Akua Konadu
The journey to success is never linear. There are lots of ups and downs. But the key to building a sustainable business is learning how to adapt and innovate. That’s why I’m so excited to have videographer and podcast host Alberto Mendoza on the show. In the midst of the pandemic, Alberto decided to take the leap and fully invest in his business. That investment led to him hitting six figures in his first year and he is just getting started. We talk about how learning to adapt and innovate can be one of the best ways to make sure that your business is here tomorrow. So let’s get into the episode. Hey, everyone, this is your host Akua konadu. And you’re listening to the independent business podcast, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I get to sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve it too.

Akua Konadu
Hello, hello, Alberto. How are we doing today?

Alberto Mendoza
I am doing fantastic here in the West Coast. How are you doing?

Akua Konadu
Just splendid.

Alberto Mendoza
Love that. Loving the energy.

Akua Konadu
So yes. Oh, I am so stoked for this conversation. So let’s just hop on into it. Because I’m so interested to hearing more about your story and just hearing some key strategies of how you’ve grown your business. But you hit six figures within the first year of your business, which is just amazing. And and in the middle of a pandemic. So what were some of the major things that you learned throughout that journey?

Alberto Mendoza
Like most I’ve been consuming your guys’s podcast for a while now. And like most entrepreneurs or business individuals, I kind of fell onto this accidentally, i Long story short, I was in the medical field for six years, trying to do videography, or just doing videography, for fun after looking at a GoPro commercial that inspired me to pick up a camera when Hans halfsies was my brother, we got the GoPro Hero three, I remember it’s like 300 bucks. And that was like super expensive back then for us. And yeah, I eventually quit my job travelled for six months. And as I came back, I knew I wanted to do videography, landed on a local real estate boutique company here in San Diego. And I was a pretty much all around main go to guy doing content creation, editing, posting. So I learned a ton while getting paid. And I thought I was living the dream. And then as we know, the pandemic happens. While I was working with that boutique company, I was still doing my side hustle. Because there was cases where I would take on gigs that would pay me way more than the actual eight hours have been in the office, especially if we weren’t filming. So I would have to like call out sick if I knew I had a bigger gig to to play or whatever. And so once the pandemic happened, and I was forced to walk away, I still kept in contact with those individuals that I worked with. And as you guys probably know, everything went virtual, all the content went virtual. It was like a boom for content creators. And so I just capitalized on that. And somehow, I still don’t even know how but I was able to hit six figures, which to me, it was like insane, especially for me. That was a huge milestone for me. I’ve been eyeing that number for a long time, especially since I didn’t technically graduate college. I thought that was a huge milestone for me. And it was like one of the best days of my life.

Akua Konadu
Oh, I love that so much. Because, yes, it started off as a side hustle. But you were putting in the work you were doing what it is that you needed to do, you were already creating a sustainable business. So then when something unexpected happened, you were like, Alright, here we go. And you really created that foundation that really just skyrocketed you to that financial milestone, which is huge. And so just thinking about your journey, what were some key strategies that you tried that really impacted your growth.

Alberto Mendoza
I was pretty much repurposing content for social media purposes. So if I had a long form interview that I did, with some of the previous work that I did, I would chop up a three to four minute piece of content. And I would just make micro content. For example, like reels I would do 30 to 45 seconds of bites. And I would just add it to my social media. And I would just repurpose that almost daily and just posting a bunch of content. So it made me look like I was booked and busy. So like the people that are consuming that content, they by default thing, I’m booked and busy, but they probably don’t know that maybe I wasn’t working at that time. But I was still doing my little editing and admin and reaching out to people and whatnot. And I don’t know for some reason, it’s like a Jedi mind trick where people want to work with individuals that are kind of like booked and busy. They’re showing their selves off on social media. And so I knew that already and I just double down on social media content. I went crazy with posting a lot of micro content such as reels, little portions of interviews, little three by three videos that I love to do. Just I candy stuff. And I always have a call to action on my social posts. And I still practice this method till today actually just posted a video today of just BTS work. And I already have three inquiries just based off that social media posts. Granted, I’m not going to let all three inquiries, but it’s a numbers game.

Akua Konadu
I love what you said too about repurposing, I think we forget that there is power in repurposing your content. Because, you know, I feel like a lot of the times in our mind, especially now with how much social media has evolved, and how we’ve had to really change our strategies, we feel like we have to come up with things that are new and fresh, that maybe people just haven’t necessarily heard of. But at the end of the day, it really is like, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, you just need to take what works and you know, especially if it’s content, that is your strength, that you’re really good at. Repurposing can just be so powerful, because it’s not the same people that are I mean, of course, you are gonna have some people that interact with your content, but you’re also not everybody’s gonna see your content. So I think that’s so valuable. But it’s also like simple, right? It’s a really simple strategy that you implemented, even just today with you having three inquiries. And I think that’s just so powerful. And so another thing that I love, because I love your video content, like I love your style, everything, it’s really unique. And so, one thing that I’ve noticed about you is that as a creative entrepreneurs, like we have to adapt and innovate constantly, consistently. And especially for you, I the vibe that I got when I was like researching you and looking you up, it comes very natural to you. But I think it’s really difficult. It’s not a skill that everybody has. And so for you how were you able to do that? So well,

Alberto Mendoza
trust me, it’s like a lot of years of practice. I always knew I wanted to make content not just for like client work, but also for myself. I like to say I went to YouTube University and I just consumed so much YouTube vloggers travel vloggers BTS filmmakers as well, I just consume all that content. And just naturally, I always thought like, Wait, what if I make my own kind of content? How do I want to approach this and so of course, I overthought it in the first years of wanting to create content, and so I didn’t, I stopped myself from creating because I was just trying to figure out the perfect plan, when in reality, there is no perfect plan, just kind of have to do it and just tweak it as you go. And so yeah, in the very beginning, I was Trust me, I was very cringe. Like, my first ever podcast that we produced with my buddy was a photographer, I was very bad, I look at that, I’m like, Man, I could have done this better, I could have done that better. And so all those years of just putting myself out there in front of the camera, I mean, naturally, you’re only going to get better, you cannot get worse. And so just putting myself out there more and more, it just I got a lot more comfortable being in front of the camera, um, to the point where now I actually enjoy seeing myself in front of the camera and hearing my voice, which a lot of people can’t really say that for some reason, they just hate hearing their voice, they hate seeing their face, especially the client side producer content, they want to get into the consecration game because they know this is the wave, but at the same time, they’re just not as confident. So it just takes a lot of practice. That’s a lot of time and a lot of effort. And practice makes perfect.

Akua Konadu
I mean, you had me fooled, okay, because I thought that came natural, you know, but I think again, like but that’s how good you’re doing it. You know what I mean? Just how you’re consistently showing up how you’re consistently adapting because right now in the state video is going nowhere. And that is something that we have been prepped for since Snapchat days, you know, but now it’s just it’s at a whole new level. And the thing is, is based on a wise all video survey, I learned at 91% of consumers want to see more online video content from brands. And I think that you are a prime example of that the fact of like how you were able to hit six figures, and also to just consistently getting inquiries getting booked and busy. And also to like 92% of marketers, content creators, like yourself reported that video gives them a positive ROI. So they are seeing the returns from investing in putting in the work into video. And you have just, again, like social media is changing so much you have adapted and changed to every platform, and you have a very distinct style to you. And so another question I wanted to add to that is, because you said this is a practice, right, like you have practice. And so for business owners, is it number one? How what advice would you give to business owners that really do struggle to adapt and change like they want to get on video, or they currently have been getting video, they’ve seen results? And maybe it just kind of, you know, fizzled out and they’re wanting to get back into it. Like how would you what advice would you give for people just to continue to adapt and try new things in their business?

Alberto Mendoza
I get this question a lot from clients that want to work with me and they want to do, of course, everyone wants to cloud everybody wants to post contents three to four times a week, if not a lot more, and they want to see those numbers. I like to ground them and slap them with a case of truth like hey, it’s not going to happen overnight. If you want to do this for real, it’s going to take weeks, if not months, if not probably years until you see real organic reach, unless you want to put some funds into social ads. I’m all about that. But do not buy followers do not buy engagement because it’s only going to destroy your social media. And so I just Tell them the truth, like, hey, like, if you want to do this, it’s going to be a long journey, we need to get to know each other well, I need to get to know your style of content, I need to get to know what you like what you don’t like. So it makes things a lot more easier for both of us, I save you time, and just makes things a lot more efficient. And so for the most part, they also like their their game, but after a few weeks, it does get draining producing content, it does take a toll, it takes a lot of energy, and especially if you’re not monetizing it, or if you’re not seeing that ROI, I understand why individuals cannot invest in into video content. So it’s a it’s a very tricky situation, because people want to produce content, but at the same time, they want that fast ROI, which unless you go viral is very rare to go viral. That’s less likely going to happen. But I try to encourage it. I know that sounds really like a downer right now. But I try to encourage them like, Hey, we’re gonna see some real growth. If we stick to this point, I try to give them a game plan. And if they’re with it, perfect if they’re not, and I’m probably not their best guy. So I try to keep it as positive and as honest as possible. If they’re wanting to hit a million views really quick, I’ve let them know from the jump, like, Hey, I’m not your gonna be your guy. Like if you want to a kid that just to film you just to film me, then I could point you to the right direction. But if you want to really make this and grow this, I could definitely help you out.

Akua Konadu
I love that though, because I would love your take on this too, because I it is true content creation takes a lot of work. And you can get burned out very, very easily. But I think I always say this, that social media should fit into your life, not the other way around. And so do you believe that, you know, if you were able to create a plan that is sustainable for you, whether that’s once a week, twice a week, three times a week? Do you still see it feel like you could still see the same type of results?

Alberto Mendoza
Well, I can only speak for myself, for example, my podcast, I made myself a promise that hey, you know what, I took a year off of podcasting, I started a brand new one. And I said I want to create and post every single day on Instagram micro contents. And so it’s been, I just dropped episode 36 yesterday, and so it’s straight. And I haven’t missed a week. Like even if I go on vacation, because I take a lot of trips. I’m a huge believer of work life balance. Even if I’m a trip, I am going to film a podcast right there. And then I don’t care if I’m in a hotel or a or an Airbnb or whatever. So is it time consuming? Of course it is. It’s but I know this because I get again, I’ve been consuming this for a long time. And I know what it takes to create content. I’ve been in both ends from behind the camera, shooting people and being in front of the camera as well. As far as growth goes, I think if you have a certain strategy, like my strategy was to post every single day, and I know that’s not sustainable for everybody. I understand that because it does take a different kind of energy to make that happen. I got rewarded, one of my videos hit 2 million views out of nowhere. And ever since then my following has definitely gone up and that specific podcast page again, I know it’s not sustainable for everybody to do that. But if you really want to do this, definitely have some sort of plan. Like if you if you say you’re gonna post three times a week, do it three times a week. It’s kind of like HBO, if you’re watching your favorite show, let’s say Game of Thrones or something. And if they don’t drop on that Sunday, people are going to be pissed. So you you got to deliver to your audience.

Akua Konadu
1,000% And even though okay, yes, like you post once a day. Yes, it’s true. Not all of us can be able to sustain that. But I think, again, it’s really asking yourself, What does growth look like for you? What does success look like for you, our goals are so different, and really creating a plan that aligns that but what matters is you stick to it because I love the Game of Thrones reference, because people were in that show like I mean, riots, rioting, if anything was missed, right. So exactly, I love that like really being able to commit because your audience is going to be able to trust you when you are really being sticking to those expectations. So again, folks, if it’s one day per week, or three days or every single day, just make sure that it’s something that is really realistic, and that can fit into your life so that you’re able to sustain it and also enjoy the process because you can feel I can feel your passion in your content, which is what is so fun. And so you love creating content every day, but not everybody’s like that. And so I really love just like your aspects of and being realistic about it to like, I know, you said that you were being a downer. I didn’t view it that way. I think it’s just honesty. You know, this takes a lot of work. Being a business owner isn’t easy. And, you know, we are content creators, we are accountants, we you know, we play so many roles in our business and so I think just honoring ourselves with where we’re at and I just I love just like you being very realistic about what it takes to for your business and what it is that you do.

