The Business of Business Podcast

Cybersecurity, Important Before or After The Ransom? Its Your Choice with Brian Gill

There has never been a more important time to talk about data recovery and cybersecurity. The recent hack of a major fuel distribution pipeline. The company ended up paying the ransom. If it can happen to a large company like this, it can happen to you? Are you prepared? You know the old Fram saying, "You can pay me now or you can pay me later". It's your choice.

About Brian

Brian holds a B.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is a software architect and data recovery expert. He is well-versed in the firmware architectures of all the major storage vendors. He is a co-founder of Phoenix Nuclear Labs and served on PNL’s board from inception to when it decided to spin-off SHINE Medical Technologies. He also previously served on the board for the Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps.

Brian co-authored the first edition of the WebLogic Server Bible, published by John Wiley & Sons in 2002. He was named one of Madison’s 40 under 40 by In Business, even though sadly he is 40 now. He and his wife Kara have 3 sons, Charlie, Tanner and Eli. He is an avid but terrible fisherman and has never participated in even a single session of CrossFit. As CEO of Gillware, Inc, Brian oversees and assists all aspects of the business.

www.gillware.com

www.tetradefense.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Cybersecurity, Important Before or After The Ransom? Its Your Choice with Brian Gill

Sat, 5/22 1:47PM • 41:00

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

hacked, data, passwords, backup, business, pay, people, bad, email, roy, computer, big, buy, called, service, talk, brian, ransomware, solopreneurs, log

SPEAKERS

Brian, Roy Barker

Roy Barker  00:02

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm Roy, your host, we are the show that brings you a wide variety of guests that talks about a bunch of diverse topics, you know, trying to help our small, medium solopreneurs entrepreneurs and even large businesses, give them something to think about maybe something new, or at least help them solve some problems that they may be having. Which leads us to our guest today. This is it's such a timely topic that I'm glad I ran across Brian, Brian Gill is the CEO of GillWare, which they are a data recovery service. And then he's also a cybersecurity expert. And, Brian, first off, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for taking time out of your day to be with us.

Brian  00:53

Well, you're the man. Thanks for having me,

Roy Barker  00:55

man. I tell you what, you know, this cyber security and a lot of times, you know, I'm just gonna say even as the smaller guys, we think that's really not for us, or we don't really have a need for that. But I think nowadays with ransomware, and all this stuff going around, I think we have, we probably have as much need as some of the big guys.

Brian  01:17

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a huge amount of bad guys is growing with the market opportunity, which is big, many billions of dollars big. Right. And, you know, every month, American businesses specifically, but also some consumers, but you know, American businesses are paying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ransoms every month. Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

Roy Barker  01:44

Yeah. You know, and it's been even stranger around here. It's it, you know, and I'm in the North Texas area that we have had a lot of governmental and school agency have that have done that, too. I mean, it's just like they've locked their system up for weeks on end.

Brian  02:00

Yeah, I mean, municipalities are big targets. And it's tough. You know, like, here, I live in Wisconsin. And if you're, you know, the mayor of a small town in northern Wisconsin, you know, you don't have a it defense budget. You don't you don't have you just don't have it exactly. But do you have, you know, the property tax records of all the people of, you know, the 1800 people in your town, and their social security numbers and their credit, and their, you know, a lot of that really sensitive information you do. And they're a target. And they're a target with a lot of valuable data. And very little, helping them to defend themselves. So

Roy Barker  02:42

there are brands that are beautiful. Yeah, and I've even, I've even heard of the, you know, some of the bad guys, there's a way to do the bait and switch where they get your property, put in their name, then go take loans on it. I mean, it's that I think that just reinforces that, you know, anybody that's got a computer that is connected to the outside world in some way. You know, even if you're just a home user, you still need to take some precautions, and

Brian  03:11

you're 100%, right. I mean, so sometimes they're gonna encrypt all your data and hold it hostage. And you could say, well, you know, I don't really have anything I'd pay for, forget it. But here's the problem, what Roy just said is true, they're gonna look for alternative mechanisms to monetize on your, to your detriment, and they will, we've had people hack into their stuff, get their tax records, and they'll file taxes on your behalf. Exactly. And they'll, they'll file it with like a 40 $500 refund. And they're gonna send the change of address to USPS the day before they do that, and that checks gonna go to a peel box in Miami. Exactly. True story. Yeah. You know, it's they'll, they'll change. They'll do whatever they can do with whatever information they have. And, again, if you're an organization that has sensitive data, even if you're like, Man, I've backed everything up, I'm good. Well, you might not be as good as you think. But what can happen is, they'll say, well, Roy, if you don't pay us, we're going to put it all up on the dark web or up on the deep web, right? So even if you're not going to pay us for it, somebody else will. Yeah, yeah. And they'll hold you like ransom kind of inverted. Yeah. You know, yeah, it's terrible. And we hear that term a lot, if you don't mind just explained to the users exactly what that dark web concept is,

Roy Barker  04:36

if you don't mind.

Brian  04:38

Yeah, I mean, to really dump it all the way down. I'm going to get a little tiny bit technical, but I'll try to keep it so we don't start falling asleep. But you know, when we go to google.com, you know, that's gonna go into something called a DNS server. The DNS server is gonna say, oh, You are going to go to this IP address. And it's a bunch of numbers. And that's how it's gonna how that traffic's going to flow. And the dark web is not on DNS, there's special browsers that you use one's called tour. And frankly, a lot of this technology is not evil by nature, I run a Tor Browser. It's a great privacy. It's like an internet browser, like any other, but it's it's a privacy browser. But they don't, it's a it's not a system where the government can shut it down easily. Because there's no central point of failure, like DNS providers, right? Where the government can come in and say, Hey, google.com is now banned. And they just remove it from DNS, and then nobody can get there. Right? It's, it's kind of like, DNS by groupthink. Yeah, it's a little different. But what happened, and again, a lot of the dark web and Deep Web is not evil, most probably 99% of it is just like the normal internet. But, you know, 1% of it, some pretty bad stuff, you know, you can, you know, little marketplaces to buy drugs and buy, illegal, you know, narcotics and weaponry, and you know, and obviously, sell people's information and child crime, photographs, and all kinds of really bad stuff is out there, too.

Roy Barker  06:32

Yeah. And that's what I was gonna mention. Next is I think it's, let's say it's not, it's relatively small, but it's like, you know, if one guy has your information, maybe he's limited. But I think the the other component of this dark web is it's able to spread your information, and you know, they sell it, sometimes it's like, I work on it for a while, if I can't do anything malicious, then I can send it off to somebody else. And all of a sudden, what little piece of information they have on you has been spread all over the world. And now instead of one guy trying to get to you, you know, there may be 1000 people trying to get to you.

Brian  07:10

Yeah, and they sell them as what they call kits. kbit. And, like, the full kit is basically, you know, Roy's name, social security number, whereas bags are, you know, what his driver's license ID is maybe a picture of his driver's license, when they have that full blown kit, maybe because they got it from like, a small municipality in Texas, you know, they'll sell that kit for a lot less than you might think, you know, they might sell a kit for 10 bucks. Yeah. But you know, the guy that that buys it, is going to look to do something about is, like, you kind of almost have to hope all he does is like register a credit card in your name, like, and cause you a little bit of identity theft and a little bit of pain. Yep. Like, that's about the best thing that can happen to you, once one of these guys buys a kit. Yeah, and it can get a whole lot worse.

Roy Barker  08:00

Yeah, and I want to get you to tell us, you know, let's just kind of, you know, we'll start at the beginning thinking about that smaller business out there some things that they can do. One thing I just want to mention is our, you know, our webcams have become a vulnerability. And luckily, you know, mine's got the little cap where I can shed you know, we can shut on when we're not using them. But some of the older computers, you know, that web camera is just always exposing you your background. So the thing of I may sound a little freakish, I'm sure. But you know, I got a little my older computer, I got like a piece of tape and some paper across that just where I can control when it's viewing the, you know, me and the world behind. So just just

Brian  08:45

Mark, Mark Zuckerberg has one. So you know, if Mark Zuckerberg is covering up his camera, I mean, he's the Facebook guy. Yeah, right. Right.

Roy Barker  08:57

Well, let's go ahead. And if you don't mind, you know, let's, wherever you want to take this conversation. I mean, it's so vast, we could talk for hours and hours, but you know, let's just give some actionable items there and talk about some vulnerabilities that, that you have seen, you know, in the smaller, small business, solopreneurs entrepreneur, you know, professionals, we all have data that, you know, we all have, you know, our customers data, we have to think about that. It's not only what I've got on my computer about me, but I've got sensitive information about my clients on my computer as well.

Brian  09:33

Yeah, so if you're in, in the world of b2b, you know, you're selling business to business. You can quickly go out of business when you get hacked, if you if your larger business customers are annoyed with you for letting their data go to the wind, right? It's about the quickest way to lose accounts and to get fired. Right. And if you're the type of business where you got one big client and they terminate you I mean, it could be out of business for you anxiety So there's a lot of really good reasons. And all, by the way, what's happening now, when you are bidding on some of those large enterprise accounts, there is an emerging trend where they are more and more security conscious with their vendors. So they're gonna start asking questions like, how do you protect my stuff? Right? And if you don't have good answers, well, your competitor is going to win that account. And you're going to lose. Okay, so even if you don't, you know, there's a lot of reasons Yeah, to try to tie your stuff down. You know, save yourself a lot of pain. So let's just talk about a few of them. Okay, number one, easy thing, man, if your business is big enough to have insurance, like you have an insurance policy, call up your broker and make sure you have a cyber insurance policy. Just because you're paying 1000 bucks a month for business insurance does not mean you have a cyber insurance balls. In fact, you probably don't. And you need one, the average amount of cryptocurrency or US dollars worth of cryptocurrency that we see on a network penetration and ransomware event is about a couple $100,000. Okay, so these bad guys are not screwing around, they're not gonna send you a ransom note for two grand, add two zeros to that. Yeah. And that's about what they're asking for these days. So if you don't have a ransomware policy, you might be sunk, or a cyber security, cybersecurity insurance policy, you might be sunk. If you do have one, and you have a coverage limit of 10,000, you might as well not have one, we're at risk. So if you're big enough to have insurance, at a cyber insurance policy, it's gonna increase the cost 10%, or whatever, best money you've ever spent.

Roy Barker  11:50

And let's talk about that. There's a two is there two components to that there's not only maybe covering the liability of our client, what they may come back on to us, or maybe having to pay some of that ransomware, but also hiring an expert like yourself to kind of undo the link that whatever they got into our system in order to get it cleaned out where they're not still in there.

Brian  12:14

No, that's right. I mean, when you read these insurance policies, they're, they're complicated. But those are the right questions that you need to ask your broker Are you gonna have, because you're probably gonna need some remediation, you're going to need possibly some new computer equipment, you're going to need to hire general it people to come in, set everything back up again, buy you a new firewall, patch your firewall, figure out how they got in, you know, you're going to need to possibly pay some bad guys, you need to pay some maybe a third party to assist you with the facilitation of paying the bad guys decrypting your data, getting your network back up and running. There's a lot of different costs involved. The one to be very cognizant of and to understand is, what is the ransom limit? Okay, because again, like if you have a cyber insurance policy, and it's got a $10,000 ransom limit, you might as well not have it as a waste of money.

Roy Barker  13:09

Exactly. Okay, great.

Brian  13:12

So that's, that's an easy one. Right? Now, if your business is a micro business, you're just getting started solopreneur, no revenue, yet pre revenue, maybe a little bit of revenue. And you you don't even have any insurance, well, then, again, your insurance costs money. So you know, you need to be making some to spend it Right, right. If you're raising capital, like, if you are an eight, you know, you're running around trying to raise a couple 100 grand of seed capital to start your business. In your business plan. Stick like five or 10 grand of that money to lock down your IT security. savvy investors are not going to be turned off by that they're going to be turned on by that, okay. They're gonna say, Oh, this guy's smart. This gal is smart. Yeah. They're gonna take 1% of what we give them and spend it on IT security. Right? That sounds like a good idea to everybody put it in their budget for I guess the the number one way that people get hacked is failure failures in user authentication, which most of us know is passwords, okay. Passwords suck. And most humans are really terrible at making passwords. They've got one or two passwords, one or two twists. Or sometimes they put an exclamation point at the end. Now it's unhackable. Most, most people have very, very bad passwords. They've got 50 places where they go, and they got two passwords, right? And it's like the name of the house. They grew up on the name of their dog and an ampersand. You know, it's just terrible, right? So easy to hack. And there's so many ways the bad guys can can get that and sometimes you don't even you're not the victim of the initial Attack, Yahoo had like a database of whatever, 200 million plus users, and the bad guys hacked Yahoo, and got all of the passwords for everybody on Yahoo. Right? And this was a long time ago. But you know, it's it's sometimes you have one password for everything. Well, any one of those 50 services can get hacked. And now your passwords in the wind crap for the other 49 services. It's a great bank.

Roy Barker  15:25

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. Because they'll just, you know, again, I'm have limited knowledge, but they have these programs that they can load up your username and password. And then when they find out your bank, your credit card, you know, they'll just auto auto run through all those until one of them gets a hit that they there. Yeah,

Brian  15:44

it's called a it's called a dictionary attack. And it's super trivial to set up. So again, what I will say, Okay, what I do, well, you know, again, if you're on if you can see a video feed, I've got a yubikey here. This thing's 40 bucks. You can buy it on Amazon. I'm not affiliated with them. Okay, I'm

Roy Barker  16:01

sorry. Can you spell that Yuba?

Brian  16:03

Yeah, UB keys. So it's why you bi ke y, okay. And there's a bunch of different vendors of similar equipment, okay. But what it does is it replaces all your passwords. It's got a little, it looks like a key, it's got a hole on it for your key chain. Okay, it can get plugged in the USB on your computer. And when you go to login to stuff, you basically push this physical button. So if somebody hacks into your computer, they've got remote access to it, and they're trying to log in as you to stuff. Well, if you're not sitting there pushing that physical button, it doesn't log in.

Roy Barker  16:40

That's awesome. Yeah, I've never even heard of that. So I think

Brian  16:44

technology is common. It talks NFC to my phone. So it doesn't might you know, my iPhone doesn't have a plug for USB, but it syncs right up to my phone. Okay, fine. It's a great little product, gets rid of all your passwords, and actually does password this entry for most of the modern websites. So it's not even a normal password type of handshake. It's a whole different security protocol. Okay. So, again, if you have a crappy bank that doesn't allow for this kind of thing, or if it doesn't allow for two factor authentication, get a new bank.

Roy Barker  17:19

Okay. Now is that simple, just it's something like that gonna be easy for a novice like myself to, you know, to order it and get it set up where to work pretty seamlessly.

Brian  17:30

Yeah, it's not complicated. Okay. Frankly, it's easier than remembering 500 passwords. Exactly, yeah. So you know, and you don't, I mean, again, it's a really, it's a better way to live 99.9% of people, if they bought one of these $40 do hickeys, they would do, you know, dramatically increase their security. So there are some cheap solutions on the way. The other big one is email. Email phishing, and I talked to a lot of people who are very cocky. And they'll say, Yeah, I get I get these Nigerian prince emails. I know, I'm not getting I'm never gonna get fished. Right. And the bad guys, those are out there. And yeah, you're not gonna fall for one of those. But there are incredibly sophisticated bad guys out there. Right. And the level of sophistication will blow most people's minds. Yeah. There's probably people out there that could put this conversation through a computer. Capture enough about my inflection in the way I talk. Use AI, you know, to generate a conversation. Call my company say, Hey, this is Brian can Hey, can you reset my password or the dude into the XYZ system? I'm locked out, I locked myself out. Or hey, can you wire $30,000 over to this other account for this, you know, vehicle we just purchased? You know that and it sounds like me, and they might even like spoof my caller ID I mean, the amount of sophistication is, is high. Yeah. And it sounds like oh, I'm being too paranoid, like you were saying with the with the thumb over here. Camera, but reality is that's about the appropriate amount of paranoia. Yeah, these days. There's, there's not a lot of help out there. You got to defend yourself. Yeah. And there's a service. If you're a little bit bigger of a business, maybe you got a couple dozen employees. There's a really nice service called iron scales. That will plug right into your 365, which is what most people use for email these days. And it's kind of like when I see a phishing email, I can push a button and flag it as a as an end user. I see a suspicious email, I can flag it. And if enough people flag that email address across the United United States, we get a little bit of groupthink happening. Okay? And and the iron scales up in the cloud will say, okay, that's a that's a bad guy. And then it'll just poof and disappear from everybody's inboxes. Yep. Okay. So again, it's not incredibly expensive, but I don't again, I don't really know things like 10 bucks a month per user. But if you're a reasonable sized business, and you know, especially if you're like a higher end white collar business, like an accounting firm or a law firm, right, things like that, this, this kind of service is a no brainer. Yeah. You really need to do it as any kind of business any kind of micro business to take a little bit different tack. Even just a consumer. Yeah. There's no reason not to freeze your credit at all three credit bureaus. There's no reason I've never had anybody convinced me that it's a good idea to allow some third party like Equifax who I never signed up for. I never signed up for Equifax, did you sign up for it? No,

Roy Barker  21:04

I have not for sure. Did you sign

Brian  21:06

up for TransUnion? Do you remember signing up? I didn't sign up. Nobody does. They just they've been sitting there, gathering all our information, selling it our most critical information and they just sell it to whoever wants to buy it. Right. And I can think of no good reason to let them do that. Now. It's also I think, free, because I think they passed a law maybe three or four years ago, correct. After Equifax is big hack, when all that data that they gathered about you went to the wind. You know, they, they made it free to freeze it. So you go to their websites, and you freeze them. And yeah, that once a year, when you need to buy a car that once every other year, when your wife wants to get the target. Credit card, or you want to refi your house? Yes, you need to take about two minutes. Login to TransUnion. Calm saw your credit for two weeks. That's the entirety of the pain now. Yeah, it's there's no reason to let some bad guy who bought a kit off the deep web, go buy a car, in your name. Exactly. Well buy a house in your name? No, there's no reason.

Roy Barker  22:25

Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people don't realize that that you know, you can pay for services that do that. But you can also go out and do that for free with just I've done it. And so I can't remember if it's a phone call, maybe even an email or fax, but it's very simple to take care of. And, you know, I kind of look at it as two factor authentification. If I'm going to go purchase something, then it takes an extra step on my part just to make sure that goes through without just letting everything go through.

Brian  22:54

Exactly like why what is such a bad idea to have me take two extra minutes. Anytime I'm going to do anything that's going to be many 1000s of dollars, that's basically going to require a credit check. Exactly. It's a good way to live. And you don't need to pay for lifelock. Don't just lock it down. You got kids lock theirs down to Yep. And it's just not. I've never had anybody convinced me that it's worth it. And if somebody does breach your identity, if they do try to go buy stuff in your name with your social security number, it's gonna bounce. Yeah, it's gonna say, well, your credits frozen, they're not gonna know, the code to log in to Equifax to unlock it. Because they didn't lock it. They just bought a kit.

Roy Barker  23:39

Rat, right. You know, a couple things to say about email is that, you know, in our busy day, we get a lot from, you know, I get tons from services that are truly use Amazon, PayPal, you know, if you go up and look at the address that send it to you, it's always some crazy address that, you know, is not even close. But regardless of that, that I think, for me, that's an

Brian  24:03

excellent point. Right? That. So what you're talking about is domain spoofing. It's a type of phishing know, where you get an email from PayPal that, hey, you know, you just paid $37 to x, y and z, right? And you're like, No, I didn't. And you're gonna click that link and go log into PayPal. It's gonna look like PayPal. And you're gonna type in your username and password. And what did you just do ROI?

Roy Barker  24:28

You just gave it all away. You just

Brian  24:32

gave your pay pal? Some numbnuts Right, right. Yeah, what instantly going to log into the real one and and take more than $37 this this little yubikey saying is not fooled by that crap.

Roy Barker  24:47

That's good. Good. You know,

24:49

it's Yeah, it's

Roy Barker  24:50

the other thing I was gonna suggest is that, you know, what I do is if I get something from my bank, Amazon, I just go to sign into that account. I don't use the links. On that email, again, it takes about five more seconds because I have to open up a browser window and type in an address. But I can go into my Amazon account and see that there really was no $37 charge over there. It's somebody, you know, obviously, so I guess my messages, just take the extra time, don't click on any links, go to the, you know, go to where you usually sign in to check that out. And then the other thing is these phishing emails, you know, I, the, the prints that sends me the one all the time or the long lost relative, you know, from Nigeria, you know, I'm on to those, but the other one I get quite frequently that is more. Oh, sorry about that. That was my email that the, the one I'm more tempted to click on is, from somebody that I don't know, that says, hey, I have this awesome business opportunity, you know, please just click on my link, and I'll share all this information. And while I don't, it's, you know, it can be tempting in business, say, oh, that somebody really want to reach out. But my thing is, it would come from a company, even in my business, it would come from a company email, it would come through LinkedIn, they would tell me with so and so company, this is what we're looking for. But, you know, it's it's never that in depth, it's always just just a nugget of information, trying to get you to click on the link. So those are ones I just want to say, Be especially careful for those because they'll get you as well.

Brian  26:29

Well, and to take, again to with email, we could talk about email for hours. Last thing I'll say, okay, is sometimes you get an email from me, you know, and it'll say, Hey, Roy, thanks for having me on the show. You know, here's a link to my Dropbox where I got that document I wanted to share with you. And the problem is they hacked my email. Yeah, so sometimes your email didn't get hacked? Yeah, your friends, your vendors, your suppliers, email got hacked. And you've all probably seen this, where you know, some vendor that you haven't talked to, for three years, send you some email out of the blue talking about some RFP, you've all probably had it happen. Right, exactly. They're like, well, that's weird. And what invoice I haven't done business with that guy in five years. So well, his email got hacked. But what if it was, you know, five days ago, you had this conversation? And you, you know, you're going to be more gold? bolded click on it. Right, right. So yeah, I mean, this is where services like iron scales, modern technology, like yubikeys. Okay, you know, can really help you out of some of these more sophisticated attacks. Right,

Roy Barker  27:44

right. Okay. So what's next on our list there after we get through? Well,

Brian  27:48

and maybe it should have been first but back.

27:50

Okay. Okay.

Brian  27:52

Everybody needs to backup their damn data. It is 2021. Last I checked, and like, probably half the world's data is not backed up anywhere. It's crazy to me, with how phones, and how laptops and how one drive and how Google Drive, and how we have all these automated ways and all these cloud services. And, and yet, half of our stuff is not backed up any wreck. And worse, sometimes we think it is. So we think something we I'm paying for that backup service. When's the last time you logged into it? Yep. When's the last time you looked at your backup service and said, Yep, there's all the documents I created yesterday? Yeah, I'm good. That's a great.

Roy Barker  28:42

I had one that had a link break. And I went for about, you know, a month with no uploads, I thought it was just sitting there working in the background, and it wasn't. So that's an awesome point.

Brian  28:54

You got to audit your backups. And again, if you're a larger organization, where you got a couple dozen employees, and you're paying a managed service provider, you're paying for like a rent and IT guy every month. Make sure you ask them the question. How When's the last time you did a mock restore of my backups? Well, I've never done that for you. It's like, Well, my IT guy is gonna do that for me. So maybe you should do that. Or maybe I need a new IT guy. You know, it's in Yeah, you should pay money for it. They you know, things cost money. And if you're going to have an IT guy, once a quarter, Mark, restore all your backups. Make sure your HR data is there, make sure your architectural designs are there. Make sure your show notes and your audios there, whatever it is that you do and your financials and your HR. It's gonna take that guy for six, eight hours of human time to download all that stuff, spin it all up, go into it and say yep, I've got Roy's QuickBooks file. Yep, it was updated January 15, check, check, check, it's gonna take some time. And you don't have them do it every week. Have them do it twice a year, four times a year, whatever makes sense for your business. But a backup is not a backup if you don't look at it, right? And make sure it because we see all kinds of problems, whether something starts stops working, whether we got some scope creep, maybe you hired three or four new people, and they weren't set up with it. Maybe switched accounting systems, you switched drps, you move this other thing to the cloud. And and that's I guess the last thing is with backup, the cloud isn't a backup. When you say, yeah, you know, all my data is up and X, Y and Z provider. Well, that's the primary. What is the backup of that thing? Right? And if the answer is I don't know. That's isn't that Amazon's problem? Isn't that, you know, Bill Gates is problem. And the answer is no, it's not. I mean, Amazon, or not Amazon. But there was a huge out. It wasn't Amazon, Amazon, there was a huge outage on the East Coast just two days ago. Were like a fourth of the AWS nodes just kind of went poof now. And I don't even know, I haven't even read what all caused it. But these services are more robust than a server that you have set up in your business. But they're not infinitely robust, right? And if you need to have your data in two networks, and you need to test that it's actually there occasionally. Okay. So yeah, but anyways, the other ultimately you should air gap your backups, because the bad guys are super sophisticated. One of the things that my company Gilmore does a lot is we deal with situations where ransomware got on a business's network, they encrypted all the primary wherever it is up in the cloud, on prem. But deadly, encrypt all the data at the primary level, they'll kill any snapshotting, which I won't bother to explain what that is. But they'll also be on the network long enough to understand where the backup mechanism is up. There's a veem server over here pushing data to this little appliance, they will log in, and they will kill those backups dead. And one of the things we do is we will try to resurrect the data from some of these killed off backups. Yeah. So you know, backup your data, ideally, in a perfect world every once in a while, have an air gapped backup that's not plugged into the damn internet. Yeah.

Roy Barker  32:46

Yeah. And that's a it's important, because this is not only malicious, but I was gonna say it's it. The other thing we need to see is how fast can we get our hands on that backup? Because, you know, we, you could have a fire, you got flood, water damage, tornado, you know, there's a lot of things besides mischief that can happen to your equipment. And if some people if you go for days, you know, hours, days, weeks without being able to get your hands on the data and being able to restore it to some usable form. You know, it can put people out of business.

Brian  33:17

Oh, yeah. Or it'll really annoy their insurance company. And that happens. So we again, we run a data recovery lab. And we get hired sometimes in in corporate situations where, well, the good news, is there a backup. And the bad news is, it's been downloading for two days, and it is 3%. Complete, right? Right. And this business is going to be down for 60 days, and the insurance company's on the hook to pay $25,000 a day, every day, they're down. So they'll drag those broken servers into us, we'll fix them because we can do it in four or five days to go save the insurance company but money. So yeah, it's a weird deal. Man backups are only there. And again, that is exactly the kind of thing you would learn in a mock restore. Right? And exactly the type of question when you talk to your IT staff like hey, when's the last time we did a mock restore? Was it complete? And how long did it take?

Roy Barker  34:09

Yeah, exactly. All right, Brian, well, we appreciate you coming on and talking about this, what I'm going to try to get off air here and try to talk really hard to get you to come back to do some small segments for us where we can, you know, break some of these bigger things down and let's do some actionable items. I think that would be great. This is such a sensitive information. Such a sensitive place. And you know, the experts like yourself are few and far between. So I mean, I'm glad that we were able to connect and get you on this episode for sure. But before we go, you've already mentioned a few things maybe but what is the tool that you use in your daily life and it could be professional personal, just something that adds value to your life?

Brian  34:57

Yeah, I mean, if you want to just take a break from this Cyber Security and get into the more business see thing. Okay. One of the software tools that I use that I really enjoy is the LinkedIn Sales Navigator, okay. So it's kind of like LinkedIn God Mode costs about 100 bucks a month, maybe a little more. But it lets me if I if I'm trying to research a certain piece of storage equipment, and I want to find the human that wrote the firmware for that equipment I can get on LinkedIn Sales Navigator, put in a bunch of weird stuff. And bang, like, there's my man, he's in Japan. And he's the guy that wrote the firmware for the XYZ do Hickey interest. And I could be on a chat with him two minutes later, and it did not exist 10 years ago. And that job of finding that resource 10 years ago was to navigate some of these companies with 10,20 50,000 employees to try to get somebody to tell me who did it. Yeah. And it was almost impossible. So LinkedIn Sales Navigator, it's, it's awesome. Okay,

Roy Barker  36:09

awesome. Well, great. Well, Brian, let tell everybody, you know, basically, who's your client, how you can help them and then of course, how they can reach out and get a hold of you.

36:19

Yeah, so I mean, hopefully, you'd never do it from a crash perspective. But if you ever lose data, you find yourself in a data crisis. The remediation company that I run is called Gillware at gillware.com, we've been doing it for about 20 years now. We service over 10,000 clients a year. And we can usually help you out of that jam. If you're a more mid size business with maybe 100 plus employees, and you're kind of wondering how tight your own it is, and you're getting a little bit worried. And you've been reading all this stuff in the paper. And you've seen Jeff Bezos himself got hacked. You know, like when you see if they can hack him, they can hack anybody. Right? Exactly. I mean, it's, you see all this stuff, and you're worried. I also work with and co founded a company called Tetra Defense. And that is a incident response firm. And they also perform risk management and risk assessments. So they will come in and remediate some of those million plus dollar ransoms and help dig out of those specific messes. But they also will help you with monitoring your network and what tools need to get installed, and they'll put your IT department on an action plan, and they'll put them through the old minus 31 step inspection, you know, like they, they really look at everything. And if you haven't figured it out, this stuff's really complicated. There's a lot of it. And the biggest problem with cybersecurity man, is if you got one hole in your game, you could do almost everything right. It just takes one little problem. Yeah, yeah. And it could cause all kinds of problems. So it's, but if you're a big medium to big sized company looking for real help with locking down your security, or just maybe feeling good, because it is you find out it is so good, but I don't think that's ever happened. You know, that's again, that's over at tetradefense.com,

Roy Barker  38:24

okay. Yeah, and the, you know, the other thing we've talked about previously, and I don't want to open up another can hear that we'll have to talk another hour about but you know, it's it's not only our computer equipment or network, things like that. But it's can be as simple as walking around and seeing what people leave on their desk. You know, janitor comes through finds a jump drive sees a thing of, you know, list of your customers list, a password, you know, or, you know, the other thing we talked about too, was if you have these really cool office spaces in an urban environment, where you've got a lot of traffic on the street, and all your monitors are facing this nice open window where anybody can just stand outside your building and take notes. There's, there's a ton to this. And like you said,

Brian  39:08

there's physical components to risk assessments. You know, kind of a funny one that'll make you know, one of the ways if when you when you get paid to hack into people's networks, like one of the tricks is just to take a bunch of USB sticks and just leave them around the parking lot. But those USB sticks are programmed to basically hijack the computer and install a bunch of malware. Remote Access. Yeah. That's a dirty, dirty trick. Because if you find if you find one of these laying in the parking lot, throw it in the trash.

Roy Barker  39:43

Yeah, well, 10 minutes ago, I would have been the knucklehead that picked it up. Okay, we'll do that. All right, Brian. Well, thanks so much again, for coming on. We appreciate all this great advice and it's been a good conversation. Appreciate Y'all can find us of course at www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com course all the social media networks, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and this will go up live on youtube once the episode is posted as well Also, you can find us on all the major podcast platforms always want to say iTunes but they've changed this apple podcast, Google podcast, Stitcher, Spotify. If we're not one on one on one in which you listen to give me a call, I'd be glad to get added to that. Also, if you're, you know an expert in a field like Brian, please give us a reach out to us. We'd love to get you on an episode future episode here. Y'all reach out to Brian. This is a serious business. It's just getting worse and worse every day. So let's see how Brian can help us before we get ourselves in a jam. Alright, till next time y'all Take care of yourself and take care of each other. Thank you.

 

www.gillware.com

www.tetradefense.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

 

Profit With a Purpose, Gain A Competitive Edge With Real Social Impacts with Phil Preston

Learn how and why you should build purpose into your work. It's a great feeling to do something you love that has a positive impact socially. Purpose also helps your employees and customers connect with you and your business on a deeper level. Have a deeper purpose in your work can also prevent burnout for you and your employees. Be inspirational.

About Phil

Phil traded in a high-flying corporate career to help businesses use purpose to make a difference and grow their bottom line. He's a speaker, facilitator and strategist, and the author of the book, Connecting Profit With Purpose. He works with small-medium enterprises through to multi-national corporations and everything in between, as well as helping public and social sector organizations work more collaboratively with the private sector. Outside of work he's over-invested in coffee, chocolate and trail running!

Download my Corporate Purpose Blueprint

Info about the book Connecting Profit with Purpose

LinkedIn Page: Navigating Purpose and the New Economy

Email: [email protected]

Web: philpreston.com.au

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

 

 

Profit With a Purpose, Gain A Competitive Edge With Real Social Impacts

Sat, 5/22 1:47PM • 35:15

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

business, people, purpose, costs, guess, idea, company, challenges, run, waste, philanthropic, bit, helping, eviction, problem, solve, thinking, opportunities, phil, connecting

SPEAKERS

Phil, Roy Barker

 

Roy Barker  00:02

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. This is your host, Roy. So we are a podcast that brings a wide variety of guests that speak on diverse topics to you know, help our listeners, maybe identify some opportunities for themself or if there are some deficiencies, it also gives us experts to reach out to to, you know, try to help us be more successful, be more profitable as we go through our business. So today, we are lucky to have Phil Preston, and Phil traded in his high flying corporate career to help businesses use purpose to make a difference and grow their bottom line. He's a speaker, facilitator and strategist and the author of the book connecting profit with purpose. He works with small medium enterprises that through all the way to the multiple net, multi national corporations and everything in between, as well as helping public and social sector organizations work more collaboratively, collaboratively with the private sector. Outside of his work, he's over invested in coffee, chocolate and trail running. So Phil, glad to have you. I'm a little tongue tied this afternoon, but glad to have you with us. Thanks for staying. Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to be with us.

 

Phil  01:27

Yeah, no, it's great to be with you, Roy. Thanks very much. And I've already had my run today's heavy in a pretty good, okay.

 

Roy Barker  01:34

Now I was kind of getting on the dig in the coffee and the chocolate. And then we got to trail run him like oh, my gosh, I don't know about that one. Well, so yeah, you know, it's an interesting concept that we hear a lot about more. And that was one reason, you know, when we connected, that was why I had invited you on the show. I want to just learn more about, you know, tying in purpose with business, and, you know, making a business more successful helping our bottom line. And then, you know, also I think it's the, you know, how can we use purpose in our business to maybe even step over into that public and social sector, which are all needing so much help nowadays, it's a very timely subject.

 

Phil  02:25

Yeah, look at I think, particularly for small to medium sized business owners, like you and I, and many others, it's often tempting to think of purposes, that thing we do outside of our work. And, you know, we don't have a lot of life outside of our work, sometimes we're pretty flat out. So it's a real bonus if you can build purpose into your work as well. And and I guess this was some of the revelations that came to me after I left my corporate lifestyle, that there's many different ways of approaching purpose. And as long as you know, the first step is to be aware of, for example, the three different types in three different ways you can do that, because then you can make conscious choices about how you pursue it and don't end up I think a lot of people want to make so much different civil, they run around doing lots of things, and that adds to the burnout in their life. So you don't want to have that situation. If you can build on on things. That's far better. Right?

 

Roy Barker  03:19

Exactly. And you know, the The other thing about that is, if you do something you like, and you know, I there are many days that go by get tapped on the shoulder and say your workday is through, it's time to get up and do something else. And that's just a, I guess that's a byproduct of actually doing something you love, that you feel has a purpose. And I think it makes it, it makes your work life much easier. Because I don't ever feel like I work a day in my life. Because I feel like there is that purpose. I think it's a very important factor that, you know, I guess a lot of times we fall into businesses or end up somewhere. But, you know, like you said, if we don't feel that purpose, it can lead to burn out in a hurry and mess up a lot of other things in our life.

 

Phil  04:10

That's right. Yeah. So it is, you know, we do philanthropic things where they're their causes we want to give to whether it's personally outside of business or within our business. That's all good. There's, you know, things we do to be responsible as a business. Like we might want to know, the paper we put in our photo copiers might be from some, you know, the polpo Forest resource that's been accredited. So we're doing the right thing there. But there is a third level, once we go beyond the philanthropic and then the responsible things to do. There's a third level which is really exciting. And that's the area like to get into where things actually line up with your business in a way that helps you grow your bottom line, but also make a really big difference in the world. And that's something that's not always easy. But if we can get there, look, it just makes our lives almost perfect. Oregon can't get perfect,

 

Roy Barker  05:06

but close to it. Exactly, exactly. So how did you come out of the corporate world and get involved in specializing in trying to I guess match businesses with a purpose or find the their purpose? I guess it's combination of the business that they're in and the owner what they are interested in, I guess there's a lot of variables that go with that.

