry tend to lose momentum due to how competitive the nature of businesses.

While product-based allows you to be very versatile. It allows you to scale with the speed you need to stay up to date with the industry. Naturally, Orcaach has served women-owned businesses best who are product-based. We do not filter out people who are service-based, but we saw greater benefits and more versatility working with clients who have skincare products.

We’ve worked with clients who have healthcare services that they also want to provide, blending it with medical spa, which is also an evolving industry for a lot of women. So we see a hybrid approach, we also see a more siloed approach, but we thoroughly enjoy working with businesses and their passions. We focus a lot on product-based, which allows more fun in shooting and production, along with the storytelling behind why that product was even created.

Rick: That’s awesome. Thanks for the overview. I would love to understand a little bit more about the people that you speak to. How do people discover you? And to get a little more technical: who’s your ICP? Who’s the person within those companies that reaches out, why did they reach out, and how did they do it?

Riley Gray: Yes. So usually, I am reached out or contacted through word of mouth, which I believe is the strongest marketing channel in the world. I’ve built a reputation, along with the partners that I do have, where our work will naturally speak ahead of us. So by the time we enter into a room, people already know what we’ve done.

Aside from word of mouth, we’ve also seen traffic. Our top acquisition channels are organic search and then also direct traffic, which lets us know that our reputation and our positioning are doing the job.

At Orcaach, we tend to lead as a people-first business and allow our work to speak for us, and then we naturally see the conversion of people gravitating to us based on not only what we produce, but just who we are. At the core of how we’re being found, it really boils down to how we make people feel when they work with us.

Rick: I love that. Word of mouth goes both ways, right? If you do a really great job it travels fast, but if you do a bad job it travels even faster.

Riley Gray: Yes.

Rick: You mentioned channels—organic, paid, and more. How much of a role does your website play in pulling in new clients and telling your story? And is there anything about it that works really well right now for getting people to get in touch?

Riley Gray: Yeah, our website acts more as a qualification tool more than just a brochure. Naturally, our clientele are founders or marketing directors or VP of marketing—decision makers within the organization.

For context, I came from corporate, so I presented to a lot of stakeholders, industry level and conferences. Orcaach has been rooted in having connections to executive positions. We tend to provide clear strategies. We come in and focus on clarity. We cut the noise, we clarify the positioning, and then we build marketing systems that allow companies and brands to scale and produce revenue-producing strategies.

Our strategies focus on brand alignment, audience clarity, and growth execution. We bring in all of that expertise to communicate clearly what we bring to the table.

Most times people are talking to us and engaging with us before the website. Or they find us on the website, and once you meet with us, the website just confirms what you felt about us in the first place. We use the tools as a barometer and a qualification tool. Then when we meet with our clients, that’s when the connection happens. The magic happens there.

Rick: Of course. I love that the website connects everything as far as messaging and language. It’s not just a brochure—it’s about qualifying clients before they get to you.

Riley Gray: Absolutely. And it also filters aligned clients for us as well. When we built our website, we focused on the feeling that you get. We understand the marketing industry can feel chaotic. Sometimes the noise is more mental than external.

Delivering information in a clear and concise manner, but being calm about it, was intentional. We took a lot of time on the messaging, and really on the emotions behind marketing—how you present yourself and how you want people to feel about you when they’re done.

Rick: Speaking of connections and how you make people feel—let’s switch gears. We talk about you as a leader, you as a founder. What’s a day in the life like? What do you do on a daily basis, and what do you focus on when you get to work?

Riley Gray: A day in the life of Riley Gray is never the same. I’m always thinking about how to keep myself grounded, how to keep the company grounded, and how to keep my team grounded. Three macro objectives throughout the day.

Making sure I’m eating, drinking water—once we get on the computer, we go on go-mode and skip meals, then we end up with headaches. I learned the hard way. Now I take it slow in the morning. I get up about two hours early before my workday starts.

Once work starts, I look at performance reports—how we’re performing internally and with our clients’ accounts. I check on my team. I believe a good leader is someone who doesn’t just show strength, but finds a way to show that individual strength to the team. I try to empower them with tools and resources to move an email forward or reengage a client. I quarterback their initiatives while we push the broader initiative for Orcaach.

Lastly, I look at our nurturing pipelines—how we’re acquiring new clientele, how our ads are performing. To simplify: client satisfaction, and bringing in new people. Once I get a grip on that, everything else follows.