Alberto Mendoza
Yeah, and again, the way I approach this as well as like with social media, social media makes things look so damn easy. Have a you’ll see Instagram reels or take tours and say hey, you want to make six figures in three days. This is how you do it. Follow these six steps like Dude, that’s all BS. It’s not true. So, again, I know some people are just going to eat that up and just believe it I’m not mad had heard that but at the same time, like do like ask more questions like, this is not this can’t be real. So same with social media how to go viral in three, these three steps just follow these three steps or whatever, by my program or something like that. It’s like, dude, like, it’s all about consistency. It’s all about giving quality content. It’s all about giving your audience something, that they’re going to gravitate and take that with them. And I love that you said that it’s all about building trust, because it is about building trust, essentially, if you are, if you keep it real with your audience, they are going to build that sort of trust. And that’s, I don’t know, that’s just it’s so simple to me. But it’s it does. It’s a long it’s a long journey.

Akua Konadu
I really am interested to to hear about because, you know, you’re all about work life balance, and, and you saying that you’re pushing out videos a day, I’m really interested to hear more about what that workflow looks like for you. Because I think again, as business owners, number one, I think people are really burnt out right now with social media. I genuinely feel that I think people especially now where it’s so hard to grow organically, especially on the more popular platforms like Instagram, Tik Tok, I mean, I am not on Facebook, I don’t even know Facebook is still one of those, you know, prominent platforms anymore, but I think people are tired. I think there’s just so much overconsumption of content. And so what, especially for somebody who’s posting every single day, and work life balance is something that you truly value. I’m really curious to know about your workflow, and what that looks like, and how you’re able to sustain it.

Alberto Mendoza
Well, as far as like work life balance, I like to, to me, it’s, it’s quite simple. I know, I may think sounds so simple, but it really is, in my opinion, I just really post the content, and I put the phone down and I step away, that’s all I do, I don’t unnecessarily consume a ton of content. And if I feel like consuming content, I will. But for the most part, I’ve been catching myself putting my phone on Do Not Disturb when it once it hits 7pm. Sometimes I even turn off my phone and just enjoy a good TV show with my wife, you know, at night, something like that. And for example, like I like to take a lot of trips, because to me, the way I got into the filmmaking or videography space was to create travel content. I consume YouTube travel contents from the very beginning from 2014 2015 days. And it’s something I just naturally fell in love with. And booked myself a trip to Tahoe, which we’re taking off tomorrow for the weekend. And to me, that’s what fills the cup for me, that right there is just going to like rejuvenate me and make me once I’m done with that trip, I know I’m gonna go extra harder on my work, because right now I’m starting to feel like alright, I’ve been groaning for the last three to four months time for me to do to step away and just go on a trip and nothing about nothing and just filming create content for myself, which is like travel, self photography, landscape photography, drone photography and video as well.

Akua Konadu
Yes, I love that. I love that you have found what it is that brings you joy, and you are just diving into it wholeheartedly to be able to use that to rejuvenate you and your business. And so when you come back now, right? And like, what does that workflow look like with YouTube of like building out that content, especially as repurposing, right, right?

Alberto Mendoza
Well, for like my personal cell content that’s not including podcasts, or like my business pages as well. I just kind of, I just produce stuff based off feeling. I know, it’s not the sexiest thing to say. But if I’m feeling it, I’m going to open the laptop or start on my computer and just see what I can cook up. But if I’m not, then I won’t do it. Like I have archives of amazing footage from different parts of the world that I haven’t even touched yet. So I should really get into that. But like, I just kind of creates when I’m really feeling creating something for myself, I just let it happen natural, I don’t want to make it feel like it’s a job. Because I already do that with the podcast and with content for my clients and whatnot. So I try to keep that as freely as possible.

Akua Konadu
I like that though. I like that you give yourself the freedom and the space to change and flow like right innovate wherever that you feel necessary within your workflow to be able to produce the type of content that you would like to see. Because I feel like with content creation a lot, we have a tendency to put ourselves in a box, you know, where it’s really difficult to explore other avenues like we kind of overthink things. And we’re like well, I’m this this is what I focus on. So I’m going to talk about and I think sometimes we forget that like it is your business, you can talk about how everything’s you want to talk about you can show up any way that feels good to you, because that’s what’s going to lead you to see success. And so one thing I’ve loved is that just how social media has evolved, and how has your content strategy really changed from back then to now

Alberto Mendoza
I try to follow as many trends whatever I do my research, what’s the newest trend for Instagram was the newest trend for Tik Tok, or YouTube. So I tried to adapt. I feel like a lot of people don’t want to adapt. I know people were like hating on reels when they first rolled out because traditional filmmakers like myself, they’re like oh It shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be vertical. It’s got to be standard. It’s got to be 16 by nine, not not by 16. And so like, I thought it was a cool Avenue. I thought it was interesting. Sure. I don’t love it. But if I want to play the game, I’m going to play by those rules. And I’m going to see what happens. And I enjoy creating vertical contents. For example, like I enjoy creating, I literally posted a video with one of those templates that really, Instagram makes it so easy for you to create rules now. So they have all these templates. And so I created a BTS video with those templates, and it’s performing pretty decent right now. I just got to learn to adapt. It’s as simple as it gets. And I’ll keep saying simple so many times, but it’s as simple as it gets. just adapt.

Akua Konadu
Yeah, but I think I love that though, because I’m gonna be real so we can hop into this discussion. I’m anti trends. That’s me.

Alberto Mendoza
What kind of trends are we specifically talking about? I mean, there’s, there are certain trends where I find really cringe. But again, you got to stay true to yourself, like, yeah, I can be an NPC character, if like that trend is so cringe for me. I don’t like to do the whole pointing at things. So that was like a trend from like, last year that I’m not going to do, yeah, I can produce it for my clients. Sure, I could do that. Because they always want to ride that wave. You know, they want to see what’s trending. And then when they get on that the algorithms and for me, like I try to stay true to myself, if it’s something that I enjoy, if it’s not me, I’m not gonna force it.

Akua Konadu
But what I love about that is that you are taking trends and then you were making it work for you. Because we have a tendency, especially when Tik Tok came out was all the rage when Tik Tok came out, and then reels and that was the thing. We were like, well, I don’t want to dance. And I don’t want to do this. I’m like, Well, you don’t have to in order to still be successful. But like, the fact is that you are so educating yourself on the trends, keeping up trying to figure out what what’s working, you’re experimenting with it, and then taking what you’ve learned, and really innovated it, like made it into something that really, truly works for you. And I think that is like the roadmap to success, especially in terms of content creation, and that types of things. And really taking that time to do that. I love that. Because yeah, when we hear trends, it’s like people are like, well, I don’t want to get into it. Because it’s so exhausting. It’s like, yeah, because you’re doing something that does not work for you do something does not align for you, you take what you love what you saw, and really shape it and make it fit for yourself. So it feels good to you. And you are like a prime example of that. And one thing that I love about your content, like you have people go check out his content, cuz it’s really fun to watch, especially with your video content. It’s very distinct, very distinct, like you can tell your voice, everything that you use in your video is just it’s Alberto style. And so I wanted to ask you just how what techniques key like any strategies that you use to really figure out what worked for you and you’re like, alright, this is it. I’m gonna keep moving forward with this.

Alberto Mendoza
That’s an interesting question. I mean, I’ve gotten so much inspirations from traditional filmmakers like the Christopher Nolan’s or the are the James Cameron’s and also have gotten influences from YouTube filmmakers like the Peter McKinnon’s the Casey nice. That’s, I, as far as creating what I love to create, I just, I don’t know, it’s just, I create pretty much whatever I feel like it. I know it sounds, it’s not probably not the answer you guys want to hear. But for Instagram reels. For example, I like to still film and edits on a 16 by nine time that which is why, and then from there, I pretty much rotated into reels. And so right there, I make you flip your phone, which I know like people do not like that. But to me, it’s like I want to show you the nature of where I’m at, like, for example, for Tahoe that I’m going to go to, I’m going to film the most epic landscapes, and I don’t want to crop into a nine by 16, because it takes away from the beauty of the atmosphere that I’m at. So I’m going to make you flip your freakin phone, see, you could actually consume that specific piece of content. So I’m probably going against the grain with that. And maybe Instagram is not going to like that, and shove me down into the algorithms and not show it to my core audience. But to me, it’s like, it’s I don’t want to create content for the viewer, I want to create content for myself.

Akua Konadu
I like that perspective. And that’s what I love, I love that there’s, you just have so much freedom for yourself, which I love. Like you knew that was something that was against the rules. And I feel like too, that social media content creation has come up with so many rules that we feel like we have to again, put ourselves in a box where we feel very restricted, and it’s not fun, and you’re doing them it’s bringing you joy, and it’s paying off. Right. And I think again, it’s like doing what’s best for you, even if it’s considered against the grain, doing what’s best for you and experiment that’s that time where you really experiment trying to really figure out your style. And of course, you know, as you’re creating stuff and like if you see the the numbers, the analytics that are working out for you then lean more into that and what does that look like for you? I think it’s again, a really, it’s supposed to be a really fun time to really learn more about yourself and your audience. And you can do you don’t have to choose it’s not one or the other. You can do it both where you’re still serving your audience you’re speaking to your audience but also to you’re doing things that may not like may not fit the rules, right. And Mikey very opposite of what everybody else is doing. But that’s what makes us business owners you want to stand out and so I love all of that that you shared.

Alberto Mendoza
Correct Yeah. 100% of Gary, I think one of the reasons you mentioned, this is why people get burnt out on social media is because they’re chasing the algorithm, you’re chasing the trend. And if it goes against who they really are, it’s like, alright, I see why you’re getting burned out. Because you’re, you’re forced to do something that you really don’t want to do. You’re just doing it because you’re hoping to get the views or you’re hoping to get the likes or whatever. So if you stick to like, what you like to create, just go full throttle on that. And let’s see what happens. I mean, you never know, like, I can’t guarantee you success, you can’t guarantee anyone’s success, because the algorithm is a is a huge question mark. So I think it’s just, I think it’s just best, at least for me is to just to create for myself and kind of see what happens.

Akua Konadu
I love that. Yeah. And I feel like a lot of people do when they’re struggling on social media, especially right now. And if you’re burnt out, especially right now, we want this really easy recipe of like, this is how I’m going to be successful. Step 123. And it’s just not like that my account is so different from the person next to me. And so it’s again, really, truly experimentation and doing what works for you. And I agree with you wholeheartedly as like a storytelling strategist, like, just lean into what you already have and lean into what is already working for you and feels good to you. Because you matter to in the process. And the business is your business, you equally as mattered just as much as your client does. So do what also feels good to you. Because I feel like it’s a lot easier than to attract the people that you’re trying to, to attract. And so another question that I have, too, I’m really curious to know, especially again, everything is just evolving, social media has evolved. What do you think the future of businesses like, especially in terms of content creation, for business owners will look like? Because one thing that I thought was really interesting was that like 85%, of small businesses that are innovative, they saw more growth in their business compared to other business owners that really weren’t innovative, that didn’t adapt well to change. So what do you think the future looks like in terms of content creation? How can we again, just be more adaptive and innovative?

Alberto Mendoza
Well, that’s a pretty tricky question. Because I can’t tell the future. I don’t know what the trends are going to be in the next six weeks or whatnot. But I think if you see something that you like, and okay, I’ve never seen that before. Let me see if this works for my business, then all go for it. If you are ones that do not want to adapt to the game, then good luck. I mean, unless you want to put some dollars in social media marketing, or on the newspaper, if that even still exists, you need to like play the game too, in order to succeed successfully, and have a social presence for your business. So I think it’s be adaptable. That’s as simple as it gets just be adaptable to the game. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the near future. I’m constantly consuming knowledge and information from a variety of content creators. To me this, this kind of thing excites me like I don’t. That’s the beauty about this. Like, we’re in such a unique time. I always said this is like the gold rush of content creation. Because there’s so much going on, there’s no roadmap to How to Succeed into this, because we’re still trying to figure it out. As we speak.

Akua Konadu
Yeah, I love that. You said that. And I’m giving it myself. Like, I shouldn’t ask that he you just read like a free bird, you just go. You know, you’re just living your life and going with the flow, which I love that about yourself. Like, I love that about you. Because Can

Alberto Mendoza
you tell from California?