 

Phil  05:31

Yeah, well, I guess I, I, when I grew up, I had a pretty, I'd say, linear or simple view of the world, I thought, you know, you get a job, a career, you work in a business or for business, and you give back what you can when you can, right? And you know, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. Yes, yes, you can do that. However, you know, taking a cue from lady called Judith Roden, who was the head of the Rockefeller Foundation in the US for some time. She made the point that even with rising levels of philanthropy, there's, there's not enough resources there to really make a difference. So you go, Okay, well, philanthropy does play a role, but it's not going to make a big difference in solving challenges. What do we do next. And the next port of call was media. In my role, I was working in the investment industry. And we were looking at companies being responsible. So you know, they're doing the right thing by by the customers or by people they're buying goods from, they're doing the right thing by their staff. But really, those activities, even though they're good, and companies need to do them, I realized that they don't change the world, either. They're really just about companies protecting their brand and reputation. And I don't think you and I are going to run around going Yes, we're going to change the world by protecting brand and reputation. So when I left my corporate career, I sort of got to a point where I'd been working in the investment industry for 17 years and, and I just stuck my head up above the parapet, and I realized I didn't want to do this for the rest of my life. So like a jet foot, like a jet fighter pilot who hits the ejector seat button, when he's in trouble. I left and started researching the different ways companies make a difference. And what I found was on top of the two approaches already knew about I found this third one that just one or two companies were able to do really well. And instead of making you a different sort of at this level, they're making a difference that was way up here. And it took me a while to figure out what the formula was. But when I figured it out, I was like, Oh, this was I found my life's calling, because those companies were the ones that could make a difference in a profitable way. And if they could, if they could do that, it meant they kept doing it and kept investing in it. And I can give you some examples as we go along. That's the key to it is connecting profit with purpose. So a really nice, or a couple of quick examples. And this is one in my book, Comm. This is a case study. Some real estate agents in an area not far from where I live in Sydney, Australia. We're helping to reduce tenancy evictions. Because there are some tenants who just don't want to pay the rent. They know they can, but they won't. We're not trying to predict them. But there's there's a range of tenants and in COVID, you know, we know people have health problems, mental health problems, people lose their job. And you don't want those unnecessary evictions if you can help it. So instead of the real estate agents just going through the process of evicting people, when they couldn't pay their rent, they actually changed their own internal process, and they didn't have to do a lot, there was only a little thing that had to do by making referrals of those people to the right support agencies, what they found was they could save more than 50% of those tenancies. And so there was a really, really big social impact here, but at the same time, they realized they were saving themselves money by avoiding that eviction process, right. So yeah, that's when we get those really nice win wins. And so they have an incentive to keep doing it. And they also have an incentive to, to make a difference at a big on a bigger scale than they might through some of their other means.

 

Roy Barker  09:23

Yeah, and that's, you know, like, again, that's a timely message, because instead, I assume, instead of going through all of that costs for eviction, and then sometimes even though we have all the legal rights, it can still take a long time, this is a way that they can at least recoup a bigger portion of their money and and and also keep the tenant and probably not forced them to lose their livelihood as well.

 

Phil  09:51

Well, that that's a really good point, because it's one of the things we did in this study was actually put numbers around those effects. So for the real estate agency themselves, there was $1,000 in hard costs that that was saving. And that's before, you know, extra stress and extra time they had to spend going through those eviction processes. But when they added it up, they landlords were saving, on average about $10,000. Wow. Because, yeah, it's a sizable amount, because as you alluded to their eviction processes can take a long time. So yeah, the landlord's potentially losing rent for months at a time, they then have to do up the property, there might be some damage and things that need replacing, and then they have to pay related costs, right. So when you start making, you know, when you start putting numbers around it, it becomes a business case. Not something as nice to do. Exactly, exactly.

 

Roy Barker  10:45

So yeah, there. So there is that financial impact. And there is this man's a great example, because it's, it's a win win. It's the, I guess, the financial impact for the real estate company. But then there was also that social aspect of being able to, you know, help the tenants or point them in the right direction. Again, unfortunately, in that position, sometimes people don't know where to reach out, or how to get that help. So, you know, have a company that having those resources that that's awesome. So what are some other cons, if you, you know, can speak to them? What are some other examples of a type of an industry where they've been able to use purpose?

 

Phil  11:28

Yeah, sure. Another one, I recently stumbled across, which I love is a lawyer, who was turning away people from her practice. Now she was practicing in family law and a lot of divorce cases. Okay. And apparently, the average cost so this is in Australia, I don't know what it is, in the US. The average cost of legal services for a divorce that doesn't run, there's not really fractious, but that maybe doesn't run completely smoothly is around $100,000. Wow, two? Yep. So both parties are going to end up $100,000 worth. And if there's kids involved, you know, that's, that's the kids sort of losing the value of that money as well. Exactly. So, yeah, she found she was turning away six out of 10 clients because they couldn't afford first or the the industries services. And what she ended up doing was creating an online product, and she invested a lot of money in it. So the people who look like they're gonna have a fairly straightforward process, they can use the online product, there's a lot to do, but at the end of it, they end up with an agreement that's legally enforceable, and both parties can sign. And it costs less than $1,000 to use this online service. So again, she's helping to address a social problem, which is around the affordability of legal services. Yeah. And, look, it won't suit everyone. But for the for a large portion of people it does, so they'll be saving a lot of money out of their estate, which is good for them and good for their kids.

 

13:03

Yeah, that is.

 

13:06

Yeah, I

 

Phil  13:07

love that. Yeah, no, that's

 

Roy Barker  13:08

a great example. Just thinking outside the box and figuring out a way to well, not only to generate a little revenue for herself, but also solve a client problem for her, you know, people that she was having to turn away. So that's definitely a win win.

 

Phil  13:23

That's right. And it's scalable, because it's online. So within Australia, because law is different from country to country, but that is scalable, so she can end up this can be a profit generator for her as it grows things. So again, it's not a not a philanthropic donation. And maybe a final final example, just to, to change tune a little bit. Yeah, I love this one. Because I, I did this case study for a pig farm. And one of the biggest costs in a pig farm is was for this farmer was the cost of grain that they'll feed into their pigs. Exactly. And in the time, grain costs were going up in in Australia, and that this was a challenge for them. So what they ended up doing was partnering with a range of food manufacturers that at the end of a food run, they'd always have leftover food. So it was costing those food manufacturers about $300 a ton to take that green waste and dump it into the to what they found was that for about $75 a tongue so far, far cheaper rate, they could transport it to this pig farm and the pigs would get the food and and so the farmer was happy because they had free seed. The food manufacturer was happy because it cost them far less. And I think the pigs were pretty happy because they were getting things like leftover ice cream. Right.

 

Roy Barker  14:49

Right. Exactly.

 

Phil  14:52

Pasta ice cream are issues so it was a win win all around.

 

Roy Barker  14:56

Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that because I had Both had two different sets of sides of my family that were in the propane business. And to be honest, that's how they got into, you know, back in the day, I guess this was back in the late 30s, early 40s. It was a waste product. And they just the refineries just couldn't get rid of it. So these guys figured out a way to go pick it up, haul it off, and, you know, turn it into a very usable and profitable business. So sometimes it's about just kind of keeping our eyes open and not getting stuck in that same rut, look around at these different things that we can do to, you know, not only help others, but help ourselves in the into.

 

Phil  15:37

Yeah, and I love that example. Because it's you've given example, there is someone creating a new new market or a new product brand needed exactly in a way that's saving a byproduct that might be wasted. So that's a new product and market opportunity. And so there's those opportunities, and there's the ones which are around, I guess, being more productive or cutting costs. In the case of the big farm that was really about cutting costs. So there's many different ways you can find these types of opportunities, although I have to say every business is slightly different. So there's, there's no guaranteed formula, a formula you can put on a plate. Yeah, say this is how you do it. But there's a process you can go through the wind those opportunities for you.

 

Roy Barker  16:18

Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask you. So, you know, Monday morning, you get a Phil gets a call from Roy saying, Hey, you know, I'd really like to find a way to, you know, time or time our business in with more with purpose, you know, so I know everybody's gonna be a little different, but kind of say, what are the general steps that you would go through with with your clients?

 

Phil  16:41

Yeah, so there's two two angles here. Really, one is about? As you mentioned, how do we embed purpose in our business as a, you know, to hardcoded in our DNA, and then there's the secondary part, which is finding the initiatives or strategies like the ones we just spoken to? So let me go through the first one, so can actually become a very purposeful business. It's, there's a key transformation that has to take place, if it hasn't already taken place. And I call this the the transformation from activities to outcomes. Yes. So yeah, activities to outcomes means you're not thinking about your businesses say, making cars, which is an activity, you're thinking about your business is, say sustainable transport solutions, branches more about an outcome. So you're thinking about, how is my business benefiting society? More so than what activity do I do to make money? Right? Of course, you still got to make money. But what I've found is if you get that purpose piece, right, if you really and truly understand what the benefit is you're providing to society, the bottom line often takes care of itself. Because you tend to find really, really good new ideas and new ways of adding value to your customers that you might not have thought of before. So yeah, the process is really to get that mindset piece right now, if we're dealing with a very small business with with one, you know, a couple of employees, that's not much of a challenge, they're either get it or they don't. But when you start dealing with bigger businesses, and you've got line managers and people running parts of a plant, for example, then sometimes it's an exercise to work with the people in the business to ensure everyone's on that on that same level, then the next thing to focus on is really, what is their what is their purpose, we want to come up with a purpose statement, and one that we truly believe in and want to deliver on not something we just want to ride on a bit of paper, and wave around in the wind if once a year. So So that's the second thing. And so there's a little bit of an art to creating a purpose statement. And and the third part then is to say, Well, what statements not enough, you've actually then got to help everyone in the business understand what it means for them. Brad, what are you giving them license to do? Or maybe license not to do? And how is it going to help you? So so that's the I guess, embedding purpose into business? And to answer the second part to come up with specific ideas and strategies. It's really about putting in very simple terms, it's, if you wrote down, even so you just write down what are the 10 biggest challenges I'm facing today in my business? And then you've created a second list to say, Well, what are the challenges I'm seeing around me in my community or my industry, you take those two lists, and you'd with a bit of working through it, you'd see that okay, maybe this one marries up with that one over here, I can see a connection between one or two. You're not going to use all of them, you're not going to solve all of them, but you will start to see a pattern and some opportunities will emerge. Yeah. And now I work across a lot of industries. So it's sometimes the you kind of sort of know where to look for in certain industries for these challenges, but in some times they they come out of unusual places. So that's, that's interesting.

 

Roy Barker  19:57

Yeah, and you know, when we When we look at solving it that way, it's, I guess it's a little bit more business related. But if somebody came to you wanted more, you know, to, I guess, veer a little bit out of their lane, what the business was to try to solve a, you know, help solve for social problems somehow interweave those is, does that become more complex? Or is have you found, it's easy to kind of weave those fabrics together.

 

Phil  20:29

So the challenges, you can't necessarily take a social problem that you want to solve and say, I'm going to do that in a profitable way that you might be able to find a way to do that. But it just may not work. Because that unless solving that problem is going to help reduce costs for your business support adds your bottom line, then it's, you know, we're not in this space. It doesn't mean you can't help that problem through your philanthropic or volunteering agenda or something else. You so it's a little bit confronting decided someone you can't go into this with preconceived ideas about what the solution is, yeah, we've got to find all the possible options on the table for you. And then we'll you know, we'll work through it and prioritize which ones are the best, right and which ones? Yeah.

 

Roy Barker  21:14

So how hard is it to? You know, like, for me, if we sat down and figured this out, it'd be pretty easy to implement that as, as the company gets larger and larger. What are some of the implementation challenges that you have seen in order to have my vision or my ideals kind of filtered down and I, you know, listening to you speak, I can only imagine that if we get our employees involved in this on the ground in on the ground floor, the good ideas probably trickle up to the, you know, not down but trickle up.

 

Phil  21:48

Yeah, that's right. They need to go both ways. And I think the big change for a lot of businesses is that you're moving away from a decision. If we think about giving and philanthropy and volunteering, it's, you know, who who signs off the cheque and says, we're going to give this much to a charity that is normally, you know, the the owner or the CEO, or the managing director of the business. There might be some input from staff, but it's viewed as something that's outside of their normal day to day activities. So what we're talking about here is, when we're conducting profit with purpose, it's actually bringing it into the core of our business, right, which means, you know, when I talked about when you talked about the propane idea, or when I talked about the lady helping divorces, and people through that process, it's going to impact everyone in the business. So it's not just about one person that it is about marketing, it's about sales, it's about operations. It's, it's about, you know, human resources, or it could be around around a whole range of things. So what you find is everyone is sort of involved in this, like they wouldn't be with any normal business case, or any plan that follow from a business case. Right. So I think that's that's the key piece of advice. You will be introducing this honor, I guess, in a business's usual way. So in some ways that makes it easier, because you just might be implementing something within your existing policies and procedures. It's just a slightly different thing you're doing.

 

Roy Barker  23:16

Yeah. Yeah, sometimes, you know, as I'm just like, thinking of things as waste, you know, what, if we think about a factory, and we have a waste product, it's like, sometimes, we've been so used to throwing it away, or paying to get it hauled off for years that maybe the, you know, involving the workforce to the point of having these conversations, somebody could, you know, have that good idea, like, Hey, we could either, you know, repurpose this this waste, or at least, you know, give it to somebody else that could use it to a profitable way, I guess, or reduce their costs, kind of like the kind of like the pig farmer.

 

Phil  23:58

Yeah, there's, there's a really good example to begin from the US which now I think I've got the company name right here, I think it was interface carpets or interface tiles. Forgive me if I've got the name slightly wrong, but it was headed up by a guy called Ken I think was Ray Anderson, who's now deceased. Unfortunately, however, he kept driving this idea of Well, for starters, he realized that why, why do you lay carpet in a hole roll, when you know someone spilled something on part of it, you just want to be able to replace a small bit. So he initially drove this idea towards carpet tiles, so you could just replace the tiles. But then he further had this idea that he could do that on a zero waste and zero emissions basis. And this was back in the 80s. Now, one of the secrets to his success, he eventually conquered that challenge. So on the one hand, he was able to drive his staff by setting this amazing challenge that they really were inspired by and wanted to help achieve. And on the other hand, he was able to commute Because this was a public company, right? He was able to communicate this in a way to the board and to the stock market that they understood this was a commercial imperative. And he was always connecting it with dollars and cents in the process. So he was really nicely able to speak to those two, I guess, groups of stakeholders, in a way they understood and came along for the ride. Right? That's powerful.

 

Roy Barker  25:24

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, well, we can solve problems for arc and, you know, for our consumer eventually, and then drive some to the bottom line. That is definitely a win win for everyone.

 

Phil  25:37

Yeah, and his so one of the benefits of that is he that the company became so advanced in their, in their industry that when others realized, or that's the way we that's the way the future, you know, took them a long time to catch up to so that company ends up with a good period of sustained competitive advantage there.

 

Roy Barker  25:55

Right. Yeah, you know, the good thing about I think reaching out and connecting with professionals, like yourself in this field is that, you know, like me, I wouldn't even have a clue where to start. But the good thing is, you know, with a little bit of direction, I'm sure that you know, the ideas can start flying. And, you know, eventually, like you said, you can kind of marry some marry some opportunities on both sides of that equation together to make it you know, where it's a home run.

 

Phil  26:25

Yeah, I'll tell you tell you where the real nice sweet spot is, because I do a lot of speaking engagements. And sometimes people will contract me to come in and run a bit of a hole of room workshop. And what I find is that it's the next session, and it only needs to be often 90 minutes, or two hours, maybe at most, when people are buying into the idea, they're still a little bit unsure where they go next round, how do I start unpacking this, but it often takes only about 90 minutes. And that's great in the virtual world we're in today, because we can easily do this. Yeah, just that 90 minutes can really, I guess, get them a long way down the path. And we all know about the 8020 rule, I can get 80% of the way they are in a very short space of time. And that's the most exciting part of the process, I find, and then people can come out of it, that sort of session with the next steps and knowing what to do from there.

 

Roy Barker  27:17

And I'm sure that some have to press harder than others, but I was gonna ask you about that success rate. So you think that 8020 rule applies also to, you know, people that would reach out to you and be able to come to you that, you know, probably the good 75 to 80%, you'll be able to find that that intersection where they can have purpose that does the bottom line?

 

Phil  27:42

That's right. Well, the great thing is I'm I sit outside their business, so I can't do it for them, it's really up to them to execute and implement. And so the other great thing is they know their business, I don't. So I'm a little I'm a little bit like a purpose guide or purpose coach who can help them navigate their way through this, but at the end of the day, they've got to do the work. Like you know, with that hand holding, it gives people the confidence that they know they're on the right track, and they're not wasting time. And if it hurts their bottom line, they know it's a good investment, and they're going to come out ahead out the other end. So yeah, look, I love it. But I don't pretend when I started consulting, you know, I left the corporate world and thought I'll be a consultant. I thought as a consultant had to solve everyone's problem immediately. But I soon figured, no, that's I can't do that. I'm really, you know, you're there to guide people towards help them find their solutions and help them put into practice. Exactly.

 

Roy Barker  28:37

Excuse me. Yeah, exactly. Well, Phil, I certainly do appreciate you taking time out of your day to you know, come on and talk to us about the you know, connecting profit with purpose. And before I let you go a couple things. Number one is, so what is a tool that you use in your daily life, that it could be in professional, your personal life, but something that you do could be a habit that adds a lot of value to your day?

 

Phil  29:06

Well, I'm going to fall back on my hobby here of trail running, okay, so I'm not going professional going personal. And I it's important, because every day exercise, although I do it at the crack of dawn, and I find it's just great, whether it's walking or running, you come back to the desk, and you feel fantastic for the rest of the day. Right. But there is an app that goes with that. And I use Strava which is a way of just recording how far you've gone and how fast right and look at it just helps in giving giving you some benchmarking and understanding where you're at and, and I there's actually communities that build around that. So you end up connecting with other people you know who are runners, and you can see what everyone's doing and it actually creates a really nice community buzz around that hobby.

 

Roy Barker  29:53

That's cool. Yeah, you know it. We talked about this quite a lot. This is even a getting out. For me taking a you know, 15 minute walk, it just clears my head so much. So, you know, getting that start of the day getting the after you've exercised that. There's nothing like it. It's a big To me it's the biggest pain especially if you've got to,

 

Phil  30:17

especially you'll, I think resonate with this, especially if you've got a crazy dog that keeps you awake at night because they sleep on your legs. Yeah, yeah,

 

Roy Barker  30:25

we did a discussion about that getting all tangled, it was kind of like this morning, I, you know that we're taping this on the weekend, I thought, I'm gonna sleep in this morning. But you know, one of these, one of these animals was about 530. This morning, they they got really restless. So I've had a long day already. But we couldn't make it with good Mikey without them. That's for sure.

 

30:48

So it's right.

 

Roy Barker  30:50

Also, tell us a little bit about connecting profit with the purpose. Is that available on Amazon? And we'll be sure to put all this in the show notes as well. But how can somebody get it.

 

Phil  31:01

So that's the book there, you can probably see behind me as well. So it's available on all the major online retailers. So you can buy it as an E book format, or order a hardcopy, and yet through Amazon and all the main players. So that's the best way to go about it. And what it does, apart from, I guess, makes the case for all this, the section three gives you a how to helps you step through the process that we talked about and helps you on your journey. So I'm not here to tell you this is a great idea. And then leave you alone, wonderful people through the process as much as possible. And then someone who got really hands on and do something in person, that's great. But I think we don't talk about this enough. It's something that's a little bit hard to crack and sometimes hard for people to get their head around. So I'm very held to person and I like to like to help people get on their way.

 

Roy Barker  31:49

Well, awesome. We'll pick up the book and read through it, get excited about it, and then give Phil a call. And so the other thing is tell us, you know who what is your client look like? What can you do to help them through this journey? And then again, how can they reach out and get a hold of you?

 

Phil  32:07

Yes, so clients hire me for two main reasons. Or maybe three, but two main one is they they're looking often, though, I guess small businesses that might have typically, you know, 10 to 100 staff. Or sometimes more will be looking to actually really embed their purpose, understand what it is and get all the people on board with the same thing. So they can then move forward and start discovering opportunities. There's a range of other businesses that are really just want to go straight into what's the strategy, what's the initiative, the new thing we can do, and we can tackle it that way. And there's actually a third type of business and this was one that came on quite a bit last year for me was the company that was doing a range of activities, but not really understanding they were having a huge positive social impact, but they actually didn't see it. They were doing so many things, but they saw their social impact as this little bit of giving. Now we're doing over on the side that actually they were buying millions of dollars of produce from organic farmers and so that there was more impact in that side of their business. And it was helping them understand, you know, a that that was the case that be okay, how could you potentially support that community of growers you're dealing with there to help them do their job better, that will help you get better qualities and yields of crops and so on. So they came very much from the social impact angle. And so finally, I also work with a lot of nonprofits and charities, because instead of going around and just asking for money from companies, they can often zero in on what's going to really be of benefit for the company. So becomes a true partnership conversation, not a just can we have some funding conversation. And that's, that's quite empowering as well.

 

Roy Barker  33:53

Yeah. And I imagine for them, you know, one thing you mentioned earlier, I think that's important is, you know, moving from that activity, thinking about the activities to thinking about outcomes. Really, you know, that's a that's a good idea for everybody to think about that. Yeah. All right, Phil. Well, thank you so much, again, for taking time out of your busy day. We certainly do appreciate it. And that's gonna do it for another episode of the business of business podcast. Of course, you can find us at Well, I'm sorry for I get all crazy enough on that. Did you give us your contact information, your website?

 

Phil  34:29

My website is philpreston.com.au definitely find me there. Okay. Yeah,

 

Roy Barker  34:34

good. Good. Yeah. Now I'll include that in the show notes as well, but just in case somebody wants to reach out and get a hold of you. So that's going to do it for another episode of the business of business podcast. We do appreciate you listening. Of course, you can find us at www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com we're on all the major social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and this will go up live on YouTube as well. The video And we're not on all the major podcast platforms so be sure and share if we're not on a platform that you use regularly please reach out I'd be glad to get decided. Until next time, take care of yourself and please take care of each other.

www.philpreston.com.au

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Making Connections with Roy Barker

The second in the LinkedIn series discussing making connections. Last week we talked about completing your profile. Do some research and fill in the gaps thoroughly. LinkedIn can be a greater networking tool, lead builder, research tool, and aid in job hunting or searching for employees. LinkedIn is a long-term play so please manage expectations and get started ASAP.

About Roy

I have been fortunate enough to have had an awesome and diverse career. I have been in the right place at the right time to learn a lot of valuable lessons. All I ever really wanted to be was a pick-up man in the rodeo. Yep, that’s correct. I loved watching those guys. During the rough stock events. They would sit at the end of the arena on those big beautiful horses. Just waiting for a wreck. Then, they would swoop in. And the cowboy would jump off the bucking horses onto the pickup man’s horse. And they would never miss a stride.

While I was never a pickup man, I was lucky enough to chase the rodeo a little in my younger days as a bull rider. That is a great story in itself. But I want to talk a little more about business. If you would like to hear some stories of going down the road, let’s grab some coffee. I am always willing to share those stories. Anyway, I digress. Back to business.

I started my business career at the age of 14 selling manure out of the back of my mother’s car. To city dwellers for garden fertilizer. Me and a lifelong friend had a lot of fun. And learned many lessons about sales and marketing along the way. Then after high school, I fell into an amazing position with a major utility. Working my way through the repair and construction departments into management. Again, at this point in my life I was surrounded by guys much older than I was. They taught me some great lessons in craftmanship, work ethic, and life.

By now I have figured out that I do need higher education. My parents were proven right again. Its amazing how much smarter your parents are the older you get. I went to night school for about 12 years and completed my undergraduate degree in finance. At this point I spent a few years at a major brokerage house before transitioning into operations consulting in 2000.

During 2007, I got interested in employee retention while I was in grad school. As I mentioned before, I was a late bloomer educationally. Our class was studying a book on Nursing Home Administration. In some part of the book, it referenced that most nursing homes had an average of 300% employee turnover every year! Yes, you read that right, 300%. That means they turned their entire staff over three times every year. Unbelievable!

While I understand to some extent, the work is hard, and thankless. The pay is even more thankless. Still, it made me wonder: how much did it cost employers every year? What was their risk exposure? I started doing a little research and found that the true cash cost can be exorbitant. The inherent risk can be even that much more.

As I mentioned earlier, prior to my consulting years. I was manager at a major utility. Employee turnover for reasons beyond retirement were virtually nonexistent. I know a couple of guys who were tragically killed on the job. There was one who went to prison for an off the job murder. And a few more over the years for just not showing up. In my 18 years with the company, I was the only guy I know or heard of that just left the company willingly. Prior to retirement.  

There are a lot of factors that led to the low employee turnover rates or high employee retention rates. A few were: a union environment, decent pay for those of us with only a high school education, great benefits. And a decent retirement. The reality was, I didn’t know what employee turnover was. Until I read it in a book.

Once, I read some research. I started asking some questions of the companies I was working with on other consulting engagements. Some of these companies had employee turnover rates in excess of 100% and didn’t even flinch. They didn’t know any other way. They all uttered a version of the five most deadliest words in business. “It’s Always Been This Way!” Yikes I thought!

I was hooked. I knew right then and there that my passion was to help companies and their leaders, to close the gap on employee retention. It is a needless waste of money and a talent drain. It is reversible. There is a better way. And it will also improve your company culture and bottom line at the same time.

Listen to other great episodes of The Business of Business Podcast here

Roy Barker Website

www.thebusnessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Making Connections

Sun, 5/16 6:40PM • 8:25

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

linkedin, connections, connected, john smith, little bit, talk, business, request, call, roy, podcast, building, depend, person, premium, people, friend requests, reach, job, posting

SPEAKERS

Roy Barker

Roy Barker  00:03

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm your host, Roy, when I'm be bringing you the second part of our continuing series how to use LinkedIn to your advantage a step by step guide. Last week, we talked about the importance of completing your profile, took a little bit of time to walk down through that. That's kind of area by area what we need to do there. So today, we're going to talk about making connections. And what I would challenge you to do this week is to reach out and make seven connections, just do one a day should be simple. The thing you want to really think about with LinkedIn is we don't want to be connecting to people who we don't know, in order to send a connection request, we should have some form of relationship with them. Maybe it will school, maybe it's been at a past job, maybe it's our current job or client that we've dealt with. So just make sure that there's some established relationship, because unfortunately, LinkedIn has gotten a little bit spammy, like some of the other things that go around just because people will send people unknown people will send you friend requests or connection request, and then you know, the minute you connect with them, they start, you know, spamming you with wanting to talk to you or send you something. And you know, if you're looking for something, that's okay, but you know, a lot of people, we want to control who we reach out to. So a couple ways that we can connect on LinkedIn. First, I'm gonna show you the if you know somebody, let's just take john smith here, we're going to sign in. And when you type in the name in this top bar on the homepage of your LinkedIn, you'll see that you know, we get this john smith comes up with the Maxwell team, and this one here is a funding, it'll tell you a little bit about them. But maybe it's unclear if this is the same guy that you know. So one thing you can do is you can either just hit the Return button or go down here at the bottom and hit all results. And then it'll bring up a little bit better picture of everyone that'll tell you, more or less, you know, who they are, what their job position is, or what they do, what their headline is, and then also their location. So look down through there very carefully. And let's make sure that, like I said, let's make sure that we are connecting to people who we already know for sure. That's what we want to do is we want to, you know, build up our our influence depend on what you want to do with this. And we want to if you're looking for a job, you want to be able to put yourself out there where others can find you. But also, if you're marketing or looking to get acquire business for your company, you're going to want to post some things eventually, but take it one step at a time. And like I said, we're going to connect. So that's one way we can look at john smith, the other thing you can do is if you already at least have a few connections, you can go to my network. And this is a little bit faster scan. So what it'll do, it'll show you these are different organizations that you can view. Like here, it this will give you a list of all these people and they'll give you have the option to connecting now that there is two, two ways that you can reach out to people on LinkedIn first is connecting, you know, you send them the request, they accepted and you can both see what each other's posting or different activities. But the other thing you can do if you don't know a person, but maybe you're just interested in what they have to say, it's a thing called follow. And so like these are some, you know, celebrities or more influencers. And what you can do is just, if you find one that you want to just hit the Follow button, that way you can see everything that they post, they won't really have access to your stuff won't be in their feed, but it's still a good way to look at some people that you may respect in your industry to see you know, kind of what they're talking about what information is going on. And also it may be, you know, way too, if you want to do some prospecting, it might be a way to learn a little bit more about the prospect. The other thing that is available, you have to upgrade to the I don't know what they call it the LinkedIn, professional or paid version. what that'll do, it'll, it'll allow you to send they call them in males that will allow you to send an inmail to people who you do Do not know and who you're not connected with. Because right now people who you're not connected with you cannot send them a message through LinkedIn, it'll like it'll just try one here. But we'll look at john smith. And since we're not connected, it gives us the connected button. Or if you go over here and look and see the message has got the little padlock on there. So if we try to send it to them premium is what they call so if you reactivate premium, or if you activate premium, you get so many emails every month and what an inmail is, it just lets you send a message to somebody that you're not connected with. Also, there's some other other advantages to that, that we'll get into at a later date. But for this week, I just was, you know, one of make sure that got our profile completed, got it all built out to all star status. And then this week, we want to take time to go through and to at least make seven connections go the find somebody who you know, already know who you're connected with, like I said, you know, you have some form of relationship, either maybe you went to school together, somebody in the neighborhood that you know, somebody at work, have, you know, some basis of knowing then before you do, because also Scott and like I said, it's gotten so spammy, that a lot of times, if people don't know your don't recognize you, they just want to accept, they'll just let it sit there. So the other thing you may want to do is if you're really new at this is a you know, give the person you're gonna connect with the heads up, say, Hey, I'm fixing to send you a connection request on LinkedIn. And then that way, you can just start building up your start building up your connections, that way, you'll be able to see what they're posting. And they'll be able to see what you're posting. And also, it'll just expose you to more people depend on what your end goals for this is. But anyway, that's all we got for this week. So take some time, make your list before you sit down make your list look through make sure it is the right person because there's so many LinkedIn users now that typically you're going to find four or five for for every every name that's out there you'll find a few anyway, so make sure you're getting the right person look them up. Make sure it's the title city everything is correct before you send that connection request. As usual, if you know if you have any questions, I'm always here you can always reach out to me at Roy at the business of business podcast comm be glad to try to help you through this. And that's gonna do it for now until next time, so you can always find us at www dot the business of business podcast.com we are on all the major social media networks as well as all the major podcast platforms. And a video of this will go up on YouTube when it gets when it goes live. So until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your business.

www.thebusniessofbusinesspodcast.com

Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field with Crystal Layland

A program for women to create a foundation that will allow you to break out and become visible. This will work if you have a career with a company, a side hustle, or you are an entrepreneur. Share your experience with others. Ask for help at home. There is usually an undue burden of home responsibility on the woman of the house.

Sharing is caring Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn

About Crystal

Crystal Layland is on a mission to accelerate the professional advancement & economic progression of women in the shortest time possible. As the founder of Her Career Insider: Exclusive Membership Community and Inventor of a career transformation system, Crystal teaches women to how to build authority in their career and add additional revenue streams, increase their visibility, impact & income

www.crystallayland.com

www.thebusinessofbusinsesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Pl...

Sat, 5/15 7:37PM • 42:15

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

linkedin, people, career, add, resume, visibility, provide, business, women, talk, connect, podcast, post, paying, ring binder, work, side hustles, engaged, understand, workplace

SPEAKERS

Crystal, Roy Barker

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  00:02

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. This is Roy your host. So we are the show that brings a wide variety of guests on a whole diverse range of topics. You know, what we're hoping to do is just either spark an idea that maybe you haven't thought about, or we are, you know, hoping that we can add some value by pointing you to some professionals that could help you not only increase your brand, your visibility, your business overall. And I'm gonna say please give me please excuse me today I woke up with a little bit of a allergy congestions having to clear my throat a lot. I apologize for that. But I had such an awesome guest lined up for the day that I just couldn't wait to get on here. There's been so much about this in the news. It's a very timely topic. So I want to introduce crystal Leyland she is the host of her fearless hustle. And that is the name of it not not referring to her. But the name of the podcast is her fearless hustle. And she's also the founder of her career inside. Insider. It's a private membership community of ambitious women need to that need to advance their career and increase their net worth. Her career visibility workshop helps nine to fivers and side hustlers go from invisible to front runner in eight weeks. So with that, Crystal, thanks for being on our show, I think this is a I know that you target women, but there are US, US dudes out there that can probably use help with this on the visibility side. So we're all going to be taking notes as well. But thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be with us.

Crystal  01:45

Thank you for having me, You

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  01:46

bet. So let's start we, you know, in the pre show, we talked there's so much going on around women's and work and career and side hustles that we got a lot to unpack. So we're just gonna jump into it. First off, I'd like for you to just talk a little bit about your, the visibility workshop that you run that helps people to, you know, go from invisible to front runner,

Crystal  02:11

sure that the visibility workshop is an eight week program where I help those who are established in their career really break out and expand their playing field by becoming visible and creating that foundation. So if they wanted to add what you know, they have intention to add, you know, like speaking or consulting, coaching those types of side hustles to their, you know, career. And the visibility workshop helps them build that foundation. So getting them on video, getting them talking, getting them out there getting them to share their expertise and provide value. So we do that through teaching them how to get on video, and how to do like guess podcasting, and things like that.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  03:06

Okay, awesome. And we're gonna jump into some visibility topics, you know, when I look at, get three of your strategies that you talk about, but before we do, I think we need to just stop and talk about the importance of this, especially during this time of life, you know, women have typically I'm speaking for women log on, no, but I will say that they typically have carried, you know, kind of that economic burden for all of us. And it's kind of been highlighted recently, but have women more probably more than men having to leave the workforce to stay home with children to help homeschool to educate, also do some work with the aging. So we see that on the other side of the spectrum, too, is that when parents get old, it's typically you know, the woman of the family that has to reduce her working hours or leave a career in order to take care of her his or her husband's or some other family members, aging parents. So, you know, there's a lot around that. So I think the importance of is not only you know, that nine to five, but some people have really begun to rely on their side hustles to help families pay the bills, you know, through this pandemic in tough times.

Crystal  04:24

Yes, of course. Do you I mean, is there a question?

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  04:35

Yeah, no, no, there's really no question as to more of just yet. You know, that's what we're seeing. It's become more and more vital.