I also look at how the team is managing their tech stack, Jira tickets—big fan of Jira. Sometimes I’m in meetings, grabbing lunches, looking for conferences, engaging with the industry, adding value to aspiring marketers.

I like to give back. I don’t believe in being a gatekeeper. I’ll tell you everything you need to know because the information is out there, sometimes we just don’t have access. If I can be a servant and a conduit to give people the information they need to grow—this podcast is doing that—let’s do it.

Rick: That’s amazing. Servant leader is a beautiful way to approach it. No two days are the same, but you’ve got a lot going on. I love the self-care before work. That balance is great.

You mentioned conferences and resources. There’s a flood of content out there. How do you stay focused and keep learning among all that chaos? Any routines, people, places you turn to for staying ahead or inspiration?

Riley Gray: I have an unpopular opinion. Early on, I was buying tons of marketing books to stay up to date. But you can never keep up—marketing is always evolving. You think you just need to master a few platforms, then here comes TikTok, AI, and the learning curve never ends.

To clear through the noise, you have to realize the fundamental root of business is people. I took a different route and leaned into my faith and boiled it down to simple principles. If you do right by people, business will follow.

I go into my Bible—last was the book of James—emphasizing wisdom decisions with action. If you follow chaos, you make hurried decisions: you lose ad spend, inflate metrics because you went too fast.

Decision making is rooted in how we think. If we remember we’re human—just like the customer—we stay grounded in how someone is receiving you. It boils down to doing unto others as you’d want them to do unto you.

I try to stay in the seat of the customer. I’m a buyer. I know how I buy and what I want. I think about brands that catch my attention without trying, versus ones that have to convince me. So I stay grounded in learning how to be a better human being, and it transfers to leadership and my team.

Rick: I love it. You started with marketing books and went to one of the oldest books. Timeless. Ecclesiastes, First Timothy—so many lessons still relevant. Love that.

We’re getting towards the end, Riley, but we like to end with rapid fire. Just a few questions. Are you ready?

Riley Gray: Yes, I am.

Rick: Watching, reading, or listening?

Riley Gray: I prefer watching.

Rick: Latest thing you watched—and what stuck with you?

Riley Gray: I watched a new movie that came out over the weekend. I’m always a marketer by nature, so I’m always looking for the why—why you did that, why you put it there. I noticed tactics that production company was doing to promote their brand, who they collaborated with, and why they used that influencer to get the messaging out.

It made me think outside the box again. Marketing is evolving with new platforms hitting streaming devices. Streaming is becoming so big that as a marketer you have to meet customers on streaming platforms—how do you do it? I started to see that shift: ad budgets moving over to streaming services to resonate with their audience. I took that as a hint.

Rick: Good one. Critical eye—always learning.

Riley Gray: Yes.

Rick: If you had a magic wand and could fix one frustrating thing in your life with tech, what would it be?

Riley Gray: I was told we can apply it to personal life, so I’m gonna do that. If I could have a magic wand, I would have it spread my bed every morning. If I could hop out of bed and my clothes are on so I could get started, that would be it.

Rick: That’s a good one.

Riley Gray: Yep.

Rick: Final question: if you could go back and give your past self a quick pep talk at the start of your career, what would you say?

Riley Gray: Trust your instinct. Stand firmly in your voice and lead with conviction. And if they think you’re crazy, that’s fine. Go find out yourself.

Rick: I love it. Riley, thanks again for being on the show. Last word: if someone forgets everything, what should they remember about the work you guys are doing?

Riley Gray: Thanks for having me. If I can leave any lasting words, I’d say remember Orcaach’s clarity. We’re here to bring calm to the chaos. We’re here to support and work through challenges with our audiences and our clients. Orcaach is a company that’s well-rounded and truly understands what it is to build without losing your essence.

Rick: Love it. And if people want to check you out, where can they go? Also, I heard you’re going into podcasting—couple words on that?

Riley Gray: Yes. If people want to find Orcaach, check us out on ww.Orcaach.com. We’re also available on Instagram and TikTok due to our launch of our new podcast called Cheers to the next Chapter. It was born out of our own chapters—from being a student in college to being a leader in the industry.

We want to break down what each chapter looks like in your journey and provide insights, resources, and wisdom to help you grow as a marketer and as a leader in your industry.

Rick: Paying it forward again. Love the work you’re doing, and we’ll be tuning in. Thanks for your insights—great conversation. Have a wonderful day.

Riley Gray: Okay, thanks for having me. Take care guys.

Rick: Bye everyone.