Akua Konadu
You know, you’re just gonna go with the flow, I don’t really know what things will look like, but you’re enjoying the ride. We don’t know what things are going to look like. And that’s okay. But like, I know, today, this is what’s going to do, this is what I’m going to do. And this is just going to work. And if it doesn’t work tomorrow, that’s all good. I will just shift and I’ll figure it out. And I’ll change and I think that mindset is just so powerful, which speaks to why you have a successful business already. So I absolutely love that. So So one final question I would love to ask you is what do you think is the biggest differentiator between the businesses that succeed and the ones that fail? I think,

Alberto Mendoza
and we already touched on this, but I think is getting on social media and promoting your business. Let everyone know who are you? What is it that you do? And why should people walk with you? When I see businesses that don’t have a social media and if they do, they have not the greatest content? I think that’s a different stick to for example, a great example right here. We were looking for hotels or Airbnb s on for our taco trucks coming up tomorrow. We saw so much maybe because I’m a visual creative. I saw there’s so many bad photos and videos either through Airbnb or through like Expedia. And so like we went on Instagram literally went on Instagram, and we found some trendy hips response, but like they have great content and made me feel like I was already there in that specific hotel, or house or whatever, we’re going to rent. And we booked the spot because of their Instagram page because they had great aesthetics because they had a great vibe and the great overall presence social media presence and so like that right there got a super hyped about the place that we selected, because we were not finding anything pretty good or sexy on Expedia, or hotels.com or Airbnb. So that right there, they just they got our business because of their social media. And all it took for them was they had they definitely had high quality photos so they probably invested in a photographer to get those images and repurpose those images. because those are pretty much evergreen images and gutters are 600 700 bucks for our stay.

Akua Konadu
Yeah, but I think that’s just so important, right and of creating valuable content. And I think obviously, because you’re a filmmaker, you’re a photographer. So like naturally, right? You lean more towards beautiful photos, high quality videos, and totally Absolutely, but it’s also true of like, just adding to that of you just work with what you have, as long as the content is valuable, right, like, so don’t be intimidated or anything like that, like work with what you have, you have permission to be free. And however you want to show up in your business, and you’re going to be able to attract the right people, but it doesn’t mitigate the fact of what you said of like, it’s so important to have that presence so people can like know, and trust you. And I absolutely love that. So, Alberto, I have loved this conversation. It has been so fun chatting with you and just hearing more about your story and where can people find you if they want to connect with you more?

Alberto Mendoza
If you guys want to connect with me, feel free to reach out on Instagram at a underscore Mendoza underscore and if you are a filmmaker or a photographer or freelancer, I also have my own podcast at modern creative podcast where we discuss filmmaking tips, photography, tips, Freelancer tips. And guys, I love what do you guys are doing with the whole business structured podcast? Like I’ve learned so much through your guys’s podcast? It’s like insane like it’s it’s not even fair. You guys should be charging for this.

Akua Konadu
Oh, man. Okay, well, you were amazing. Alberto. I have like, honestly, y’all, please check out his content, check out his videos like I mean, it’s phenomenal. It’s been really fun just to get to know you more. And I am we here at how do you like I said, we are rooting for you honestly. So thank you so much for coming on the show.

Alberto Mendoza
It’s Josue HoneyBook. To like HoneyBook has definitely that’s helped a lot with my business as well, as far as like client relations, obviously. But like I’ve legit landed, I remember landing at a $10,000 gig just because I sent a proposal from honey book. And they were so loud. They’re like, I love the aesthetic. This goes back to like the online presence thing. It’s like I love that you actually took the time to give us a nice beautiful looking proposal, those little details matter. And so for me, like if I want to get to a level that I want to get to, I need to up my game and get fine tune those details. So little shout to HoneyBook. For that,

Akua Konadu
well, we do what we can. Oh my gosh, I love that. I love that so much. And I think again, it just goes to the importance of like, really just creating an amazing client experience again, like doing what works, adapting and changing and learning new things that you can really build the business a sustainable business that you love. And so I just It’s been fun. This conversation has been awesome. And thank you. Thank you so much.

Alberto Mendoza
Thank you. Cool. It’s been a pleasure. It’s been an honor being you guys’s podcast, and I can’t wait to hear more.

Akua Konadu
Absolutely. Well, everybody. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time. That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything we’ve discussed today can be found at [email protected]. Head to our website to access for shownotes relevant links and all the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests some love on social and thank you again for listening.

Akua Konadu
Did you know that 60% of independent business owners are already using AI in their business? AI has been the most talked about topic this year, and it is not going anywhere. So today on the podcast, we are joined by Scott whiting give away to as a photographer, podcast host and Community Manager at Imagine AI. And we are just going to continue our understanding, and further the conversation about how AI can truly impact our business. So let’s get into the episode. Hey, everyone, this is your host, Akua konadu. And you’re listening to the independent business podcast, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I get to sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve it too. Hey, Scott, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. I’m just so looking forward to just continuing our discussion around AI.

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me on it. Cool. I mean, it’s, uh, you know, first of all, lots changing over there, which is, which is really fun and exciting. And it’s nice to see you as sort of, taken over the reins, so to speak of, of the show. It’s, it’s pretty cool.

Akua Konadu
Oh, my gosh, thank you so much. It has been such a joy. So yeah, I am. I’m excited. So this has been this has been a fun journey so far. So let’s just hop on in because they’re, you know, AI is still the bus topic, like of conversation for the year. I mean, it is everywhere you look, it is just the center of attention right now. And so I’m really curious to know, do you think that there is still a fear among business owners like with AI? Because I’ve seen a lot of things across the spectrum. So I would love to know your perspective on that.

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
I definitely think there’s a lot of mixed thoughts on from business owners. And I think it’s, it’s kind of obvious from what’s going on in Hollywood right now. Right. So obviously, that’s big picture. huge corporations, right. But there’s the fear. But there’s also the adoption, right? It’s happening on both sides. I think that people are recognizing, especially smaller businesses are recognizing that AI can truly help and enhance their businesses in many ways. But I also think at the same time, they don’t fully understand the extent of how it can help and at the same time to add on top of that, I don’t think that they truly know how to utilize the tools properly, to make the best of it. So I think it’s, there’s definitely a mixed bag of answers to that question.

Akua Konadu
I agree, though, but I there’s so many things that you just said too, because we did a survey, as well here at HoneyBook trying to get a better understanding of how business owners feel about AI and technology. And 60% of independent business owners are already using AI in their business, which is great, but only 22% are fully knowledgeable about AI and its full capabilities. And so I think it just speaks perfectly to what you just said, I think a lot of us again, it’s the wide range you have these really big things that are happening but then also to like in our everyday lives as business owners, you can really see like we’re naturally already using it no problem but I think our understanding of it is still not there. I mean I’m definitely one of those people I’m using AI I think it’s because I hear anybody else is using it so I’m like well I don’t want to be left behind so I’m gonna hop on this trend I’m guilty that’s

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
a good example of this by the way is for years I would say I don’t remember when Grammarly started but let’s say five six years right Grammarly has been around for quite some time. There’s a lot of business owners that are using a Grammarly or a word tune or any of the that type of software in their business on a day in day out basis that do not realize that’s AI. They’ve been using it for five years or however long it’s been. I have no idea that that’s AI in the back end.

Akua Konadu
You just call me out I ride or die grammerly When AI first came out, I was like I’m not using this and I had a friend sent me like are you using Grammarly? I was like, of course, they were like, That’s AI and it for me that started to change my perspective. Because to your point of like we see in the media and stuff of like all of these really big things happening with AI, like robots or you know, things in health care, you know, business owners, right? You can write scripts, it can, you know, write websites, all of these different things, but also to AI is also extremely subtle, which is what is also changing my misconception, like at HoneyBook. We have a couple of AI features. We have our AI email composer that makes things a lot quicker to send more personalized emails and and I love that feature. And so I think that also leads to a lot of the misconceptions that we may have because we see these bigger things in other areas. But if there’s AI it’s also very subtle where it can truly impact our business in such a positive way.

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
Yeah, yeah, I think there’s two there’s two types. I think you just said that. Well, there’s two types of of, of of AI tools out there, there’s the AI tools that you have to seek out to use, for example, what imagined does, right, you have to specifically come to us to use it. And then there’s tools like what have HoneyBook has done, whereas you’ve embedded it so perfectly into your product, that it doesn’t feel like a chore, right? It doesn’t feel like it’s an added thing that you have to work towards, or figure out, it just naturally fits into the workflow that honey book is created. And there’s so many tools out there on both sides of the equation, that business owners can decide what works for them, what doesn’t work for them.

Akua Konadu
And I think, how do how do business owners have that discernment? Because there are a lot of products out there with AI. And, again, sometimes we can get caught up with like, Well, I’m gonna use this because it benefits this person, but it may not benefit myself. And so how do we how do we navigate with everything that’s out there all the information with AI? How do we really navigate to figure out what tools will really benefit our business?

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
That’s a great question, I think it’s a matter of seeing areas where you might need help, right? So for example, AI writing tool that’s built into HoneyBook, right, the creating, creating the emails that you’re already putting into the workflow, if you know that you are you are horrible at writing emails, then you know, you’ve got a gap to fill, whether it’s a human for to actually do the writing for you, or it’s a mixture of you editing, and improving what AI is created. Right? So you need to figure out what where your gap is of where you’re not performing the best, or the gap of where you might want to outsource to, right. So that’s where like imagined might fit in. So if you’re a photographer, for example, we know there’s a lot of HoneyBook customers that are also photographers, right. So if in that situation, if you know that I, I know that my most time consuming part is the editing and calling process of my photos, find the find the company to help with, you know, outsource, again, whether it’s human or AI, either way that can help, right? So find your gaps, and then do your research to see what software what tools are out there to fill in those gaps. And is it something that I can just pay extra to the service I’m already using? And have it beautifully integrated? And embedded? Or do I need to find something external? You can find your answer there that way.

Akua Konadu
I like that. Yeah, I think that’s a really good reminder is to look at the gaps of areas that may not be your strong suit, and find different ways to really fulfill those areas. I think that’s such so beneficial, and really will help business owners decide, like decipher of what’s going to work well for their business and what isn’t. I really liked that as well. And so another question I have is like, what do you think the future trajectory of AI is in the creative industry? Because imagine AI what you guys do is already phenomenal. I mean, as I’m not a photographer, but when I saw what you guys are being able to edit easily just edit people’s photos, no problem and save photographers. So like a large amount of time. What do you think then as AI continues to advance, like, what does that look like in the creative industry?

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
Oh, man, I think we’re already seeing a big shift with what Photoshop has done as well. Right. So Photoshop, Adobe has been getting into a lot of AI but it’s not personalized AI like what imagined does, okay, it’s more, you know, the generative fill, looking at a photo figuring out what what is missing and, and filling in the gap or, or expand the photo and do it or add in a boat when there’s no boat, it’s more generative AI versus personalized AI. So I think we’re gonna see a lot more of both ends, like imagines already moving towards even more personalized features, we’re ready adding in other additional features, like we announced. I know that I’m gonna be dating myself, but we announced this yesterday at our at our virtual event about what we’re calling smooth skin. So we’re adding features that a lot of that a lot of photographers want. But when it comes to creative overall, we’re seeing Canva doing some cool stuff using AI where you know, similar things to what Photoshop is doing. But in Canvas editor, so I think we’re gonna see more of that, I think we will see areas where AI will start to be able to communicate with each other. So for example, what Google is already doing with Bard. Are you familiar with Google bar at this point? Not

Akua Konadu
now. Okay,

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
so you know what chat GPT is? Yes. Okay, so Google has created a competitor to chat GPT. It’s called Google bark ba rd, and they announced it ready, ready had things that chatty Petey could not do? That chatty putty is now catching up. They both have their pros and cons. They both have their their strengths and weaknesses. But what Google has been able to do in a very short period of time is they took advantage of their ecosystem they already have and as of the think this week that we’re recording this. There’s now the capability of cross communication and features between Bard and Google Docs and Google Sheets and Google Slides and so on. So it’s all being able to I can go to Google Bard and say, create me this blah, blah, blah, okay, now making a Google slide and my slide deck is done in seconds. So that’s where we’re going with things where you’ll be able to quickly and efficiently build a mind map and then turn that into a bunch of documents, or whatever, or take the spreadsheet. And, you know, I know over there and honey book, you guys are big data nerds. So being able to say, analyze this Google Sheet and tell me all the data points in whatever it might be, right, so and give me the charts inside of another tab inside of the Google Sheet. Right? So like, all these things, you’re gonna be with a do with AI, in soon, really, really soon, all this is gonna be possible. My mind

Akua Konadu
is blown already with, I didn’t even know that about Google. But right, it’s, again, just to the point of how everything is constantly changing. And low key, I’m gonna be typing in Google bar. Because if I can do all of that, I mean, like, you know, make me slides, Google Docs, like, analyze all this data, and save me all that time, by chat GBC. That will be

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
they, they both have their strengths and weaknesses. I would, I would say that. So Google Bard has internet access, right? It can, you can type in a URL and to analyze this URL, and then do whatever with it. chatty, butene needs third party plugins in order to make that work. So their strengths or weaknesses, you got to know when to use which and it’s just a matter of playing around.