Crystal  04:42

And I think it's, you know, you mentioned about you, you being a male, opening this discussion, but it's, it's vitally important that you, you know, males understand this discrepancy in the workplace because, you know, we need to see change. And we need to understand where women fall in, in the responsibilities that they hold at home, but also in the workplace. So like, last year, I mean, there's there's just been talk all over, especially because of the pandemic last this past year, about how women are taking on the burden at home, they're taking on more tasks and more emotional labor in the workplace, because of our identities, because of that social conditioning piece, where it's where women are, like the the, the emotional hub, the the ones that are putting things together, the ones that are, you know, planning in all of those different characteristics that that are like, attributed to females, but we have to understand like, we are overworking them in the workplace with that intense emotional labor, those added tasks without that added compensation. And then, in the household, there is an incredibly high rate of females that left the workforce back in September of 2020. And I, it was from Forbes article. And we've got to do something about that, right, because we have ambition, we have this need to make an impact. And we put our families first, of course. But then where do we come out? When it comes to our career? Because our careers an important piece in our life as well. Right? You're making that difference providing that value, and just really stretching our growth.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  06:58

Right? Yeah, for sure. In you know, as I related to you earlier, it was a really eerie coincidence that as we were getting ramped up, I had the TV on in the background in a major network, NBC, they do PSA is in the morning. And just so happens, a guy came on and said that, you know, women, when women ask for raises in the workplace, they are typically turned down where as men as forum, they are overwhelmingly, you know, given one in a reasonable fashion. So anyway, it's just, you know, a lot of things here, again, we need to unpack and, you know, I think we as a society, we as the work or home workforce companies, you know, we can all do better, we have to, we have to understand this, as you know, if you are an employer, that employs women, I mean, you have to take these things into consideration about, you know, sometimes their struggle is not at work, it's at home. And so you know, their mind may be at home, and whatever we can do to help balance that work, work life balance for everyone men to there are men that go through this struggle. But anyway, we just need to be a lot more aware of these things. I think

Crystal  08:13

I'm going to probably be a little outrageous here by saying this, but that 40 Hour Workweek, those strict restrictions on your being, like, at work, I feel like we need to, to really revise those so that we can definitely have, you know, strong employees that are loyal to the company that are doing really good work, but also rewarding them for living. I mean, we have like that 40 Hour Workweek is it's it's just been ingrained in us. And I don't think we really truly understand that. How did that develop? Is it really necessary? Or are these rules these set standards that every large, especially large employers have with their scheduling of their staff? Is that Is that necessary? If you were to make some tweaks to allow for, you know, that flexibility to take care for the household? If we were to make some tweaks? Would you? Would you have a better office space? Would you have more productivity, would you you'll be able to expand and grow your business. There just needs to be a little more flexibility with thinking about how we're structuring our practice and restructuring, restructuring our businesses and that's not I mean, that's just that's a really far out statement. But it all trickles down to some

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  10:09

right. And well, we miss out on a lot of good talent, you know, I'll speak from that business side is that if we don't watch those things, we can miss out on incredible, incredible talent, because I know I've worked with companies where he knows this one manager had an awesome lady. But one, you know, she was very steady, good worker, good person. And then all of a sudden, she just quit showing up. Well, they, but this manager took the initiative to call her up and she wouldn't answer went to her house, what's up with the, you know, this isn't like you? Well, you know, their car, I think had gotten repoed. And so she didn't have way to get the child to the babysitter, and she didn't have a way to get to work. And so instead of calling putting up with the hassle of somebody hollering at her and telling her how bad she was for not getting there, she just chose not to. And in a lot of times, it's because she can eventually go get another job paying the same amount somewhere else. But this manager took the time to go out find this out, they were able to provide a work around. So it ended up being a win win for both the manager got her employee back who she knew knew the job and she could trust was a good worker. And the worker got her job back that she liked, but it was just, it was this little communication and some preconceived ideas that, you know, they just both had to get over. So, you know, I think that's always one of my favorite stories to tell is that, you know, we never know what we don't know. So we have to ask the questions, at least, put in the time to ask that question, see what's going on. We never know what's going on in other people's life. And sometimes, sometimes you can't work around it, I get that sometimes it just, you know, it's a good time to separate. But there are a lot of times that you can build some bridges, flexibility and schedules, maybe husband's work, schedule change, he can't watch the child. But now Hey, I could extend your hours you can come in at you know, he can come in later and stay later. Anyway, they there's a million scenarios we could go through. But I think my point is just ask the question, have a dialogue, talk about it and see what you can work out. So let's get back to Sorry, I kind of digress. But it's just like this is all so top of mind. I just wanted to get off and talk about that. But let's look back at your visibility workshop. So what are three overlooked strategies that we can use to increase our career visibility?

Crystal  12:42

Sure, this video number one, goodwill is just an incredible tool, it doesn't have to be something like ridiculously elaborate are long. You don't have to buy any fancy equipment. Everyone has a smartphone nowadays. So getting on video getting and posting that I do a LinkedIn video, which is one of my favorites, because that's where my ideal target audience is. But your videos one incredible tool. The second is using LinkedIn, especially for career professionals. It's it's just an incredible tool, there's still that organic reach. There's high level conversations happening there. There's access to industry experts and peers who are actually engaging in the conversation with you. As a as like, compared to other social media platforms, guests podcasting, you know, showing up in front of an already established audience and providing value, sharing your expertise, having really, really engaged discussion about your topic, your specialty, those three are overlooked strategies, in my opinion, that can really open opportunities for you in your career, whether that's like adding extra side income, or you're getting the spotlight on you from other employers or your own employer saying Oh, I didn't know that they so and so was so invested in this, you know, in expanding in your own workplace, or even taking a different turn in your career and you're leaving the corporate world altogether and having a go at entrepreneurship. There's so many opportunities It's just, it's just a matter of getting visible, right? And you're hiding value. No,

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  15:08

no, we'll take a minute to talk because I'm a big proponent of video. And I've talked a lot about it for years and the fact that people, people, longtime listeners, right, get sick of me saying it. But you know, when we talk about, let's say a blog, if you just put out some text, it's okay, if you put a picture in it, it's even better. But they say that, you know, the the video is what can really lead people back. And so when we think about that, in, let's take it in the LinkedIn terms, two things I think are very important. Number one, it's hard for personality to come out in tech. So if we just write a really thoughtful post, it's great, but then people don't really get to know you get to feel you. And I think that's important. An important part of the video as well. The other thing to think about is the space it takes up, you know, when we when we read a text post on LinkedIn, or Facebook or anywhere, you know, we get the block of whatever the text is. And so it can be easy to scroll, get scrolled by or get missed, where so if we have a picture, you know, we take up more space. Same with the video. And so it's it's just another kind of an eye grabber for people that it'll make them stop on your post a lot more to have that. And then if you got the video, then you're you know, showcasing not only what you want to talk about, but your personality as well, which is very, I think it's very important to try to, you know, because what we're really trying to do on here is connect with somebody, and it's hard through the, it's harder through the written word, we can say things people, like for sure, but when they see you, they're like, Hey, I like that person, I respect that person I want to listen to you know what they have to say. So very good point. So then, the other thing is, is, so why should we be paying more attention to our personal brands, you know, as we come out of 2020, getting into 2021?

Crystal  17:11

Sure, well, a lot of people are sitting very comfortably in their careers, not really thinking ahead, and then all of a sudden, we're hit with this pandemic. And there's unexpected job losses, or there's, you know, a lot of downfall from this, and this is just one incident. But it definitely revealed a lot of loopholes in how we're how we're positioning our career. So paying attention to your personal brand, is something that we read, if you're not doing it already, we really need to start because it will help you maintain or pick up from a job loss, it will allow you to be like proactive, and having that plan B like I said, if you start on video today, and start just providing value, 60 minutes, once or twice a week, that's 60 minutes, excuse me, whoa, 60 seconds, like, just a minute, you know, it doesn't have to be long, right? But if you have something to say, you know, provide value for like 60 seconds, less than a minute and put it on your LinkedIn and engage with your audience there. You're going to start to build a foundation and establish you have another opportunity where you can add additional streams of income. So it's leveraging the technology that we have available and provide value in the marketplace and then you're able to decide where you take that Yeah, but if you don't start like I mean you can't go three months down the road and be like well, I really need some extra income this isn't you know, some things happen and shifts in my job and it's just not working out. You know, I know I know for me, like if I wanted to add additional income getting a part time job in town is not going to provide the additional income that I need Can you know, I guess with the time away from my family, etc, it's just not going to be the amount that we're looking for. So you establishing yourself opening that door of opportunity expanding your playing field, you're able to really take control of of how much do you want coming in just depending on on where you take it speaking engagements I mean all All these things, you can set your price, you know, speaking engagements, consulting, coaching. You know, affiliate marketing is not something you can really play with as far as like setting your own price. But, you know, there's just so many opportunities, you just have to start now, because you have to you have to be visible. And that's just a key thing. If you are serious about your career, if you you know, like, like I said, we don't know what what can happen, anything can happen, like we if we sit too comfortably in our careers. What are you gonna do when something happens?

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  20:46

Yep. Yeah, and that's a good point. Yeah, that's a good point, we never know, you know, sometimes we can see the handwriting on the wall. And we have some lead times, sometimes we don't. The other thing too, is if you've been at some place, for a long time, it's you may get complacent. One thing I always tell people to do from a young age is get a three ring binder, any training, any certificates, anything like that, that you accumulate, put it in that binder, if you never need it, it's not a lot of time out of your day to punch some holes in a piece of paper and throw it in. But what happens is, you've been at a job 1015 years thinking you maybe we're gonna be there forever. And then it ends, you've got your binder, where you can put together your resume or update your resume. And then you know, it's kind of the other thing is, you don't have to keep it polished all the time. But it's not too bad to just have a resume that's always in the works, to be able to add these lines of complements and things like because, for me, I will say if you if you you know, if I had to sit down and start thinking back over the hears of some things that have happened, it would be difficult, but if you've got a place to go, flip it open and look in it. And then one more thing is always it used to be a little easier in the business card days, because you can you know, when I say is get the business card, jot down a few notes on the back of it, there's electronic ways to upload it. But now you can just open a file or you know, a one note or somewhere to write down everybody's name that you come in contact with a little point about them. Because it goes two ways, we never know when we might be able to help them. And we need to give freely without expecting things in return. But we never know when we may have to reach out and say, you know, they may be a hiring manager at a company we're trying to get on to so we've got that relationship much easier to get in the door. Sorry, go ahead. No,

Crystal  22:47

you just lost Adrian mentioned something that I wanted to, to kind of elaborate on

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  22:56

that back on the three ring, three ring, three ring

Crystal  22:59

binder. So here's here's what like, just to kind of step it up a little bit with that, we should always have a resume on hand. Like you should always be having like an updated resume. So that in case there was an opportunity that you didn't have a lot of time to like, prepare a resume, and you need to submit one right away, you'd have a little tweaks and then you're able to send it out. So we should have an updated resume at least revisit that maybe at the end of the year, every year. Okay, what we need to be paying attention to as well is, you said keeping a three ring binder that is great. And that is one piece of the puzzle to another piece is jotting down your wins for the week, like what did you accomplish? What? What can you add to that binder, like what happened that week. And, and being able the third piece is to be able to talk about that, to be able to feel confident enough to express and share that with your boss or, you know, an A mentor or sponsor. And we often shy away from talking about ourselves, but we have to get over that hump because we have to be able to communicate clearly what we bring to the table.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  24:29

Yeah, and I think that an important part that you just brought up was the you know, writing down those wins that we have every week because resumes now you can probably talk more to this than me but resumes have changed over the years and there was a time when it was more task focus. Like, you know, I turn the computers on I work in word I work in Excel. But I think that we've moved past that to more of what value Have you add Did like, you know, we took on this project and accomplished this and either brought in this much more revenue or save this much money, the more detailed quantification of the success is much, I think it's better on our resumes Now then, then the old task oriented, like, you know, this is what I do every day.

Crystal  25:25

I'm not gonna speak on resumes. But I think that because I, they think there's more other individuals that are more qualified than me to talk about resumes. But just another way to to get your mind wrapped around this is that nobody else is going to be paying attention to your skills experience in your accomplishments, what you exactly what your boss isn't, is not paying that close attention. Yeah, they're gonna know if you're late, or missed the deadline, but they are not gonna be paying that close attention. In, you have to do that. So you have to speak for yourself, you have to document for yourself, you have to take control. And in in getting that driver's seat of your career.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  26:16

Yeah, because we could say the same thing about, you know, we were kind of focused on resumes, but we could say the same thing about going in and asking for a raise at the end of the year. If you've got your list of accomplishments that you walk in and say, here's some things that we're going to talk about some concrete examples of what I've added to this company, you know, and while the boss should know, you know, let's just give them a break for a minute, say they've got, I don't know, 2025 50 100 people, you know, how many people under them, they're not going to remember each and everything, like he said, they will remember the day that you might have been running late, but you know, all these accomplishments, they're not going to really be focused. So if we don't keep up with that they they certainly want. So that's a, that's a great point. So there are, he mentioned that there are three simple steps that we can position ourself for career advancement and additional income. So you just mentioned how we can do all those in under 60 minutes a day.

Crystal  27:18

Sure. So LinkedIn is definitely my like go to for for positioning yourself for career advancement. And being active on LinkedIn, you can do that in probably less than 60 minutes a day. But the three, I guess, stops some very simple steps is to make new connections, and to be engaged in conversation that you're interested in, right, and, and produce video content. That's, those are three simple steps, they shouldn't take much time. But But there's something important to understand about like connections and engagement on LinkedIn, because just having a connection is not is not necessarily beneficial. Right. So I have like, probably 2000 connections, it's not a terrible amount. But if I go and connect with somebody, just because they sent me a request, and they're not really active on LinkedIn, it doesn't serve a purpose at all. So you have to be intentional about who you're connecting with on there. You want to connect with industry peers, who are in the same line of work, industry experts, and those that you can serve. So if you know or in accounting, connect with people that you that you can help with whatever, you know, area of accounting that you you specialize in. But what you, when you look for these connections, make sure that they're engaging on posts, make sure they're creating content doesn't have to be daily content. But go and look and see what what they posted recently. And see if they're sharing content, that's going to be a really good connection for you. Because then, then you can go back to that the three simple steps that I mentioned, they're going to be the ones that more likely you can have a conversation with and that you can get that engagement and you know that that's going to be the beneficial piece on on LinkedIn. And you could do that every day. I mean, it's so easy, so quick. And when you Start soon, it's just going to be one of those things that you do, right? And then it's gonna snowball from there if you if you do it with intention.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  30:08

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, one thing I do that some people may say it's a it's a huge waste of time. But LinkedIn has a great feed in the mornings where I get people's birthdays. And I get people who have had career advancement, or something like that. And so while it takes me about, I don't know, 234 minutes to run through and just, you know, say congratulations, or Happy birthday. I've actually gotten, I've actually gotten jobs off of that, because I had a guy that, you know, we had been connected, we'd kind of seen each other industry events. And then, you know, one day it was like, I guess he'd been at this company for 15 years, or whatever. So I just hit the button that said, Hey, congratulations on your work anniversary, he immediately emailed me back and said, Hey, I'm glad you reached out because, you know, I need this project done. And I was wondering who could do it, and you know, you can and it's, I think, to me, it's an importance of being Top of Mind is because there's a lot of people that can do your service. And there's a lot of people that can provide it. And you may know, he may know, john q public, you might have met him years ago, but if you haven't kept up with them, or if you're not in front of them, but you know, the other guy, your competitor, he might have just saw him at an event yesterday, he's going to be top of mind. So when john q needs this work done, it's going to be like, Oh, this is the person I'm going to go with because not because they're better met necessarily, but just because it's top of mind. So another great reason to you know, be active and put this content out. Another thing, I'm not huge on scripts or over producing, so I love the I love the more videos where they're just raw, somebody just picked up that phone, they had a great thought something that was gonna benefit others. And, you know, just took a little 32nd 45 second video and posted it out there. I get more from those than I usually stay away from those that live very overproduced and over scripted, because I don't know if it gets back to the trust factor. I mean, I trust somebody who's just being, you know, being themself and putting it out there. Right. So, speaking of LinkedIn, what are some ways that we could optimize, optimize our profile and maybe make some updates or some tweaks on that?

Crystal  32:44

Sure, take a look at your profile picture, make sure it's like up to date, make sure that it's not late, I've seen some crazy profile pictures, where it's half of a face or less sunglass lens or something. And I'm like, that's not, that's not the platform for LinkedIn. Okay, that we are, that's not the profile pic for LinkedIn. So so really make sure that it's polished, you know, it does have to be like a professional photo, I think mine up there is like, I snapped on my smartphones not. But it's a current photo, it's professional, and it's clear. So taking, you know, a look at your profile picture, the cover, you can do a cover on your LinkedIn profile. If you choose, you can create one in Canva really quick with one up and, and showcase a little more of your expertise. It's kind of like your Billboard. You can, you don't want a lot of texts on there. But something that's eye catching, and to the point would be very helpful. The headline. The headline is just something that I think people really misuse. They either have like this ridiculous title that nobody really knows what they do. So if you had me some employers have crazy titles and you're like, well, that's not really, you know, you can use a generalized title that's searchable, if you wish you you don't want to put all your accolades up in the headline, that's just it takes up too much space. So be very clear. You know, if you want to put like a tagline up there that says, You know, I provide software engineering services for like small, I don't know, whatever. Good on the spot. And again, this time. You want to say who you are, what you do and who for you. So one thing that I talk a lot About with my private clients is treating your career like a business, like you have a service that he provide, right. So when I say that, going back to that headline, think about the service that you provide and who for and be very clear, because that's what's going to get more attention. I've seen way too many letters up there, you know, when people have letters behind their name, which is great. That's just not the space for that. So make it very clear what you do, and who you can hire, that's going to really help you. And you could change that, like, don't be afraid to play around with it. But I would, I would address that headline, first, the about section. And this is gonna be my last little tip to really optimize but the about section try to try to give value there. A lot of people talk about me, me, me, but it'd be very beneficial for you to think about something that, that you're maybe it's like a trend or pain point, or a problem in your industry, your field, and provide a little snippet of what that that is and how you can change that around how what what can you do? What steps can you provide? So like a little tip, you know, a small brief statement about what's going on in your industry, why that's happening? And here's how to change that around. That's going to be beneficial, you know, for connecting with people. Yeah, and don't look at mine, because I update my

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  36:55

Yeah, you know, back to the pictures. That's one thing I can speak to that's changed a lot, you know, because back when LinkedIn first started gaining popularity, you know, we had to be in a suit and tie. And you don't, you know, it's all business and but my opinion is we need it has eased up some and become a lot more personable. So, you know, like mine, I've gone to just the picture in a collared shirt, you know, I don't, with anything we talk about there is that line of crazy that you can cross so that, you know, definitely we want to stay just this side of something that is too outlandish and ridiculous. But I do think that, you know, being ourselves being honest, being human, you know, that's what we want to try to do. Because the whole reason for this is trying to connect, I mean, it's not trying to let somebody know that I do own a suit and tie even though I don't wear it that much. It's it's more of you know, who am I? How can I help you can we connect, because people tend to buy from people that they like, they sit, they tend to see a lot of themself in the other person, they there's this trust factor, you know, those are all the things that we are trying to do digitally, you know, over LinkedIn with our profiles, or with our pictures and all this stuff. It's we're never going to make it all the way. But I mean, it's a it's a good start for somebody to want to reach out to talk to you to begin with.

38:21

Exactly.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  38:23

So what are what are three must have connections that we own for LinkedIn?

Crystal  38:29

Oh, yep. And that was the, you know, going back to the industry peers, okay, the industry experts and those that you that you can serve, making sure that they're engaged on the platform, making sure that they're, you know, having those conversations and sharing content, because that's going to help you, you know, that's going to help you engage with them.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  38:56

Okay. Awesome. Well, Crystal, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to be with us. So before we let you go a couple questions. First off is what is a tool, an app of habit or ritual? What is something that you do every day in your professional personal life that adds a lot of value that you just couldn't do without?

Crystal  39:18

So I run my business through Asana. So Asana is a project management tool, okay. And that is one thing that I can't live without. It allows me to organize the things that I have to do for my business. It keeps my clients on task. Allows like due dates and things like that. So it's just a one stop shop for me. Okay, um, so that's my,

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  39:45

okay, well, good, good. We'll have to check that out. Then. Next thing is so who is your client? What can you do for them and how can they reach out and get a hold of you?

Crystal  39:57

Sure. So for visibility, workshop my clients are career professionals who are established in their career, they have ambition, they want to get in front of the room, they want to expand their playing field, they want to add additional income streams. And I help them get visible, I help them build that confidence to be able to talk about what they do and to add value to the marketplace. And if you're interested in hearing about that workshop, and if it's the right thing for you, you can connect with me on LinkedIn at Crystal Leyland or you can send me a text message 612 to 303 excuse me 612 to 308900

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Women Realizing Their Potential, Breakout and Expand Your Playing Field  40:52

Okay, well great and we will put all of that contact information in the show notes as well and then up on the web page when we post the post this episode so anyway, y'all reach out give Krystal call, see how she can help you either advance your career or you know, help you with that side hustle to maybe make it your your full time gig that there's nothing more exciting than that than taking something that you love to do. And you're doing it on the side and turn it into a business that you can actually live off of. So anyway, thank you again for being with us. This is going to do it for another episode of the business of business podcast. Of course you can always find us at www dot the business of business podcast.com we're on all the major podcast platforms, Apple podcast, Google podcast Stitcher, Spotify for not a one that you listened to regularly please give me a email heads up and I will see if we can get us added to that. Of course we're on all the major social media Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram and this episode video will go up on the YouTube channel once it has been posted. So until next time, y'all take care of each other and take care of yourself.

www.crystallayland.com

www.thebusinessofbusinsesspodcast.com

Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track with Cristal Balk

There is a plan for everything and that includes marketing. Think about how your strategies will lead you to your goals. Set measurable metrics to stay on track. We can't fix what we don't measure. Reevaluate strategies.

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About Cristal

Cristal is an Entrepreneur, Marketing Consultant, International Speaker, Podcaster, Magazine Publisher, and San Diego Leader for World Women Conference and Awards. 

Cristal Balk is the Founder of Unstoppable Marketing Solutions where she consults her clients on reaching their marketing goals.

Her passion is to leave a legacy behind where more women will step out of their comfort zone and do what they are meant to do in this world! Cristal is the San Diego Leader for the World Women Conference and Awards where she helps women be innovative, educators, and to be change-makers for the San Diego Community. 

Cristal has been featured in San Diego Voyager, USA Today, KCBQ The Answer, Telemundo, CNN, and many more. She is an Amazon #1 Best Seller for an international book called De Cero Al Exito which means from Zero to Success. 

Website: unstoppablemarketingsolutions.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/Cristal-balk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/cristal.balk.3

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Full Transcript Below

Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strate...

 59:51

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, business, marketing, talking, book, plan, absolutely, day, important, world, clientele, success, women, bit, year, crystal, podcast, san diego, clients, literally

SPEAKERS

Cristal, Roy Barker – The Business of Business Podcast

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  00:03

Hello and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. This is Roy. Of course, our show is designed to bring a wide variety of guests on a set of diverse topics to you know, try to help small medium entrepreneurs solopreneurs any business that can really our business or manager or somebody that can take away something from this conversation and help them through their daily activities. So, without further ado, today, we will just jump right in. We're fortunate enough to have Cristal Balk is an opera entrepreneur, marketing consultant, international speaker podcaster magazine publisher and San Diego leader for World women conference and awards. Cristal is the founder of unstoppable marketing solutions, where she consults her clients on reaching their marketing goals. Her passion is to leave a legacy behind were more women will step out of their comfort zone and do what they are meant to do in this world. Cristal is the San Diego leader of the world women conference and awards where she helps women be innovative educators and to be change makers for the San Diego Community. Cristal has been featured in San Diego Voyer, USA Today, k CB, Q, the answer, Telemundo CNN and many more. She is also Amazon an Amazon number one bestseller with for an international book. And I'm gonna let her say the name it's a little bit a little bit complex for me. And basically, I think it's a Spanish, the title is in Spanish, and it means from zero to success. So without further ado, Cristal, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be here. I think that you know we we were all looking to go from that zero to success. So looking forward to talking to you to see what tips that you can give us today.

Cristal  02:09

Well, first of all, thank you, Roy, for having me today. It's been a pleasure to get to know you a little bit more and privileged to be on the podcast today. More importantly, being able to just, you know, give knowledge and information to people out there that want to learn and want to adjust and grow. You know, especially for 2021,

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  02:29

right? Yeah. And before we get too far down the line, could you pronounce if you could pronounce the name of your book, that way people can go out there on Amazon and look that up? That'd be great.

Cristal  02:40

Yeah, absolutely. It's called Del Cero Al Exito, which does mean from zero to success. We wrote it in Spanish birth, which we there are 16 others. So I'm one of them. I'm co author in that book, in which you have the book tours coming out soon to get them very excited for that. And then the English version is coming out this year. So we're very excited about that. That's great. I'll aim to give you one ROI. So you can get a signed version, that you can have it with you.

 

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  03:12

Yeah, I would certainly appreciate. Thanks. That's Thank you so much. And, you know, it's, it's been interesting, I think the last six months, you know, I have interviewed a lot more young women. So, I mean, I think it's awesome. I think that it's great that you're, you know, involved with this world women conference. Because, yeah, we need to encourage, you know, young women coming out of college, to jump in, follow their passion, and do you know what they feel? Not, you know, I'm not that I'm kind of in that age group that, you know, when, when women came out of high school, it was more, you know, having family staying home, and there weren't a lot of options. But even more important, I don't think there were a lot of role models and a lot of paths for success. So first off, just congratulations on you know, all the things that you've got going on, I can see you're very busy and in demand. So even you know more appreciative of you taking time to stop by and talk with me today. So So what is I guess what sparked you want what you know, got you into, you know, the unstoppable marketing but wanting to be this, the, you know, be a leader in the San Diego area for the world women's conference, kind of what sparked that in you?

 

Cristal  04:36

Yeah, so the the reason why I started marketing was I actually started in colleagues. So I was one of those people that started their marketing business a while they were in college. And so what happened was that I was you know, I was trying to finish college it took me a little bit longer than most people would take just because I was independent now my own and I had to pay for my own bills. And we all know California is not All right. So I just did my own thing and figure out, Okay, what am I meant to do in this world, right. And so I have a lot of family members in marketing. And so I started imagining working with them, just because the regular jobs wouldn't give me the opportunity to change my schedule every semester. And so, instead of relaxing, and so noticing a lot of different areas, in the working world, there's a lot of different when you say marketing, that's very, actually very general. You know, most people say, Well, you know, I do website development, or I do social media management, or, like what I focus on as far as a consultation, I create marketing plans, social media plans, content plans, the overall strategy for your, you know, business, marketing, right. And the reason why I wouldn't do the planning was because people come to me, and even in the freelancing companies, and they didn't really know the overall strategy. So we all know that if you don't have your overall strategies, it's really hard to move forward in your business and in the marketing world, and you just kind of like, most people just do the tactics. So like, for example, just creating podcasts and creating social media links and stuff, but there's no anything going back to the main goal, the main mission, right, the main vision of why you're doing what you're doing, what is the overall goal for that particular year. And so that is where I decided to focus on because I realized, even in some of these larger companies, a lot of them do do a great job of creating the marketing plan. But when you are a small business owner, you don't know what a marketing plan is, right? You don't know what that requires what you need to add in. So that was is where my main focus is, and small business owners medium size as well, like yourself, that creates that initial plan for then you can execute into, you know, a good job above the execution. And also, I teach, I teach the importance of some of the areas in marketing that they use specifically for their business, like, let's be realistic, each business is different. Yes, they're gonna have their own clientele. And different platforms, not every platform is going to bring you the sales, not a platform, it's going to bring you the right clientele. Technically, bogus, depending on how your packages are, or your product is selling to the right people, you should be able to be making your six figure goal, if that is your goal, within half a year, because if you're just working your time and energy on the right people, in the focus of that thing, you will definitely meet those numbers. And that's kind of where I focus more realistically. I was focusing a little bit last year, but more To be honest, I'm going to talk more in it because our market has shifted completely. So what is happening, that a lot of people are going to meet marketing plans, it's much more than strategy, because our whole world has returning from an online world where a lot of these people that used to be in business for 30 plus years and and just basically, were on a referral basis. And were supporting their their business and they were doing fantastic. And those are the ones that are struggling the most because they're like, well, I don't know anything about this technology. And I don't even know where to start windows super open. They're already pretty discouraged by the whole situation that's happening as as it is, right. So I like to come in and bring in some peace. And so that's something that would definitely work specifically for that client. I don't, I don't believe in templates. That's just me when it comes to marketing plans, because every business and every person is completely different. You know, they personalize the way that it's going to be effective for them. And that will work for them right now. So a lot of times a lot of people are like, well, Facebook is big, but I just like Instagram, I just can't. Okay, start with something that you can manage first, and then work your way up. Right. And these are some of the tips and ideas that I give to my clients, because there's a lot of information out there in the can be overwhelmed. So I just basically say, all right, I just basically all I do is like grab their ideas, and I put it together and I put it together in a tech tactical form that will work for them. And it's workable for them and it's not going to overwhelm them to into their pace.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  09:35

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, ya know, and that's it's an important part that, you know, we've talked about before that if if you have a marketing person that comes to you and doesn't ask you any questions and just says, hey, I've got this great plan. That's usually a red flag to run because unless they are very into that space, and even if it's the same industry, your same type of business, each business has a little bit different of a value add for their clients most of the time. So, you know, I think that's great that you don't use a cookie cutter template that you want to sit down, get to know their business, their audience and then design an individual unique plan that's going to help them very important.

Cristal  10:24

Oh, absolutely. And here's the thing, even if one person is doing, let's say, they're in the same industry, and they're doing fantastic with, it doesn't necessarily mean that the next person can do great with it, because each individual person has their own skills, or event that they do very well. So that doesn't necessarily mean just because you have a template that you're going to work exactly the same person, there's, there's no way right. And so a lot of people use templates, and it works for them. But personally, we're a marketing plan and an overall strategy. I don't believe the templates.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  10:56

Yeah, and I think it's important we have, sometimes it's very repetitive, because I use it over and over with, with strategy, marketing, finance, with basically any topic is, you know, we've got to have a roadmap of where we want to go or where we're going. And the most important part of that is to be very honest, and thoughtful about where we are starting. Because, as I use examples before, if, if you want to go to Chicago, and you just say, I'm going to jump on the highway and go east, but you're in New York, and you really needed to go west, then your your plans not going to work out very well. So we need to know, excuse me, you know where we are, and then start from there. And like you said, we shouldn't be embarrassed or not our feel, I guess, under knowledge about where we are, because everybody has to start from zero. And I like that about the title of the book as well, you know, zero to success, because at some point, and in a lot of different areas, you know, we're starting at zero. And so, you know, just like us, we, if we don't write down our plan for the week, things can slip. And we forget about what we wanted to put out on Thursday. So I think that's another thing is, you know, having that roadmap, because the small businesses, entrepreneurs, even, you know, some midsize businesses, everybody's so focused on the serving the customer, you know, the sales part, bringing in the money doing that, that sometimes that setting down and thinking about what are we going to do for, you know, a social media post or blog post this week? Really, we should be weeks out, but you know, what are we going to do three weeks from today? It's like, well, we don't have time for that right this moment. Let's just get through today. And we'll worry about that tomorrow. Then tomorrow comes, and then all of a sudden, you know, you're trying to sit down at a computer and right up 1200 word blog, you know, overnight, and like myself get frustrated, because like, it doesn't flow or I got all these changes where, you know, for me to work, right, I need to do something, let it kind of set and cook for a little while and then you know, be able to change it and altered over time. So I think that clans are so important in this area.

Cristal  13:26

Oh, absolutely. And there's a plan for everything right. And, you know, honestly, the overall strategy really makes, I've been noticing business owners really think of all their actual business goals, they're their client to be, what are we going to do? What are we going to really focus on. Because when you're in the business, when you are working in the business, you're not always thinking about the outside stuff, and the overall stuff. Because we don't have time yet because we literally matter with them too. And so being able to just be an outsider coming in, and just basically put it together because at the end of the day, it's your plant. It's your business, all I do is just put it in together and put it like in the nice bow. And I work with you throughout the process. I don't just like here's your plant. That's right, I do. But I do like to keep put it into agreement in there that I'm going to keep helping and adjusting and showing you every everything you need to know in order to be successful. Because we all know that a plan is great. But it's not going to work if it's not being executed.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  14:37

Exactly. Yeah. And as a consultant, you know, I've been to some of my repeat clients with awesome plans that I've given them for something and you know, you walk into the office and it's got dust on it sitting on somebody's shelf. So, you know, it's important to you know, the plans are only as good as the execution and so we need to, you know, not only have the plan, we need to execute But, you know, this year has taught us a lot too, is that we always need to be re evaluating things change, things change market changes. But the other thing I kind of wanted to touch on for a minute that you said is to, you know, you get the business owners or business men to think about things, maybe outside of marketing. And a great example is I was at a roundtable one day with a couple of, you know, there was like, three or four owners and I was meeting with a couple and one was like, well, we need to emphasize price. We're, we're price conscious. And the other one was like, Well, no, this is our value add. And so sometimes there's not even a cohesive message within the company that you know, even though that's not the actual focus, it can be a awesome byproduct, is you can get everybody on the same page to say, you know, what are we doing here? Are we trying to be the price leader? Are we trying to add, you know, this value and command whatever price that we need to?

Cristal  16:04

Yeah, absolutely. Any, you have a partner of people, they all have to be on the same page. And that's why given knowing that, okay, what is what is going to be a plan for this year. And it's right every year, to be honest, where you should be readjusting your plan. And even if, like, for example, I'm one of them's like, last year, I reached, I reached my goal, my overall goal in the middle of the year right now. It was crazy.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  16:29

That's awesome.

Cristal  16:31

And yeah, thank you. And there's just so much out there, right. So I had to readjust my plan in the middle of the year. Just because your goal and your plan doesn't need to necessarily say, Okay, I'm done. No, it's all we want to do better and shoot for the stars now. A lot of times, the ownership comfortable all work out exactly where we want in the meeting comfortable with the moment we get comfortable with the moment we start losing because our competition is not comfortable. Yep. Right. Yeah, they're not.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  17:06

Yeah. So that that kind of leads us to the next point about measurement. And, you know, I'm a more analytical, I've been very fortunate in my life to, to work in, you know, sales, marketing, and the more analytical side of things that the other it's, it's, we have to set out metrics, you know, not only to see if we're having a success, but I think, also, when we do those plan reviews, we can look at our metrics to see, you know, did we get a lot of, you know, maybe Facebook wasn't our main focus, maybe we were YouTubing, or whatever. But all of a sudden, it's like, something blew up on Facebook, and we had good luck with it. So we need to, I think, you know, we need to be diligent about measurements, we can go back and look and say, Well, what caused this to either blow up, or what caused us to take a nosedive. And I'll just put one of my situations out there is that I do some Google some YouTube ads that they're the the skip, I don't even know all the technical names, but it's like a skip ad you put in and all of a sudden, last week, I noticed that, you know, my account isn't going long, you know, climb and climb, and then all of a sudden, the bottom just fell out of it and went to zero. And, you know, I thought, well, what happened and add quit, you know, did you know this is message stale? You know, there's a lot of things that could be fortunately, it was just Google doing an audit of the account, you know, for a few days that kind of knocked the traffic down is what they told me. So, you know, we're back up and running, and it's good. But the reality is, you know, if that would have been something with messaging, then it's good to catch that. Because if it happened today, and I didn't do my review, or didn't look at that till June, and it was something that needed fixing, then I'd be sitting here without, you know, very much marketing on that platform for 364 or five months, you know, whatever.

Cristal  19:12

Right. And it is important to measure a lot of times people are just throwing things at platforms and websites and etc. and are wondering why the results are not happening right. Now, everything is a test run in marketing world, we are testing all the time, right. 500 posts, let's say, but two of them really, really blew up. Then those two were worth it. Yeah. You know, you think from the numbers perspective of it, you are measuring your platforms, the following. You know, and I gotta be clear about this. your followers. The number of following does not give us sales. Yeah. Okay. And if you're just getting whatever followers but they're not your ideal client. followers think you're literally wasting your time. And also that needs to be measured. Right? Like you have followers? Yes. But from those followers, how much do you really build relationships? what sells? building those relationships? Right? Connect? Yeah,

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  20:19

I usually talk about those as vanity likes, and you know, because I'll be honest, I got into a situation years ago, where, you know, a guy reached out to me and said, Man, I can get you, you know, a lot of followers on this, I think it was Facebook. And so what I started watching was, he did, he generated a lot of traffic, but it was all overseas, you know, and what I call them is kind of like, you know, like, boiler rooms that, you know, there's guys sitting around that they get paid, you know, a few dollars a day just to like, like, like, and so, you know, my analogy is always that. So after that little experiment, took 3000 likes over to the bank and tried to deposit it. And, you know, they didn't take it, the electric company doesn't take likes. And so, you know, we think that's such an important part that the managing expectations and talking to clients about likes, need to, at some point, equal business. And if you're, you know, again, that's why we, when somebody calls in, it's always good, where did you hear about us that, you know, trying to find out what is, you know, where these leads are generating? Because if you find out, they're all coming from one platform or another, you can shift your resources or, you know, tweak your messaging on the other one, but I think that's a valid point that have to be so careful about.

Cristal  21:45

Absolutely. And it's crazy, because now a lot of bigger companies are like, Well, no, the only way we're going to work with you is how many likes you have, and I'm willing to Okay, well, I have 2000 genuine people that genuinely Follow me. And they're not just a random person. And there's a lot of people that are doing overseas, know, what kind of value and benefits that bring you into your business? Because other than you, you're just wasting money thrown out the window, right? And where you're going your awareness, but where is that taking you?

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  22:19

Exactly?

Cristal  22:21

I think one of the things that, that I just, I can just touch real quick, Lauren. Sure

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  22:25

is,

Cristal  22:26

a lot of people right now are hidden ways. They're generating all this, like likes and friendship, and so forth. And they're like, Well, why I'm not selling? What is happening? Like, why? Why can I convert it into a sale? Okay, so the first thing I'm gonna say, is, you know, it all comes back to pre COVID. What were you doing pre COVID? Right? What kind of work were you already doing? Like you were already not in like doing something relatable to what you're doing now. It's gonna take you a little bit longer to be able to bring that awareness, that branding, and then you can eventually put it in sell. So your credibility and your transparency have to be clear, right? Even you know, you've been in the business for 20 plus years, but now you are a business owner. Okay, well, that's still part of credibility, because you've been in industry for 20 plus years, but you just turned into your, and you're just learning about the intrapreneurship world. But as far as the actual you are, you know it right. And so don't knock yourself down. Because, you know, overall, I've been in corporate for 20 plus years, but you know, I'm just starting, don't do that. Because at the end of the day, you had 20 plus years in corporate, but you know exactly what you're talking about. And it comes down to self, if you're not comfortable and aligned with yourself, what makes you think that you were going to buy from you

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  23:51

exactly,

Cristal  23:52

you gotta be what you do. and deliver, most importantly, deliver every single time. Even if it takes you a little bit longer than what you originally said, then you'll notice, okay, well, this is what we're capable of. This is not what you know, we're just gonna have to take a little bit longer. Yeah, the worst thing that I've seen with people, because, you know, remember, we're in such a digital form, and it's so easy to do a click a form and contact other people and get their feedback, right. And the worst thing that someone can do is not deliver, right? And then somebody else new communicating, getting in touch with them, what was your experience with this particular person or servers product, etc. And they talk negative about it because you were not able to deliver what you said you were gonna deliver. So it's always sometimes good to talk it down a little little and over deliver, rather than under deliver, right and that goes with your reputation. So if you have somebody that is already, unfortunately, now let's say you've been happening for like that, Since a 1000s of people in you have one bad apple, right? They just didn't like something about it, then that's different. But when you're starting off, you cannot afford a bad apples.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  25:10

Right? Exactly.

Cristal  25:13

You don't have that much of measurement, right, go back to the measurement. We're not just measuring the social media platform, we're measuring the clientele as well.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  25:23

Yeah. And I think a couple things I picked up on that you were talking about is, of course, this is another extension of managing expectations that if you are changing your direction a little bit, or even if you're maybe getting into a new platform, let's just say you haven't done YouTube, and now you're getting into YouTube, it's that things take time, we are in an instantaneous world where people click and they want immediate results. But you know, if we're talking about a 345 $10 item, you know, I'm not saying crystal that money, just on the fact that, you know, if I lost $10 on her product, if she didn't deliver, it's not a big deal. But if you're asking me to send you 25, or $30,000, for you know, some kind of a consulting arrangement, I need to feel very comfortable with you, and you have to take time to build that relationship. So it's important to manage that expectation. But I think it leads into this, why are we not translating into sales is that because we are in this instant gratification where we have, you know, zero patience anymore, it seems, I'm one of those people, I'm the same way, if I click on something I want, you know, in, I want it to come up instantly, no delay, but there is, you know, I use the agric agrarian example is that, you know, when you want to grow a plant, you have to put the seed in, and then you cultivate it, you water it, you weed it, you do all the taking care of it, loving it, nurturing it, and then you harvest it at some other point. And I feel that in the digital age over the last five to 10 years, it's been a growing expectation that if I throw the seed out there, I'm going to get an immediate harvest.

Cristal  27:19

Right. And that's the problem. And that's why a lot of people sometimes spill energy in the street, and they get frustrated media into like, someone's son did it in less than a year, when you don't know what other health disorders don't get. Right? If you're starting from scratch by yourself, it's gonna take a little longer, but if someone has had some of our already Mani pockets into it, to throw into market you to throw into all the different platforms, and absolutely, then they're gonna be able to do it within the year. But you know, a lot of times we just narrow it down, but you got to see all these different factors around it that come into it. So that's why I always question Okay, well, what do you do exactly? How do you do it? Believe me read six questions. By the time we do the sixth question, you will find out how that person did absolutely everything, right. And how they did it. So it's surface doesn't necessarily mean that is everything. Again, this was only one thing.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  28:15

Yeah, and this has come up in the last three or four conversations. So again, sometimes I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. But on the other hand, I want to get this out there for listeners to think about is that social media is awesome for keeping up for new ideas. It's great, and I love it. The drawback that I will say for is that a lot of people aren't as vulnerable and transparent as you think. And so we post or we tend to see the very best thing that happened to that person this day, or the very best thing in their business life. Or maybe we haven't seen this business before. And we see it in their successful but we don't think about for a minute that this guy has been working for 10 years to get to this point, just because we found him today doesn't mean that he started yesterday, and now he's a success. And so, you know, we can't really set our expectations on what we see through social media because, you know, people don't post the the bad and the ugly. And, you know, I always say business's growth is not typically just a straight line up. I mean, it's usually up and down and crazy and all over the place. And it just takes in this gets back to the marketing aspect to is that it takes consistency. You got to get up every day, you got to continue with the plan. You can't get discouraged if you've got a good plan. It's thoughtful, you got to carry it out. And because what you'll see in a lot of things is zero to three months. Not much traffic, not much traction, and then, you know, four or five, that six months, all of a sudden things just take off. But if we you know if we'd given up at three We would have never found that success.

 

Cristal  30:03

I mean, I've been asked you actually, I know you're asking the question, but I want to ask you a question about it. You've been in this long time. I mean, you've been pursuing yours. But how many times have you almost quit?

 

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  30:16

Oh, they're during the day? Yeah. Sometimes, sometimes, dear. Yeah. You know, sometimes during the day is like two or three times, like, I'm ready to hang, you know, is it really worth it? Am I gonna hang it up? No, not really, I've been fortunate enough to always do things that I like, but yeah, there's been, I will tell you, there's been a few times where, you know, the thought was really what else is out there. I'm not sure that I really want to do this. And, and, but it's seeking out good counsel people like yourself to say, you know, cuz sometimes, even though you think you know what you're doing, you can be so close to it that you really don't. And so seeking out Counsel of professionals, like yourself, to have that outside look to say, Man, if you would just tweak this thing, just a tiny bit, and you know, what they read, it works that we don't Oh, sometimes we're so close to everything. We don't see the bigger picture.

 

Cristal  31:14

Oh, absolutely. And you know, and you touch something, it's like, you're not alone, right? You're not alone. And in a lot of us in intrapreneurship, eds, it's, it's not meant for everybody. It's It's tough. You know, it's crazy accident, my husband, he's in finance. And so he was listening to obviously just finance related stuff. And he was listening to the diagnosis. The guy was basically I don't remember his name. But he was just basically it's like, right now you just see that I have a lot of money in I'm doing great. And doing that. But do you have any yummy, I had to start how many times I had to start from scratch. He started from scratch 10 times on different projects, until that one project was the one Yep. Yep. So if people are going to quit within the first year, you got to take a realization that people that you see that have been self made and been doing stuff for many, many years, they've been through their ups and downs, and it has taken them years, literally years, to get to where they are. And so I don't want anybody to feel discouraged, I just want you to know that you have a passion, and you know exactly what you do, you can continue it and we just there needs to be a plan, you know, you know, in order to, to grow in the right direction that you want it.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  32:33

Yeah, and the other thing, I'm gonna say this, from an older point of view, is that at some point, you realize that money does not always dictate that you're successful, because I know a lot of people make a lot of money who are miserable. Health is bad, you know, fam, no family, and it's a lot, you know, there's a lot going not saying that everybody's like that. But I think what I would like to see people get more comfortable is that when you get out of bed in the morning, you're excited to do what you're going to do. Not that we're not going to have hiccups during the day or the week or the month, there's going to be times where like, I can't, why am I doing this, but for the most part, if we're passionate about it, we love what we do, then we get up every morning, excited to do it. And we're able to take on the challenges. And also there's a guy named Ryan Holiday, that he's got a great coin that I've gotten, I carry my pocket with me and it's like the obstacle is the way and basically, you know, we we can't find always find ways around obstacles, we have to hit them head on to solve them because that is what I think that's what separates the businesses that become successful with the ones that don't, they hit the obstacle head on, solve the problem and moved on. And then the the kind of the second part of that whole thing is that if you're familiar with sand dunes, it's like, you know, life business journey, it's like a sand dune, when you get to the top of the one Dune that you're climbing, that's not the end of it, we don't reach the peak and life is just at the top of the mountain from now on. It's, you know, in the sand dunes can be very deceiving if you've never been to one but you know, you climb up a peak and you think you're at the top and then you look over and there's 12 more in front of you. It's just a constant, you know, up and down. Now you keep you know, getting higher and higher. But, you know, I think the point is that life is gonna throw us struggles and you know, we have to adjust our mindset in order to take those obstacles on just personal observation.

 

Cristal  34:42

Whenever you talk about the mindset of it, because before you do any, your mind has shifted in a direction of intrapreneurship when I went from corporate intrapreneurship I was like, Oh Lord, Jesus Christ. Like I jumped into it. And I was like, I Everything I learned from school, everything that it was, like, in so many ways is out the window. And I had to relearn absolutely everything. And so I'm grateful that I did. But in our book, actually rooms are things like that we talk about, you start off, literally from the beginning to the end. So everything you need to do from the very beginning, so the mindset, right, the changing of the strategies, and then the marketing, the execution, and then the selves, literally, from beginning to end. And even in the book, it says, like, you shouldn't read it all at once, you should read it little by little, because you want to take in that information, apply it. And you know, it's kind of like a mini also meaning worksheets, involved of things that you can do yourself kind of as far as the tactical side of of it. Because it's great that you can read a book, right? Again, again, if you like planning, integrate, then you can plan but if you can't execute, and I can actually implement that, then then it's not useful, right. And so a lot of people are buying all these courses, buying all these books, and that's great, you know, learn and so forth, but you're not executing as you go. You're wasting your money, because you're not going to get anywhere. And there's a lot of people out there that just do courses in books. And what it is, is that they're scared to launch or scared to make that one step and, or let me tell you, all of you that are out there Spark, I jumped into it with my two feet, literally left my job. And the next day, I was like, okay, marketing, probably not the best, not the best way to do it, but I actually had mental health for my husband. And so that made it a little easier for me. And then for me to work on it, right. So you do need some kind of support for sure. In order for you to continue, because it's like is that up and downs, all the way. In, it's my very, very strong, and you literally like really say, if you're going to do something, do something that you'd like, you're gonna wake up every single day happy for it, because the struggle become easier, it will be worth it, it will wake up with a purpose in life, right? You will not feel ever again in your life will have a different mindset, a different understanding, a different perspective thing, you will start attracting the right people in order for you to start growing. So a lot of it too is kind of like we we tend to put ourselves in a Oh, I can do that. I'm not meant to do that. And we keep putting ourselves in a lot of excuses of what not to do. But if we turn that around and say, Oh, I can do this, and I can do that. And I can imagine how your subconscious work? Yeah, when you start saying, I believe in this, I can do this. I don't know this, but let me try it. If you change the negative into a positive, you're reaching Junior.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  38:00

Yeah, and I think you you talk, you know, there's so much there to unpack that, you know, like people surround yourself with good people. You know, a good entrepreneur, a good manager, it's not somebody that has all the answers. It's just somebody that knows how to find the answers. And because a lot of times, I talk to people that I have, I call it analysis paralysis, they want to get what I need to know more about this, I want to get this perfect, I need this, you know, it's all these things that they feel like they have to line up before they step out there. And I'm not saying that you don't need to plan before you step out, definitely make sure that you're doing the right thing and you do have a plan. But every you will never be able to start something new if you have to wait till everything is perfect. And the stars align up just right, because they're not going to and, you know, it's just like with me, and you know, podcasting will take that is like you know, I didn't know much about it, bought some equipment and just started doing it. And hopefully I've evolved a little bit since the very beginning. But you know what, it's something I love to do. And so I'm happy with being able to talk to people like yourself, because I learned so much you know, I selfishly tell people that you know, this podcast is for me, because I learned from all my guests and I just get to share it with others. But if I had waited till I was the perfect announcer podcaster host and all that stuff, I'd still be sitting here not doing anything. So Oh, one more point I want to kind of touch on that. You know, when we're talking about success and money and things like that is you know, we get people get into become entrepreneurs for different reasons. Then one thing I will say is that we have to be careful and you know, I liken it to the dog and the tail is you know, we need to be the dog and the businesses the tail where we wag the tail, and it's so easy to fall into that trap of landing The tail wag the dog, you know, we, we let the business dictate our life and I'm guilty, I have to say that sometimes you know, I have to get the tap on the shoulder that time to slow down time to get up and go do something or you know, spend some quality family time things like that I try to be mindful of But anyway, I will just say for you know, younger entrepreneurs or people thinking about it is just remember that it's a means to an end. It's not the it should not become your whole life.

Cristal  40:33

And I'm glad you touched upon that, because I don't know if you ever heard the same people saying entrepreneurs are Workaholics. Right, right. In a lot of a lot of them have. You know, don't have strong relationships and voices and so forth. Because the workaholic right? So I agree with you, I had to kind of put some adjustments myself every weekend, just for my family. So doing stuff together we used to do, it gets crazy because I was posting. He was his birthday was not not not too long ago. And I was posting some stuff from back in the day. I'm like, Oh, God, Honey, I'm like we used to travel all the time. We used to have fun all the time. Look what happened. He said the business happened. Right, right. And I was like, Oh my god, we're in a taking consideration. But, you know, the reason why we're creating a business is to make a living, right to make something that we'd like to do a living but at the same time, we don't want it to, you know, be the for a whole entire life when grinding and grinding grinding. because technically the numbers right? If you're working 1617 hours every single day you didn't numbers of how much money you're bringing in. And you divided it up and you see how many you're getting an hour. It might not be like a regular job. You actually might be

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  41:57

right. Yeah. And it's it's

Cristal  42:01

harder, not always smarter.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  42:03

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah.

Cristal  42:08

Not only becomes like an addiction, almost because you're so in it. You're so in it, I want to do XYZ. The work whenever I feel guilty myself right now I'm training more people to you know, with my team right now in the middle of training. So I have to work this weekend, right? Yeah. But it's been such a long time that I've worked in a weekend. Yeah. Yeah, that was like, oh, Lord, weekend. But absolutely. Give your site. Give yourself.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  42:34

Yeah, you know, because it's a curse. And if you're lucky enough to find something that you'd love to do. It's not really work. And so you know, that's the that's kind of the rub with me is like, you know, doing things. I don't really take it as work. It's fun. It's enjoyable. I like a challenge. I like trying to take that next step and figure out, you know, how can we tweak this around? So anyway, just it's kind of one of those messages is that yeah, it can be fun and exciting and thrill. But we still need to, you know, nurture relationships outside of our entrepreneurship as well.

43:12

Absolutely, yep.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  43:13

So we're going to wrap up, we've had a great conversation. I know we've gone a little longer than what we initially talked about, and I appreciate your patience and going on. So before we get away, though, I want you to he did mention the book, but tell us a little bit more about the book. And then I want you to really stress this world women's conference be that way we can get more, not only just women in general, but we can get more young ladies involved in entrepreneurship.

Cristal  43:48

Yeah, absolutely. So I will start with the back. So like I said, it's constant from zeros, from zero to success. And literally, it's short, it's a 200 page book. It's very, not long, super easy to read. There's even some pictures here. And as far as for my marketing, didn't I that I wrote, there's only one marketing section, which is mine. And I basically just talked about different strategies of how more like plan tactics, like getting the importance of sometimes immediate marketing, right? So a lot of times when businesses start, they, they want to get awareness, but they don't know from there somewhere, where do we where do I go? And you're very knowledgeable and you already know what you're doing. But nobody knows who you are, right? in social media, we all know, you know, has its ups and downs. And so one of the things that I really also help people with, in the sense, at least in the back is okay, well, your podcast even right now. It's like create your own pocket. Valuable podcast right with your quality, clientele, potential clientele that you want. eventually meet and work with the right people. You really enjoy talking to her very information or knowledgeable, etc, you know, magazines articles, you know, it's now it's a different ways to get into articles, media press, you know, let's say with the world woman conference in words, we use the media press, for our events, and so forth. And so that's where I use it for. So there's different formats and media marketing things people can utilize to grow their awareness and their credibility without having to pay so much money out of pocket, you know, more organically in that sense, but they still get that credibility in that, in that awareness, per se. You know, we understand that a lot of people are doing, you know, social media advertisements, a great tool works for you. But when you're starting off a business, you don't have that much income to spare any, how are you going to do such a social media advertisement? Wouldn't you even have awareness?

45:54

Right, right?

Cristal  45:55

Why even have a branding? So that's where you start off. And so that's a little bit more of that initial aspect, because the book is called losers from success and other co authors have done a fantastic job. I mean, we're talking about eight different countries. Wow, we have authors, in countries all over the world that is copy in their industry, CEOs, founders, and financial institutions, like global institutions, and so forth. This book is literally not just anyone that was no part of it. It was top people from all over the world and the author, and helicoptering me This is the author did a fantastic job about bringing all of us together, and sharing that knowledge. And we did it actually, during COVID. We did the book during COVID. And it was formulated more like the restructuring format. So actually, which will be perfectly for right now. He people want to buy it, and we should be having our English version coming out with the next couple months. So you know, once it's out, you'll be able to see it on my website at unstoppable marketing solutions, and where to get ahead in all that great stuff. Ever. We do have the Spanish version, always because that's the first version that we thought. And the reason why we started off with the Spanish version first was because we have a lot a Latino in the US, US, you know, around the world. It's like, I think one of like, the second biggest, you know, pee culture and people in the in the world. So we wanted to showcase that, you know, we're here to support you in any way they can. In there's a lot of like, you know, Mexican Americans, at least here in San Diego, and a lot of great people that could definitely benefit from it. So that's the reason why we started off with the, you know, the Spanish version, and then we're converting into the English version. And again, but we also do the masterminds, and we do meet courses and things like that with everybody's information in there as well. Okay, so it's not just about, I can actually voice I can use the link, and so you can send it to your team and so forth. And we should, unfortunately, we were already supposed to do a couple things. But COVID has already kind of backed up a couple of people in our group. So we want to give them a little bit more time.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  48:15

Okay. Yeah, I'd be glad to post all that in the show notes as well.

Cristal  48:21

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you, I think this is going to really benefit for people that are either transitioning from corporate to intrapreneurship. I know a lot of people lost their jobs, or what I do now, I like starting an incentive report times, but not that, you know, they get something else. Or people that are really already within the one or two years of the business, but it's stuck in it's not growing, right. It's like literally not growing, it's very static. And so those are the people that are going to really benefit the most from this book. But to be honest with you, there's one like, mindset strategy, sells, micro offers financial literacy. There's like all kinds of like, topics here that even though you may not be at the beginning stages, I think it's still good to refresh your memory in some of these areas, or just see what some people around the world are doing. Right? The market is different. But maybe some ideas can come into consideration into that. And then so that's for the book. And so for this ad world, a woman conference awards is a new organization that I've always wanted to join a women's organization. And I love this organization, because it's not just women, by the way that we actually have men as well. Okay. We like to learn men as well. But it is the conference. It is a woman. So I know a lot of people we can say it was just for women, right? But no, we have. We have men and women in my team. I have two men that are in my San Diego chapter. It's always good to have that balance right to have A little bit of a different perspective. But basically, the beauty of it is the mission of the whole organization is to filling the gap in your community. So there's a gap in your community that is not being filled. So as an organization, as for example, the San Diego chapter becomes the middleman to make that happen. So if you have the connections with politics, a, you know, financial institutions, etc. And we need to help someone in the lower level. So we make that connection and we make sure that that gap is filled. Okay. So every world every every chapter on the world, we have Europe, in the UK, we have dystonia. I'm sorry, there's like a plane flying.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  50:43

Right now. We live by an Air Force Base, too. So I have those come over every now and then.

Cristal  50:50

Yeah, I'm sorry. We have a, we have a Sonia, we have Mexico, we have six chapters in the United States all over the US. I mean, it's growing. And the beauty of it is that all of these women are super quality women professional, and they genuinely care about their communities in order to make a difference. We also have a section for the youth. Okay, so each, there is a section, so mentorship, of mentorship of the youth. And, you know, especially right now we're doing a lot of like online stuff, it's one of their greatest youth programs right now is in Georgia. So in Atlanta, Georgia, they're doing a boot test job, they even have a podcast for the young, young kids, they do a lot of activity on a weekly basis, a lot of stuff keeps them from, from the whole environment of them staying inside, and I'd be able to be with your friends and so forth the mental speech aspect of it,

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  51:52

right. Yeah.

Cristal  51:54

And then the, the friends even though they're not like face to face, and so forth, especially with the us right now it's meeting us more than ever in mentorship. So the idea is to, you know, we're talking about high school and up, okay. The idea is to going to the schools, make clubs, interactive, you know, they go to college. So by the time we get out of college, there have already a network of people to contact.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  52:23

That's so important.

Cristal  52:24

by the author their career. Yeah. And that was to mentor them into leader. Little, little, little leadership. Yeah. Letter guy, they're gonna be leaders.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  52:37

Yeah, that's awesome. Because, you know, back, when I was coming through high school, there was a limited, you know, I knew and limited number of things that I might want to do with my life. And that's the, you know, the great thing about the internet, the good thing about this conference is we're exposing these young people to a lot of ideas that are out there. And, you know, I think that's something that's been positive through COVID is I have seen so many more young kids, some younger than high school, but they've gotten into some kind of business, some of them, they're not for profits, just, you know, helping others, which is awesome. But there have been some people that have come up with some really good products or good services, and they're making money on it. And so, you know, I think that's great to see. Well,

Cristal  53:25

absolutely, and are young men and women to girls and boys, we don't discriminate or in any way like that, and we want both genders to be there. But just to know that overall, that basically some poor women as well.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  53:42

So we'll be sure to put that link on our website. Again, Crystal, thank you so much for taking time out of your day. So I try to wrap up every episode with a question like, what is something that you use? It could be an app or a program, habit? Or rituals? What is something that you do in your daily life personal professional, that you feel adds so much value that you just couldn't do without?

Cristal  54:09

Oh, absolutely, I think, you know, when we were in person, it was mentioned easier for me to connect with people and I'm connector. I love talking to people, I love learning about their stories, and so forth. So one of the things that I do on a daily basis, I literally connect with one person a day and get into some call with them every single day. And even though it's 15 minutes, I get to have that personal interaction, then personal touch, and then we stay in contact more. And it's not about the selling aspect, it's about the connecting aspect of it, right. It's like got to learn about what does the person need at that moment? What How can I help them maybe have a resource maybe, maybe have some a contact that they can really benefit from? Right and because you got to think about it this way, okay. Maybe that person was not yourself, right. You can be yours. Nothing. You have In reality that you can sell them or give them as a product, right? But you get you help them with that one resource. And then when they have a friend are like, Hey, I really need help with some marketing and marketing planners like all over the place. You know what? I know somebody? I know crystal, yeah, he's amazing care of you genuine, whatever it is. And then there There goes, there goes your referral. So you know, even though you are talking to people that are potentially being clientele, at the end of the day, yes, you're talking to people that are going to be interested. But more importantly, it's going to be how you can help them at that moment how you can solve that problem. Yeah. That's how they're gonna turn determine whether you're a quality person to work with or not. Yeah,

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  55:45

yeah, I think that's important in networking is, you know, we can't always just want to network with the person that we think we're going to get the next cell. I think that we have to put ourselves out there and we have to help people without any expectations. And I guarantee you that comes back to us tenfold. Because, like you said, you build that relationship, even if it's not your customer, they know people and then they will eventually refer you so great advice. That's Yeah, especially

Cristal  56:16

now because when it shifted, maybe back in the day you were able to make those calls, make sales, etc. Now it's about there's a lot of people suffering in the world. Yeah, there's a lot of people struggling now it's about how can we help them with that struggle? Right, right. Just tweeting it? Just a tad.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  56:33

Yeah. All right. Well, Crystal, so tell people who is your client, what can you do for them? And then of course, how can they reach out and get a hold of you?

Cristal  56:45

Yeah, absolutely. For me and like I said, my clients are small business owners, medium business owners, and help them with creating a strategy plan overall and in any other plans depending on where they are and level of their business. You know, it's so important to get people off the floor awesome. Once you get off the floor, it becomes a little bit easier to manage everything but that off the floor the initial planning aspect is beyond important. And they are more than happy to reach me either at unstoppable Marketing Solutions.com which is my website, and I have a 15 minute free consultation. In I just initially talked to people sometimes I just basically like solved a problem, right there. You know, if I feel like we need more time and stuff, then then that's, that's going to be like at a cost. But if I can solve your issue and those 15 minutes, then go ahead and set an appointment with me and speak with me because I am at the moment where I do want to help people and I am going to be helping people already as it is. But I understand the pressure and the frustration sometimes we're so frustrating, we can even see beyond that. So just bringing in just 15 minute, clarity straight to the point time UK, I generally don't even know where to start, then I guide you through it. You know if it's gonna be more than 15 minutes in the case, we're gonna have to set another appointment and so forth. But being just basically unstuck you in the area that you are so you can keep moving forward and have that clarity, right. Yeah. Or you can email me you know, if you need anything at customers out at unstoppable Marketing Solutions comm I have all my social media links. So if you want to connect with me, I'm Cristal Balk, go ahead and find me.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track  58:34

Okay, awesome. Cristal. Yeah, y'all reach out to Cristal, see how she can help you, I know that she'll be able to make a difference in your marketing efforts. Also, take a look for both men, women and the youth take a look at the world women conference and awards. And then be on the lookout Del Cero Al Exito if you if you read Spanish, it's already out there and available. If if you're an English speaker, like myself, waiting till the zero to success comes out in the English version. And we'll be looking for that. Of course, I will put all those things up in the show notes as well. So I think that's gonna do it for this episode. We certainly appreciate you being a listener. Of course, you can find us at www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com on all the major platforms, Apple podcast, Google podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, and a lot more. If you use a platform that we're not on, please reach out I'd be glad to try to get us added to that. So we are on all the traditional social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and a copy of this video version of this interview will go up on YouTube when the episode goes live as well. So until next time, take care of yourself and take care of those around you. Thank you

Website: unstoppablemarketingsolutions.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/Cristal-balk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/cristal.balk.3

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage: A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile with Roy Barker

LinkedIn has become a must-have tool for many reasons. If you're job hunting, a business looking for prospects or communicating with clients, or just networking, it is invaluable. I am going to do a mini-series released on Thursdays for the foreseeable future. This is the first episode on Completing Your Profile. Let's get started on our journey to LinkedIn success.

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About Roy

I have been fortunate enough to have had an awesome and diverse career. I have been in the right place at the right time in order to learn a lot of valuable lessons. All I ever really wanted to be was a pick-up man in the rodeo. Yep, that’s correct. I loved watching those guys. During the rough stock events they would sit at the end of the arena on those big beautiful horses just waiting for a wreck. Then they would swoop in and the cowboy would jump off the bucking horses onto the pickup man's horse and they would never miss a stride.

While I was never a pickup man, I was lucky enough to chase the rodeo a little in my younger days as a bull rider. That is a great story in itself, but I want to talk a little more about business. If you would like to hear some stories of going down the road, let's grab some coffee. I am always willing to share those stories. Anyway, lest I digress, back to business.

I started my business career at the age of 14 selling manure out of the back of my mother’s car to city dwellers for garden fertilizer. Me and a lifelong friend had a lot of fun and learn many lessons about sales and marketing along the way. Then after high school I fell into an amazing position with a major utility. Working my way through the repair and construction departments into management. Again, at this point in my life I was surrounded by guys much older than I was that taught me some great lessons in craftmanship, work ethic, and life.

By now I have figured out that I do need higher education. My parents were proven right again. Its amazing how much smarter your parents are the older you get. I went to night school for about 12 years and completed my undergraduate degree in finance. At this point I spent a few years at a major brokerage house before transitioning into operations consulting in 2000.

During 2007 I got interested in employee retention. While in grad school (As I mentioned before, I was a late bloomer educationally) our class was studying a book on Nursing Home Administration. In some part of the book it referenced that most nursing homes had an average of 300% employee turnover every year! Yes, you read that right, 300%. That means they turned their entire staff over 3 times every year. Unbelievable!

While I do understand to some extent. The work is hard and thankless. The pay is even more thankless. It still made me wonder how much did that cost employers every year and what was their risk exposure? So I started doing a little research and found that the true cash cost can be exorbitant. The inherent risk can be even that much more.

As I mentioned earlier, prior to my consulting years I was manager at a major utility. Employee turnover for reasons beyond retirement were virtually nonexistent. I know a couple guys who were tragically killed on the job. There was one who went to prison for an off the job murder and a few more over the years for just not showing up. In my 18 years with the company, I was the only guy I know or had heard of that just left the company willingly prior to retirement.  

There a lot of factors that led to the low employee turnover rates or high employee retention rates. A few were: a union environment, decent pay for those of us with only a high school education, great benefits, and a decent retirement. The reality was I didn’t know what employee turnover was until I read it in a book.

Once I read some research, I started asking some questions of the companies I was working with on other consulting engagements. Some of these companies had employee turnover rates in excess of 100% and didn’t even flinch. They didn’t know any other way. They all uttered a version of the five most deadliest words in business. “It’s Always Been This Way!” Yikes I thought!

I was hooked. I knew right then and there this was my passion. To help companies and their leaders to close the gap on employee retention. It is a needless waste of money and a talent drain. It is reversable. There is a better way and will also improve your company culture and bottom line at the same time.

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

www.roybarker.com

Full Transcript Below

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (00:09):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm your host, Roy, I'm going to try something a little bit different today. I'll be talking about, we're going to do another, uh, a mini series like we have done, uh, in the past. Now we're going to do this one on LinkedIn, have a lot of, um, I've had a lot of people, a lot of interest, a lot of people haven't had to really use and rely on LinkedIn as they, um, as they have to now either trying to go back to work or, uh, being, you know, out of a job and having to look for their first time or some people actually starting a business. So learned a lot of great reasons to use LinkedIn. Uh, we're going to title the series, how to use LinkedIn to your advantage, a step-by-step guide.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (00:54):

And this one, uh, first one we're going to talk about is completing your profile. Also like to say that, you know, LinkedIn, it's like a lot of marketing strategies. It's, it's a long-term play. Sometimes you can get on there, uh, one day and do one thing and get lucky and get some response. But for the most part, this is gonna be about, uh, uh, about, you know, uh, continual strategy, what you can do, um, you know, your efforts every day, that lead up to a bigger successes and then, um, you know, just continue in these activities because that way we can, uh, actually get the benefit of, uh, you know, doing things over time. So we just have to get the, uh, you know, manage our expectations that this isn't going to be a, Hey, I want to get a new job today. So I'm going to sign on to LinkedIn, LinkedIn and make it happen.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (01:50):

Or, uh, you know, I'm going to go out and prospect for some consumer. So, um, anyway, just take that mindset. What we're going to try to do here is help give you daily activities that can help you start this process and, uh, you know, get going with, uh, putting LinkedIn to work for you, to help, you know, whatever your goal is. Everybody has such different goals. The other thing, too, everybody has an opinion on how things should be done, just like in marketing and advertising and sales. Everybody has a little twist. So what I'm gonna do is go over the main components. And then what I would suggest is that, uh, to maybe do a little research, tailor this for your needs, are you, like I said, are you just wanting to, um, you know, if you're currently employed or have a business and you just want to get on here just to start, uh, building your following, building those relationships, that's good. You may want to take one approach where if you're a job seeker or if you're a business, uh, new or existing business, that's using this to, uh, try to acquire prospects and con uh, customers. Then of course you may want twist a little bit different.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (03:00):

So, but anyway,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (03:02):

This is also going to be pretty visual. So if you're listening on the podcast, you may want to take a few minutes and go over to YouTube at some point, and I'm going to share my screen and go through my profile. Just kind of go over the

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (03:14):

Top, the, the big parts of the profile

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (03:18):

Well itself, and some things that you really need to look for. Uh, the first part we'll talk about is this, uh, the, um, well, I think they call it

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (03:26):

The profile picture or not

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (03:29):

The background photo. It's the long rectangle one at the top, uh, you know, choose if you, if you're in a business or if you want to use your company logo, that's fine. Put something that's relevant to you. You know, we just depends on again on what you want to use this for, but I always try to, uh, uh, stay in that conservative zone, you know, put something up there. That's conservative. That's not going to turn people away immediately. Uh, if you go to the little pencil up in the top, it gives you some options to change the photo, to filter, crop it, move it around a little bit. So just find something that you like. And like I said, if you're a business, if you can try to have your company logo in there, that's awesome. Of course then the profile picture.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (04:12):

Sure. Again, um, a lot. Yeah,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (04:15):

It's a thought used to, it was suit and tie, but now it's, it's more casual. And then of course it depends on the, uh, you know, what your goals are. The other thing I've heard in the back in the past is maybe trying not to have a background, as you can see, I've got the trees in the background, excuse me. It does make it a little bit more busier. So, uh, yeah, there's ways that you can put that on a white background to make yourself stand out, but it's good to have a, uh, you know, again, a conservative relative picture. That way people can get an idea of, uh, maybe who they're talking with talking to,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (04:49):

Then we come down to, um, you know, like your headline, your, um, uh, your location,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (04:57):

Your connections in this at the top, they've actually added your most recent company, as well as your university

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (05:04):

At the top. Again, you can just pop

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (05:06):

This open at the pencil and, you know, it's just the general name headline. Again, this is one of these places that you'll, if you ask 10 people, you'll get 10 different advices, but in the headline,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (05:18):

If you work for a company, uh,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (05:20):

You know, I think it's always worth putting the title in there. And then a little bit about what you do, uh, what you solve for that company. Uh, or if you're a business you may want to take more of the approach of, you know, what can you do for your consumer? What would you solve for them? What value do you add to their,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (05:38):

Um, to their operations then, um, got your, um, latest day

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (05:46):

Education. And then again, your region where you're located at, and, uh, [inaudible]

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (05:53):

In there and then industry that you're

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (05:58):

In as well. So, um, that pretty much rounds that out, if you, uh, click this next pencil open, it'll just let you go in there and put all of your website's contact information, things like that. And again, you can control, you know, how much of this that you want visible to your network. So they do respect your privacy. This is something new that's been added. Uh, this little dropdown with the open to, you can say that you're open to finding a new job, or that's your opening to hiring. If you are hiring recruiter, or if you need somebody at your business and then you get to drop down blocks here where you can, um, go in a little bit more detail about who you want to see that the next big category has just the about, I think it's about 240 50 characters, maybe more than that, but this is a good place to highlight, you know, what you do, and always try to be, what, what did you accomplish accomplish oriented?