Akua Konadu
Absolutely. But I like that though playing around, I think I want to just highlight that for a second. Because when we see all these things, we see all these changes to fear takes us but it’s like, let’s come from a place of curiosity, let’s come from a place here, nothing is permanent. So if you are a business owner, that is really still overwhelmed by AI, and you are possibly using a certain aspects of AI, but you’re like, Okay, I want to take this further. But you’re feeling overwhelmed, or you’re feeling like feeling fearful, this is a great time to really just explore and enjoy the process of like, what figuring out what truly works for you, and what doesn’t it like come from a place of play. And so I really, really liked that that piece as well. But like you said, I just learned about this with Google Bard. And I’m sure some, like, if you’re listening, you probably just didn’t do so then it’s like, Okay, here’s another new thing that I don’t know anything about. And I gotta, you know, it’s like keeping up with the Joneses. Right? How can we adapt, I guess, to in a healthy way, because I know, there’s been conversations that like I’ve seen, too, where like, AI is just developing way too quickly than we can keep up with. And so it’s like, how do we as business owners kind of adapt and evolve in a healthy way?

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
Yeah, I think you need to set aside a time to not look at it from a business. i This may not be the answer that people want to hear. But I think you need to look to set aside a time 30 minutes, let’s say a week, just to look at it from a non business standpoint, and just communicate with these chats with these chat tools, and see what it’s capable of, I think that will, you know, throwing at it and saying, Hey, write me. My, my child’s name is, is John. He’s nine years old, and he loves dinosaurs write me a book for him, like, see what it can do? And then respond, you know, see what its output is and then respond to it and say, well, he doesn’t like Toronto source Rex. I mean, I don’t know what kid doesn’t look boy doesn’t but you know, he would prefer a pterodactyl. Write the book about pterodactyl. Instead, see how it responds. I don’t like how serious it is, can you make it more playful? It’ll rewrite it again, like just play, do it, where it’s not your business where it’s just for fun. And I feel like when you take the business out of it, you’ll have a, you’ll be able to put your mind in a mindset where your creativity will will arise more, right? And at this point, you’re really gonna understand it even better than if you were focused on 100%. How can I use this for my business? Once you’re understanding creative wise, what it can do? You can then think creative wise to use it in your business.

Akua Konadu
Yeah, I love that that definitely makes the process much more enjoyable. I’m like, oh, yeah, like that is a good idea. Like write me something that I’m really passionate about. It does not have to be business related. But it’s a way number one just to fully understand the capabilities of the platform because again, like we are, we don’t fully know what we’re using. And I think knowledge is power. And it’s so important for us to really be able to just understand Understand the products that we’re using and helping that grow our business. And so I would kind of have to bring it back to a little bit earlier where you said like to a lot of people are just like we’re under utilizing it like we’re not fully we’re like a lot of us are scratching the surface, not fully understanding. So what are some other tips as well for those who are already using AI but are under utilizing it like how can we continue to advance our knowledge on it?

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
Hmm, Yeah, I would say, so I am, I am a very much a, I like the technical stuff. I like learning about all the technical stuff. And I’m the person that everybody comes to when they have like a question. You know, I’m like that on official tech support. And so I try to find the tools that I know will truly impact my life beyond just business. So I am just to give you a little backstory, I am dyslexic. And I have been writing for a living, right. And I’ve been in marketing for a living, and I am also colorblind, but I’m a photographer. So I am always trying to find the tools to work past and work through the struggles that I’ve been living with my entire life. And so when it comes to AI, I try to find things that I know will will will have a huge impact. And one thing that people don’t realize is that chat GPT while you can go to chat GPT itself, there are additional software that like what HoneyBook has done like integrating AI into it, that have companies that have built software on top of chat GPT or something else that are very specific. So I host and produce an edit a podcast for imagine called workflows. It is for photographers all about every aspect of their photography workflows. And I because I am basically the sole content creator on our team for the podcast, I do have some some help for social and stuff like that. But I need to come up with the show notes and stuff like that, that then our copyrighted will, we’ll work through and stuff like that, but I need a starting point. And so what I do is I found a tool specifically for helping to create content text based content based on podcast episodes. So there’s multiple out there, I found the one that I love. And doing that has helped to fully enhance that part of the business because it’s yes, it’s just me using chat GPT, but I’m using it through a tool designed specifically for this task. So what’s cool is I create what they call favorite prompts. And I have a list of probably 30 or 40 prompts. And all I have to do is drop in a new episode, and I’ve got all the outputs of every for the entire episode, in all these different answers to these prompts. Now I do it once. And if I add a new prompt, it it doesn’t retro actively goes back to all the previous episodes and adds that answer to every previous episode. So I always have potentially new content to work with, to, to come up with new ideas and and to play around with so I don’t know if that answered the question. But

Akua Konadu
that’s it, I just love that I think it really speaks to a number one understanding just how powerful again that AI truly is, and how it can really impact your business. And it also speaks the fact that AI means it can really impact people so differently. I mean with you speaking with like being dyslexic, and then also to colorblind, but like how impactful AI has been for you in some life altering ways, so that you can be able to still serve the people that you love to serve and still build your business. And I think that that to me, that’s powerful because there’s somebody out there business owners wherever where you feel like you have something that’s holding you back and AI can easily solve that problem for you. And then some

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
with the color blind thing. It was really interesting because before imagined existed, okay, I’ve been a photographer for nearly 20 years. Actually, this is 2024 will probably be my 20th year of being a professional photographer. And when I was in college, still darkroom time, this is right when the transition to digital was happening. And out of the dark room, I had to have my professor and he knew I was colorblind. So he gave me the help that I needed and he like said okay, your blues are need to be shifted or whatever. Same thing happened once we started learning Photoshop, same thing, start you know, professor would help that. Once I was on my own out of college, I had to rely on three things to do to ensure accurate color, I had to rely on what’s called a Color Checker Passport, it’s like this color chart that I would my subject would hold I photograph it and then back in in Lightroom or in Photoshop or wherever I could actually match up the colors and it gets the skin tones really accurate. The other would be calibrated my monitors is something that photographers and videographers are doing daily weekly or monthly. I used to do it monthly and then the third of course would be my wife who was like really good at color. She’s got this like crazy ability to see like what color coat you’re wearing today and then two months later, so remember the exact color and show you how to match it in a paint swatch. It’s really insane that you can do that. So I had three tools right one was my wife to ensure accurate color for my client But then AI came out, and I don’t need any of it. Now, AI is ensuring accurate color 100% of the time, I don’t have to worry about it. That’s three steps gone down to one

Akua Konadu
down of one. I know, I always think in my mind, I’m like, what’s going to help me sleep better at night. And currently AI is doing that for me. But I think that’s just so powerful. I think that is amazing. And I love that example. Because again, it just really highlights, again, when you do the research set that time aside to really just play and enjoy the process. You AI can really be very life changing for you and your business and more ways than you can ever imagine. I think again, it just speaks of like, we truly still don’t know enough it just beyond what we know right now, about AI. Yeah,

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
you just said that AI helps you sleep at night. You know, for some people, and this is where a lot of small business owners could could really think about is it could literally help you sleep better. And I buy an Apple watch or an aura ring, or whatever the device might be. It’s using machine learning, right? So it’s aI that’s built into the devices, or the software that is analyzing how many steps you took and how active you were, and what time do you need to wake up the next day. And I’ll tell you exactly when to go to sleep. So you have a good night’s sleep, you know, so AI can quite literally help you sleep better at night, which of course, as a business owner, would be nice to be nice to do. Right. So yeah, that’s, you know, thinking more like, outside of the software rail realm, just hardware in general could make a big, big impact on your life.

Akua Konadu
1,000%. And I think again, it just speaks to the fact that we have been using AI for so long, and we have just never realized it how much it’s so woven into our everyday life. And now that there are it’s just more out in the open. And there’s more capabilities on like about what it can do that so many of us have been caught off guard. But really, if you think about it with AI, how it’s just everywhere, we have been conditioned, we were prepped, kind of in a sense for, for all of these amazing new tools out there for us to be able to utilize, we didn’t realize it because change is hard. And adapting is hard and evolving is hard, especially when you’re so accustomed to doing things a certain way. And unknown can be scary, but I think AI can be can be extremely, extremely powerful. Yeah, definitely. Final question I want to ask, I wanted to keep this tradition going as the independent business podcast. And so what do you believe the biggest differentiator between the businesses that succeed and the ones that fail?

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
I think from personal experience, it’s experimenting, testing, trying whatever word you want to use, okay? They all mean the same thing at the at the end of the day. But I think it’s trying something new. I can’t tell you how many over the past 20 years, how many ideas I had for a business that some did well, for some period of time, some flopped immediately. But if you don’t try, you don’t know what’s going to work. I mean, a good example of this is my brother, my older brother has a business here in New Jersey, that is literally called New Jersey craft beer. And it is a beer membership where you’re not getting beer, it’s illegal to just get beer from a membership. But it is New Jersey’s got very strict alcohol laws. And but the membership is if you have this card, which costs $25 a year, you get a discount at breweries, you get a discount at certain restaurants, you get a discount at certain liquor stores on certain items. And it’s a really nice thing. And it’s been very successful. Over the past. I don’t know how 10 years, or plus he has been in business. I was like, You know what, I love small businesses. I love cameras. I used to work for six years at a local camera store that still exists. Family owned one of the oldest in the country. And I was like, I could do this membership around the entire country. And just do it as a photography camera membership club. And if you’re if you’re a member, you get discount whatever it might be for each of those commerce stores. I got like 30 different stores that were like, hell yeah, let’s do it. And they gave me a discount for it. I built the software in the back end had it all working, had some customers come on. And then it just stopped and I was like, is the interest really not there? Are people really gonna keep going to big box stores? Because they could just get even cheaper than they can with the discount offered through the membership because these family owned camera stores they have no choice but to charge more in general, their markups aren’t there? And so it didn’t work. But the idea was amazing. And I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t try right so I had to try so I think whether it’s starting something new or just trying something in your business, that’s the answer, try experiment. See what works, see what doesn’t. That’s it.

Akua Konadu
I love that. And I think it’s such a really important foundational thing as business owners to continuously keep at the forefront because our businesses evolve, things change consistently, what worked for you one day, certainly will not work for you tomorrow. And in order to build a sustainable business, you have to really step out of what makes you comfortable and try new and different things. Because you are correct. That is an absolutely brilliant idea. But I love that I do. But you know what it led to your next step in your story, which I love that so much. And it’s such a great reminder. And Scott, I have loved this, I think this conversation is just so important. And like I said, AI is not going anywhere. We’re gonna be consistently talking about this because it is consistently changing. And like, again, love the work that you guys are doing at imagined AI to really keep the conversation at the forefront. So if people would like to continue to connect with you, where can we find you?

Scott Wyden-Kivowitz
There’s two places one would be my website, which is Scott widened.com. And at Imagine you just go to imagine hyphen ai.com. Even if you leave out the hyphen, you’ll still go to the right place. And you’ll be able to find me on my site and imagine overall there and you can find our podcast as well, which is, you know, you’re listening to a podcast watching a podcast, check up check out ours.

Akua Konadu
Oh my gosh, I loved it. Thank you so much, Scott. Thank you for this conversation. And until next time, everybody. That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything we’ve discussed today can be found at honeybook.com. Head to our website to access for shownotes relevant links and all the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests some love on social and thank you again for listening.

Natalie Franke
We have a little bit of announcement meets special episode. Yeah, storytelling,

Akua Konadu
I mean, just all the things, I think that it’s we have been on a very incredible, amazing journey. And now things look very different. So I think it’s so important for us to talk about that and just share where we’re at.

Natalie Franke
Yeah, I always love we were chatting, we’re like, how do we start this episode? And it was like, I’m just gonna look at you and say, so how did we get here? Hey, everyone, this is your host, Natalie Frank, and you’re listening to the independent business podcast, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve victory.

Akua Konadu
You know, this is this episode is really the other fields. I just have so many emotions. But I think we just need to start off by just talking about how we got here. Yeah, yeah.