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (07:03):

You know, back in the old days, we just wanted to put what we were tasked with, what our duties may have been. But nowadays we want to be sure and put, you know, what are these accomplishments that we've made? If you can put figures on them, that's even better. I increased sales 20% during this time period, or whatever fits for you. But again, just pop open the pencil and allow you to actually edit that the featured section is next. And this just highlights, you know, some things that you've posted, like had made a, um, made, um, this was like an occupancy spreadsheet that I had made at one time that I put up there. So it just allows you to put different things that you want to highlight

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (07:49):

There.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (07:52):

Next one is the dashboard. And if you look in the top right hand corner, this'll tell you kind of your status based on your, uh, the information that you've got filled out. So, and they also would give you a lot of direction use to, uh, spend a while, but used to on this right-hand corner, it would kinda top right hand. It would tell you, you know, what you, um, what you actually need to do to improve that score. One thing I didn't mention a couple of things I didn't mention was that, um, when you first sign up, you can go on and edit your public profile instead of just having a generic, uh, you know, linkedin.com forward slash and something generic. You can actually put your name or whatever you want to appear there. That way. It makes it easy for you to remember when somebody asks you, uh, you know, for your LinkedIn, or if you're looking for employment and you want to put your LinkedIn profile on your,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (08:47):

Um, on your resume,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (08:49):

Or if you put it in an email, make it easier for you to remember the other thing you can do. I don't, I can't it on the desktop. I think you have to go into

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (08:58):

Your, um, the app

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (09:00):

On the phone, but you can also record your name, how it's pronounced my name. Of course, isn't quite that difficult, but if you have a difficult name, it's always good to go over there and put it on that way. People can listen to the pronunciation and it's good too, if you don't know how to pronounce somebody's name, go over there and listen to it for, uh, just take a couple extra seconds that way you get the pronunciation,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (09:23):

Right? So, uh, in this

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (09:25):

Section, we have our dashboard. It'll tell you about how many views you've had, how many times you appeared in searches and post views.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (09:33):

If you, um, if

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (09:34):

You subscribe to the LinkedIn professional version, I'm not sure of the pricing on that anymore, but if you subscribe to that, you do get a lot more insights into activities on your profile. I think you can see even who's looking,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (09:47):

Got it, things like that. So

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (09:52):

The next category is your activities. This is just a highlight of all your activities. This is also good to know if, um, if you know, somebody that posted something, cause I've had this happen before it's then like I know John Smith posted something I really wanted to see on his LinkedIn profile, but it's already passed me by and the feed. You can actually go to their profile and look at this activity. And I go find what you're looking for just to just kind of a shortcut there. This next big block is experience. And of course we want to, uh, put our latest job in there first. And we just want to be, uh, again, very conscious of the timing, you know, the start and end dates. We want to make sure we get that correct. So if somebody does a, you know, run some checks on you, that they'll match up with what the employer may say. Also here, you get a little snapshot of, you know, what you do at that company. Again, if we can stay away from task and try to go with accomplishments, and if we can put, if we can quantify that

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (10:55):

Even better, but we want

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (10:58):

To list those in order. And you know, my thing, we'll have a lot of people sweat over, um, gaps in service for different reasons, but you know what I think,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (11:08):

Um, if it's,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (11:11):

It's something that's explainable. So instead of trying to cover it up or hide it, just be honest, put it on there, tell your story. A lot of times people have very interesting stories that they're trying to hide, and sometimes it makes you even more appealing to employers.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (11:28):

For sure. Uh, no, you know, I had,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (11:31):

Excuse me, a gentleman on the show, not long ago that, you know, he took off six months and went on some hiking over in Africa, I think. And,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (11:40):

Um, you know, he had

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (11:41):

Been told that it would kill his, his, uh, career from then on. And basically when he came back, he inserted it in his timeline on his resume and on his LinkedIn and said people were more interested. They'd be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that you've marketed for this company, but let's talk about this trip people. He said, everybody asked him about that trip. And it was interesting. So people are interested not only in your skillset, but your attitude, but also what other, what are your extracurricular activities that you may do for something like that? It's a very important, and it's also

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (12:15):

Great way to connect with people. But so anyway, don't be scared of gaps. You can explain them, but anyway,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (12:21):

Just fill this out, going on down. Our next part, we come to as the educator,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (12:25):

[inaudible] again, uh, highest degrees, latest schooling, or, um, first, and then work your way backwards. Then we have the licensing and cert certifications. And then

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (12:41):

Here again is the volunteer experience. And even if you don't have a gate

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (12:45):

App in your, um, uh, in your employment that you need to highlight, this is a great

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (12:52):

Place to put things of interest to

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (12:54):

You. If you've worked

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (12:56):

For another organization, something that you may have taken action for as volunteer experience, and then down here, this stuff,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (13:04):

Um, I want to, we'll get to it in a minute where you're, uh, some of your, um, you know, just get down. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (13:12):

Now some of your interests you'll be able to put them down here at the bottom as well. So that's always good. This next section under

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (13:18):

Our, um, uh, volunteer experiences are skills and endorsement.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (13:24):

They do allow you to take different skill quizzes. So especially if you're going to be looking for a job. So I always advisable to go take as many skill quizzes as you can. Now over here, you can add skills that you have and then other people can endorse

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (13:41):

Them for you. So

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (13:43):

Go on and add some skill sets that you have

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (13:46):

Then, um, this next

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (13:48):

Part is recommendations. And I, I

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (13:50):

Have to admit that I haven't been to

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (13:56):

Aggressive at approaching, uh, you know, trying to get those, but it is a good idea. We always would. Rather other people tell, uh, tell other people how good we are versus us having to tell people how good we are. So go over here, ask for some recommendations from people that you've worked with, people that you've worked for, people that have worked for you, but it's always good to have a few of those on

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (14:19):

This is accomplishments. Um, you can choose

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (14:22):

Publications, organizations,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (14:25):

Projects,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (14:26):

The honors awards, test scores, language organization, uh, you know, put anything in there that you feel would make you stand out from the crowd. And then of course this last box is entrust. This is just different companies, different areas of interest that we may have that we can put on.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (14:44):

So anyway, um, here's an ad, uh, at the top

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (14:48):

And you'll see this ad profile section. We'll see if I'm missing any, I think we've pretty much, uh, there's some like the additional information supported languages. There are other things that you can add that I don't have. So anyway, it's always good just to go on there, see, um, you know, what's available, make sure that if you need to turn a box on that, you get it turned on and, um, yeah, because your profile is shareable. You can save it to a PDF. You can send it in a profile message, um, to other people. So this is something good to keep up. And like I said, it's not an overnight fix. I don't think, I think it's a longterm approach we want to get on here. We want to learn to be active. We want to, uh, connect with other people. We'll go over, uh, in some of the next episodes that we have, we'll go over, you know, what are some next steps that we need to do, but first thing, take a few minutes, get your profile in order, uh, go on Google and do some research for each one of the sections to see, you know, try to get some best practices from some other people that do this every day and, um, you know, tweak it to what your goal is.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - How To Use LinkedIn To Your Advantage A Step By Step Guide - Completing Your Profile (15:59):

Like I said, is it just to start networking? Is it to get a job? Is it may be to, uh, try to acquire some prospects and consumers customers out of this. But, um, again, it's a long-term play, so let's be sure and get started, even if you've got a job and you feel like things are pretty good, it's never, it never hurts to keep up with your LinkedIn because the thing is sometimes you never know when you're going to need it. And if we're always keeping up, keeping it up to date posting and doing some different things, then, um, you'll have a presence on there. So if you did need to go out and try to acquire a job, it would make it a little easier. So anyway, that's going to do it for our first episode of how to use LinkedIn to your advantage, a step-by-step guide com and completing your profile was this one, I think next time we're going to talk about, um, uh, start to acquire some, um, connections on here, how we go about doing that and what are some best practices there. So until next time, uh, you can find us, of course, at www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com. We're on all the major social media networks, and this will be up on YouTube when this episode goes live as well. So until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your business.

www.roybarker.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur? How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance with Vanessa Zamy

As an entrepreneur, it can be hard to keep it together. The demands of a business, your family, your employees, customers, and others can be very stressful. If you have a side hustle, you also have to manage your full-time job and the extras of your business. Learn how to manage your stress and be successful at your business. It can be done.

Sharing is caring Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or LinkedIn.

About Vanessa

Vanessa Zamy is a business expert, keynote speaker, and bestselling author dedicated to helping full-time employees transition to entrepreneurship by building their business while employed. Her consulting company, Your Vision's Catalyst, coaches and advises 9-to-5ers on how to build a profit-producing, purpose-driven business without the overwhelm. It’s not hustling that’s bad, it’s how you’re hustling that they fix. With a focus on efficiency and effectiveness, Vanessa Zamy works with you as a new entrepreneur on taking care of your life while also taking care of business. Her motto: keep it simple, then keep it movin’! Vanessa’s background includes a Management Science and Engineering Degree from Stanford University, and strategic leadership roles at Fortune 500 companies.

Resources

e-Book: FINISH: The Solopreneur’s Guide to Getting Stuff Done - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0813YJ336

In The Side Business Formula, Vanessa Zamy teaches efficient and effective productivity, marketing, sales, and mindset strategies to ambitious, purpose-led entrepreneurs. You can check out more information on the community and business knowledge here: http://www.thesidebusinessformula.com/ 

www.vanessazamy.com

www.vzay.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (00:02):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm Roy, we are the show that brings you a wide variety of guests that talk about a lot of different subjects, uh, mostly dealing with, um, the entrepreneurs, solo, preneurs, small business, even some managers of some large companies. You know, we want to try to give you actionable items and, uh, you know, can help you give you some things to think about. You may not have thought about, but also, you know, connects you with professionals that can help you move to that next level and solve any problems that you may have. So today, uh, I've been looking forward to this call for a couple of weeks now because, uh, uh, uh, it's so important and I'll be the first one to say that, you know, I'm going to have to listen and take notes as we go through this today.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (00:52):

But, uh, uh, Vanessa Zamy is a, she's a business expert, a keynote speaker and bestselling author dedicated to helping full-time employees transition to entrepreneurship by building their business while employed her consulting company, your visions, catalyst coaches and advisors nine to fivers on how to build a profit producing purpose-driven business without the overwhelming, without it being overwhelming, it's not hustling, that's bad. It's how you hustle that they fix, uh, what they focus on efficiency and effectiveness. Vanessa works with you as a new entrepreneur on taking care of your life while also taking care of your business. That's an important point. Her motto is keep it simple, then keep it moving. Vanessa's background includes management science, an engineering degree from Stanford university and strategic leadership roles at fortune 500 companies, Vanessa. Uh, welcome to the show. Uh, you know, one point I did want to add is that when we talked earlier, you know, you had just, uh, something I noted that you said that, uh, through connecting with hundreds of ambitious purpose led solo preneurs in your community, uh, one thing is definitely clear that mental health issues and entrepreneurship is still, uh, rampant even today.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (02:17):

So it's a time to cut out the unnecessary on serving and mentally detrimental busy work in solo preneur ships. So first off, welcome to the show, thanks for taking time out of your day to be with us. And, uh, yeah, let's connect. I think it's an interesting subject. Yeah. Yeah. There's so much to unpack here. So let's just jump into, uh, you know, what are you seeing in your community, uh, currently?

Vanessa (02:47):

Yeah, so essentially, you know, in terms of, you know, the, when I talk about mental health as well, there, people will think of different definitions. So just to get us all on the same page here, essentially by health, referring to that anxious feeling, right? Stress, anxiety, worry, panic, all that stuff, right. That is common essentially, unfortunately, still today in entrepreneurship. Right. And it's definitely a common in a new entrepreneurship space, but even when you listen to this podcast, maybe you're also like a full-time employee somewhere else. Right. But unfortunately, you know, at the end of the day, it's given all the pressures, especially in this social media, digital world, there's all these pressures where, you know, you're a new entrepreneur. You're like, yeah. Like day one success. Yeah. Right. Because you saw, you see somebody who's like six figures in six or, you know, or you see all that, you know, you see someone with their jet or their yacht or whatever it is that they're showing you in a photo.

Vanessa (03:44):

And so then there's also that comparison point, right. In terms of, so, and then it's also, so part of it comes from level expectations and then matching that and sort of the imbalance between reality, right. And the level expectations that you have, or based off of what you've seen other people do, et cetera. But at the end of the day, it's maybe they did get those six figures in six days. Maybe they didn't. Right. But, but they don't tell you is that it was after six years of like, you know, doing a couple of businesses, it was at, this was like their fifth business that they've tried. This is after, you know, they use their friend's mailing lists that had a hundred thousand, you know, like they don't tell you all that other stuff behind it. Right. And so,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (04:34):

Well, we kind of had a freeze up there, hopefully Vanessa

Vanessa (04:37):

They've already quit their job. They quit their job before the, before the business even made money. Yeah. Right.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (04:43):

Yeah. Yeah. And another thing they don't tell you is that with somebody else's yacht that they were standing in front of and that picture that they posted on Instagram, as you know, you know, we talk a lot about that and I, you know, there's so much that you said that, uh, needs unpack and I don't even know where to jump in, but you know, we get back to that purpose driven, uh, you know, something that we're passionate about, but then we also, you know, the social media has been awesome for businesses because we can get out there to a wide range of people and get in front of stuff. But I think it also professionally and personally, I think it can give us unreal listic expectations that people never post the train wrecks that they're having, or when things go bad or, uh, you know, when they can't pay their light bill, it's always posted and all the great stuff.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (05:34):

And so we gotta be careful not to try to compare ourselves to everybody else out there. And then the other thing that you've said too, is that, you know, overnight successes, uh, tend, tend to have, you know, happened over a, you know, five to 10 year period. And, uh, we just think that they've just busted on the scene because we've just discovered over, you know, they're getting a lot of publicity, but there's so much in behind that. So, um, again, uh, you know, I'll throw myself be the first one to throw myself under the bus about all of this, that, uh, you know, I always have a lot of, to do a lot of ideas, a lot more to do today than I could possibly cram into three or four days. And, um, you know, it does, you do get anxious, but I try to get out and take a walk and then always reevaluate, make a list of, to do, you know, and then try to prioritize what is the actual most important, even though they all are board it. So anyway, a lot of stuff, but I'm gonna let you kinda, uh, jump back in and take off with the takeoff there where you feel we need to.

Vanessa (06:41):

Yeah. I mean, it was a lot of stuff. So feel free to, you know, get me back to where you think I should go whenever, but essentially I'll touch on the point that you just recently made in terms of how you're, you're getting anxious, but you take that walk. Right. So, and, but it's like sort of having a lot to do you have a lot on your to-do list more than you can do for the day. Right. So we'll address that point first and then go into, then, you know, the point that she mentioned about how you're taking that walk. So in terms of the, you know, first point about, you know, having that extra, you have that long list, right? So it's all the stuff that needs to get done. Right. And you know, if you're, you're building a business, maybe you also got a family, you got to maybe have a day job as well to do a bunch of different things to do, and only 24 hours in a day.

Vanessa (07:21):

Right. And here's the thing, when it comes down to, you know, you getting things done, it's focused, right. It's focused and you mentioned a key word as well to priority prioritization priorities. Right. And understanding what those priorities are, but it even the prioritizing your goals overall. Right. And I will just tell my, my clients is essentially I have like a three part system to help me do this. Right. Well, first part is like, what are your non-negotiables right. So what do you need to do to take care of yourself and to feel like you've taken care of yourself right. In a day or a week, whatever, it's like, get your hair done every month, or is it data with the kids every night at 6:00 PM, whatever it may be. And then the second part of that is what are the goals that you want to get done in three months?

Vanessa (08:04):

Right now I'm speaking to the opposite. I'm speaking to a new entrepreneurial crowd. Right. But it's very easy for us to think, Oh, I want to, I want to get that, that empire in like three years, I want to do this in five years. By the end of this year, I will get like a hundred K. Right. And let's say, you're starting out at like five K or starting out with like zero. Right. And yeah, it's a lot of like setting that expectations with yourself in terms of, okay. Yes. You're going to get to the one year, but in terms of the next three months, right. What is it that you want to get done within the next three months? Right. Right. And I found it, especially when I was like, when I was starting out. Right. It was very easy for me to, I want to get this in like a year, this and two years in internet.

Vanessa (08:42):

Right. All these dreams, all these goals. But then unfortunately what ended up happening was that each day I would like, I would do something and then I would say, Oh my gosh, I'm so far away. Like, Oh, I'm the worst. Oh, I can't it. Oh, gee. Right. Then the next day I'll do something and be like, Oh my gosh. Like, Oh, so you just started comparing yourself to that. One-year, three-year, five-year, ten-year et cetera. In this marathon that you just started running. Right. And it just, it just didn't serve me well. Right. And it just led to, you know, be sad, sometimes being disappointed in myself. No, it's very easy to, because as an entrepreneur, chances are, you're an ambitious person. Chances are, you are an ambitious person, which means that chances are that you are, you know, you have all these high expectations for yourself and all these, you know, things that you wish you should, or you coulda et cetera, right. That you want to do. And so it was very easy that that list that you want to do is just all the stuff that you wish that you could do. Right. And it's all gonna happen. It's all gonna happen, but it takes being patient. Right. It takes prioritizing. It takes focusing on, okay, next three months, what do I want to get done next three months? Right. Not next three years, not next 33 years, next three months, what will I get done? Right. And yeah. Feel free to write.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (09:58):

Yeah. You know, the other part of that I think is being kind to ourselves because, uh, you know, like I may have 10 things on my list today and I'll get seven of them done. And, um, I can spend a couple minutes beating myself up over the three that I didn't get done. And, uh, but that's always going to happen. I think in, in a busy life, especially entrepreneurs, solo, preneur, there's so many things, so many parts of the business. So many ideas that, you know, if we prioritize, we have to be thankful at the end of the day that, and I got the top seven done, which, you know, that's awesome. Not worry about the three. We didn't get done. They'll roll over and we can pick them up tomorrow. Okay.

Vanessa (10:37):

Absolutely. Absolutely. By giving yourself grace, give yourself grace and forgiveness for what it is that you did get done. And I was think of it like, so I have a optimistic realism. Um, and it's a, it's a term that I coined. I hold anyone else to that point in 2014, essentially. I remember this moment when this happened, but essentially it was, you know, my friend was calling me optimistic and I was like, I'm not optimistic. I'm thinking about like a girl with big tales, like skipping down the street. So I was like, I'm not that no. Right. And the thing is, so that I decided to call a new term, like optimistic realism. And essentially what it means is, you know, you know, I see the, I see the gray clouds, but I also acknowledge that their sons dining shiny, bright, I see the great faults, but also I choose to focus on the sun.

Vanessa (11:15):

Right. And so, and the thing is when it comes down to your list of things, you may have had 10 things that you want to get done today. Right. But even if you had seven, even if you got done seven, that's still good. Right. And it's very easy though, as an entrepreneur, you're an entrepreneur or whatever stage you're in it's to say, Oh gee, like I already got some things that I have three more things to do. Oh, I didn't finish everything. Oh, I'm the worst. Like I kept waiting to finish the list instead of acknowledging that you got those seven and things then. Right. And part of it could be that maybe you thought it was only going to take you, I don't know, two hours to edit this episode. And it turns out, you know, it took you three hours, so you just couldn't do the other stuff, you know, but that's, you still got the episode edited. Right. And so that's what it comes down to. Yeah. I love that.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (11:58):

Yeah. That's the other thing. And then, um, you know, I think we, we've talked a little bit about that relation our relationships with, uh, with our families, with our friends outside of our business, you know, we spend a lot of time, uh, close to our business doing stuff. But, uh, what I will say is that we can't, if you have three leftover at the end of the day, it's we can't sacrifice our other relationships to try to punch those through if we are scheduling our day out, because typically most entrepreneurs, I know they put in a lot of hours anyway. So you've got to definitely have a time that you can cut things off and really, uh, nurture and pay attention to these other relationships in your life.

Vanessa (12:43):

Yeah. Can you talk, you talk about the situation where it's like, let's say it's, you know, 7:00 PM, you still got three more things. Let's do you, Liz, but then you told your wife, it was date night, right? So your husband has date night. Right. And you had been, you know, some people will say, sorry, spouse, I cannot go on a date night with you. I just got to get these three other things done. But it's one of those things where you said 7:00 PM, right. Is there to be a date night. So what are you prioritizing? Right. What are you prioritizing? What do you want to focus on? Right. And the thing is that relationships are important, right? People who are supporting you are important and you don't want to, and maybe they're not, maybe you listen to this, to this podcast. And you're just like, Ashley, I don't care for real. Right. But assuming that your kids or your family aren't boards to you, then essentially it's like, Hey, 7:00 PM. You say, we're going to do this show up. Right. So be consistent. Or next time don't say you got to do it at 7:00 PM. Right next time, do it at 9:00 PM. Next time. Say it's me a different day. Right. And if that's what it takes, but essentially today, right now it's 7:00 PM. So, you know, get that goal.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (13:44):

Yeah. And, you know, working from home, I get the tap on the shoulder, like, you know, you're, you're done now, so you can just get up and quit. So that makes it easier. But yeah. You know, and I think the second part of showing up is to be present because I am guilty of this, uh, you know, being somewhere else or at a function. And even at Christmas, you know, Christmas dinner or whatever, and thinking, ah, I just thought that, you know, this thing or that thing or giving it some thought, and th that's a hard part, uh, to let go of that for, you know, whatever this period of time is to really be present and really be focusing on that other person and you know, what's happening.

Vanessa (14:25):

Yeah. And he was like, this is amazing. He brought that up because the topic that I was to bring up with my clients is great. It's all essentially, it's, you know, the fact that, you know, your lasagna stuff around where you're being busy, you're just like, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy, OMG. Like I have so much to do. I can't do this. Right. So that's what you tell everybody. Um, and, but then one time, one day you make the time that you make the time for the birthday party, your party or the brunch or whatever it may be. And then you show there. Right. And then at the end of the day, you're like, Oh yeah. I went to that brunch check relationships checks right. At the end of the day though, where you really at that brunch. Yep. Right. You want to be not only there, but you also want to be aware. So what I say, right. You don't just want to be there. You want to be aware. Right. You don't want to be there and think to be thinking about 20 million other things, because then you're not being present. Right. You're not really showing up. Right. You're physically there, but you're not mentally there. Right. And so you're not aware of what's happening or, you know, your people, especially after, after you left, they all talk about you. It was boy, like what was going on?

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (15:29):

Believe me, I have had that happen to, you know, where, uh, my mom calls the partner and says, okay, what's up. He was awful quiet or whatever, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's difficult. And you know, I think it's, um, it's, it's, uh, it's hard for me because I actually love what I do. I'm one of the lucky few that, you know, I've always been fortunate enough to really enjoy and dig into my job. So it's not, uh, it's not a struggle or it's not, uh, you know, I don't dread it. So that makes it even more difficult is when you really have a passion for what you do,

Vanessa (16:05):

That is true. Yeah. I mean, it's one of the things where it makes it difficult, but it also makes it rewarding. Right. And at the end of the day, it's just going back to that, you know, what is it like, okay, yes. You love this to do like the podcast. He loves the job that you're doing. Right. But I'm free to also love other things. Right. And so when I talk about that first part of taking care of yourself, where it's like, what are your non-negotiables, it's getting down to, what is it that also feeds into your life? Right. Right. I guess you want to take care of business, but what do you need to take care of yourself so that you can show up in all areas? Because like, as you know, right, great business, you get your feel good about your business. You will also feel good about your health and your wealth and your family, all that stuff. But the opposite is also true. You feel good about your health, your wealth, et cetera, all the other stuff, you also feel good about your business, right? And so they do connect in that sense as well, too.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (16:54):

So a lot of times people or people get into businesses or start on, you know, being an entrepreneur for different reasons. Sometimes it's, they want more money, more freedom. But, you know, I think we have to always kind of liken it to the dog and the tail. You know, we have to be careful that we are the dog wagging the tail, which is the business and not end up letting the business, you know, wag the dog basically is that, uh, you know, we have to set limits expectations because truly the relationships that we have outside of our work should be the most important. Our family, our spouses, our kids, our friends, and we have to pay attention to those because in the end, what's the use of being successful. If you're alone in bad health and, uh, all of that, you know, we want to be able to be successful to share our time and our resources with the, those that we love around us.

Vanessa (17:51):

Yeah. It's a holistic journey, right. It's a very, it's a very much so a holistic journey in terms of, you know, ensuring that you are covering those different areas. Right. And the thing is like, there may be like, let's say you're a new, new entrepreneurial type. Like Vanessa, I got all this stuff to do. Oh my gosh. Right. Okay. Maybe you do, but then set those expectations with other people, right? Say, Hey friends, by the way, I'm starting a business. I don't think I'm going to be able to go to brunch for the next couple of months, BTW. And then, you know, if they're your friends, they don't understand that. Right. Like if they are real friends, they will understand otherwise, you know, what you don't want to do is say, you're going to show up and don't show up, but you don't want to do is like, say, you're going to show up, you show up and you're not present.

Vanessa (18:27):

Right. You're not aware. Right. And so it's a matter of that communication setting expectations, not only with yourself and those limits and boundaries, like you mentioned that not only with yourself, but also other people around you. Right. And being comfortable and okay with that. And I think it's very much so. I like that when I always tell the cons, what I always say is you need to be selfish. Right. You do need to be selfish. There is a level of being selfish in terms of, you're going to take care of this business. Right. And at the end of the day, it's are you actually being selfish though? Because like you mentioned, right, you might be doing the business because you want to leave a generational wealth for your kids. Right. Maybe you want to have more freedom. Maybe you want to retire your spouse. Right. And is that really a selfish thing? Sound like a selfish thing. Right. But essentially it starts with you getting that business going and getting that business running right.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (19:14):

Over the years that selfishness has taken on kind of a meeting, I think beyond itself is that, uh, it's the saying, you know, because it starts with taking care of ourself. And so sometimes we have to protect ourself our time. We have to say no, and that doesn't make us selfish in, uh, you know, as long as we're not hurting other people, we, we, we have to be healthy before we can help our business or we can help other people. So definitely, uh, we just, the has to be at the top of the list as our self-care.

Vanessa (19:47):

Yeah, it does. It does. And I work with a lot of, a lot of entrepreneurs who are like mothers and wives, and they're also doing their business and all this other stuff. And that's also definitely very difficult, at least for them to grasp. But you know, once they do, it's like amazing. They just show up better. Right. And things that like, you know, your kids, your spouse, right. Like you mentioned your mom, right. People can see when there's something that's a little bit off and you may be trying to put up a front, you know, like, Oh yeah, good. Right. But, but things at the end of the day, if there are people who care about you, they'll see something's a little off. Right. And if it's off for a lot longer than it needs to be, they may ask some questions. So things like, how do you ensure that you were taking care of yourself so that you are showing up right. The way that you should, the way that you want to. Yeah. Not only that, but the way that you want to, for the people around you. So, yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (20:37):

So it, it, you know, we've talked a lot about setting those expectations upfront, which is very important, but it's also, I think, as equally important to, uh, to reevaluate as we go through time. And I don't know if you can suggest a timeframe, I can feel myself getting bogged down in, uh, you know, feeling a little bit of that out of control. And that's when it, you know, I try to be self-aware enough to say, okay, I need to step back. Let's look at the to-do list where we're going, you know, what, you know, kind of reevaluate and reprioritize basically. And so, um, what, what can you suggest for that?

Vanessa (21:16):

Uh, yeah, so it seems like, kind of what a little bit, what you're alluding to is burnout a little bit in terms of, you know, when, you know, entrepreneurs are doing all this stuff through on that, and you're kind of on a wheel and at some point you're just like exhausted and you're down and out for like two months. And then you come back, you're back on the wheel and you're down and out, you know? And the thing is that I'm all button things like stuff that we talked about and talk about another down too, as well, too. But even the stuff that we tend to talk about during the past couple of minutes in terms of that focus, prioritization, all that stuff and ways for you to take care of yourself, right. It feeds into you not having that burnout habit. Right. But let's say you are in a space where you are in a burnout and what I ended up doing the way, the strategy that I do for myself, but also that I've now brought to my group in community last week that everyone liked them all didn't.

Vanessa (21:58):

And I was like, okay, great, awesome. Um, but essentially the green, red, and yellow lights system that I implement for myself. And so essentially it's, you know, cause it goes back to that whole concept of, you know, you're comparing every day to like your three-year goal that you have. Right. And the thing is that that doesn't serve you at all, because essentially what's happening is that you end up feeling like you're behind every single hour. You just feel like you're behind. So then you try to like catch up to this like three-year thing and like a day, and it just ends up being like, you're just doing too much. You're doing too much. You're burning yourself out at the end of the day. Right. And so, but with the red, yellow, green, red, yellow light system that I created for myself and essentially it was my way of saying, okay, all right, Vanessa, yes, you have this goal of this.

Vanessa (22:42):

Three-year five-year et cetera, this one year goal. Right. And essentially it happened, you know, looking at the end of the year. And I was like, okay, yes, you have this goal. And that's like, great. And amazing. Cool. Um, but essentially, what is it that is that focus for the next month? And so what happens to the green, red, yellow light system? And I started implementing this like sometime like middle of last year or so, and essentially the green light was essentially okay, what worked well? What worked well for the business? And it's, I'm looking at it timeframe month-to-month it is month to month, last month, what worked well for the business, right? That's what, that's what going to keep on going for the next month. And then a red light is what did it work well, right. What did we learn from that? And then we end it and we stop it, right.

Vanessa (23:25):

Is what that's the red light. And then a yellow light is where sort of, it helps you to pace yourself and prevent that burnout. Right? So yellow light is what is the one thing, but one new thing that you're going to do differently next month. Right? And this is essentially to help the, all those ideas. You have all these amazing ideas as a new entrepreneur, an entrepreneur generally, always amazing ideas. You're like, yeah, I can do this for my clients. I can do a retreat. I can do a center. I could do this asset. I do a podcast. I can do all this stuff. Yeah. Ooh. Right. And then you try to do all the things, right. Cause you're seeing your business, you try to make your business happen in five years and like our day. Right. And the thing is at the end of the day, it's not like you got more time, like you didn't get your day, did it become all of a sudden 48 hours?

Vanessa (24:09):

Right. So at the end of the day, you're working with the same amount of time, money and energy. Right. However, you do need to experiment and you do need to try new things in your business. Right. So that you can continue to grow and flourish, but it's like one thing at a time. Right. So each month what worked well, what didn't work well, and then what's the one new thing that you're going to do differently right. In your business. And the way that, that worked. For example, for my business in November, for example, I was doing this like, no, and I told her I was using this like contractor for some strategy for free marketing on Facebook. That was a new thing for it. Doesn't yellow light thing. I tried to not tell her that did not work out. Right. So in November, in November it was like, what's the red light, that thing like that red light, but now we need a new, a new yellow light.

Vanessa (24:52):

Right. And then we started something, I was like, okay, let me get a Facebook ads contractor. Right. So that, then we got started working on that in November. We released the ad in December. Beautiful, beautiful. Right. It's a continue the green light, for example. Right. And, but the thing is, or even just like connecting with my team in terms of, you know, my sales team and how they operate as well, too. Right. But it's the green, red, yellow light system to help you pace yourself. Right. And also be aware of the current present moment of your business.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (25:20):

Yeah. And I kind of, I'm a little bit on the analytical side, so it kind of plays into, uh, not tracking things. I mean, we are, there are intuitive feelings that we have, but uh, let's say we're doing something for 30 days and maybe the last five days, it hasn't gone. Good. So we're really down on that. That's why I tell people, you know, keep a journal, keep a log because what we want to do is look at that over, you know, a month, a week, a month, however long, and see what are our returns from that? And is it something that we should continue, you know, should we put a red light on it or not, but don't just, um, you know, get, don't wait till that time where you're kind of bogged down and not really feeling it. And then just, you know, trash, some stuff that may have really been going good for you. They might have just skipped a beat over the last few days.

Vanessa (26:11):

Yeah. And it's, it's definitely like a thing that, what ends up happening is that you ended up, you know, Oh, I tried this master class, that one thing that I tried, that one strategy didn't work that one time for like one hour. Right. And it's like, you tried it for one time, one hour during like, as one week. Like that's not enough data to assess. Right. That's why I use like a 30 day. Yes. Love it. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (26:32):

Yeah. And then like, it's, like you said, that adding that new thing and then being mindful enough to watch it and let's see, is that going to work? And then, you know, again, we get back to there's 24 in a day. So then we can prioritize, you know, those things that are really working in life. And it doesn't always have to be, uh, moving us toward revenue or profit. I mean, it could be the interaction with our, uh, with our relationships or our loved ones too. We need to keep, you know, how does that, maybe it's better to schedule a lunch where you can go see people at lunch instead of a dinner where you get hung up in the day, things like that.

Vanessa (27:09):

Yeah, exactly. Right. Like maybe you try to be like, okay, 7:00 PM every night, I'm going to have date night. Okay, cool. And then maybe you realize it didn't work out. So then it's like, well maybe, maybe the weekends are better. Right. But it's like, that's becomes a yellow light. Right. For like, what is the new thing you're going to try out based on what you learned from the failed experience, but maybe they work well. So then you keep on going that did it. Right. And yeah,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (27:33):

I like your motto. Keep it simple and keep it moving because, um, you know, one thing too, sometimes we can sabotage ourselves by, uh, way over-complicating things. So I think that's interesting to it. Is that something that you've observed or noticed with the new entrepreneurs as well?

Vanessa (27:52):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it goes into, well, sometimes it leads to analysis paralysis in terms of people just not starting their business, because they're just like, Oh, that's why the ABC, Oh my God, what about this? What about that? What about this? And I'm just like this, what about that? Like, you'll figure it out in five months right now today. Right. And so over complicated opinions is a, you know, a big issue there in that space. And then also just in general, like, you know, let's say you want to do a new strategy. Right. What I'm finding with my clients is that, you know, the ones who let's say they wants to do a new fund, a funnel, a new marketing sales funnel. And it's like, yeah, okay. You need to create this landing page and be like, yeah. But like, what about the picture and the color of the picture?

Vanessa (28:31):

And like, just, just put a picture. Like, it's not like it's not really not that common. Put a picture, see how it works. You change the picture, right. If the picture doesn't work, you change the picture. Right. And the thing is, and unfortunately that over complication is what makes people stress themselves out. Right. It just leads to that stress and anxiety that you're putting on yourself. And part of it is also part of the perfection. Part of it is like, you know, wanting to be perfect. One of the things to just look crystal clear and, you know, just be nip and tight right on day one. And, and what does that STEM from full circle extends from? Maybe you're looking at the people on the beat and all that stuff, all the news and all that stuff. And you're telling yourself, Oh, look at them. So perfect. Right. But at the end of the day, what you're seeing is version 10.0 right. You're seeing version the version six year Mark. Right. What you're not seeing is Virgin zero year Mark. Right. Version 1.0. And so, but everyone had 1.0, before they got to 10 point. Oh, but you don't realize that you don't acknowledge that. And so you're trying to be perfect. You trying to over-complicate stuff you have to try and it's like, no, just put it out there. Right. Just put it out there.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (29:33):

Yeah. And I think that gets back to, um, you know, planning, unfortunately again, I'll speak for myself is that, that is like, Hey, I thought of that landing page. Now I want it up this afternoon. And, um, it's just, sometimes it doesn't work that way if you have a vision may be, but what I've found for me, web page writing, especially, you know, I used to get disappointed because I'm like, Oh, I'm going to sit down and knock out a 1200 word blog today, you know, in an hour or two. And it just doesn't work. And so, um, setting the realistic expectations where we don't overwhelm ourselves, but also like, um, you know, fix that blog page, fix the, uh, uh, landing page up, do it. But don't, you don't have to put it live, but just get it fixed and look at it for a day or two. And then, you know, it's like after a while, things either become clear either. Yeah. That's exactly what I wanted. Or ah, here are some changes that need to be made and you know, everything is dynamic. Anyway, you throw it up, it's up for a week or two. And it's like, well maybe, you know, maybe you see another page that you find something you like and want to change. So we're always growing and changing. It's never going to be perfect the first time.

Vanessa (30:47):

Yeah. Yeah. But people, she is like expecting it to be like, even if you're doing a new product or whatever, right. And then we go to an example of where you're like, Oh, I'm going to this web page and you happen to have it happened this afternoon, but here's the thing you now thought of this idea in the morning to do is what patient afternoon. But you probably had a list of other stuff that you wanted to do that day. Right. And so it comes at mental maneuvering, right? It's like, okay, yes, you can get that web page done today. But just realize that you may not get that episode editor. You may not get whatever it is else that you wanted to do. Right. Or if you do, you'll be, you know, something will have to go something for perfection. We'll have to go, something will have to go. Right. And you got to keep it simple. Right. If you want to get all that done today, you got to keep it all simple. Right. Otherwise you run the risk of spending 10 hours on landing page. And then you look at the list of that a day. You're like, Oh my God. Right. So, yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (31:36):

Cause that's another, um, it's a good quality, but I think it's like with all qualities, if you push it to the extreme that, uh, it can actually work against you. But the, um, you know, kind of wanting to be in control of everything is that sometimes we have to relax that and say, you know what? I can find a vendor that I can transmit my ideas to. I can be carrying on with the core of my business, let them do the development and get back to me and then I can evaluate it and we can tweak it. So, uh, but that is a challenge. Do you run into that quite a bit with your clients

Vanessa (32:17):

In terms of like finding the right people and speaking stuff,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (32:21):

Uh, wanting to be in con wanting to be the control freak and do you know

Vanessa (32:25):

Well that's yeah, yeah, yeah. That see that's the thing I think. And the thing is that maybe it's, I haven't seen it with my friends, but I do see with people who aren't yet my clients, where they are, you know, before they come to me, they're like, Oh yeah, I need to do it all myself. Like I am, I can do it all myself. And it's like, sort of like people with something approved, right. It's like, it's done. It looks what it is, the property that you just feel like you have something to prove to somebody that you could just do it all yourself. Right. Right. Not realizing that the people you're seeing on a newsfeed, they have a team of like 10 other people. Right. Like they have other brains, they have other hands doing stuff for them right. At the end of the day. But you think that you got to prove something to somebody and it's just like, no, you don't. Right. And for me, I mean, I got rid of that habit back in like high school. And I was just like, Oh my gosh. If I get other people to do stuff that leaves me more opportunity to do stuff. So it's like, great. So yeah. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (33:19):

We can't be afraid to reach out. There's a lot of good, uh, services out there. You know, we get recommendations. We can find somebody who can get us 80 or 90% of the way there. And then we can add that finishing touches on it to make it the way we want it to. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, Vanessa, I appreciate you so much taking time out of your day to come talk with us. So, uh, one thing is, do you have a, um, a tool or a habit or something that you use in your personal or professional life every day? That just adds a lot of value?