Natalie Franke
By now, if you haven’t heard the announcement, we’ll give you a little context. After eight years and HoneyBook, I am transitioning into a new role as head of community at float s a big part of that is that I’ve been the host of the podcast now for the past seven, eight months for season one. Yeah. And it’s been so much fun. Yes. And we’ve gotten to work on that together, which has been a blast. But with this transition, the time has come to pass the baton and to bring on a new host for season two. Yeah, I wonder who it is.

Akua Konadu
I don’t know, girl. I don’t know who it could be. I know she’s pretty dough.

Natalie Franke
She is. She’s pretty incredible. We’re so excited to have you jumping in and joining us today for this conversation. Because like I said, I’m transitioning out if you saw that on social already, if you haven’t, go check out honey book Social, we are celebrating our brand new house today we are celebrating the one and only Akua konadu going to be taking this podcast to new heights and leading us into season two.

Akua Konadu
Yeah, it’s I’m number one just so grateful and so excited. But it’s just wild the journey. I don’t know if anybody knows this. But I have been working on the podcast from the very beginning behind the scenes, working with topics, questions, all of that stuff, doing a lot of the episode prep. So it has been such a blast working with you. And on the podcast team. Honestly, it has been just a gift honestly working besides beside you. So let’s just talk about how we even got here because I’m shocked that the story still.

Natalie Franke
How far back we want to go. On a warm summer day in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We started our friendship. Yeah, that was the first time we met the rising tide retreat.

Akua Konadu
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, those words we met. But I think you know, I was going back to the beginning. I didn’t think that far back.

Natalie Franke
All the way back to the very origin story.

Akua Konadu
Oh, yeah. Well, it’s honestly just even backtracking a little bit. Since we are backtracking. It has truly been. This is another full circle moment for me. Because back in 2017, I didn’t have a business I had met a friend who. And I met her through Google, I just Googled a couple topics. And I met with her because we ended I ended up finding out that we grew up in the same town. So we were in the same area. And she told me about this group of community, like a group of people that get together to talk about business. And she told me, she come to the next one. And I said, You know what, I’m gonna go. And at that time, I had no business. I had no clue what I wanted to do. I had just graduated college, and I was lost. And I just remember that day showing up at Lake Harriet, and it is busy there because it’s summers in Minneapolis. So everybody’s out before the winter hits. And I don’t know what it was. But I just saw throughout the whole midst of a whole bunch of people, just a group of people sitting there and I walked right up to them. And I said, Hi, is this a group that like, meets once a month to talk about, like, I don’t know, business stuff. And they were like, Yeah, and it was a really, really incredible event. And I just kept going, and I didn’t have a business once a month. I just kept showing up every time. And it was wonderful, because everybody in that community helped me build my business. And that was when I learned it was rising tide. That’s when I learned about you it was everyone’s like V Natalie Frank, right. Like everybody was like, Oh my gosh, who is she? And like, everybody just spoke so highly of you. And I was like, I don’t know who she is. But she sounds great. Showing up.

Natalie Franke
No, no. For folks who don’t know, I am one of the cofounders of the rising tide society. Yes. So I had been just one of many people that you know, was really integral in the beginning. Yeah, throughout the growth of

Akua Konadu
the gross and I’m honey book too. And that was the thing. Nobody was talking about HoneyBook and rising tide. And so it was through that community, people were like, Akua, I want to help you get your business together, what do you need help with your website. Let’s get your headshots together, I’ll help you with copy so many wonderful people that helped me build my business. And I couldn’t have done that without honey book. And I couldn’t have done that without you. And I hadn’t even met you yet, which is wild. And so I eventually become an RTS leader, eventually. And that was fun. And then finally, they picked Minneapolis to have our leaders retreat. And there were conversations about it. You know, there were little bit emails, but I wasn’t really involved in it. I just was like, cool. It’s cool. Whatever, just let me know. I’ll just show up. My other leaders kind of took the charge and communicating and I don’t you meet so many people’s I don’t think you remember are like very first interaction. I remember you telling me that you like I knew you. I didn’t know that you knew me. I know you do remember that interaction?

Natalie Franke
I do. Because I so I do meet a lot of people. Yeah. But especially when it comes to rising tide. I’ve always really tried to make an effort to know who the leaders are. Okay. And I’m human. So of course, I can’t be everywhere all the time. But yeah, of course, I knew you. Yeah. It’s really excited to meet you.

Akua Konadu
I remember leaving. She remembered. Like, she was like, That’s so nice. You know, just feeling so seen. Because I really had the anticipation. I went up to you. I was like, Hey, I’m a cool, you probably don’t know me. And you will tell me you’re like, of course, I know. You and I was okay. It’s so nice to meet you. Well, it

Natalie Franke
was an awkward bear. lasted way too long.

Akua Konadu
It was it was it was such it was so warm, and just so kind and again, like, just to be able to feel so seen in that moment. It was really, really awesome that that was our very first interaction. And then I think again, at the imperfect boss camp was our next interaction, which was a lot of fun. That was

Natalie Franke
an experience. We were in the wilderness of Canada. Yeah. Tober, which I didn’t know was frigid. I didn’t come into this knowing it was going to be sub zero at night. I remember that I knew heaters. Yeah, we’re in bunks. Yes. That was a that was trauma, bonding additives. It wasn’t it was the best. It was

Akua Konadu
the best experience cold and all. But the food was great. The conversations were great. The event was phenomenal and unforgettable. And I think that was my next interaction with you. But and then it’s again, like, you know, you just start to I just got more involved as my business and I was growing my business and then starting speaking engagements back in after the pandemic was when I really started speaking on stages. And in 2021, and I got an email from Kate masters, who was the head of community at the time for rising tide and was like, Would you like to come work for the rising tide community and honey book? And I was like, Well, yeah, because, well, number one, it was just my way of paying it forward. I felt like it was a way for me, because I just was like, I get to help and be able to support other small businesses who have done the same for me, with nothing in return. Like that was what I love so much about the community is that nobody expected anything from me it was how can I help? I don’t care. I just want to see you succeed. So

Natalie Franke
So ACOA, if it takes characters just

Akua Konadu
Yeah, so I was like, Oh, I would love to like it just the work is just so impactful. So I was like, I want to absolutely help with that. And I want to be there. And that was the first time that we’ve really started to kind of work with you a little bit more behind the scenes, which was really, really great. And it was Kate too, and just the RTS team and the HoneyBook team. And I number one, you know, I’ve always worked with corporations. That’s like a freelancer, a type of contractor, like I’ve done that several times. And so I’m not saying it to be like, Oh, because I’m on the podcast, honey book is truly one of the best places to work for. Even as a contractor, I have had a phenomenal experience. And so more as my role just kind of just grew and changed. And that was when you had this on your heart about launching the podcast. And we were in Israel, because HoneyBook let me take along for that trip, which was amazing. So that to me was also another full circle moment. But you were telling me about the podcast. And I remember on the bus, we were talking about it. I was like well, do you need help? Because I’d love to help you. Say less.

Natalie Franke
Yes, yeah, you’re officially I know you didn’t sign up for this. But now you’re stuck with me was What’s so funny, though, is when you were talking about our fish interaction in person and the rising tide meet up and you’re like I felt so seen. I felt that way about you. Oh, really? Okay, me. What? Yes. So in our work together on the podcast, some of you know, maybe a lot of you don’t when it says I’ve been involved since the beginning. She’s humbly saying that she truly built the bones of this podcast, like your DNA is throughout everything from how we ask questions to how we structure the conversations to who we have on the show to I mean, you name it, a coup has been so instrumental behind the scenes. So when I will say having you step into the role of host to me, is so exciting. And how and I said this to you. We were having dinner last night or like a late lunch, early dinner, and I was like, I almost feel like this is where it was always supposed to be. Yeah. And you’re like what? And I was like no, but really I do because it’s a moment where you built the stage and now you get to stand on what you’ve built. You get to take the mic and you get to level this podcast up even higher. hire and encourage it to practice work, like it is created content in the feed. That feedback that we’ve gotten from the community has just been amazing. And you have such a heart for the community, having come from the business world, having started with no business, built a successful business, and then leveled up in the thought leadership spaces, and now having the opportunity to drive this podcast into the future and continue to serve in this way. I am so excited. And as we were creating the podcast, you always made me feel seen because as we were thinking through, you know, what questions do we want to ask? And what conversations do we want to have, you have a way of challenging me to be the best version of myself. And then when you see me stepping into that throughout every hard decision, every you know, joyful conversation on the back is every afterwards I’m feeling like some episodes, some interviews are so easy. Others I beat myself up after I’m like, I shouldn’t have done this. A coup is the one though that will celebrate everyone in her life when they’re stepping into who they’re supposed to be. And you’ve been that for me, you’ve been that for me on the show, you’ve been that for me as a friend. Now over the years that we’ve become closer off, you know, the podcast, and even in making this really hard decision to jump into a new role. Yeah, you cried with me. And then once we recovered from our crying, you’re like, I’m in and I’m ready. And not only that, you were like, I’m happy for you now, like you’re ready to cheer you on. Don’t you dare,

Akua Konadu
don’t you prepared you guys, you guys already know, I already have my little, we’re gonna cry, my low Kleenex to dab the corner of the eye.

Natalie Franke
And it’s just really rare, I think to find someone who can be that dynamically supportive of you as a human being. And I really thank you for that. Because, you know, I’ve been with anybody for eight years, this company is extraordinary. And I love it with every fiber of my being. Yeah. And leaving is one of the hardest things that I’ve ever done. Yeah, because I love it so much. Now not really leaving, I’m still going to be popping up all the time and cheering on being a HoneyBook educator. And so it’s just the full time work that’s changing. Yeah. But knowing that, and I believe this, like knowing that you’re stepping into this role, and you’re born to do this, and you’re gonna do such an exceptional job, gets me fired up to listen every single week. Oh, man, I can’t wait.

Akua Konadu
I’m already tearing up. But I think I just got back to when you when you told me when you called me on the phone. And you had said that you were leaving. And I just remember there was like a silence. Because in my mind, I was like, what, like we have season one has been incredible, like the magic that we have put in and what we’ve built and we had a strategy and a plan for season two. And so I was shocked. Because I was like, Miss ma’am, that is not what we had discussed. It’s not what we’re supposed to be doing. And you know, and of course, then I just got really emotional, because you know, there’s so many factors with it. Like, I just have loved working with you and Ruth and you know, Haley and Tyler, like our podcast team, which is it’s been a blast. And so now things look different, and you don’t know what that’s gonna look like. But then you said to me, you were like, you know, Akua I think I’m going to suggest that you take over. And I remember instinctively, I instantly was like, No, set it right away. And you were talking about you and your own journey. And this was what made it click for me and I still had to go back and process it. But you said to me was like Akua like I have to be gutsy. And I just kept thinking after that conversation with myself, I’m not gonna try to cry. I’m not. I said, she’s being gutsy. Like I gotta be gutsy to I owe it to myself to give this a shot. I owe it to myself to see what this can become. And so I said alright, we’re gonna do it right like now things just look different. But I’m excited for the journey and I’m going to lean in as you are going into your journey and going to lean and so it’s like our journeys are very parallel right now though it’s still very different in so many aspects but it has been so beautiful and I can’t I’m stoked to see what happens to you with and flow desk, they are lucky to have you Of course I’d like shout out to Martha and Rebecca too because they are wonderful they they helped me a teeny bit to my own entrepreneurial journey back in the day and they know what it was so yeah, they it just goes to show again the community even at the flow airflow desk where you’re going because they are truly truly amazing. So

Natalie Franke
Oh god, I just look I am I’m so excited for you. I am so excited for this podcast and I am so excited for the fact that you know we get to live out the values that we talk about so frequently behind the scenes yes about supporting others in this case women supporting women have you know companies supporting other companies like I love you’re like we’re gonna be working in parallel we are and you better have you back as a guest on the show. You

Akua Konadu
are never leaving high no you’re stuck with you know we are in this document. We built this together and so you know, you will always you’re always walking back you will always be here of course like we love you and the work that you have. I’m literally proof of the work that you have put in into the community And I know I’m not the only person right, there’s so many other business owners that you have impacted in more ways than one and, and I definitely know, not just me at HoneyBook. But so many of it like all of us are just so grateful for everything that you’ve done and we absolutely love you and we are rooting for you and cheering you on. And we just thank you

Natalie Franke
all the feeling is so mutual, and I mean that with every fiber of my being Yes, I can’t wait to see you kill it. I can’t remain crush it. I’m hitting the subscribe button and you should to hit that subscribe button. Yeah, I can’t wait. And gosh, do we have a lineup for season?