Vanessa (33:55):

Uh, yeah. So I would say that's something I started doing like middle twenties, maybe early twenties money, but essentially, Oh yeah. It was like, Oh, he it's like spring early spring time printing. Wow. It's been so long, but I feel like it was yesterday, but essentially it was, I was listening to something of Tony Robbins and he mentioned like some five questions. And so I've actually started doing that. And like, so she started doing that Bay back early 2020, where I started doing like these five questions that I do in the morning and I don't write it down in a journal, but some people do, I literally will just like once I wake up and I'm like aware that I'm awake, I just run through these five questions in my mind. Then I go bed. I live my life. Right. So the questions are, what are you most excited about for today?

Vanessa (34:39):

What are you most grateful for? What are you most proud of? And then essentially, how will, you know, how will you achieve a business breakthrough today? I was like, how will I do you've been a victim today. Hmm. Yeah. Um, and then the fifth question is related to your goal. Right. And so it's, you know, how will today get me closer to, and then you answer your goal, right? So maybe it's retiring responsibilities for tying yourself. Maybe it's getting a, you know, investment property in California, maybe it's, you know, whatever it may be, but how well did they get you closer to that one goal. Right. And so that's the five questions that I run through in the morning. And that's what I had been doing. That's that's the tool, so to speak, right. That's the tool. Um, and in terms of you're looking for more, like, how do I like just get my, get stuff done in my life and stay calm and relaxed?

Vanessa (35:27):

Cause that's essentially, that's a skill that is one of genius that people have told me I had for the past 15 years. And didn't realize that until I started with this catalyst and was like, Oh, snap, this is what people have been asking me for. And I wasn't had the fortunate opportunity, um, to write a book about it. But essentially what I do is right now, especially the stage that I'm at is that what I do is I just like, well map out stuff. Like if I have something new that I want to do some new project or some new goal, what I do is I end up just writing it out. I just ended up like literally take out a piece of paper and I just have seven columns on a piece of paper Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And then I like to 6:00 AM to like 10:00 PM. And I just, the whole just block out stuff. I was like, okay, I do this on that day and this on that day. Okay. Great. It all works. Okay, cool. I'm good. I never looked at the paper ever again, but essentially in my mind it would just helps me to understand and be aware that, Oh, I can actually get this new project thing done so to speak. So yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (36:17):

Yeah. That's awesome because I think we have to, well, I think your five questions get you up and get you started on the right foot and moving in the direction you need to. And then also the, you know, looking at our plan over a week, coming up, it's, uh, you know, what's on our agenda, where are we going to have some time to plug some things in? And uh, you know, they always say plan your work and work your plan. So anyway, that's awesome. Uh, what, what I want to get you to tell me about a couple things, uh, before, you know, we, um, ask you how people can get ahold of you. So you've got a, uh, the ebook called finish the solo preneurs guide to getting stuff done. So we'll talk a little bit about that. And then you've also got your, uh, bootcamp.

Vanessa (37:05):

Yes, I do. I do. Oh yes. I'm happy to share. So essentially finished the solopreneurs guide to getting stuff done is available on Amazon. Um, and essentially that book stemmed from it's like at the time that we're recording this podcast about a year year, uh, when he did appreciate me, um, it was released, but essentially, um, that book stems from that, you know, like for even pre my, my business starting business days in which it was really just about how did I get all my goals done? And so I talked about the zone of genius, essentially. I'd moved around different places, but each year it was always one person, a different person who will essentially say, Vanessa, how do you do it? Like, how do you do it? And I never quite knew the answer. I never quite, I didn't know what they were even asking me.

Vanessa (37:47):

So I didn't quite know how to, and I was like, I just study the byway. I don't know, what are you like asking me for? Um, and then essentially at some point I woke up in the morning, I was like, well, can we get a background noise? Okay. Um, and at some point in, you know, I'm walking in the morning, I woke up and decided, you know, yes, this is the book. This is what people have been asking you for. Right. And so essentially it's finished. It's a six step process that I developed that essentially goes through product management. And self-management tips for you to get stuff done throughout your day, throughout your week, throughout your life. As you look towards achieving your goals, that's what that's about. And then my bootcamp is something I do live, um, to connect with people and give them time marketing time management and sales skills for their business.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (38:29):

And we'll be sure and put, uh, I'll be sure and put the links to both of those on the show notes as well. So you can go over there and, uh, be sure and check those resources on. I think they'd be a very valuable to a new entrepreneurs and those that, you know, may be bumping up against some time and productivity issues, kind of get you back on the straight and narrow. So, all right, Vanessa. Well, that's awesome. Thank you so much for again, for taking time out of your day to be here. So tell everybody what can you do for them? Um, uh, how they, you know, kind of basically who's your client, what you can do for them and how they can reach out and get ahold of you.

Vanessa (39:07):

Yes. So I coach consult and advise nine to fivers on how to build their profit producing purpose should have business even as demanded day job. And so if you are looking to continue moving forward your business, let's say you're struggling, you're overwhelmed, you're stressed out. You're just like I'm doing the things or nothing is happening, right. And if that is you, then I'm here for you. My team and I are here for you and you can reach us in the skyrocket, your side business, Facebook group to private Facebook group. So you're welcome to check us out, to sign up for that group. You can check vanessazamy.com that's [inaudible] dot com. And in that group, we have boot camps. Pop-up boot camps, uh, pop-up workshops. Let's see what else I do. I go live every day as well too, to give a different business tip related to time management, marketing, and sales goal, setting mindset, business strategy, all that jazz is in that group for you as a resource. Okay.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Are You An Overwhelmed Entrepreneur  How To Maintain Your Sanity and Balance (39:58):

Awesome. We all reach out. See how Vanessa can help you. Uh, that's gonna be it for this episode of the business of business podcast. I want to thank you for listening. You can find us, of course, at www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com. We're on all the major, uh, podcast platforms, uh, Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, and, um, also on all the social media from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and of course a recording of this episode will be put up on YouTube as well. So until next time, take care of yourself and take care of each other.

www.vanessazamy.com

www.vzamy.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

 

A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members with David Moyer

It's hard to find and retain great talent these days. This makes it more important as employers to do what is within our power to hang on to the best of the best. With a lot of employees facing aging parents and family members now is the time to provide them resources to help keep them on the job and engaged. Most don't know where to turn. This kit will help.

About David

While building a successful career growing companies and trotting the globe for clients, David and his Wife lost several parents, stepparents and two siblings that brought into focus how little time we have together.  We know parents are going to die but are often not prepared when it happens.  In addition, stress, anxiety, fear of making a wrong decision haunts us all in some aspect.

As a result of these experiences and seeing others in the same situation, David studied the challenges of aging so that he could help others through this time of life.  David is a Certified Senior Advisor and developed the Caregiving Toolkit that educates family members on how to start the conversation with your parents through end of life and beyond so that everyone knows what to expect and can make informed decisions when the time comes.  The Caregiver Toolkit has 14 lessons and over 30 assessments and worksheets to walk families through this process. 

While building a successful career growing companies and trotting the globe for clients, David and his Wife lost several parents, stepparents and two siblings that brought into focus how little time we have together.  We know parents are going to die but are often not prepared when it happens.  In addition, stress, anxiety, fear of making a wrong decision haunts us all in some aspect.

www.udumo.co
www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (00:03):

Hello, welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. This is Roy. We are the podcast that brings you a lot of great guests from a lot of diverse backgrounds. You know, the purpose of our show is we want to always be putting new ideas out there for, uh, you know, our small businesses, entrepreneurs, and solo preneurs to think about. But we also like to provide resources that can help you solve issues that you may be currently aware of. So today, uh, this is a little bit of a, of a different subject, but it is one that definitely needs to be talked about. We're lucky that, uh, David more year with Udomo At udomo.co (yes .co, not .com). Gosh, I've been practicing that and I still got it wrong. [inaudible] and I'll get him to go over, uh, the meaning behind that soon. But, uh, David is a certified senior advisor and develop the caregiving toolkit that educates family members on how to start conversation with parents through end of life and beyond so that everyone knows what to expect and can make informed confident decisions when the time comes.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (01:16):

Uh, the caregiver toolkit has 14 lessons, 80 plus videos, 30 plus assessments and worksheets to walk family members through this journey. Uh, you know, David and his wife experienced a well thought out plan and have seen the opposite, uh, fighting for every morsel of help. Some of this was not knowing where to go, who to ask or what to do other times they had to press past people who just saw their parents as a number and not mom or dad. Not everyone was like that. There were sympathetic people who helped as well. They are gyms in, uh, you know, keeping this process going for Saul. So first off, David, uh, welcome to the show and, um, you know, this, uh, it's a little bit different. We usually do, you know, more, uh, business systems, marketing sales, but such an important topic. And I, I read, uh, this is one of David's statistics he's provided that 20% of employees are providing care to the elderly parents.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (02:23):

I'm going to repeat that because it's such a high number, 20% of employees are providing care to their elderly, elderly parents. So that increases stress, anxiety while reducing, uh, overall productivity at work. So it's just something that, you know, as a small business owner that we need to not only be looking for changes in people's habits and work, but also look at plans where we can, um, you know, help them through this process. And that's why I had asked David to be on the show because he has an awesome, um, it's like a three-stage plan that, uh, you know, employees could work through to really help them out. Anybody can, I mean, the business owners, this is for everybody, but you know, when we're a small business and have fewer employees, they're all key. And so, uh, losing productivity from one or losing them all together, uh, you know, can hurt our business. So we really need to pay close attention to this. So, David, thanks again for being on the show. Certainly appreciate it.

David (03:29):

Yeah. Thanks. Right. Thanks for having me on.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (03:32):

Yeah. Uh, so first off, I'll let you say, uh, who do Mo correctly, first off, I'm going to give up on that and let you say it correctly and then tell us the meaning behind that.

David (03:45):

So the name is [inaudible] and you got it, right. Okay. It's a, it's a, it's a word in the Zulu language that means honor. And we use it as, as honoring our parents, honoring them as they age, honoring them as they get older and start losing their abilities and in giving back what they gave to us as they were raising to us and, you know, honoring them in providing them the dignity in their, in their, in their old age.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (04:17):

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that it, um, it's nice to live longer. We, uh, you know, we've certainly extended the average lifespan up into the eighties, but, um, I think what that does, it puts, there's a, there's a group in the middle and, uh, sometimes they're called the sandwich generation because they're actually still raising kids are still have young adult children. And now they have parents that they are providing more and more care for them. And even if you're not that sandwich generation, now, somebody like myself that, you know, I still, uh, have a career, a full life, but my parents are getting to that age where, you know, they are starting or fixing to need more help going forward. And it can be a real stress. Uh, it could be a real stress for the care provider. And I think the, um, I'm gonna let you talk about the statistic, but a lot of times is it like 60 to 70% of, um, caregivers, especially for like dementia patients can actually pass before the patient does.

David (05:25):

Yeah. There's, there's a lot of stress put on employees as they're managing their parents' health. And, uh, dementia is just one aspect. I mean, you have a lot of comorbidities in that word just means there's multiple conditions. Correct. So you might have diabetes with COPD and congestive heart failure. So that's a comorbidity, there's a bunch of things Roundup in that. And then you throw COVID in the middle of it, you know, that stresses the body more. That's why the focus on these now is getting to the people that are over 65 that are most at risk. Right. And I won't get into any, any of what's going on there because it's just another comorbidity. It's not a thing that you have to factor in.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (06:12):

Yeah. That's a double-edged sword because you got the, uh, the people that get it. But then I also hear more and more about, uh, the seniors that aren't getting out to go to the doctor when they feel like they have, uh, you know, heart problems or, you know, they have like a heart attack and they don't even go to the doctor because they're so worried about getting it. So yeah, I can definitely add a whole nother layer onto what we're talking about. So, um, with my brief experience in this, you know, one thing that, uh, I guess the very first thing that usually is the, uh, stumbling block is having that conversation. I mean, it's just, uh, you know, we don't want to think about it. We don't want to talk about it when we're together. We want to have fun and celebrate and not be, you know, kind of a downer about all these bad things, but it's a definitely a conversation that we need to have, uh, between, I guess, adult children and our parents, for sure.

David (07:13):

Yeah. And that's where everything starts was the conversation. And the earlier that conversation is had the better off everybody is. So if everybody is actively engaged E in deciding what to do, then when that event happens a lot easier to go through those things and that conversation can happen years before any signs start showing up. And in fact it should, because it, it, it gets at part of the family talk period that you can have with everybody. So it's not such a big, scary conversation to have in, and there's many ways you can do that. We, we talk about examples when something else happens to somebody else, you know, Hey, I heard that, you know, aunt Mary had this issue, so mom, what do we do in our case when, when you get to that point, you know, let's start talking about it. And I say, it may take two or three attempts before, you know, the light bulb goes off and says, yeah, we need to talk about that. Statistics are another way to do that. Yeah. You know, falling statistics or, um, concussions and things like that. It's like, okay, what would happen? What do you want us to do, help us help you in figuring out what way to go if that happens.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (08:43):

Yeah. Cause it seems like the, uh, the closer that, well, I just, I'm using my parents for an example, the closer that they get to needing more and more help, the less that they really to talk about it. So you can kind of revert back to this, like, you know, we had this conversation about when you reach this point, these are some things that we're going to put into place. And, uh, I think that really helps, uh, kind of get the ball started rather than just setting down to have that first conversation when they are, uh, can be unwilling and not wanting to start that conversation because that, at that point, it signals to them that this may be the end of it. And, uh, it really doesn't have to be, I think that's another thing that we can reassure our parents is that, uh, what this is going to do is actually provide them a better life.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (09:34):

If we can put some things in place to help them either live at home, uh, safer, better, or if we have to, uh, you know, eventually put them into some kind of a senior living community, uh, they, they can flourish. But anyway, so I like the way that you have your, uh, you've got your toolkit broken down into the three phases, I guess. And, um, you know, the first one that we kind of started going down that path is that conversation, because it's not only the conversation, but then you have some assessment tools, I guess, that you can kind of find out where, um, where in that aging process that they may be, or some, um, I guess, trigger some ideas to think about some other additional help that they may need.

David (10:26):

Yeah. The assessments are actually a good, good tool to, to have those conversations, right. So, I mean, it starts out with, with simple things, like what medications list your medications. A lot of people tend to know what medications they have, but they don't consolidate them on a list. So whenever you go to your doctor that the doctor will ask you what medications you're on. You just hand them this list and they check it, then change it if they need, and then it goes from there.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (11:00):

No, I was just going to jump in and say, you know, we, uh, we've had conversations previous to this recording. And that's something that we've talked about is, you know, Terry had, uh, an emergency with her mother. They had to run to the hospital and then while she's in the waiting room, uh, she's trying to think about what are all these medications that they're on. And I think, uh, her sister brought a bag of them up there to start inventory. And so would have been an awesome thing to already have those all written down where you could just hand them off to somebody.

David (11:35):

Yeah. And that's, especially in an emergency situation, you know, the ER docs are trying to figure out what this person already has or is, is taking. So they don't give them something else that, that, uh, affects that outcome or makes it worse. Right. Which, which is not a good situation. So that's, that's the simple stuff. Right. You know, allergies are another one. Um, that's the simple thing. You, sometimes you have allergies to medications, um, you know, most allergies, you could have food allergies, so the, the hospital needs to know those kinds of things. Right. But it's also physical how physical you are. Um, and it gets into, um, all the other things that you can help your parent solidify and in get in one place, you know, as we go through life, we have, Oh, well, that's that file. Is there, that information is over there. Or I think that's in the cabinet, in the bathroom, in the lower. Right. But I'm not sure I haven't looked at it for awhile. So these assessments bring all that stuff into one place.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (12:46):

Yeah. And, and you go on to talk about things like, uh, division of care, which is, uh, you know, that's something that's I had seen, uh, you know, I, at one point I was a volunteer long-term care ombudsman for, um, nursing homes here. We're on live in Texas. And so when I very first started that journey, I thought I was going to be there to help protect, uh, you know, residents from the big, bad nursing homes and the thing, the atrocities, uh, I had an awakening that I was there to protect residents from their family members. A lot of times. I mean, it was, uh, unbelievable the things that would happen. So, um, kind of getting some of those things worked out on the front end. Who's going to be in charge of what, when and where, uh, if you have multiple, if there are multiple siblings that may be taken care of sometimes maybe even, you know, younger brothers or sisters want to be involved. So very important to get all that worked out

David (13:44):

And that's part of the front. So, you know, who's going to do what, when it gets to that point. Yeah. You're just going to be making the meals. Who's going to be taking mom or dad to the doctor. Who's going to be taking them to the hairdresser or the barber. So it's just a simple things like that, that everybody can sit down and say, Oh, I can do that. And I can do that. Yeah. And if you have siblings, you can divide that labor up. So you're not the one doing it all the time, full time. In addition to trying to do your full time job, because as employers, we need, we need employees to be present and doing their job, but if they're constantly running out and, you know, taking mom or dad to an appointment, and we've lost that time as an employer and trying to backfill that, especially the smaller, the company gets harder to backfill and you're losing that productivity.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (14:43):

Yeah. And you may know the, um, the exact number, but the unpaid caregiver burden is, uh, the cost of that is crazy. But I guess the point, you know, back for the employers is that a lot of times this burden becomes so big people have to quit, leave their job, because this is a full time. I mean, it's, uh, it can sometimes be, you know, 10, 12, 14 hour day, depending on what, you know, what stage that parents may be in.

David (15:15):

Yeah. And that's the cost that allows employers don't look at is, is the absenteeism, you know, so that DRO drops the, the productivity down, right. In being present. You know, you can be at a meeting or being at work, but you're not in the meeting and you're not at work because you're thinking about mom or dad or Kate. Now I have to do this and then I have to do this. So even though they're there, they may not be present. Right. And unexpected events, you know, your parents falls and bang, you're out the door and you're, your client is hanging. So you have the backfill that, or they're taken off of, you know, the job and they're off the job site kind of thing. And then you have to find a replacement and, you know, that costs a lot of money. And that could be 30, 40, 50% of the employee's salary to replace that because you have the advertising to do the vetting, to do you have the training period, you have all of those kinds of things. Yeah. And you also lose that, that institutional knowledge that that person walks away with. Right. And, uh, you know, you have to hire somebody temporary while you go in there. So the EAP, the employee assistance program helps alleviate that to the extent that it can and remove that stress. Because for example, the division of care allows the person allows the employee to divide that up across their family, aunts, and uncles, or in-home care when it gets to that point. Right.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (16:54):

The, um, uh, you know, the other couple other things in this, uh, particular pocket is the, um, you know, remote care giving. Of course we, um, a lot of families are scattered out. Uh, again, I'll use Terry's family as an example, they have a sister, uh, you know, in California, there's two here and she's in California. But, um, you know, they scheduled with her, uh, a time to come out, you know, that division of labor, but also, you know, they gave her some projects that she can work on from, you know, remotely where she doesn't actually have to be there with hands on. So it's, um, it's been a blessing for them that it's not, you know, it doesn't fall to one, they've all three been able to take a, uh, equal role in providing care for her mother. Right.

David (17:43):

And I included that because we were in that exact situation where on the East coast and my wife's parents were on the West coast. So, you know, flying back and forth right now, I had frequent flyer miles that I could cash in, which was a real big help. But, um, going back and forth was expensive. And, um, you know, I was spending my vacation time, my time off in those situations where we were helping her parents out and, you know, slipping in the dare to have fun, but, you know, we were mostly doing that. And so when I come back from vacation, I'm not rested to go back to work. Right. You know, it's like, Oh, I need a vacation from my vacation. Can. Exactly, exactly. And the remote care also has you set up thresholds, um, on when to go, you know, um, at first we were going every time, but then we said, okay, we need to set up reasons to travel. You know, even if it's three hours away, you know, it's, it's three hours there, three hours with your parent or four hours or staying overnight and then three hours back, right. You, you set up a threshold, you say, okay, I'm not going to travel. If, if it's just an appointment, I will travel. If it's an ER, and I can talk to the nurse or doctor and they say, it's time to get here kind of thing. Yeah. So you set those thresholds up and, and work those out with your family ahead of time. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (19:18):

Which really kind of steps into the next, uh, the next thing is caring for yourself because, you know, in the caregiving world, if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of anybody else. So that, that's definitely important to keep that on your radar as well.

David (19:35):

And that's where the burnout comes from. You know, if you're using your vacation or holiday to, to spend time doing that, then you're not resting. You're not using what vacation you have to rest. You know, I spent a lot of time in Europe and, um, they have six weeks vacation. Um, I was lucky at one point to have that and in my working life, but they totally unplugged, which is, you know, what Americans don't do. Right. You know, they don't answer their phones. They don't answer their emails. They don't, you know, when they're out on, on holiday, they call it holiday around holiday and you can't, you can't reach them. Right. And we need to get that in, into our, because that's what it's for. That's what the vacation is for, is to unplug, unwind, recharge, you know, take your family on vacations and have fun and, you know, enjoy that. But if you're not caring for yourself, you cannot care for other people.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (20:40):

We would probably do that at a younger age. We may not need so much care, so much care so early if we would, how to relax just a little bit.

David (20:50):

Yes, that's right.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (20:51):

So wrapping up this first pocket, the, uh, the next thing is the, of course the estate planning the documents. Um, and then it says that, you know, you include 25 worksheets just in this one, uh, starting the conversation pocket. But the, uh, you know, the estate planning again, uh, is an important thing. So it doesn't cause issues at that time is, you know, who's going to be your, uh, power of attorney, your medical, financial, um, uh, just working out all those kinds of issues.

David (21:28):

Yeah. And it's a plan, it's an estate plan. So if you don't think you have an estate, you do, I mean, you own a house or partially on a house, or you own cars. You may own boats, you may own, you know, snowmobiles or, or a country home, you know, a cabin somewhere. You have an estate. If you have money in the bank, you have an estate, you know, if you have CDs or any kind of investments, you have an estate, right. So what do you want done with that when, when you get old and what do your parents want? Then a lot of parents have been saving their entire lives when we were talking about the boomer generation here, right. That have gone through the depression and scrimp and save every penny for the most part. So they have something that they own. So you help them figure out what they want to do with that before the time comes, where you can't figure that out and you're on your own. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (22:26):

And you know, that is, uh, you know, working with the senior living communities in the Mo you know, working with some of their marketing departments. That's one of the major things that when people come in, why they don't want to do senior living is because they want to be sure and leave a legacy to their family. So it's very important to get that worked out how that, what that's gonna look like in the end. And this is way off in a rabbit hole that don't want to go down. And, uh, just, um, make mention is that even if you do have sizable States, I think if you start this process early enough, there may, there are, uh, legal, imprudent ways that you can protect the, uh, seniors, uh, income and assets going forward. So that's of, that's really all I want to say about that. You need to seek out legal, a lawyer, you know, CPA seek out the, the, uh, professional advice to make sure that you cause there's a time horizon that needs to be, uh, thought about as well, usually about a five-year lookback period. So if you're, if you can get in that range, it's good to seek out, uh, legal professional, help, legal and financial to make sure that you get that set up correctly where it doesn't back to bite you.

David (23:47):

Yeah. You want those done before five, that five year clawback is what they call it. So interests are a good way to do that. Trusts are untouchable for the most part, you can set assets into a trust and then they can't be touched. Right. So that's a really good way to do that. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (24:05):

Yeah. All right. So the next one is called, uh, the aging in place, aging in place and the move. And so again, another huge decision that, uh, you know, I see I've seen both, I see people that, like my grandmother went to St. Went to an independent living community, uh, not unwillingly, but just, you know, with the little bit of persuasion she went and flourished. I mean, she, her social life sparked back up and she, um, it was awesome for her. And then there's some that are like, you know, what, not leaving this house for any reason. And so, you know, we kind of have to, um, evaluate what, what they want and then what we can work with, if we can get the house fixed up where we can, um, have it trip and fall proof or whatever, you know, safely from the outside, whatever. But anyway, I'll let you talk a little bit more about what's in this middle pocket,

David (25:07):

Right? And that's, that's a, you know, a lot of people, a majority of people in the 90% range, age, in place, age, in their own home. So what do we have to do to keep them there? And that's part of the assessments and the plans that you build out. So you can, you can actually, there's, there's a specialist that you can hire, uh, called certified aging in place specialists that will come in and take a look at your home and, uh, walk through the entire home and say, okay, here are the things that you'd have to be very careful with. Here are the things that should be removed immediately, you know, tripping hazards and things like that. Right. And add some light here, because as you age, your, your vision gets, gets dimmer. So add, add light here. So you can see this and stairs, obviously stairs are a big thing when you get older.

David (25:57):

Yeah. Um, but that the assessments help you walk through that, then the certified aging in place helps you walk through that. And then if you decide to stay in place, then you can do some modifications to the house. Right. And if you, if you get to the point where they need to be in an independent, or they want to be in an independent retirement community, continuous care, retirement community, one of those, um, there's an assessment there on how to evaluate the community. So you, you, you know, I say, use the, use your senses. What's the first thing you do. When you walk into a facility, you look, you smell, um, sit down and have a meal that the PA that the residents are going to have, you hear what's going on and you use your sense of touch, you know? So you use your five senses, you know, pretend that you're going to be living there.

David (26:52):

Yeah. You know, would you like to live there? So there's a lot of those evaluations that go on and in determining which way to go living aging in place or in a, in a, uh, you know, facility or a home in some of these are group homes, group homes are, are starting to be a big thing where you have multiple people in a home instead of in a facility and they take care of themselves. And then they chip in for, uh, nurses or in-home care. And that's all part of the rent essentially that they pay every month. And there are options.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (27:28):

There are some, um, they call them pods, but even, uh, aging at home, they try to group people in the same neighborhood and they may have a nurse or caregiver, things that come and do some delivery. So that's another thing to check out, you know, in your area as well, to see if those, I don't know what they're called. I just know it's some kind of a pod, but, uh, those are great things. And I, you know, I've, uh, mystery shopped, hundreds of communities. And so my advice on this is to, uh, make this decision with a lot of thought and care, because once you get to the age where you are having to move, uh, sometimes change is the very worst thing for our parents. I say, it's very stressful. And so the worst thing we can do is move them into a place that's not a good fit and then have to move them.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (28:17):

And, you know, I just recommend, uh, multiple visits. Sometimes you want to set an appointment, but you also want to go by unannounced and see, you know, kind of what's going on. But when you make that decision, I would go to that. I'd go back before, you know, you make the move and go at different times of the day, morning, noon, and, you know, afternoon, just to see if there's consistency, uh, uh, you know, across the day. And, you know, cause a lot of times if they know you're coming and you have an appointment, they will make sure everything is a tip top for you to come in. So just, uh, be very careful with that. Um, making that decision don't make it too, too hastily, if at all possible.

David (28:57):

And some of the independent facilities allow you to stay a couple nights in an apartment or something like that. So, so you get a feel for it or your parents can get a feel for right. And, you know, try it out, try before you buy kind of thing. Correct.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (29:14):

All right. Well, so let's move on to the third and final module is the last days and arrangements and, Oh my gosh, this is a, this is a difficult conversation going both ways. I mean, as a child, we don't want to think of the, uh, our parents end of life, for sure. And, um, then even if the parent like myself, you know, I've tried, I've had this conversation with my children and I get the, ah, you know, hands over the years. We're not talking about this stuff and screaming and running, you know, it's like, well, you know, we have to, uh, and it's, I think it's better, you know, like I'm in good health and not planning on going anywhere in the next week or two. And so I think we can talk about it a lot easier and more jovial than, you know, if it's somebody's final days that it makes that conversation that much more difficult.

David (30:08):

Yeah. And it also allows you to have that conversation on things that you never knew about your parent, you know, my, so, so, so my parents, I think I said this before, my dad is full German. My mom is full Italian, so I've lived a conflicted life. So my dad didn't want to have any conversations on any of this. And my mom said, yeah, bring it on. But we want to talk about this stuff. Let's, let's talk and, you know, with the hands and everything, we even, and let's do this. So, um, you know, my mom said, I even want to write my obituary, so let's sit down and write it. And here's one of the things that we started with, um, she's had a full life, but her obituary was facts and figures. And I said, yeah, mom, let's, you know, after putting this together, I said, well, let's talk about you.

David (31:06):

W w what do you have? What, what were your delights? What did you, what did you really do in, in really loving life? And it changed it all around. And it also allowed me to find out things about my mom that I never knew. Yeah. Yeah. You know, she, she, when she was three years old or brother needed to take her, her brother needed to go somewhere. And her mom said, no, you're not going. You have to babysit your sister. So he said, I'll just take her with her. So at three years old, he threw her on the gas tank of his motorcycle and off they went, Oh, wow.

David (31:43):

So I never knew that, you know, and she's 90, she turns 94 this year. Wow. So it's, it's things like that. And you can have these conversations and, you know, she has, she has Alzheimer's now. So the conversations that you have are different. Right. And, and I have these in, in the section where you say, you know, go through the firsts, have those first conversation. I said, so, so what was your first memory that you can, that you can recall? And Alzheimer's really messes up your short-term memory, but long-term, it's still there. So when you take them back to their childhood, that's how she remembered the three-year old motorcycle on the tape, you know, holding onto the handlebars, screaming her lungs out kind of thing. And you take her back and, and it's things like, you know, every day when her dad came home work, he gave her an Apple. And that was one of the first memories that she had, that was three or four years old. So because she's in a facility and she couldn't get out, I've been bringing her apples and oranges. And it just, you know, she lights up when she sees that. Yeah. But I've never known that if I didn't have that conversation. Right.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (33:03):

Yeah. It's always good to have those conversations. And, um, you know, those little details that come out even still, you know, at, at our age, you know, we still find out new and different things every time we have an in-depth conversation. So, you know, the other thing, uh, in this last, uh, packet is the, you know, final arrangements. There are so many, uh, options, uh, you know, traditional cremation. Uh, anyway, you can go a thousand ways on that. It's all, I guess, it's good to, if you can, if you talk about this early enough, you can get prearrangements in place because I'm telling you, you know, we, we never talked about it, but when my grandmother passed, it was a stressful time. And, uh, you know, she was a big constant in, uh, you know, mine and my kids' life. And so me and mom were trying to plan, you know, when we were devastated and it's not, sometimes you don't make the best financial decisions at that point. So if you can get out there and preplan before all the emotions are there, I think that's a good thing.

David (34:10):

Yeah. You don't want to be staring at the funeral. Director's face trying to make those decisions in that moment of extreme stress. Right. It's, you know, sit down and talk about these things, you know, um, like you said, there's multiple ways to, to handle this. A lot of people still like the traditional embalming and casket and viewing and all of those kinds of things, and those are important for people, you know, understand what is important to your mom or dad, right. And in honor them in those important details, some of them say, you know, cremate me and, and spread my ashes out the golf course or in our backyard, or, uh, you know, compact them and compress them and shoot me into space. Or I want to be part of this ocean reef kind of thing. And now there's a big move for green burials, right. Where there are cemeteries that, uh, allow the body to decompose naturally. And, um, you know, so you have a lot of those options and it's not, don't get stuck. Um, so, so walk through those before and, um, it'll make it easier for everybody, you know, you walk in with the, okay, this is what she wanted, everybody agrees. And she agreed. So he agreed.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (35:33):

Yeah. And that's important fact too, is that, um, it's all, it's good to get. It gives you peace of mind that you're doing what your parent wanted, but also when there's, uh, multiple siblings involved, sometimes each person has their own view of what they thought mom or dad really wanted. And instead of let's talk this out, so we actually know what they want and we can all know what they said or put in writing. So anyway, never too early, uh, you know, to sit down and have these conversations and get these plans in place. I think this is, uh, an awesome toolkit that you've put together. And, um, you know, like we say, we're talking about it to give, uh, you know, smaller businesses, employers, uh, the opportunity to realize that this it's, uh, it's a big impact on their business. And it's, I feel like for the next five or six, maybe 10 years, it's just going to grow in the size of people that it impacts.

David (36:39):

There are 10,000 people a day that turned 65 right now there's about 50 million of them. And that'll go up to 80 million by 2030. Right. So that's a lot of people and that's a lot of children that need to figure out what's going on with her parents. And the last part of this, this end stage is, you know, I call it, but wait, there's more because if you're, if, if your parent owns a business, right, you've got to shut that business down or sell it off or work with a partners. Right. So you figure out how to have them buy out. There's a very, you have to talk to your, your parents about how you want them to do that, or do they want you to take over the business or one of those siblings. So it's get all that discussed beforehand. So, you know, what's going on, so you're not going, okay, what do I do? I don't, I, I don't want this business. I know nothing about it. Right. You know, so how do they plan shutting that down or turning it over or selling it or something like that. That's an important part of, of closing down a person's life. And it's, you know, selling the house, selling the goods in the house if they stayed there their entire life and, and, you know, did age in place completely. So there's a lot of tools in there to help you figure that out and in determine ahead of time, what to do. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (38:07):

Well, great. Well, David, thanks so much for taking time out of your day, uh, you know, to be with us and, uh, spread this message. I think, like I said, this is a very powerful, but it's also, um, you know, you've got it laid out great where we can, you know, walk through these different things that we need to get completed. So, uh, how can people reach out and get a hold of you?

David (38:31):

So the website is Udumo.co,(yes .co not .com) and you'll see those three, uh, tool kits. There were, depending on the stage of your life. That's why I split them into three. Um, you can use individually, or you can buy the, the complete tool kit and it's, it takes about a week or two to go through the course itself. And then it's, it's kind of like a lifetime of working with your parents and your siblings or aunts and uncles, and in those things to get it set up. So it's, it's pretty quick to go through, but I think you can pretty much have this done in about three to six months. Um, the legal pieces may take a little longer, depending on how large in a state is. Um, and, you know, lawyers tend to work slower to get things right, but you have all that in place. So it's done. So it's pretty quick in, it's pretty concerted in for an employer to offer this as an employee assistance program. It, it kind of shows them that they can, they know their employees are struggling with this, or will be struggling with this and can understand that. And the, um, the website again is Udumo.co/eap for the employee assistance program. And that, uh, that page will explain it. And, uh, all the contact information is on there. Okay. That's Udumo.co/eap. Okay,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Posted A Caregiver Tool Kit To Help Your Employees Deal with Aging Family Members (40:08):

Awesome. We'll reach out to David, if this is for yourself or if this is something that you can use at your company or for, you know, you're an employer from some employees, be great to get this in place, to help them out. And, uh, probably even less than the impact of these issues on the business itself, uh, you know, from having to lose employees or having that reduced productivity, this is a great way to be proactive and reach out and help them. And they will be appreciative of it. I guarantee you, uh, the stress of waiting till the very last minute to handle these is, uh, it's unbelievable and, uh, can really put, you can really make you out of sorts because of all the stress over these discussions and getting plans in place. So anyway, that's going to do it for us today for this episode of the business of business podcast. Uh, you can always find us at www.thebusinesstobusinesspodcast.com. We are on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and this will go, a video will go up on YouTube as well when we're through. So, um, until next time, take care of yourself and take care of each other, David. Thanks again.

David (41:32):

Thanks Roy. Thanks for having me on.

www.udumo.co
www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

 

Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You? Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed with Kristina Shea

The pandemic has given a lot of people pause and a good reason to reevaluate their lives and career paths. Some have been forced into entrepreneurship while others have made the conscious decision to jump in headfirst. Some things to think about if you fall into either category. Product and services pricing. Who is your market? Where do they live online?