Akua Konadu
Yeah, we do. So I’m, I’m so just excited of these amazing business owners that are thrilled to come and be able to provide so much value just as we’ve done for season one. So expect the same type of quality content.

Natalie Franke
We know it’s leveled up. It’s Oh, okay. And I’ve seen the lineup is five year yes. And I know you I can’t wait. Well, we

Akua Konadu
built it. You were here. We you know what I mean? Like we talked about who we wanted. And we were like, you know, with season one. It’s been phenomenal. So let’s, let’s shoot for the stars. And so when everything finally was transitioned, I was like, Well, this was the plan. So why would we change it? Like you’ve inspired me to always keep going and just go bigger if you plan or go bigger, go bigger. So that’s what we did. So I’m excited.

Natalie Franke
I’m so excited. And so I can’t wait for folks to listen and tune in. Yeah. And I guess this will be my last time on on the mic as host as I officially pass it over to you.

Akua Konadu
Oh man. Well, thank you. I love you. I love you too. Thanks for listening. That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything we’ve discussed today can be found at [email protected]. Head to our website to access for shownotes relevant links and all the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests some love on social and thank you again for listening.

Natalie Franke
Today we are talking about one of the most critical components to running a successful independent business. And since we’re on the quest of the science of self made success, it is only fitting that we have an episode on sales, how to book your next client and do it strategically. Today I am sitting down with the one the only Chris doe. Christo is an Emmy Award winning designer, Director, CEO and the founder of the future, an online education platform that is set to support 1 billion entrepreneurs in the pursuit of doing what they love. In this episode, we dig into tactical advice that honestly you can implement right now. No fluff straight value. I’m not even going to say any more in this episode, because I want to just get right into it. I’ll let Chris, take it from here. Hey, everyone, this is your host, Natalie Frank, and you’re listening to the independent business podcast, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve it.

Natalie Franke
Alright, Chris, thank you so much for joining me.

Chris Do
My pleasure, Natalie, thank you.

Natalie Franke
We had a little bit of fun offline, we got called out by Riverside for our RAM for the cameras who were using all the things and it led me it led me to think about the fact that in so much of the work that we do, you know, as independence as for a lot of us creators, creatives, freelancers, in so much of that work, we tend to be surrounded online by like really uplifting, empowering conversations. And yet, oftentimes, it’s the conversations that make us a little uncomfortable that call us out a little bit that talk about things like numbers, which I want to talk about today that actually move the needle forward in our businesses. And it’s one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show.

Chris Do
Let’s get into the numbers get in uncomfortable conversations.

Natalie Franke
I love that you talk about that. Let’s get into the numbers. Right? No pressure, I gave you a softball right off the start of just saying we’re gonna have some intense conversations. So let’s start there. Let’s really start there. I want to ask you on behalf of every independent business owner, how do we figure out what should we be charging? In the work that we do? How do we stand by charging more than we think we can charge in the work that we do when it comes to numbers? A lot of us want to run the other way. The whole concept is terrifying. Can you give us a little bit of honest, tough love?

Chris Do
Yes. There’s a dichotomy that exists within creative people. That is at odds with who you see yourself as when you ask most creative people. Are you empathetic? Are you creative? Do you care about other people? They will say yes, yes. And yes. Do you do try to be of service to other people? And they say yes, again. So why is it what you charge is all about you, it’s never about them. And this raises a big internal conflict, because we’re taught either by osmosis, or just heard it on the grapevine that what we charge is based on what we put into it, or hours, or tools or materials, and then we present it to the client. And if you’ve ever done this before, some clients don’t want what you got. It doesn’t matter how many hours, whatever tools, they don’t care what cameras you use, what paint brushes, if it’s squash or acrylic, they don’t care, they got a job to do. And in their mind, there’s a price attached to that outcome that they want to achieve. When you truly understand that then you’ll start to understand that you can’t have and should not have one fixed price for everyone. You’re not a bag of rice, you’re not a sack of potatoes, you’re not being traded on the market. And whatever commodity price it exists in the market today. Doesn’t work like that. So we can get under that concept like wow, okay, that’s a different way of looking at this, then we can talk about the more like the implementation that tactics and the strategies, but hey, what the heck are you talking about?

Natalie Franke
I love that first thought when you were saying, you know, not everyone’s going to want to hire you to love the work that you do. And like you can be the juiciest peach in Georgia and somebody still doesn’t like peaches, we know that you can also take that peach and create a multitude of dishes with it, such that some of them are charging hundreds of dollars for a single tiny plate of a dessert with a peach on it, and others are out of farm market stand for $2. So in that range of what can be created with raw materials and in the work that you do, there is a huge range and we see it in all of our markets, most of them being very saturated, by the way, which I think can exacerbate that scarcity that fear that question and insecurity around these rate conversations. But where does someone begin? You know, maybe they’ve been doing this for five minutes or five years. Maybe they’re analyzing their prices for the first time through At more critical lens, how do you figure out if you’re charging what you should be?

Chris Do
First, if we have to start with curiosity, there’s that expression of the quote, it’s like, if the only tool you have all problems look like nails. And that might be you, you’re a photographer, you’re a designer, you maybe you build websites, and that’s your one tool. So everybody that comes knocking at the door, you just automatically assume you must have a website problem, you might have a logo problem, or you might have a photography problem. But that’s a strange way to have a relationship. And to build trust, and to get people to feel like Oh, my God, you see me. So I think it begins with curiosity, by asking the person either because you reached out or that they reach out doesn’t really matter. The conversations the same is, what’s the big problem that you’re trying to solve today. Something that if you can get off your desk would make everything else a lot easier, something that you feel a lot of friction around. And we start there, and you have to be brave enough to ask a question where you don’t know the answer to that might not lead you to where you want it to go. And when you enter into any kind of relationships, and you have an agenda, people usually can feel that in their hearts like, Well, I think you want to take me somewhere, or I think you don’t want to go swimming. And I can tell already, because of the questions that you’re asked. You’re not that good at asking questions that people can’t figure out your agenda. So the best way to show up for people is just show up for people be curious and ask questions. And if it’s something that they need, that you don’t do, be happy for them that they got clarity, and then you are the person to help them achieve that. And then recommend somebody if it’s within your network to do so.

Natalie Franke
I have so much I want to double click into in regards to questions. So the first thing I hear all the time, people are afraid to ask questions, because they’re afraid it’s going to make them look like they’re not the expert. Can you talk about that a little bit? Like if someone feels hesitant and asking questions, is there another way that they should be thinking about it?

Chris Do
Yes. What if we have a belief if we want to practice critical thinking, I suggest that what we do is we challenge your own thoughts. When we say I’m afraid we’re not looking like an expert. If I asked too many questions. Where in our life, have we seen an example of that outside of what it is that we do? So when you go to a doctor and you walk in to see the doctor, and the doctor is like, you need surgery? like wait, I do, we didn’t get a chance to talk yet. And that’s what a lot of creatives Do they just start prescribing solutions. And then there’s an expression, a prescription without diagnosis is malpractice. Okay, when you prescribe a solution without first diagnosing the problem, then you’re committing, in this case, something that goes against the oath that you’ve made. Okay, so we’re talking about doctors, forget about doctors, let’s talk about a lawyer. I’ll go through every professional practicing to see a pattern of thinking that goes against that thought that by asking questions, you’re not going to be seen as an expert when, in truth, the opposite is true. You go to a lawyer, let’s say you’ve been accused of something, let’s say it’s murder. And then I know how to defend you like but you haven’t talked to you don’t know what’s going on yet? No, no, I’ve seen 1000 of you. I know you need this defense. We’re going to use the blame it on the ex wife or ex husband strategy. Like no, that was a thing on the practice to the TV show. I’m not interested in that. Okay, let’s go to the next thing. Let’s go to the accountant. Hey, I’m being audited. I know how to defend you again. The mechanic, the butcher, I got no what cuts? You know, I don’t eat meat. No, I didn’t know because I just assume that you want that top sirloin cut. It’s like, this is what we do all the time. And it’s infuriating. If you just put yourself in the other person’s shoes, and is that the kind of relationship you want to build to irritate people? Know, I think what you want to do is you want to ask questions. Now, not all questions are created equally. So the fear is from someplace and the fear comes from us probably being like just, you know, in grade school, when the teachers like, who knows the blah, blah, blah. And you ask like, oh, what’s the state? And the kids laugh at you? Now can ask kind of a dumb question. Or, you know, why are you wearing that hat? Because it’s not relevant. So what we have to do is we have to learn how to be questioned ologists to ask big, beautiful, open questions that lead the person the prospect towards gaining clarity to the problem, or to the goal or to their challenge. That’s what we’re trying to do. So you have to learn how to ask better questions.

Natalie Franke
For anyone that wants to nerd out on the neuroscience of asking questions. I want to give a shout out to an earlier episode we did on the show with Elon yen. Elon talks about the worst sentence you can conclude an email with and it’s let me know if you’re interested, basically arguing that instead ask a question ask a very good question that leads them forward in their experience with you. We dig into neuroscience of asking questions. Spoiler alert, it transforms the brain. If you ask someone a question. It really does. It changes the entire dynamic. I love that. I want to kind of take a little bit of a detour based on something you said initially when you were going down this train of thought around questions. When you essentially alluded to the fact that when you ask these questions, you might uncover that a client isn’t the right fit for you, you might uncover that you actually can’t meet the problem that they have, or, you know, your style doesn’t align with what they need, or whatever the multitude of reasons why it’s not the best fit. Can we talk about that for a second? Because I also think that’s a fear that people have, if they dig a little bit too deep, are they going to find that it’s not the right business for them, and therefore, they’re going to want to or have to let go of that business? There’s, there’s fear wrapped up in all of that fear of scarcity. If I let this client go, I’m not going to find another one. Can you speak to it, I really would love your take on, you know, when you do uncover that someone’s not the right fit. And then you have to take that next step. What do you do? How do you feel? What would you encourage someone to, you know, do in that scenario,

Chris Do
I have to ask this kind of rhetorical question, which is, are you a self centered person? Are you a selfish person, and if you are, then the strategies, I’m going to tell you are not going to make any sense to you whatsoever. If you’re a generous person, if you’re a caring person, if you want to help and serve other people, then this strategy is going to work. So here’s the thing, we know that if you try and sell something that they don’t need, you’ll get the sale, probably, if you’re very good salesperson. But at the end, they’re gonna walk away not feeling great about the experience and having the exact same problem again. So what we do is in sales, is we’re doing change management, what kind of change are they after? And so they’re going from their existing current state to some kind of future desired state. And if you don’t ask questions, if you’re not able to illuminate the future desired state, you’ll give them something there’ll be an illusion towards that. And then two, three weeks, four months later, they’re nowhere closer to that state that they wish like, well, we redid the website, we don’t understand why the customer experience is not better. We’ve not sold any more units, or our social following hasn’t grown. Why isn’t the website solve this problem, and you know what it is, you’re on to the next client. It’s a hit and run strategy. And it’s very short term thinking. If you want to be in business for 1020 30 years, with clients that still call you up in 30 years, which I do have clients who do that, you have to make sure you’re there to serve them. And you’re looking at it on a long term basis. So if the client presents a problem that you can’t solve, don’t want to solve isn’t a good, perfect fit for you, you recommend them, or you just be really honest, and say, That’s a beautiful problem. It’s one on one, I feel confident I can serve you, and you deserve the best fit for this. So I wish you well. And if you ever need logo design, or you need a wedding video produced, I’m your person. And what happens is you’ve earned trust, and they might not be the right fit. But next time you run into somebody that that needs that logo design or that wedding video shots, like I met the most remarkable person, I was chatting with Natalie two months ago, and she she didn’t want to take money from me and she thought I would be better off working with someone else, you might want to call Natalie, and she’ll help you out. This is what we’re trying to do. Seth Godin talks about this, whoever can play the game, the longest wins. It’s called playing the infinite game to be able to play it forever. Right. So if you’re here for the quick turnaround, there are expressions I can can use in polite company, if you’re just in for the quick transaction, and you’re off to the next thing. There’s a term that people call you. I’m in it for long term relationship. I’m okay with giving away the sale today, to build a relationship for tomorrow.