About Kristina

Kristina Shea has an eclectic background — from teaching fitness to working in senior corporate roles. She has lead women’s empowerment workshops, organized fundraising events for women’s shelters, and her professional career has spanned graphic design to leading marketing & communication departments.

Kristina Shea is also the owner of K Vision Marketing & Communications — consulting for Fortune 500 Companies, including top banks and financial institutions, and public companies, not-for-profit organizations, and recently — cannabis companies.

K Vision is your Virtual CMO or Chief Marketing Officer, and she is truly global, able to connect with any business in any country — this was the business concept from inception, way before the pandemic. K Vision has always worked with a digital-first approach — building marketing strategies to helps brands stand out — to be seen and heard. She specializes in corporate and women’s lifestyle brands and recently — cannabis marketing. Kristina is an expert at building an integrated marketing approach to deliver stories that will resonate with audiences to deliver business results for the client. You can reach her at www.KVision.ca

And she is not only a marketing whiz, she is a true entrepreneur — launching a new e-commerce brand “BlueSkys Life” for Spring 2021 — a modern inclusive lifestyle wellness brand and education platform. BlueSkys Life will be offering products for Mind, Body and Home with a female focus. And you can follow Kristina @BlueSkysLife on Instagram and FB — or visit the website at BlueSkysLife.com

www.kvision.ca

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (00:02):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm Roy, your host. And, uh, you know, this is the show where we try to bring a wide variety of guests that talk about a lot of diverse topics, trying to help our business people, our entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and, uh, you know, those small businesses out there. And also, you know, we have some effect on some larger businesses. I know it can be a little more difficult to affect change, but, you know, we try to have guests to give you some, uh, some ideas to think about. And then also to try to give you professionals that you can reach out to if you are having some issues. So with the further do we'll get on with it today, we have, uh, an awesome guest. Uh, Kristina Shea has taken time out of her day to be with us.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (00:47):

She has a very, uh, eclectic background from teaching fitness to working, uh, in senior corporate roles. She has led women's empowerment workshops, organized fundraising events for women's shelters, and her professional career has spanned graphic design to leading marketing and communication departments. Uh, Kristina is also the owner of K vision marketing and communications consulting for fortune 500 companies, including top banks and financial institutions, public companies, not for profit organizations and recently cannabis companies. So, uh, Kristina's not only a marketing whiz. She is a true entrepreneur, launching a new e-commerce brand blue skies life in the spring of 2021. It's going to be a modern, inclusive lifestyle wellness brand and education platform. And we'll be offering products for the mind, body and home with a female focus. So Kristina, without further do thank you so much for taking time to meet with us today. We certainly do appreciate it.

Kristina (01:55):

Thank you, Roy. It was an honor to be here and delighted to share my thoughts and have an engaging conversation. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Biten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (02:01):

You know, when we, uh, we talked initially, I think what struck me about you? One reason why I was, uh, you know, really wanting to get you on the show is to talk about this entrepreneurial spirit. Um, it's always a struggle, but with this pandemic, you know, there are people who have chosen to be in business. There are people who have fallen into being, you know, into an entrepreneur role. And then there are people, of course, that have kind of been forced into it to, you know, continue to pay the bills. And so, uh, you know, we had an initial conversation. I thought it was great. You know, we can just talk a little bit about, um, you know, getting started some things to think about planning, proformas, the, the whole thing. And, uh, I think the, uh, very first question though, I think is why, you know, especially if we've planned on this, it's kind of the, why are we offering what we offer and whether it's a product or service.

Kristina (02:58):

Yes. I mean, there's so many reasons I'll go back to your first statement about, um, you know, so many people thinking about starting businesses during the pandemic. Um, there's been lots of, um, people that reflecting, I suppose, on their purpose in life and what they're wanting to do. Right. And a lot of people have been unhappy in their careers or, you know, or maybe they've been laid off or having issues, trying to find jobs, which I call the necessity entrepreneur, but also, yeah, but I also do think a big part of it if people is re they're resetting what they want to do in the rest of their life. And they really realize life is very, very short. Um, and they're looking for something different that gives them more fulfillment, um, purpose and, you know, hopefully passionate about what they do. So, but it is really important as you said to understand why you're doing it.

Kristina (03:42):

So I talk a lot about purpose led brands, which we can get to in a minute, but most importantly, when you're starting a business, especially right now, there's, um, there's a lot of interesting sectors you could get into. Um, but I mean, I think you really have to think of pandemic proof. So why is your product or service, um, is it servicing a gap right now or a need right now, especially in the pandemic, you see a lot of PPE companies popping up, um, because of necessity, partly, but also because of the opportunity they see that there wasn't enough and that can also then, you know, grow from there into other aspects. But there's also a lot of, um, people that are looking at doing, you know, home services, which you would think people are saving their money, but they are staying at home and they're, you know, redecorating their homes, they're renovating et cetera.

Kristina (04:27):

So those are really great businesses or anything that's virtual. So as key vision, I'm a virtual CMO. I've been doing that for, I don't know, 10 years plus, and it's always been sort of my emo because I always wanted to accommodate a lifestyle. Um, so in terms of just, you know, putting some freedom and I can work wherever I want, and now people are realizing this more than ever, right. They don't need to necessarily commute to an office. So now they can work remotely, but they can also work remotely for themselves with not too much startup costs in terms of overhead, if they choose to work from home. So there's a really, um, a lot of great, um, reasons why to start right now. Um, there's also, you know, I think right now I think it was the world bank said that there, this is the largest downturn they predict. And you know, the economy since the great depression, which is a little bit scary, but we also know from screen that, um, many businesses thrive, um, startup businesses thrive during the recession because they're very lean and, um, they're, they learn to do a lot with a little bit of money. And what are your thoughts

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (05:35):

Important point to make? Because, um, well, one thing, you know, I, I see a lot of people developing services, especially reaching out to seniors that have been, you know, more concerned about getting out in the general public food delivery, you know, shopping that whole thing. But I think to the point you just mentioned, a lot of people have seen an opportunity that these mid size to larger companies have been so slow to adapt that it's been, it's been an opening for, uh, you know, for an entrepreneur to jump in there who is flexible and can meet the needs of the consumer.

Kristina (06:10):

Exactly. Especially as a small business, when you're starting, you can make decisions much more nimbly quickly. You don't have the layers of bureaucracy and you can see these huge office towers. I mean, they're empty right now. And especially in Toronto, like we're out just side of Toronto. I used to work in the financial district. It's like a ghost town. Andy's hoard your corporation who can't talk. Corporations are, you know, spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on rent and they're locked in leases. And unfortunately some small businesses are obviously before the pandemic are also paying high rent for retail space, but people are learning now e-commerce is a thing. But as you just mentioned, there's a great need for people to look after seniors or help with deliveries or groceries. There's just simple things that they do need help with because they can't go and leave their house because they're a high risk. Um, so there's so many opportunities, but it's also really important to consider. Okay. If you've never started a business before, um, think about, you know, doing a business plan and, and, you know, hurry, but don't hurry too fast that you're going to make mistakes, right?

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (07:10):

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's another conversation I know that we had had is, is the front end planning to, you know, sit down and think about that your business goals, uh, because I think the other part is if, if that you want longevity, sometimes, you know, we see startups or new entrepreneurs that kind of outgrow that startup model, and then they get into trouble kind of in that phase too. So the planning, where do you want to go? How are you going to grow? And then also setting real, um, uh, realistic expectations as far as, you know, how you acquire customers, how many you can, how many you can keep, you know, cause a lot of times it's like, well, I'm rolling out this product or service. I have this influx of, you know, maybe 20, 50, a hundred people hired over, but then, you know, the influx kind of goes away and then you're left just sitting there. So again, the planning and the, and setting realistic expectations is so important to sustainability.

Kristina (08:13):

I agree. Totally. So it's, I was comparing it to like a roadmap. So if you got in your car and you didn't know what were doing and you didn't plug a GPS and you've no idea, you're probably never going to get you're going right. Or, or if you're your windshield is incredibly dirty, you can't see where you're going and it's okay to take a detour now and then, but you certainly don't want to veer off the road and crash. Right. So I think that's why it's so important to have milestones just as you would, maybe if you're going on a long road trip, you're going to stop here and you're going to stop there while it's, it's always good to review your plan, but it's also good to really look at those segments while you're planning. So I often talk about the seven PS two, which are the basics in marketing rates.

Kristina (08:51):

So you really obviously want to know what your product is or service you want to think about your pricing. Is it competitive or which kind of market, what kind of demographic are you going after? A lot of people say everybody and I'm like, no, not everybody narrow it. Right? So example, if you're looking after seniors, seniors in a certain area, maybe in a certain income bracket, maybe you're actually targeting the children or the, you know, of the elderly that you're actually going to be, or, or going to be two subsets. And then, you know, just even like looking at, um, where are you, where are you going to do it exactly regional? Um, is it going to be across, you know, borders? Are you going to be e-commerce and open up or are you going to start slow? And you really master you're doing and how are you going to promote it?

Kristina (09:31):

Right. So right now we have a great thing called the internet, right? So we have social media, which is free, although it's a lot of work. So even though it's free, you have to consider the costs involved for either, you know, boosting and advertising. But also maybe you're going to need some people to help you, um, to not right. And, um, I'm trying to remember it, I'm going off process. Right? So process, so your process is really your plan to me. Um, how are you going to go about it? Um, you also, you all have internal processes, but going back to the business plan, why it's so important is I think it's a really good practice just to put it in writing articulate, and then that's when you start to see, okay, maybe there's some gaps here in the way I'm thinking, but also, um, you know, it's also something that maybe right now it's difficult to get funding from bank, but it's something that a bank will ask for if you're looking for funding. Right. So I think that's one of the reasons why it is so important because you might want to raise some capital. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (10:26):

Now the other thing I love the, um, the roadmap analogy, because I use that all the time and, uh, you know, people always are like, Oh, well, I want to, you know, here's my destination. I want to get here. I want to go there. But what I try to say also advise people is we really need to give a lot of careful thought to where we are now, because in the same spirit, it's like, okay, I may want to go to Chicago. So I'm going to jump out and go East. Uh, but if I'm in New York, you know, I really need to go West. And so, uh, you know, kind of understanding where we are right now and it it's a truthful evaluation, not a, uh, not where we hope we are or where we like to think we are, but sit down and really, uh, be honest with ourself.

Kristina (11:14):

Yes. And I know as entrepreneurs, we're always permanently optimistic, but sometimes there is always a little bit for practicality and reality check just to be realistic, especially with cashflow. And I love the way you said that because it always makes more, we're going back to brick and mortar when, you know, when you go to the malls and they're trying to find your way, and it says you are here and you're thinking, okay, well, how can I need to find where I am so I can go to the next store or the next vacation I want to mall. And I'm a big thing to think about. And I know it's this big, hairy, scary thing is to think about, okay, well, where am I here? Or where am I now? But also where's my financials right now. Where am I sitting? How much runway do I have?

Kristina (11:50):

And, um, savings, personal savings are to come into play right now, especially in these times. Right? So maybe you're on social security. Maybe you do have AI coming, or maybe you do have a package coming in. If you're very fortunate from the company that maybe perhaps leave you off, or maybe this is just something that's been bubbling. And you're like, okay, I'm the stay at home mom. I'm going to like do something here and make something happen. So think about that runway. Think about, um, really being lean, think about your upfront costs. Um, I think this is more important than ever right now to really manage every penny and even things like e-commerce like if you're, um, ordering, uh, you know, inventory for something, um, well, okay, you might get all excited and you're gonna order this huge order, um, while realize whatever that payment structure is and what you're going to owe.

Kristina (12:34):

And how long do you think it's going to take you to sell it, to make a profit. So always thinking about those practical things, which aren't as fun to think about, but at the end of the day, you wanna make money. Right. So, um, and I think going back to the why to a lot of people, um, they think, okay, it's going to change my lifestyle. Yeah. It's definitely going to change your lifestyle. Maybe, you know, you can work at home and hopefully you'll be able to be more flexible with your time if you have children or you want to travel and things like that, maybe not right now because we can't travel easily. But, um, I think, uh, you know, you really better be passionate about what you do because you're going to be doing a lot of it. So I was running a small business and as an entrepreneur, you're going to have to live and breathe it. Um, so really make sure it's something that you're comfortable with doing. Um, yeah. What do you, what are your thoughts on that?

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (13:22):

You know, it can be the best thing that you can do, but I think this planning phase is kind of where we w we need to work things out because everybody has this, um, uh, the panacea idea that, Oh, I'm going to be able to control my time and do this and do that. And unfortunately it's in the beginning, especially, it's not always that way, but we need to design this. And I like to use the dog example is that, you know, we should be the dog wagging the tail, not the other way and letting the, you know, the business, uh, wag us around so that again, we have to, to plan for that. And, um, I was writing notes, you've settled. So many things I was, uh, wanting to talk about, because if, if this is a side hustle and you have your other job, it's making sure that you have that time because yeah, I mean, it can be fun.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (14:11):

Uh, one, two, three nights a week and, uh, you know, spending your three or four hours working on it. But then all of a sudden, it's like that third week, fifth week, third month, if it's wearing you down and you can't keep it up, because consistency is very important for anything, you know, product, people want to, uh, know that you can deliver our service. They want to know that you're going to be there to answer the phone and be able to work them in, in a reasonable timeframe. So all of that stuff is so important. And then one more thing, the proforma, you know, talking about, you know, being realistic about what does next month look like? Can I add these 20 more customers next month? What are they going to bring in, uh, realistically in revenue? What are my expenses to meet that, uh, you know, just to make sure that this is going to be viable because there's, you know, probably nothing worse than to be passionate, start something up and then realize three months down the road that you just can't make money at it the way that you have it structured.

Kristina (15:14):

Yeah. The cashflow projection is one of the most important things. That's going to be combined with your business plan. Now, obviously you may not make it exactly to where you want to be and you'll have to be realistic. I always say, um, smart goals. So specific, measurable is good, um, actual and, um, realistic. And what's the other, what did I to timing, um, framing on those things. And again, you may not. So don't try to make them too difficult because also you're going to be so discouraged and to be realistic with them. But if you have those benchmarks, those milestones that you've planned out and also looking at your cashflow as a whole, you'll kind of be able to know when, okay, I'm going to be able to buy inventory here, or I'm going to be able to grow and expand with this other service that I'm planning.

Kristina (15:55):

So it is really key or just to pay your bills. Like, um, I really do think that's the most important thing. A lot of people right now are so struggling to pay their rent, um, for retail that is, you know, I don't think anybody could have planned for something like this, but to have a contingency where you have a buffer, you have some, hopefully some reserves. I mean, it's, it's not right now, I think is an exception, but I think you should always try to look at that and mitigate your risks. Um, also look at, um, you know, we were talking about earlier, I don't know if we talked about this, but you know, the different formats, so businesses, are you going to be a sole proprietor and incorporation, or are you going to be a partnership? Right. Um, and we were talking earlier, I think about partnerships and I made this mistake.

Kristina (16:36):

And especially when you're first going to you're gung ho you're excited and maybe your best friend or something, you have this great idea, but you don't share a lot of align. You're not aligned on visions or why you're doing this business, or if you want to exit, or how many, how many hours are you guys each going to put into this? How much money are you each going to put into that? So this is where you come into, um, a lot of problems. Um, it's like a marriage, right? So, um, and it was just as, maybe even harder to leave once you form it. And especially if you're starting to make money at that point.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (17:07):

Yeah. And it's, uh, everybody starts out with the best of intentions and yeah, this is what I'm gonna do want to do. And, you know, everybody's all excited in the line. And then, you know, once the, uh, once you start getting into that grind, then all of a sudden, um, I guess everybody's motivations are who they are, things start coming out. And, um, I will, I will just second that emotion is that be very careful forming business partnerships. There are a lot of ways to form alliances where you can still work together and help each other without having to, uh, because you know, a lot of times people think that failure is the worst thing, but in, to me in partnerships, it's just the opposite being very successful. And then having to figure out how you're going to divide this up, who's going to get what, and that can get very messy.

Kristina (17:59):

Yeah. I call it the sweat equity because some, one partner may not want to put as much effort or time or funds. Right. So it has to be really clear at the beginning and what your objectives are. And I totally agree with that. Um, but that's a pretty important part of the planning process. So if you are planning open a business, definitely evaluate, are you going to be a sole proprietor as a partnership, be very careful with it. Um, but strategic alliances are probably the best way to test a partnership like, so you could work with another person. Maybe they have a different type of service or where they have a similar, but, or whatever, you can promote each other on social media, you can promote each other with services. Um, there's so many great ways to do that. Um, and be creative right now. I think everybody does enough around for everybody. Everybody works together and I think strength is, um, with collaboration, right?

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (18:44):

Yeah. And that's another thing we can't be afraid of. One, if you do partner with somebody about one being more successful, there's enough business for everybody to go around. So, um, you know, you can work really hard at that and kind of test those relationships. I feel, uh, you know, the thing that you brought up was measuring. And so, um, you know, me, I have a more analytical side. So measuring is of huge importance to me from the marketing side, because just like you were saying, social media takes a lot of time, so are you gaining traction? And, and again, this is where realistic comes in is like, are you gaining actual paying customers from that effort? And you have to ask when people call or walk in, however you engage them is always asked, how did you hear about us? What brought you in? Because if you, uh, spending a lot of time on something, that's not bringing you, um, a lot of results, then you may want to reallocate that time. And you know, it kind of

Kristina (19:43):

Exactly. I mean, so, yeah. And a lot of that with data right now is so, um, so I don't mean to interrupt. Sorry. Getting a bit of a connection. Yeah. So, um, data is, is essential right now for running any business, um, especially in e-commerce. So it makes it easy. You can analyze Google analytics, you can see how many people are bouncing, how many paid, what pages they're on. Um, if they're converting and when they're converting or when they're bouncing, maybe there's a problem with just your cart. So you might need to look at your UX, but also social media. Um, maybe, maybe it's not working for you, but maybe you're just not doing it. Right. So do you buy different things where you're actually trying to convert people? Um, but also you don't want to just be sell, sell, sell, and social media have to realize that you're trying to build a community and then you try to sell, or you kind of do a bit of both in tandem, but make sure you're trying to convert people and you're actually driving people to your site.

Kristina (20:31):

I always see a lot of people using it, not so great, cause they're not actually driving them to their site. And maybe in the beginning, they're just trying to gain followers. But after that, you really want to try to convert them and drive them to your site date. And I think one of the biggest mistakes people make in social media is they think, okay, I have like, you know, I don't know, say they 10,000 followers. Oh, that's EA and so great. That's great, but you don't really want to convert them and own your marketing. When I say that you want email lists, you want them on your site. So social media, they could take your page down and then they're gone, right? So own your own marketing. And I think email lists or email campaigns are one of the cheapest things you can do and you can measure it. And then you actually have their, um, you know, their personal information where you can reach them. Unfortunately with social media, you know, if something happened and God forbid your page was shut down, I've seen so many businesses lose that and they've never gone and thought, okay, I really need to build my email list versus building my social media following you need to do both. Right.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (21:24):

Yeah. And that's what the other thing I was gonna say was, uh, about the realistic in that is that we could have, uh, you know, we can make a post and we can get 500 likes and be all excited that we got all this attention. But if those aren't people who have called you up to spend money, it doesn't matter. I would rather get one like of the guy that called me up to do business with me then 500 that, uh, are not. And, uh, just to caveat, I've mentioned this before, but it's worth saying again at this time that, you know, a lot of people promise you all of these social media results and connections out there, but be careful because what they will do are their boiler rooms and other countries that they will sit there and like, and maybe even engage a little bit in, um, on your social media platforms, but in the end they are not your customer. So, uh, some, you know, I know people that have been spent thousands of dollars, you know, for this and it just, uh, backfire. So there's my opinion is we really can't buy a lot. I mean, we can do advertising and things like that to purchase customers. But with, uh, that kind of slight of hand trick, we really can't spend a lot of money. We have to do more, most of that organically.

Kristina (22:42):

Yeah. And I think what you've mentioned though, is so important. It goes back to your planning too, is targeting your customer, right? So a lot of people don't target their customer enough, right? So if a certain demographic, a certain region, so make sure that transcends into all your communication pieces, like your social media, you can target your audiences, make sure they're within, maybe, maybe it's a 50 mile radius that you want to target regionally first, or maybe you want to target your entire state, but make sure it's targeted. If it's not targeted, it's the same as you, you know, if you're having a store, obviously you're not going to service somebody that lives in Alaska if you're in Texas. Right. So, um, so that's very key.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (23:18):

Yeah. Now just actually a good point. I just re wrote down avatar and it's worth the exercise to go through, to figure out, you know, sit down and think about who your customer is. If you don't have any, you know, it's some speculation, but if you do have any, we should know them enough to know, you know, who they are, their age range, you know, uh, income range or what business type again, geographic location, you know, we build this avatar of who our customer is. And then that way it gives us direction when we do our outreach.

Kristina (23:52):

That's a great point. Um, I think I call them personas, but an avatar is a great in their terms. So yeah, like brands like your brand or your business is basically a personality. So you should define what that is, right. And what you want to reflect through the public and what you're going to sell and what you're going to service. But so your brand personality has to be friends with other, other personalities. So, um, you can meet that person personal persona or avatar as you call it. And so just make it like a person. Describe it. Um, is it, you know, as a woman, female, or is it transgender? Like, you know, there's all sorts of what, who's your target audience, what age group, as you said, what, uh, affluent, like if they're a fluent or they're, you know, middle-class or what is there as people that are actually looking for deals, there's lots of people looking for deals right now.

Kristina (24:32):

So maybe it's, you know, you're developing a coupon platform or something like that. Um, and then where the region is, and then how are you going to price it and how are they going to find you? Right. Um, and I think that is part of the marketing strategy, which is also embedded in your, um, that's very, very key to your business plans. So they all go hand in hand. And again, that roadmap going back to that roadmap, how am I going to get from a, to B, to C, to D? So if you had no way you're going, well, you might know you're going, but how am I going to get there? So I might have to stop for gas here. Maybe I need to top up my funds, or maybe I need to just focus on one part of my business to get to the next part. And if you're too scattered, you're never you just going to go in circles. So, um, make sure your objectives, um, really do match and align with where you're going.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (25:20):

Yeah. And it's a crazy thought, but it's, it's not, uh, an intuitive thought, but you can actually have such a fast growth that it can also damage your business, your reputation. There's been a lot of people that have been hurt by that, by overgrowth, by not planning or being able to keep up with it. So always important.

Kristina (25:42):

Yeah. Yeah. And especially like all of a sudden, if you just took off as an e-commerce and all of a sudden you have way too many customers, you don't have enough inventory, people are disappointed. Um, obviously you're gonna have to figure out how you're going to communicate that with your, the public. And so you're trying to, you know, not disappointing. So they'll come back and return. I think that's one of the key things with any customer or client they might buy once, or you might sell your services once, but you want to make sure they come back and are repeat customers, right. And hopefully you can have some passive income or some sort of income, whether it's e-commerce or, you know, there's so many a retainer on the service level, but that is so true. So to have that plan put in place, a lot of times you just, you're not ready because you don't have any of the inventory of the people or resources to do. So it's a good problem to have maybe to be scaling fast, but at the same time, it can really destroy your business, as you said, and your reputation.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (26:30):

Yeah, exactly. And, um, the, the cost of acquisition of customers, of course, that's something that we want to look at is if we put, you know, an ad out there and it cost us X number dollars, it brought in X number of customers. But the real key is that sustainability of those repeat customers, I mean the cost of acquisition, they drive that down so far because if they will, you know, continue to buy from you, that's the best scenario that we can possibly have. Yeah.

Kristina (27:00):

I call that life value. So lifetime value customers. So always you can't predict no everything, but that's really where you want to be able to kind of, you know, they'll be a client or a customer for many years. And maybe, you know, especially if it's a, B to C, maybe it's a product that, you know, that they, they use within their homes and maybe their children become customers to have that brand, whatever it is, especially with the B to C space, like look at Heintz, catchable use out pretty easy, right. A lot of kids were brought up on catch-up, you know, putting on your eggs, your fries or meatloaf or whatever, but, you know, you have fond memories of it, hopefully. Um, and you know, you buy Heinz because it makes you think of that. It's a trusted brand and it makes you have memories and as a child, so you use it in your home. So that's something that I would always tell that story to kind of give people a perspective with what that means, because it's kind of a term that's too technical sometimes for people to get their head wrapped around.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (27:52):

Right. Right. So the other thing I'm gonna, you know, we'll talk a little bit about the negative part of social media for a minute, is that, um, it, Al people always tend to put their best on their, a lot of times, some people will be vulnerable and put in, you know, mistakes or failures. But so as entrepreneurs, we look around at social at other businesses, social media, and think, wow, those guys are really taken off or this or that. And, um, you know, it can, it can be dejecting. So I think it's good to keep in mind that, uh, you know, we need to focus on who we are because we don't always know the backstory of these other companies or entrepreneurs, but then typically, uh, when we see somebody that becomes the, what we term the overnight success, I, I, I don't like to use, I don't really like the use of that word, because I think once you kind of unpack the overnight successes, we always find that it's generally been a long, hard road there for them.

Kristina (28:52):

Exactly. Like there is no overnight success. I think it's very, very rare people. Who've worked really, really hard. You don't see the back story, as you said, where they worked all those nights, when you maybe were out going to restaurants, having a nice dinner, we mean, well, you know, these people are working hard at home every waking hour, basically to get things going and using all their life savings and risk people don't think about that because yes, you are putting a lot of risk in, but, um, and that can be funds and time. Um, and so, yeah. So if you're prepared to do that, um, I think that's really what it is, is yeah. Don't look at social media as a comparison too much. I mean, it's, you can use it as inspiration to try to reframe it that way. But, um, it is, it's hard, I think on a social level too, as well as a business level, but people are really busy.

Kristina (29:35):

I've noticed everybody's busy on LinkedIn. You're like, Oh, what am I supposed to be doing? I should be doing that too. Or I should be doing this, or I should say, maybe you do want to start a podcast, but you're like, Oh my God, I haven't started my podcast yet. I haven't done. So there's so many things to do. And then you get distracted and you away from your focus. So, um, I think that's very key and learning from your mistakes, right? So as you said before, and social media can, you know, take you off track. So off your roadmap. So, you know, maybe you're driving along the road and you know, you see, you know, people who they see, you know, it's awful, but maybe a car accident and they look and they crane and then they get in an accident. Right. So, um, I always kind of, uh, I love the comparison with driving because I think that's really what it is. Keep your lane, keeping your lane and focus where you're going. Don't let the noise distract you too much. There might be some good ideas and stuff and maybe can make some great alliances, but don't compare yourself. That'll be just frustrating. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (30:30):

Yeah. And, and I think the car analogy is good is, you know, we want to use the rearview mirror to look at where we've been some things that we can do different or better, but we always need to be driving out the windshield, not, not in the rear end because you know, so many people want to drive in the rearview mirror about, Oh, I made this mistake or this happened, or that happened. And you know, we get wrapped up instead of being proactive. Like, you know, we're on this path, where are we going? What do we need to do next? And, you know, kind of the analogy about the, uh, overnight success, a lot of people think success is just a, um, you know, a line that starts in the bottom left and goes right up. It's not, it starts there, but it is, you know, it is Jagen, and it's usually, uh, a very long, uh, it's a longer time horizon than most people think. It's not,

Kristina (31:19):

You got raised a lot of peaks and valleys. Right. So, yeah, I totally agree with you. Um, yeah, so people have to realize that and, um, don't be envious of others. Um, always be supportive, especially in a time like this, um, and use other people as inspiration if someone's doing well, or you think they're doing well, you know, reach out to them. Maybe you can learn some of their tips tricks, um, or they can tell you some of their mistakes. So you don't make the same. I've I really found that there's a lot of great people out there. You just have to reach out. And if they're not your people, that's okay too. You just move along. But there are so many people that are so happy to lend, you know, an ear, but also give you insights on their own mistakes and how they overcame them or what they learned from it.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (32:01):

Yeah. And I love these conversations like this, where it comes full circle because now we have come right back to the why. And that is that if we choose, if, if we get the opportunity to choose the business that we're in, we need to make sure we get the why. Right. Because then others doesn't mind. Others don't matter. Um, uh, actual the financial, you know, if we make enough money to live, it's not as important to, um, be Y you know, to, to make a ton of money. If we are doing something that we really love, that we really believe in, uh, that's the best reward. I think that you can get,

Kristina (32:40):

I totally agree. It's I call it purpose led brands. So, but it's purpose led for yourself. So you have to decide, and my passionate, for example, but working with seniors or my passionate about starting a company about wellness, or my passionate about, you know, really renovating and making their homes look beautiful, whatever your business is, you have to know why you're doing it and who you're serving and why, what kind of value, what value are you bringing? I think that will make everybody feel good. Like if, you know, you've made someone happy or successful in what they're doing by, you know, servicing them through your business, um, that will give you some fulfillment, but also going back to your why while all of a sudden, if you are a wellness company, for example, and then all of a sudden you have an opportunity to work with another supplier that's maybe cheaper, but they're using, you know, unethical labor, or they're not using, um, you know, natural products.

Kristina (33:27):

And here you are standing for something that's like wellness and you're doing really unsustainable practices and unethical practices. I don't feel that that's not aligning with your why. So always, um, go back to your why. So if you have a new opportunity or you're trying to minimize costs, go back and make sure that that does align because that's where you can lose customers. That's where you're going to go off track. And, um, I think purpose led is what people are really looking for customers these days. Do you want to know that you stand for something?

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (33:55):

Yeah. And when we're purpose led, and when we really think about the, you know, doing things that we're passionate about, the other thing is that we, uh, we don't always want to get boxed into marketing on cost or on dollars, because if you're the low cost provider today, I guarantee you, there's going to be somebody who's going to undercut you or be low cost tomorrow. So we need to think about that marketing message as the value that we provide, because we can, if we're doing things like you said, uh, you know, more purpose-driven sustainability or whatever that need is we can Mark it on value and actually command a higher price for our product or service.

Kristina (34:40):

I think it's much harder to be in a, you know, high volume, low cost business than in being in, you know, uh, I would say a high value business that really delivers on, you know, whether it's ethics, maybe someone wants something that's vegan, or they want really reliable service to deal with their parents who are elderly and they want to be able to trust them. Um, there's a lot of issues right now with elder care, right. People aren't trusting, you know, nursing homes or anything like that. So, I mean, gaining, uh, the customer's trust is really by gaining. So they understand why you're doing your business and what value you're bringing. So I think that is totally, totally key. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (35:14):

Yeah. For sure. Well, Kristina, we appreciate you being here today. Uh, before we let you go, a couple of things first off, is it, do you have a tool that you use in your daily life? It could be a tool, a habit, or ritual something, you do that, and it could be professional or personal. That really adds a lot of value that you just couldn't give up.

Kristina (35:35):

Well, I have a few things that I do do. Um, I'd like to schedule my days and it's kind of hard, but I schedule also some me time, because as we said, it's also really, um, as an entrepreneur, it's really hard because you're going to be going, you know, out it for hours, but you're going to need some respite or are you going to just totally burn out. So I always try to schedule an hour a day where I'm doing a workout, a walk, or, you know, whatever that is that will make me, you know, kind of reset and be happy. The other thing is, um, on a purse while it's really a personal thing, but I often, you know, have a journal by my bed. It's not necessarily just because I want to journal about my day it's because I wake up or I start worrying about something and I'm like, Oh my God, am I going to forget that in the morning?

Kristina (36:14):

And then I can't sleep at all and sleep, as we know, is one of the most important things, especially when you're trying to build a business. So I write them down. So then, um, and you know, that kind of adds to my to-do lists the next day. So it keeps me on track. Um, and I can check off what I've done or what I've not done, but at least it gives me some peace of mind. Um, yeah, so that, that's really my tips and tricks. I mean, there's lots of other tools I use too that are more, you know, maybe like apps and so on at time trackers and stuff like that. But that can be, it's just more technical. Yeah,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (36:41):

No, I think that's important. Uh, and you know, no one opened up a whole new episode because we could talk about this point for hours as well, but, uh, scheduling that time for us, it's important. It's important to reset, to regroup, you know, to not burn out, but it's also very important for that creative part of us. We need that time where we don't really have a lot of stimulation going on to where we can think about what is that next step or that creative advertising campaign. And, uh, you know, there's, again, I mentioned this quite a bit on this show, but there has been a lot of research with kids about, you know, when I was growing up, we went outside and, you know, we played with rocks and sticks and we're imaginative about that. And nowadays kids have so much stimulation that, you know, the, uh, research was showing, we're not giving them enough time to be creative, which, uh, you know, translates to adults too. We can get so busy, uh, with our business that we don't take care of our family and we don't take care of ourselves. So definitely need to, uh, to do that for sure.

Kristina (37:46):

Yes. I agree. And that's, you know, a lot of times when people start a business and so they can have time with their family or live a different, hopefully better lifestyle, but again, yes, you'll be working hard and you're so right about the creative Don is very true when I go for walks. It's usually when things click, or when you hear people calling you that, or they were in the shower and they thought about something. So yeah, it's when you're actually not doing anything about work. Cause usually you're too focused on the task at hand and that's what you're trying to get done or the worries and stresses of the day. But when you can just, you know, even yoga, I'm like when I would go to yoga class, I do it at home now by my fireplace, but hot yoga there. But, uh, yeah, those are the times where, you know, you start rethinking about all sorts of creativity. Um, whether it's something with your business or it's something that you guys, you said you can, um, maybe just transforming your office or something like that, or a partnership, et cetera. So yeah, there's so much, um, importance to that. Exactly.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (38:37):

Yeah. And, uh, you know, for me getting out and taking a 15 minute walk, it's amazing. The clarity that, you know, just happens. It's, it's really good. So anyway, take some time for yourself. Very important. All right, Kristine, if you wouldn't mind, so tell us a little bit about, uh, who your customer is, what you can do for them, how they can reach out and get ahold of you. And also tell us a little bit about this new venture. Uh, that's coming up the spring of 2021.

Kristina (39:05):

Oh, well, thank you. So K vision marketing and media on has been around for about 18 years and I've done everything from marketing strategy to creative campaigns to, um, really just, or even helping with a certain project or, uh, working within their team. Sometimes companies don't have a CML or, you know, a head of marketing or anything like that, or they don't have somebody that's, you know, experienced or maybe not thinking outside of thinking, but outside of the box, I try to get people to not even think there's a box. So sometimes when people are in an organization, you know, they've been used to doing things a certain way. So, um, it's nice to have a different perspective. So I'm the virtual CMOs. So you can reach me at Kristina with a K and my company is K vision. So the letter K and vision.

Kristina (39:47):

So www.kvision.ca. And you can also reach me on LinkedIn, Kristina with a K and a Shea, S H E A like the stadium. So I work all over the world. I work with financial companies. I work with women like women brands, female brands, a lot of wellness. Um, I've also worked with government, um, not for profit. So I do pretty much everything. I started at corporate, but, um, I really love doing, um, lifestyle as well. So that's kind of my, my thing. Um, and I'm available 24 seven pretty much, although I do sleep sometimes. Um, and my, uh, my other venture, which is something that, you know, has been bubbling for quite a while that I've been wanting to do is blue skies life. And I spelled sky with a Y we were talking about purpose led brand because it's very important to me because as working in the financial industry, you know, sometimes you really go back, why am I doing this?

Kristina (40:37):

Um, because maybe you don't agree with a certain message that's being sent out. And, um, I just want him to do something that I was passionate about, which is wellness. And, you know, I've had some personal health journeys, which I won't get into because that's another show in itself. But, um, so I just decided that it was really, there was a gap to me about for women's products, um, and in the wellness space and really education as a whole. So please guys, life is, uh, launching in spring 2021. Um, it'll be an e-commerce and then an education platform will be layered on top of that with a membership. But for now, um, you can reach me on Instagram and Facebook at blue skies life. And again, it's guys is spelled with a Y and you can reach me on LinkedIn and, uh, the URL is www.blue skies, life.com.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Has The Entrepreneurial Bug Bitten You Here Are Some Great Tips To Succeed (41:23):

All right, great. Well, again, thank you so much, uh, reach out to Kristina, see how she can help you and your company appreciate you taking time out of your day to be with us. Uh, this is going to do it for another episode of the business of business podcast. Of course, you can find us at www.hebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com. Uh, we're all on social media as well. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and this will, uh, uh, video of this interview will go up on YouTube as well. So until next time, take care of yourself and take care of each other, please.

www.kvision.ca

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns with Bobby Machado

The pandemic shined a light on those businesses that were working the bottom of the funnel exclusively. They had enjoyed a lot of activity and interest but when it dried up it exposed the lack of efforts put in on the top of the funnel or brand awareness activities. Businesses must remember it is important to work the entire marketing funnel.