Natalie Franke
And shout out to Seth Godin book infinite game, I love big fan as well of him. And one thing I’ll say, you know, I in my career as a wedding photographer, there were several times where I had to refer out clients, not always because they weren’t the right fit. Sometimes I was booked and I didn’t have a team at the time I was a solopreneur. So I’d be booked for a wedding. I couldn’t take their work, I’d refer them. One thing I found as well. And I just want to highlight this for anyone listening. You know, when we talk on this podcast, we talk from the lens of community investing in others being of service. It also goes to supporting other people that do what you do. Shifting your mindset from that zero sum game, my competitors cannot be a part of my community, I cannot support them to what set talks about you talk about this infinite game meant mentality of No, no, no, if they do what I do, they’re not necessarily my competition. They’re my colleagues. Building a community where you can actually refer out business can also build that trust with the client when you can’t meet their needs and serve them. 10 years later, I still have clients that I never booked, that come up to me I live in a little hometown of Annapolis or write on the Chesapeake Bay. It’s not a big city, we all know each other, right? Like, it’s pretty small. And I will still run into people all the time and say, you know, you were booked and you couldn’t photograph my wedding. But you connected me with so and so. And she was extraordinary. She was the absolute best. So you know, then I sent my best friend to you but you did get to shoot her wedding because you were available. And that lens of trust, right? It can be so transformative. And so I want your take On that I want your take on when somebody else does what you do, you know, have you found a path forward and building relationships with other business other owners, other entrepreneurs, other creatives? Do you have advice for folks that, you know, are ready to make the shift? They have the service based mindset, I would say most of the folks in this community are deeply rooted in joy of service. That’s what makes him successful, you know, as an independent as they love to serve others. But applying that to the relationship space, like have you found a way that works, and really cultivating those relationships, as you’ve grown, or as you’ve referred business out to other people, or things that you’ve seen work? Well, for somebody that wants to have that type of network around them as they’re scaling in their business? Yeah,

Chris Do
we’re always looking up or not often looking sideways, and very rarely are we looking down? So let’s, let’s unpack what what I mean, when I say this, is that you would love for a more successful version of you to give you their overflow work to recommend you. And we think like that all time, because we’re super selfish that way, right? Like, why does an XYZ company or further their overflow work and they can’t possibly do and all this work doesn’t make any sense, then you don’t look sideways, you don’t look down and you don’t think, Well, someone who’s less fortunate than me, who is just beginning on their journey, they can use a hand. And it’s a lot of this comes from this scarcity, zero sum mindset that a lot of people have. So when I was starting out, way back in 1995, I struggled to get clients, I didn’t know how to do conference calls, because I didn’t really work for anybody long enough to learn how new businesses done, how to do the sales game. And so after like losing so many jobs, hundreds of 1000s of dollars, mind you, I’m like, this is demoralizing, I need help. So I called a couple of competitors. And they literally laughed at me and hung up the phone, I’m like, oh, because what they didn’t want to do is they didn’t want to give their competition, a helping hand. That’s fine. And so if you’re in a position to help other people, you’re not going to come across really great people all the time. There are people who have goodness in their heart. And there’s some people who are very selfish in their own nature, and they never think of anyone else except for themselves. So what I want you to do is first, in order to attract the kinds of people that are generous, and gracious, you have to become a generous person and a gracious person first, it starts here. It’s always like, we want other people to change. We don’t want people to do things for us, but we never do it. The thing first, it begins with you, what will happen is your energy, your vibration, your frequency will radiate out. And people like gosh, now he’s an awesome person, like she’s always positive about things, wanting to help other people and never asking for anything, you’re going to start to attract different kinds of people to you. And so you can build a coalition of people. Now, here’s the one thing that I try and teach people to do. Not all of them do it. But the ones who do will call me up write me a message like, I finally listened to you seven months later, they did it. And I can’t believe the results. I’m like, Oh, really, you can’t believe the results, the thing that I told you is going to happen, you couldn’t believe I’ll say, take a bigger competitor out to lunch. It takes them guts to call a bigger competitor out to lunch. And so you know, I have admired your work. It’s incredible you’ve been able to do. I’m here to humbly ask if you think my work is good enough. For anything that’s not a good fit for you or something that it’s just for scheduling reasons or budget reasons you don’t like I would appreciate the referral. And I’m willing to pay you a finder’s fee for it. And I just also want to make sure like, we can break bread and just have like the beginnings of a relationship. It’s all and if I can serve you in any way, please let me know. And people do this and all sudden they get leads. It’s kind of weird.

Natalie Franke
Now that’s some good homework. It’s human. How human is that? How human is that? And how far have we often strayed from that simple humanity of saying, let me take you out to lunch. And let’s just have a conversation and ask from a place of humility and a place of generosity and is it again, we become a world where it’s let me pick your brain not let me treat you to something. Let me say thank you for the impact you’re making in our industry. Let me you know, go above and beyond to first show up in service before asking for something in return. It’s always the email that’s asking, Hey, can you send referrals my way not dating first romancing first, you don’t get down on one knee and propose the first time that you see somebody. I mean, you could and maybe that does work for some people. But for the most part, right, a relationship takes time. And it often works best when you show up at that mindset of service, which I love. I absolutely love. I want to dig back into the numbers for just a second because I do have a question. Let’s say we want to raise our rates. Or let’s say we have a sneaking suspicion that we’re not charging enough, we maybe know a competitor is charging more, or we just have a feeling that it might be time more often than not. By the way, when we look at the data, we see things like you know, and again, we will link this in the show notes to the episode if folks want to go and it’s a little bit outdated. I’d love for us at honey book to rerun this dataset, but we’ll find even amongst certain cohorts of independent business owners, women in particular They charge less than their male counterparts who are doing the same work with the same level of experience. So pricing continues to be an area where any sort of insecurity or fear that we carry with us translates into how we’re showing up, what numbers we’re putting down, so on and so forth. And every time and I’m telling folks that are listening to this right now, every time one of Chris’s videos comes up on my feet, and he is talking about figuring out pricing, he’s talking about charging more for what you do, or why certain people can charge more for what they do. Like what goes into charging more. It challenges my own thinking on this, and I yet again, feel like a student. And so I just, I guess I’m asking you on behalf of all of us who struggle with putting numbers to our work and standing behind it, and maybe for a lot of the women listening that, you know, we’re in that percentage that are charging 30% Last or whatever that number is for the industry when we broke it down within those industries. How do we charge more? How do we know it’s time to charge more? Help us there? Help me there? I’m asking for a friend but like also asking

Chris Do
for a minute that you almost like Princess Leia, like help me Obi Wan Help me.

Natalie Franke
Help me Help me. You’re giving more of Yoda moment. This is more of a Yoda moment.

Chris Do
Oh me Yoda. There’s a couple of things. When it comes to when you know, it’s time to raise your rates is pretty obvious to me. If you get no pushback when you say it’s gonna cost $5,000 to shoot your wedding. Okay, I don’t want another baggage like, No, you’re good. You’re drastically under market because you’re even lower than the low price that they had in their mind. Okay, so that’s how, you know, if people say yes, see too often. That’s another way. It’s like, gosh, I’m getting no friction at all, no pushback. And my general rule of thumb is if you get three yeses, it’s time to raise your rate. So now, you know,

Natalie Franke
I hope everyone heard that herb. That one’s getting highlighted. We’re building that Haley, Podcast Producer, Tyler bolt balding. Keep going, I want more. Okay, I need more.

Chris Do
No, this is a mindset change here that there is no limit to what you can charge, there’s just a problem that needs to be aligned with someone who values that problem. So when you run into a thing, where somebody’s like, well, we can only charge $1,000. And everyone in this market can only charge eight, it’s because they haven’t found a person who has that same problem, who values their time and their outcomes more than 1000. So here’s what we know, the person on the other side has a problem that they’ve already attach a price point to, they might not be able to articulate it, but they do. And the bigger the problem as perceived by that individual, the more they’re willing to pay for a give you some examples. Okay, I have two boys, one of them used to play a lot of games on his iPad. And he wants to use real money to buy tokens in the game. So it can advance in levels and have a different suit of armor, or just an avatar. Adults do this to other way. And the way that the game is engineered, yes.

Natalie Franke
parent with a four year old boy.

Chris Do
And the way that games are engineered is that the new suit of armor or the the new avatar, it gives you zero performance enhancement, right. So it actually doesn’t do anything to help you in the game, but you’re willing to pay real money for this. And for some people like myself, I’m like, That’s the dumbest thing ever. And for some people, I want to pay $200, because I don’t have to go on 44 missions and collect 17 coins, to be able to do this unlock disarm, I’ll just pay for it. And so what we’re starting to realize here is that everybody looks at their time, and assigns a different amount of money to it for all different reasons, emotional reasons, status reasons, solving real problems, all kinds of stuff. And so what we have to do is say like, alright, if you’ve hit a ceiling, and you can’t raise your rate, it’s not because that is the real ceiling. It’s that’s just a ceiling for that person or that group of people. So what you want to do is consistently expand who it is that you’re speaking to, such that you find people with really, really big problems. Right. So here’s another example for you. Well, about a year ago, I moved from the Pacific Palisades to Pasadena and my wife was calling up several moving companies and there’s one who stood above all others she didn’t talk to them because even look too expensive and she’s like I’m not doing this. I think they’re called Greystone even sound expensive with the name. They sent over this beautiful packet. It’s like ornate, there’s like, like a crests. It looks like from an old family, and they get into the celebrity clients. And instantly my wife is like, okay, there’s no way we’re gonna afford these guys. There’s too much. So for her, she didn’t want the bargain basement college boys who will move us because she’s concerned about that. So there was kind of like the porridge in the middle. It was not too hot. It was not too much. It was just right for Goldilocks. And what we want to do is when we’re trying to find where we are in the market, is we can Don’t assume that group of people we’ve met is the top. Right because Greystone exists and they have clients, celebrity clients, international people who can’t deal with this, who have very expensive things that if lost or broken would be more than the entire moving expense they want to be taken care of. It’s also the reason why sometimes we’re in the mood for some down and dirty, fast food. And sometimes we want fine dining. So what you have to do in order to be able to raise your rates is to find the people who put a lot of value on their own time and see that the solution you provide will save them that time soon and sense. Yours selling people’s time back to themselves.

Natalie Franke
leaning into the concept of time, this could be a hot take question. I could be getting in deep here with a spicy one. But I want to know, what is your take on hourly rates? Oh, what are your thoughts on having an hourly rate or putting out an hourly rate? I want to give us the real real on this, I think somebody needs to hear some advice.

Chris Do
Okay, before I can tell you how I feel because it’s gonna sound super judgy, I’m not going to do that just yet. I’m gonna tell you, there’s many ways to figure out how to price your products and services. hourly rate is just one of them, where it’s, you’re going to charge people for your time. And the materials that you use, sometimes in construction, it’s called TNM bid, which is time and materials bid. Okay, let’s just put that aside. That’s one model. And then there’s the next version of that is when we say, we don’t care how much time and materials we use, we’re going to charge you a flat fixed fee. Not saying one is better than the other, depending on what you’re doing, that they all have their purpose. So instead of saying, it’s gonna take 77 hours to build you a shed in the back. And this is the materials we’re gonna say, Well, given the drawing the dimension or conversation, I’m gonna charge you $15,000 to build that shed, and you get in then you do in two hours, you leave, you’re done, everybody’s happy. The third one is, in the evolution of this value based pricing, which you have a conversation, you’re like, Well, do you really need to shed and like, no, no, I really do need to share. Why is that because it’s going to be a place where my aunt and my cousins can come by and live in that. So we want it to be really nice. And so then your pricing based on the clients sense of value of what that shed is going to do for them. Quite difficult to do. There’s even one beyond that, which is the riskiest, but in in business, all profit comes from risk, which is a performance based model, which I’m not gonna charge you anything to build a shed, every time you rent out of Airbnb, or whatever it is that you’re going to do, I’d like to get 4% or 5%, or 10%, whatever the negotiated rate is. So if they do well, you do well. And that has unlimited potential to earn. But if you build all of your pricing models based on the performance one, you could be broke. So a healthy portfolio and investment as in pricing includes a diversified approach. So you could do really well in your life, just doing hourly pricing, but you have to learn how to do that properly. What a lot of people do is the mistake that they do, they use a fixed fee model based on hourly pricing, which is the messed up way to do it. And I’ll explain, okay, they think they’re doing hourly pricing, but they’re actually using a fixed fee model. So you can say, well, how much is it going to be? To to book you to shoot my wedding? And you’re like, well, it’s $50 an hour, let’s say, I’ll say $100 an hour, because the math is easier. And the wedding is going to be like 10 hours long with some setup, right? So 10 hours, times 100 is 1000 bucks. That sounds like hourly pricing. And then as you approach the day of the wedding, that your client says, you know, we need to shoot some stuff in the park, we need to do some pre stuff, we need to do some father bride groom has whatever it is, we want to do that and you’re like, Okay, it’s still 1000 bucks, right? And then you’ve agreed to do for 1000 bucks. So you’re actually not doing hourly pricing. hourly pricing is not even a bid. It’s just an estimate. I estimate it’s going to be this amount of time. So if it’s eight hours, you owe me $800. If it’s 20 hours, you owe me $2,000. So what people think they’re doing hourly pricing, they’re actually doing fixed fee based on hourly pricing with no margins, no padding, nothing. So this is when you realize 100 hours into this, you’re now working $10 an hour, you’re like oh my god, I hate the client. They’re terrible people. No, you set this up and you agree to it. And so we need to understand when to use each pricing model. You can go in and say look, I’m going to shoot the wedding, it’s gonna be 2000 bucks, it’s going to include these things. If you want anything extra that’s not included. It’ll be an hourly rate of 100 bucks an hour. So that’s a hybrid model. You could do a hybrid value based pricing model or performance based model where I will charge you a flat fee of $1,000 to set up your website, and for every order in which we’re able to improve, I want to capture 3% of sales of gross sales or net sales, whatever it is. And so we both win. That feels very

Natalie Franke
Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank. The performance. Does Yeah. And I, I doesn’t I, I love it. I love it. Okay, I want to lean in to a slightly different question. I want to talk about common mistakes that you see business owners making freelancers making in 2023. What are some of the big mistakes that you see? If you could kind of have a magic wand and just educate our listeners on something before they walk away? Like, what would it be? What’s a mistake that you’re like, we need to stop doing this? We got to correct this right away.