About Bobby

Bobby is the CEO and Lead Strategist at Signa Marketing, CEO at Sector 7 Apps, and a partner at Quick Job Products with his brother Cesar Machado.

As a kid, Bobby always had an interest in business such as providing landscaping services, training horses, or reselling “Tang” back to his parents during 5 grade. His experience in the digital world began when he taught himself how to code websites in high school, which turned into a way for Bobby to make money on the side while racing motocross, which remains as one of his passions to this day.

After he stopped competitively racing at the age of 22, Bobby decided to focus his full-time efforts in web development as a freelance web developer, which then introduced him into the digital marketing world. Being the analytical and creative type, Bobby developed a passion for digital marketing and data.

After working at an automotive digital marketing agency as a paid media specialist, managing a little over $300,000 per month in Google Ad spend for several auto dealerships in the United States, Bobby combined my passion for business and launched Signa Marketing.

Signa Marketing currently makes up about 70% of Bobby’s time and he enjoys hosting a Signa Marketing show named “Blueprint”, in which he answers any and all user-submitted questions on how to market their business online. New episodes are released on Signa Marketing’s YouTube Channel.

Overall, Bobby enjoys being immersed in anything “digital” that has a positive impact on people and humanity.

www.signamarketing.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

 

Full Transcript Below

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (00:00):

One hello and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm Roy. Uh, this is a show that we, we try to present a diverse range of guests on here to give us a lot of great information, but also it may spark some ideas, some things that we haven't really thought about, but then also if we, um, if we have troubles that we have been thinking about, it also gives us a professional or expert in that arena to go to, uh, in order to help us solve some of those issues. So, uh, today we are fortunate enough to have Bobby Machado on he is the CEO and lead strategist at Cigna marketing. He's also the CEO sector, seven apps and a partner at quick job products with his brother, Cesar Machado. As a kid, Bobby always had an interest in business such as providing landscaping services, horse training, reselling.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (00:57):

And you're going to have to explain this when reselling Tang back to his parents during the fifth grade and his experience in the digital world began when he taught himself how to code websites in high school, which turned into a way for him to make some money on the side while racing motorcross, which still remains one of his passions, uh, after Bobby stopped racing at 22, he decided to focus his full-time efforts on web development and freelance web development introduced him to, uh, the digital marketing world. Uh, he has also managed a little over $300,000 a month in Google ad spend for several auto dealerships in the United States. So Bobby, thanks so much for taking time out of your day to be with us and, uh, you know, help us with marketing. It's it's such a moving target it. If you even came close to having a handle on it today, tomorrow, you'll be behind again. So we appreciate you coming on, but before we get way off into this, uh, tell me about the Tang story. So how, how, how did that work where you're saying the tagline idea?

Bobby (02:02):

Oh, of course. Roy and thank you so much again for having me on I'm excited to be here. And, uh, and yeah, so attain story. I mean, so that's fifth grade. We were, uh, in some apartment complex and this apartment complex was actually two still growing. So next door, they were actually building a second phase of this whole complex. Um, and so I actually had all my toys, my hot wheels and et cetera. And actually I ended up building like a storefront in front of my parents', um, apartment and, and, and also I love the Tang. Like, I mean, we'd always drink Tang and, um, and it's funny when you bring up the tank, people are like, Oh yeah, Tang. Right. Um, but yeah, so there actually, I still have a really cool photo of, of me even online of, of actually me reselling Tang to my dad and my dad and my sisters there. And my, my actually younger brother, sister was right there with me too. Um, and yeah, so it it's always been in my, my DNA, I would say of wanting to provide a service, but, uh, but yeah, and that thing, that supply was actually taken from my parents. So I, I, I still own for that.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (03:07):

Oh, that's awesome. So, uh, you know, you kinda, we talked a little bit about how you got here and, uh, so you've kind of stepped up through the web development, which kind of led into the, uh, digital marketing and advertising. And I think that's pretty much a natural progression is because to be honest with you, uh, and nowadays, especially it's, it's easy to build a pretty decent website, but if you don't get any eyes on that website, it really hasn't done you much good.

Bobby (03:35):

Oh yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. And, and I think, um, I got into web development in high school based off, you know, other ambitions on ideas and stuff like that. But how you mentioned right now is like, I very, I learned very quickly that once I built a site and was able to put it out for a client, the client was always saying like, okay, now what?

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (03:54):

Right, right. Yeah. And th that's the, uh, you know, that's the million dollar question even today as we come through, you know, things, like I said, they changed so much, uh, from, you know, the early two thousands late nineties when, you know, web pages became more prevalent. And so, uh, I think also too, you know, we've just come through this, uh, 2020, which has been a very odd year. So what are some things that small businesses agencies like yourself? What are some takeaways that we've gotten from 2020, you know, kind of leading into 2021?

Bobby (04:34):

Yeah, no, that's, that's an excellent question. Um, one of the major things that we saw was we had a lot of clients that are very dependent on lead generation. So really tackling the bottom of the funnel, um, getting in front of people that are already actively searching for their services or product. Um, what we saw was a lot of different clients where that demand the demand for their service or product fluctuated drastically, and a lot of them that demand decreased. Right. Um, at that point they found themselves in a situation where they say, how do we even stay relevant because how do I get people to be interested again? Right. And that's where, you know, there was a situation where, where it was exposing the vulnerability of not investing on brand awareness and top funnel and making sure that you are even exposed in that sense, uh, to your target audience.

Bobby (05:23):

Because again, I mean, people, they can't buy it from you if they don't know you exist. And so, so I think relevancy was a huge thing, um, that a lot of businesses, I mean, you saw a large, large, large businesses do this because they have capital to do that. But the thing is that in this day and age, there's a lot of efficient ways to build brand awareness through social media networks and stuff like that on a budget. And so, um, I think that that really kind of brought a lot of awareness to saying, Oh, you know what, we should make sure that we're always investing on top funnel activities, uh, whether it's content generation, brand awareness, video production, et cetera. Um, because of the fact that we know we don't want to just solely rely on lead generation, uh, because even though a lead generation is great, I love it, but we have to make sure that we're covering all our bases, uh, so that we're agile and ready for, you know, any situation that actually comes up in the economic world, you know?

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (06:17):

Yeah. And I think that's an important distinction that, you know, lead generation is awesome, but you know, we want to continue to fill that pipeline. And even though things are awesome for us today, and we've got more leads than we can handle. There's, there's always that possibility. And usually I've seen it with other businesses, you know, it's, uh, I call it the boom and bust cycle. It's like, we've got all this business. We're not doing any marketing or putting ourselves out there really doing anything. And then, uh, you know, six months from now, we're at the bottom of that. We've had at the bottom of the bus, we've got no customers, no phone calls. And we got a ramp that all of a sudden we had to ramp up that brand awareness and marketing to start, you know, that funnel process again. And it takes time.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (07:01):

I mean, it's not usually most businesses. It's not something that you can decide. Well, uh, Hey, you know, things are slow on Friday. I'm gonna wake up Monday and, uh, you know, flinging a new ad out or start this campaign and things just start rolling in on Tuesday. And I think that's important to remember, uh, you know, something I talk about the kind of relating to the aggregation model is that we in the digital world, and as our attention spans grow shorter, we tend to leave out. We want to sow the seed. And then we want to reap the harvest all pretty much in the same phone call or the same email. You know, we forget about the middle part about cultivating. And to me it's so important in the marketing process and in the sales process.

Bobby (07:48):

Oh yeah, no, a hundred percent. And I mean, the beauty of social media and these networks in the world that we're in now is that, I mean, small businesses can afford to do something. I mean, they have a direct pipeline of communication with their target audience that didn't exist before. And so, I mean, even though a lot of people are aware of social media now it's very, you know, it's maturing quite a bit. Um, I think that there's still, there's still a lot of small businesses that aren't going all in on it and really taking advantage of the free exposure. That's there, the free communication that you can attain with your target audience. Um, and then even with paid social, if you're, you know, investing in Facebook advertising or Instagram advertising, um, and YouTube advertising, those straight channels are still incredibly cheap if compared to traditional, uh, mediums, you know? And so, um, from my perspective, really, there's no reason why not to at least execute some time type of plans around these networks to make sure that your, you know, top funnel so that you actually have an audience to remark it or nurture over time. It, then you only have bottom funnel. And with that bottom funnel drop, uh, dries up, then you're left like, Oh, shoot, I need to do something there.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (09:03):

Yeah. Cause I think we need to also take in mind that, uh, I may be a great customer for you today. I may be a great customer for you in the future. Maybe I don't have the money today, or maybe I don't have the need to today, but, um, as businesses, we need to stay in front of those people in some way, because at some point they will become our customer and I, I guess, are they could be. And that I liken it to our short memories is that, uh, you can have a guy that you've used before and really love and did a good job. But if you haven't heard or talked to him in two, three years, but there's another guy that just talked to you about a month ago. It's like, well, that's the guy. I remember the last one I talked to. And so I'm just kind of, I guess it emphasizes that need, that we always need to, you know, try to be staying out there and talk a little bit. I, again, I'm a novice, so I'm going to let you explain this, but the nice thing about social media, Facebook, YouTube, a lot of these probably more channels, but the, uh, ability to target is gotten incredible.

Bobby (10:17):

Yeah. Oh, Oh yeah. It's, it's ridiculous. I mean, I know that with, with Facebook, there's some changes with iOS 14 and you know, the high school and you know, that whole thing. Um, and we'll see what happens with, with, with that, because the thing is that there are a ton of iPhone users that, um, that, you know, maybe the targeting mate where you would see a decrease of how well the machine itself can target, but I, I anticipate I'll get worked out. The cool thing is that it's not affecting Android yet, and there's a ton of Android users out there. Um, and, and I mean Facebook's machine in terms of understanding how to find your target audience and then get in front of them is just, it is crazy. It is ridiculously good. Um, and it's, I mean, even when they first started, you would get really, really specific on your targeting settings.

Bobby (11:05):

But I mean, it's got to the point where if you have a customer list and existing customer list and you upload it to create a lookalike audience, um, a lot of times you could even just start with that as a layer of targeting and even keep all your other settings open up other than like geographic locations, stuff like that, the age groups of the ad. But, um, but by building lookalike audiences, those, those are really powerful because of the Facebook machine, right. In a stint for being so well and targeting people, we'll see what happens with, with the iOS side of things. Um, regardless, we're still trying, we're still figuring out ways around that it's not going to necessarily stop things. Right. Um, and again, um, one thing I'm very, very, uh, I'll always preach is don't depend on one platform. So if Facebook went away tomorrow, I'd okay, well, you know what?

Bobby (11:54):

I still have YouTube because YouTube is insanely good at targeting and it's extremely cheap to get in front of a local audience or a national audience. Um, so, you know, it's always making sure that you don't have all your eggs in one basket, you know, just make sure you're diversified. It's the same as I, to be honest, investing in marketing, it's almost like investing in a stock portfolio. You're going to have some stocks that perform better than others. Right. But you're looking at what's my return out of the entire portfolio and yeah, that's kind of how we approach marketing too.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (12:23):

Yeah. And you make a good point about the platforms that we're on because, uh, and this is probably ancient thinking. I mean, I think it's still good, but this is back in the old days, you know, there'd be some people that may just, uh, have all their business and not just talking about advertising or marketing, but they would actually have all their content on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube. They didn't have much of a web presence. And so I think it, it, you can kind of, you can affirm this or we can talk about it, but I think, you know, w what the thinking used to be was that you really need to make sure that you develop your own platform, where you have your information, your website, and drive your traffic back to that. Because as we know, if these other platforms can change their rules and really affect you going forward, whereas if, if you've kind of built your own platform and you're driving traffic back to your information or what you want, um, you're a little bit more secure in that you have control over that. So I, I guess it really hasn't been a problem or has, have you seen it to be a problem, but that still holds true, correct.

Bobby (13:34):

Absolutely. I know, I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of having a home base. You're seeing a lot of e-commerce sites and e-commerce brands, um, really focusing on direct to consumer sales and not trying to not, uh, uh, depending on retail. Um, you're seeing a lot of Amazon shops. I mean, Amazon is ridiculously competitive now to be on that marketplace. And so you are absolutely seeing a lot of bands say, Hey, you know what, um, you know, we're gonna, we're going to put all our eggs in this basket of building our home base. Right. Um, and, and I, there are competitors like Walmart, uh, they opened up their marketplace and that's still a big opportunity, um, to get in because it's not as competitive as Amazon. Right. Um, but yeah, if there was one that was, uh, when we talked e-commerce one big shift in 2020 was going back to direct to consumer, which was already headed there. Right. I feel like 20, 20 kind of pushed a lot of, put a little pressure on a lot of changes

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (14:31):

Know, and this is a little bit marketing, but a little bit sales as well. You know, we want to build a relationship with people in some respect that, uh, used to, you could get out in the community, go to offices and have meetings. And now that we are, you know, we're relying a lot more on digital, uh, to kind of get that personality and to, um, start, you know, maybe not completely build a relationship, but definitely plant the seeds to start that. So I guess that, um, kind of amps up the importance of all of us, uh, putting in a good effort, but also, like you said, uh, a lot of content spread across a lot of different platforms.

Bobby (15:16):

Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, when it comes and again, when it comes to like content marketing and social media, I mean, these are platforms, so you can build a relationship with your audience, with your target consumer build that trust, build that loyalty, but the familiarity, um, I, I drill into familiarity a lot because, you know, for someone to buy it from you, they have to be okay with having some type of communication with you. Right. Um, and so, and, and you're when you're built, actually invest into content marketing, social media, et cetera, building that relationship online, your sales team is actually going to love it because when they get those people on the phone, they're going to say, Whoa, this is, I mean, this person was just great to close because they're already, pre-educated maybe I close some gaps on the sales call in terms of things they had questions on, but in terms of doing a hard sale, it Smiths out that process too.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (16:06):

Yep. And I want to come back to that on the content marketing, but what I, what I'd like to make a point as I've, you know, in smaller companies I've been in kind of a, that position of you doing the marketing and doing the sales. And so I can control why I do marketing because I see the results on the sales side. So I'll, I'll, I think another point here is that, you know, marketing and sales, even though sometimes in bigger companies or different departments, there needs to be a lot of communication and a lot of inner planning. And I do always encourage our salespeople to use some kind of a customer relation management platform because marketing needs evidence of what campaigns are doing. And I think, you know, it helps them zero their message in not only the message, but maybe on the audience, because if we're attracting, uh, the wrong people, that aren't really our customers and, you know, we could have a thousand inquiries, but if those aren't our people who we can sell to not doing us any good. So let that's, you know, just a good message to have that communication, the interplaying sales keep up with the CRM well, where you can transfer that data back to the marketing department.

Bobby (17:22):

Oh, that, yeah. That's an excellent point. I think, I always say, you know, marketing and sales are supposed to be best friends. They're supposed to have each other's back we're at. And the beauty is a lot of these marketing automation, automation platforms that are, I mean, really, really good, like SharpSpring and HubSpot and stuff like that. They're great. Because to what you mentioned right now, it allows even more fluid, complete communication between those two teams. Right. So that it can better work together.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (17:50):

Yeah. So, you know, I'm a huge fan of content marketing, but I'm gonna just get you to just give a general explanation and overview for the listeners in case there's somebody that's really not familiar. You know, we, a lot of buzz words and terms that go around. So, uh, we, we hear it all the time. We may not know exactly what it is. So if you could just give us a little overview of that.

Bobby (18:13):

Absolutely. Um, when it comes to content marketing, content marketing is about putting out, uh, education and becoming an authority figure in your industry or, or in your space. Um, it always stems from content, whether it's long form video or blog posts, or even podcasts like this one, it's always about long form content and really putting out education. So that as a, as a company or as a brand, you people do seek you as out as a resource, right? Something that someone that they say, okay, I can trust this, this company, or I've learned X, Y, Z from them now how to channel that content. You can do it in several different ways because you can do an audio form like this with the podcast, you can do a video form on YouTube. Um, you can do contextual on blog posts. Um, you can split take all these, uh, pieces of long form content and create highlights or, or segments, and use them as micro pieces of content, social media. Um, and so it always stems from content and then having a plan of, okay, where's our target target audience hanging out online. So we can make sure that we distribute this content in the right areas in a way that's easily consumable for their style of how they consume content. Yeah,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (19:25):

Yeah, no, that is awesome. And I think the, you know, I'm huge on that education factor because I, I want to be transparent. I don't want to, I don't want to be bait and switch or tricky. I don't want to be like, uh, I've got a, uh, I've got an awesome, uh, study for you to look at, but I need you to click on 27 links and sign up for all this stuff. And then you get a thing like, well, really, it'll just, if you'll sign up for our seminar paid, then we'll give you this information. If you, if you promise somebody something, just give it to them. I mean, it goes such a long way, um, in building that relationship and becoming that authority, people need to be able to trust you. And I, um, it's made it a little more difficult for some of us online because there's so many people there that are, are distrustful that you just can't, uh, you know, they kind of ruin it for the rest of us. So all I would say is just, you know, be transparent and do what's right for your customer, for your prospect.

Bobby (20:23):

Oh yeah. A hundred percent. And, and if you're in a position to be able to, uh, be a practitioner where you can demonstrate basically the same thing that you're trying to have your clients do, or stuff like that, if you're doing it yourself, I think that's even the best form of showing, Hey, you know, there is no BS here, or I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm a practitioner of the things I preach type of deal. Right. Um, and so, yeah, so a lot of clients and that are in a position where they can be a practitioner. I always encourage that as well. For sure.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (20:52):

Yeah. And you brought up a good point about creating long form content. You know, I'll let you explain it, but I know Google typically won't index anything under about 500 words anymore. And so we need to have things that are longer than that, but the beauty about the longer form, you know, when we start getting 12, 18, 2020 500 words is, uh, not only are we able to get a lot more information out there to educate people a lot more research and things like that, but talk about breaking that up and being able to use it across our different, uh, social media platforms too. We don't have to recreate the wheel every time we want to make a post.

Bobby (21:35):

Yeah, absolutely. I'll, I'll start with a video is, and the reason why is because video, um, if we, if we had to categorize the priority of, uh, different types of formats of content, it's definitely going to start with video, uh, audio after that, and then contextual after that. Um, but starting with video, video's awesome for producing of course, long form content, long form content is great because it gives an opportunity for conversations to go into naturally topics and stuff like that that sometimes are not necessarily scripted. You know, they just, they, they go into it and there's always a really good nugget of information there. Um, so by doing long form content, say, say you have a 30 minute show and there's four great points, four great takeaways, um, that people should be consuming and should, uh, action towards, um, that's where we can segment those types of pieces of content to micro content and share that on Instagram TV, uh, on Facebook, uh, of course, on, on Twitter, et cetera.

Bobby (22:38):

But now the cool thing about doing that is that you have these micro pieces of content that can actually hook someone. I didn't edit, you'll have a link that says watch the full episode here. And so now you're bringing people into watching the full episode, and that's just one tactic on how to, you know, continue to build your audience. But again, the only reason why is because you actually broke out a really good piece of content, that's easily consumable by them right. On, on the network where they hang out. Right. So you're really just catering to the audience at that point.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (23:07):

Yeah. And our tools to do this because I do a little, I have started that. Um, my, uh, my podcast host has like a thing that you could do an audio gram, but I've been doing more YouTube and more videos lately. So I think it was, uh, you know, $9 a month. I found a little, um, clipper tool that you can go into an hour long video, you know, clip out your one or two minutes or, you know, go to your point and then be able to post that. And, uh, it's, it's been a very awesome thing for me, for sure.

Bobby (23:40):

Oh yeah. Tremendous. And, and I love audio grams. I mean, a lot of people think like initially, Oh, just audio, I can't post this on Instagram and stuff like that, but you can make some really cool audio grams and that are, are catchy and I engage in and et cetera. Um, and it's, again, just a way for that for people to discover the show. Yeah. Um, so then say, Hey, you know what, I'm going to subscribe now because then when I go drive home later after work, I can listen to the show.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (24:07):

Yeah. One of my old sayings, my audience probably gets sick every time I say this. But, uh, the old saying was, you know, text is pretty good. People can read it. If you have a picture with that text, then it's like leaving breadcrumbs back to, you know, back in the old days to your blog. But they said a video is like leaving chocolate covered bread, crumbs back to your content. I mean, it's just, uh, it's unbelievable the difference, uh, stepping up from just something texts. And I don't, I guess a like, even on websites that is true. But I think when we talk about social media, I think it is more exponentially true. I think, uh, you know, people scroll by a lot of texts and, and somebody brought up a good point too. Like, um, if you have texts, you may take up, can't get in front of that. You may take up very little space as people are scrolling up and down their feeds. When you have a picture, all of a sudden your real estate is, uh, is widened very much. And, you know, you just, it just makes you have a bigger presence, catches people's eyes.

Bobby (25:13):

Oh yes. Yeah. Abs absolutely anywhere where you can just understand the, the, the platform and what, what you're able to post on there. You're able to strategize to say, okay, cool. If I actually had a, uh, my photo, that's actually 1920, you know, high and 10 80 wide, that way it actually takes up the whole mobile phone type of deal on, on a platform like Instagram or Facebook. Um, but yeah, no, that's a great tactic there. I didn't one, one tactic that I'm actually really, really fond of, uh, because it actually has so many benefits that kind of it's a domino effect is say you do produce long form video. Um, at that point you would absolutely, the next step would say, you know, you publish it on YouTube, it's SEO, SEO, SEO for YouTube, but then create a contextual blog post of that video, basically, you know, have that on your, on your website then in the blog post embed the video itself on there.

Bobby (26:09):

If, and if, if you did have a situation where you've taken the audio of that long form video and putting it up as a podcast, you can even put the MP3 player, even on that same blog post, if you'd like, um, the reason why this is actually really, really good as, because someone's going to land on your blog post, they're going to see that there's a video version of it. So then they're just going to start watching the video. And at that point, and you're clocking average time per session on your page. So that historical, uh, behavior, in terms of a very positive metric like that actually AIDS your SEO efforts over time because Google sees wow people and on his blog posts, and then they stay on here for a good 30 minutes. So it's actually pretty good of, you know, it's very valuable to them.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (26:50):

That's interesting. And, and I, I have not, but I'm definitely gonna take a look at that. Cause we usually own what I've been doing is just putting the audio player at the top and then doing a transcript of the podcast, you know, kind of for the long form, but I'm going to look at doing, embedding the video in there too. That's a good point. Okay.

Bobby (27:09):

Yeah. And actually you're already, I mean, already one major step ahead anyways, by just doing what you just mentioned now, as far as having the audio player player on there. Yeah. That's actually great right there because people are clicking on that audio player and then they're sitting on the page just listening to the content. Yeah, yeah,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (27:23):

Yeah. And, um, there's so many tools out there. I mean, we can make three or four episodes just in all of our tools, but I think the, uh, uh, I think it's easy. People think, Oh, I can't do that. Or how do I do that? But zoom will take that for example, is, you know, you can just make a re uh, recording of yourself. And the nice thing about it is not only are you doing the video, uh, it captures the audio as well. There's an audio file, but then, um, you can share your desktop. So if I wanted to make a, you know, of a video for my consumers or prospects, I could be talking switch over to look at this illustration or the product or what, you know, whatever you want to, it's so versatile and it's so easy and it's very cheap.

Bobby (28:12):

Oh, a hundred percent. I, the beauty of zoom, I mean, I, uh, or any of like, you know, even just people we talked to and stuff like that, I really do preach that there really is no excuse now to not have a podcast, right. Because essentially you have the zoom, which does everything you just described right now, in addition, you also have free podcasts hosting platforms, like anchor.fm, where they make it a breeze to be able to publish your, your podcasts, your show. Um, and so really the friction and the obstacles to entry are literally close to none now. Um, maybe I believe maybe it's, I don't know how much zoom is. I think it's 1499 a month or something like that. But I mean, it's, it's, uh, it's lunch money basically. Exactly. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (28:57):

Tile as it is, because not only can you reach out and have, you know, interaction with prospects, but also just that the ability to record you can record training messages to your CA I mean, you could go on and on about the uses for that. It's just, uh, you know, it's incredible. And I think that's where, uh, we kind of have to take that step out there and find these things that, that are available that can do what we need to do for, um, you know, very, cost-effective just, uh, like you said, they don't have to be hour long audios or videos if we just have a quick message, you know, maybe it's only 30 seconds or a couple minutes, but being able to get it out there in some, uh, audio or video form actually, um, increases the chances that you get that message over to your prospect.

Bobby (29:47):

Exactly. Why not 100% and, and this, all this content marketing, uh, uh, this entire subject here actually ties to the very beginning of what we learned in 2020, because what happens again, a lot of businesses weren't doing this. I mean, maybe they were doing some content marketing, but they weren't seeing the serious of ness of it or how much they should be in here. Right. Because all this content is going to live forever online, which is great. And this is top funnel stuff. So people can discover you through all this content. Right. Um, so that's why it's just tremendously important. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (30:23):

So one thing, uh, you know, we kind of talk about some is knowing where your customer lives online or your prospect lives online, uh, age groups, um, positions, uh, income, all those things change and vary, you know, from one platform to the other. But a question I've kind of been thinking about the last few days is I'm on all these platforms because I post there. And so, you know, it gives me a chance when I'm posting or looking through, I may scroll through all of these, but just for a consumer. Do you have any idea how many platforms, social media platforms that they may visit on a regular basis? I mean, if they're a Facebook user, did they just stay tied to Facebook or Pinterest, or are they moving, you know, across these platforms?

Bobby (31:16):

Yeah. So in terms of stats, I don't know all the stats once that I know off the top of my head is that Instagram as a platform on an average basis has checked about 150 times a day. Wow. It is ridiculous. It is ridiculous. And so, um, and it does, and it makes sense as far as why Instagram has really leveled up, um, their e-commerce capabilities, why there's a shopping section and stuff like that, because it is, it is incredible in terms of, of a, of a source. I mean, and it's, it's very versatile, whether you, you have the youngest age group there, or the, the, uh, more on the older age group there, you have everyone on there. Um, another one, which is, uh, it w it's definitely got controversial probably still, but it's tick tock, tick tock initially is really thought to be of tweens and doing the dances and all that stuff.

Bobby (32:05):

And that's definitely where it, where it got up, but you would be fascinated to know that the second and third, most, uh, search categories are fitness and do it, uh, do it yourself, home improvement. Wow. And yeah. And so, so now what's happening is we have a lot of people of all sorts of backgrounds going on to take, talk to consume content because they're learning, they're learning about certain subjects. And that machine of take talk is ridiculously good at, at feeding what you are interested in. If you, if you spend, if you open up a new account and you spend some time on, on the platform for a day, you'll start to see your feed being suggested with videos that are very, very close to what you're interested in. It's, it's a, it's a pretty good machine. Um, but that's another platform which has a ton of opportunities still for a lot of businesses to get in there and do top funnel content in a way that's incredibly engaging. Yeah. Um,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (33:01):

So you read my mind. I just had written that down on a piece of paper because it's, uh, you know, it's an emerging topic. I think old people like myself, it's like, you know, it's the, like you said, it's the dancing tweens over there that I stay away from. But, you know, I've heard of a couple of, uh, one of them was like a, um, a metal worker or glassblower in more of an artistic type guy. But, uh, you know, he would post the minute, one minute videos of how he was developing a product or making something and had very good luck. So, um, I do think that it's growing beyond just, you know, the dance and teen and, and also, I think somebody had told me once that, uh, probably good just to go over there and reserve your names or your, you know, domain. So if you don't ever use it, at least you have it in case things come around to where you feel like you need to.

Bobby (33:54):

Oh, absolutely. Um, you would, uh, be, I, this is actually pretty interesting here is there's a competing platform called bite. So it's B Y T E. And it's, uh, by the co-founder of buying vine with that platform that, uh, died, uh, some time ago. But, um, but the interesting thing is actually, it's a direct competitor of, of TechTalk. And so that's just another one just to go in there and do what you mentioned right now is at least reserve your user handle, um, because it is actually picking up some, some momentum, uh, another one is clubhouse. Clubhouse is blowing up like crazy.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (34:30):

Yeah. You know, I just heard about that yesterday for the first time. And then I saw a post from a previous guest where she said, Hey, I'm on clubhouse and here's where I'm at. Can you, can you share a little bit about what clubhouse is

Bobby (34:44):

For sure. So clubhouse is essentially a platform where it's, um, you had to be nominated. So invite only what does this allowed is for, um, a lot of backup, basically there's rooms, a monitor, a moderator can create a room and invite people into that room and basically have a group discussion right there through pure audio, uh, live. Um, and, and it was interesting because even, um, even recently there was like a shark tank, shark tank room with people pitching, um, business owner, grant Cardone was in there and stuff like that too. And it's, it's amazing to have direct access to these individuals. Um, but because it's invite only where you had to be nominated, the beauty of it is that the quality of the interactions are extremely high. So a lot of what people are doing on clubhouses building relationships, it's not somewhere where you're going in there to sell is there to build relationships. And I, and again, this actually ties into top funnel activity because that, where they say, Hey, you know what, that's a great idea. Um, find me on Instagram and sending a direct message. You know, they, they take the conversation to a secondary platform like Instagram or Twitter. Um, and the same thing is with take talk where Tik TOK is not where you sell necessarily yet, but it's where you're able to drive that awareness to your Instagram and your Instagram to your website and et cetera, et cetera.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (36:04):

If I was in clubhouse, just trying to, I'm trying to get a better understanding for myself. So I would have a room and then maybe I would send out an email to, uh, some prospects or current clients and say at two o'clock today, I'm going to be discussing this topic. And then basically everybody would kind of gather there, is that how it goes?

Bobby (36:25):

It goes that way, but the only way they're going to be able to see it is that they're already on clubhouse. Okay. And so when you, when you sign up for clubhouse, you actually have w uh, you have one invite. You can nominate one person. Wow. Once you use it, you use it. So,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (36:40):

You know, and that's a pretty good, um, it's, it's, it sounds limiting from the consumer use side, but it's actually a pretty good, uh, um, method. Because if you think back in the old days, when Facebook first came around, you had to have a college email extension in order to be able to join. So it kinda made it a little mysterious. It was that scarcity like, well, people wanted to be on there because they couldn't be on there and they wanted to know what else was going on. So it's going to be interesting to see how that unfolds with clubhouse, if they'll keep those tight restrictions, or eventually once they build a hardcore nucleus of users, if they'll, uh, you know, open that up a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah.

Bobby (37:27):

Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I mean, I, myself, I'm actually still testing it out and using it a lot, you know, it is very new for me. Um, so I've been in there hanging out, uh, attending rooms and participating in stuff like that. Um, I wasn't able to get Bobby as the handle. I was able to get volume a title, but not Bobby. I thought I was, I was like, maybe I could get volume in that he had that, you know,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (37:49):

It's to be, and this is been a few years ago, there was an audio platform. It was more of a, you know, 32nd, a one minute, you just posted your audio on there. But, uh, it seemed like it changed names, but I was just wondering if you're familiar with that. And if that's the one that just went out of business, like, uh, you know, a few months ago, if that's the one that dissolved,

Bobby (38:15):

Are you referring to, um, kind of like what younger FM used to be, where you could tweet, you could basically put out an audio file and someone could listen to it and reply back in audio. Yeah. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (38:26):

Well, yeah. Or you just put, it was more like, um, I just kind of compare it to Instagram, but instead of putting a picture, you put up an audio and people could listen to it and then comment on it or, you know, re re posted or whatever, but you know, it, it was gaining some speed and then all of a sudden, you know, part of that was me, it just dropped off of my radar, but I didn't know if it was still around.

Bobby (38:52):

Yeah. So, so I think that, I think you might be referring to anchor FM for sure. Then because anchor actually used to be that and they, um, they ditch that whole model completely. And it went into the podcasting realm. Yeah. So that's because, uh, because I actually was participating in that kind of test and playing around with it and stuff. And then I remember one day they just like, it started to evolve and it was all gone. And then it was all podcasts at that point. But Twitter does have that functionality where you can, um, actually tweet out, uh, basically like a voice memo, you know, an audio file. Um, so what are actually has that functionality?

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (39:29):

I did not know that is it, are you limited to, I guess a very, very small,

Bobby (39:36):

Yeah. I, I, you know what, I don't know, off the top of my head, but I'm sure you can't do like a 30 minute show or anything on there. Yeah. It's probably definitely limited. Um, but, but it's something to have fun with for sure.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (39:48):

Check that out. Cause I think, you know, especially if you're driving, uh, you know, people want to be able to listen and stuff and not have to read so much. So that's an awesome, awesome thing to check out. Well, Bobby, we appreciate you taking time out of your day to be with us. I mean, we've talked about some awesome stuff, given the audience and myself, even a lot of great ideas, so appreciate that very much, uh, before I let you go. Um, so what is the tool that you use in your life? And it could be a tool. It could be a habit or ritual personal professional, but what's something that just adds a lot of value to your life that you just don't feel like you could give up.

Bobby (40:29):

Uh, I think these days it's it's has evolved to a tool called boomerang and it's for Jean Hill. Yeah. But the reason why, um, and I, I'm sure that people are probably like, Oh, really it has to do with email. This is the most important thing. But the reason why is because, you know, when you have having so many conversations, so many things that you want to make sure, uh, do occur, um, you want to make sure that those things don't fall through the crack and people get busy. Maybe, maybe you sent out an email and you haven't received a response in three days or stuff like that. Um, and so boomerang really, really helps me a ton to make sure that if, uh, on my follow-up game, basically, if, if someone didn't reply and I didn't get what I needed in time or something or anything like that, I can be proactive about it and have the, basically the, the system, uh, bringing these emails back into my inbox. Um, and I know Gmail has the nudge feature and stuff like that, but boomerang, at least for me, has really helped, um, set those types of rules up. And so depending on the subject matter or who the email went out to, I can set the day and time. I want that email to come back. If I haven't received a reply from that one has made my life tremendously more efficient and easier for sure.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (41:38):

You know, it's interesting you bring it up because I noticed on my, uh, I use outlook and I noticed on my toolbar at the top, I've got that extension on there. I had signed up four years ago and I really haven't looked through it much, but now I'm going to take another look at that and see how I can put that to work for me.

Bobby (41:55):

Yeah, yeah, no, it's benefited my, my day to day for sure. Yeah. All right. Well tell everybody, yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (42:01):

Who is your client, how they can, or what you can do for them. And then of course, how they can reach out and get ahold of you.

Bobby (42:08):

Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, Cigna marketing is really an agency that focuses on small to medium sized businesses. Um, and it really comes down to three core pillars. Um, it, it comes down to paid media advertising, uh, search engine optimization and website design and development. And specifically when it comes to websites, it's actually, uh, building a machine that's gonna work really well for paid media and SEO. Um, and so, you know, basically we do everything in house. These, these three pillars really are very integrated for us, um, and allows us to be essentially produced better results for clients at the end because of the fact that these components don't have to, you know, uh, work siloed, they work together in that sense. Um, but yeah, so, you know, anyone that's interested in following any of our content, we put out a ton of content to help small business owners.

Bobby (42:57):

Um, you can find us on social media at our handle, which is Cigna marketing. Um, so Cigna marketing everywhere is actually the handle. Um, and also we produce a show where I host called blueprint where I answer any and all digital marketing questions in relation to how to market a business online. So, uh, it's a fun show that I get to do where we receive questions from anywhere and everywhere. Um, and I answered them annually on the show. So it's, it's also just another way to provide value to anyone that's seeking answers to very specific questions that they have.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - The Marketing Funnel is a Portfolio of Actions Leading To Increased Returns (43:27):

Okay, great. And I'll include all those links in the show notes where people can reach out and, uh, and find you out there again, Bobby, thank you. You've been very helpful, uh, much appreciated. And, um, that's going to do it for this episode of the business of business podcast. You can find us, of course, at www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com also have finally secured the www.tbobp.com the initials. So it's not so long. Um, so we're kind of trying to integrate that into some of our marketing as well, but, uh, you can also reach out, find us on all the major social media platforms, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The video will also go up on YouTube when the, uh, episode goes live. So until next time, take care of yourself and take care of each other. Thank you.

Bobby (44:20):

Thank you, Roy.

 

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www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com