Chris Do
There are as many answers to this question as their hours in a day. So you’ll have to stop. Yeah. Now, since I’m not rehearse is not prepared, I will just rattle them off as I think of them. And I won’t go too deep unless you ask and then we’ll stop them when we feel like it’s too much. Okay. Cool. Keep going. I’m small business mistake number one is chasing new clients, instead of servicing the clients who already have better, it’s much easier to keep your current client than it is to get a new client. Plus, we’re in that revolving door model, again, that we don’t want to be in. So people underestimate this, it’s hard to get a new client. So once you get that new client, I think most creatives say the work is done, I’ll do what I need to do, and I’m on to chasing the next client. But what if you really worked on delivering an exceptional client experience that delivers the light, where you go above and beyond? When I say above and beyond? To clarify, I don’t mean to give them more of of what they didn’t pay for. But to do the little extra touches that don’t cost money that make people feel like you care. This is really important, can be a conversation, it can be a handwritten note, it could just be making the person feel really special. And you’ve been very clear towards the 75% mark of when you’re done working on the project. prior to delivery, this is really important to say like, Have I done everything to deliver the light to you? Is there anything I can do to improve your experience with our service? And they say, you’re amazing. Allah, you’re amazing. Oh, my God, I love you. You know what, our business mostly exists on positive word of mouth? Are there two people that you know that you can refer me to that would benefit from the service that I provide? And to make it easy if you just give me their contact information? I’ll reach out and said, I talked to Jenny or I talked to Bob? Direct? Yeah, absolutely, you should talk to what’s happening here is you’re capturing them at the highest emotional state that they’re going to be in, which is prior to delivery. And if you’ve done your job, then that should be very high. You’re also saying I’m gonna make it super easy, and tap into people’s nature to want to help other people, it’s human to want to help. They’re gonna sit there and scramble their brain like, Oh, my God, who do I need to refer you to? And they will access somebody. And the last thing you’re doing there is you’re taking any extra work away from them. They don’t have to write the intro email. They don’t have to do anything. You just like, okay, email, one phone number. And I’ll just mention that we’d spoke if that’s okay. Agreed. So that’s the first thing that you need to do if you’re a small business owner that you’re not doing. Number two, be clear about what you do and who you do it for do something that matters. To people who care to borrow line from Seth Godin. Again, the mistake that people make is they’re worried that they don’t have enough opportunity. So they do the thing that is counterproductive to what the result that they want. They say, Well, I do wedding styling, I do flower arrangement. I do photography, I do videography. I do social media, I’ll build your website, and they just like offer a whole buffet of services. Well, we do know that there’s a couple of problems here. Number one, is it’s the it’s the choice paradox. The more choices I have the hardest is for me to make a decision. Plus, here’s the real problem. You confuse people, like, what does he or she do? What I don’t get it? Are they a photographer because I was looking for someone to do like flower arrangements. And I just don’t feel that confident. Whereas when they bounce onto the flower arrangement person, and they have just pages and pages of examples, they’re super clear. So in most cases, not all cases, the specialist usually when when the job’s important to the buyer, they usually command a higher price. And in some instances, that command a premium for which they have no replacement for because you want the flower arranger or use when any flower arranger, so we kind of have to sort that stuff out. That’s another mistake. Mistake number three, and I’ll stop here is that you don’t actively participate in any kind of formal process of marketing your services. So you expect the universe to just to give you work with that you’ve been working on it. In most companies, most companies will spend 10% or more of revenue on marketing. So if it’s a million dollar company, they spent $100,000, on marketing, because it’s important for you to be top of mind to build relationships with your prospects, and to make sure people know you’re not dead, and that you’re still relevant. You do need to spend that time and energy. You can’t just sit in the back like, Gosh, darn it, why aren’t where anybody calling me? Well, because you’re not doing anything.

Natalie Franke
Proof of Life marketing as a source of proof of life. I love it. I absolutely love it. Looking forward into the future. What do you think are some of the biggest challenges that we’re going to face? When we talk about it doesn’t have to be far in the future? Let’s say what are the biggest challenges we’re gonna face in 2024? As business owners? Do you see challenges changing? Are they pretty much the same?

Chris Do
There’s going to be challenges. We already know this globalization, the internet isn’t a great thing, it’s made the world a lot smaller. That means that it used to be very difficult to find someone in India or somewhere else to do the work for you. And now it’s super easy, because they’re available online. And also, there’s, I guess, Creative Market spaces, that broker, a buyer and a seller of services. And so it’s becoming way more competitive, and it’s becoming a lot easier. And if anything, the pandemic accelerated that because before, people were a little sketchy about, I don’t know, if I want to work with somebody remotely, I need to see them, I knew they need to be in my neighborhood. And for about two and a half years, we learn how to work with people across the street or across the world, and it feels exactly the same. And so you’re going to realize that if you don’t specialize, if you can’t position yourself to be different and unique. You’re competing with every single person. And then what happens is people then will choose probably based on price. Number two, the elephant in the room is AI, generative images, video, Tex stills, we need to learn how to incorporate these tools into our workflow. So that we can give our clients the very best creative output that we can. What’s one, I’ll give you one example. Okay, with generative fill built into Photoshop, the whole idea of aspect ratios. And backgrounds is like an old concept, like overnight, it just changes like that. So you just select the background, and you’re like, you know what, put this in a forest, and I’ll just do it. And this has happened to me a lot where I have a great photo, like the expression is perfect for my kids, or, or my wife or my my parents, but then their bodies cut off in a weird way. So I can take a full body shot, but just have the right expression. Or I can take this now the old ways to stitch two photos together a lot of mesh warp, and a lot of relighting is like what a pain in the butt that is. Now I just expand the canvas, degenerative fill, it just figures it out. And so it’s kind of wild to be able to do this, not merely just to fix things, but to reimagine how we how we create, and how we can retouch images. And so this is just a little baby example on the tip of the iceberg. So I’m telling you right now, a lot of creative people are very scared, don’t be scared, incorporate the tools, otherwise, you’ll get wiped out by the wave that’s coming. It’s already here. By the way, it is here.

Natalie Franke
I find it really refreshing when someone shares about AI from that lens. And that vantage point. Because I, I think you know, anything that is unknown can generate fear, we know this. However, one of the things that I’ve uncovered, even in the last six months, eight months year, is it feels as though the rate of change is accelerating. The fact that the future is always changing has not right, like that’s how it has always been. But the rate of change the point from which we’ve gone from very little AI to now it being embedded into Adobe products, for example. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but it has felt see almost overnight, it has felt almost overnight. And so to hear from someone that is saying, Look, embrace it, figure it out, we have to learn to live with it, because it’s it’s not going anywhere. It’s refreshing. Do you have any other advice for someone that maybe you know, has been watching from the outside looking in when it comes to things like AI or any sort of technological change that you could impart in terms of wisdom to help them take that leap? Give it a try? Maybe it’s a mindset shift? Maybe it’s a tactical bit of advice?

Chris Do
Yeah, I think we should not take our focus off AI because there are things that people are doing today that I hear about read about that are just mind blowing to me, the need for software development might be over pretty soon. And then the need for certain skill sets are going to be completely wiped out. Like if you want to create a game you can just tell the AI what you want and they’ll start to make it for you. So we’re living in a new world, the War world of ideas and of taste. So this is kind of important. Okay, so the tastemakers, the historians, the people that idea people will probably do really well in the age of AI because it’s taken a whole stack of like production and just squash it down and compress the timeline and the resources that you need. Why does taste matter? Well, if AI can spit out 100 scripts for a short film, which one’s a good script, you have to have taste, if AI can generate different designs for clothing, again, is like, which one is good? We don’t know. And so this is where I think people who have been exposed to a lot of material who are well rounded consumers of content and stimulation can then sit there and say, Well, this is good, this is not good. And not only can they say that, they can say this is how you make this better. And then they can articulate that to a machine or a person and say, like, here’s some art direction. This is why it’s not working, and then get back multiple ideas very quickly. So all those times in which you were sleeping through art history, through music history, through history itself, it’s going to come back to bite you in the ass. It really will. So you know, if you’re guilty, oh, no, no, no, you might want to start looking back into this. Here’s the other thing. When I was first playing around with mid journey, the results I got were pretty bad. And I couldn’t understand why there was so much hype around this. And if you’ve poked around with any AI engine, and you’re like, No, it didn’t write a great sales letter. For me, it didn’t write great code, or it didn’t produce a really cool image. It’s because you haven’t learned how to speak to it. You just didn’t learn how to speak to it. And then I had a friend who was like, Chris, my images suck, what am I doing wrong? And I had not even invested that much time into myself and like, let me see. So I jumped into the machine, I started typing in some, some words, and I quickly realized these words on work, these words do work. So you’re learning the language of AI. And then sooner than later, I was able to pop a bunch of images and said here, check these out. And they were just blown away. So they’re like, What words did you use? I use words and terminology that I know from shooting video and photos. And from cinematography and teaching design, and in motion design. So I would say I wouldn’t dappled lighting, I wouldn’t shallow depth of field, maybe from this type of lens, I want to open the aperture, I want the foreground to do this in the background. And I describe it as best as it can as if I was describing it to cinematographer, so that they’re like, Hey, Chris, I know what you want. So if you don’t have that language, because your point of reference is fairly limited, oh, that’s going to be a challenge for you.

Natalie Franke
I find that to be incredibly inspiring as well, though, because what I’m hearing is that there is still so much immense value to the human creative mind in making those decisions. And being discerning in you know, crafting something, we’re almost potentially going to be stepping into our creative director era, perhaps with these tools, I find it it’s I truly find it exciting and your approach to it refreshing. I could talk to you all day. And I want to be respectful of your time. So there’s a final question that I ask everyone on the show, and there’s no right or wrong answer. But I think it’s always an enlightening way to uncover your thoughts on business ownership. And the question is this. Chris, what do you believe is the biggest differentiator between the businesses that succeed and the ones that fail?

Chris Do
This is a multi part. This is like he asked me, I didn’t question I had to peel peel back some of the layers if you don’t mind, we love a good onion. Number one, I think is focus. businesses fail because they’re not focused there. They have a case of the shiny object syndrome, and that squirrel, okay, that’s cool, I’ll do this. And I’ll do that. And they lose track of their core business. And this happens, especially in this age, when we have so much distraction available to us. And the next big idea seems better than the current idea. What we need to do is we need to figure out what we want to do. And we need to commit and this will be my third and last reference is Seth Godin, in his book, The dip, he talks about this, and there’s a little graph, right. So when you start out, you get results right away. And it’s really fun and exciting. So the results are high. The effort and time is limited. But what happens is you start to hit it peak, and you go into the trough of this curve, you’re entering the dip, where you know what, I was messing around with tennis, but now it’s like it’s a chore. I don’t want to learn how to surf on backhand socks, and my foot placement is all wrong. And it’s like it’s just too much work. And I’m not seeing the same kind of progress and fun. So what people do is they quit, they quit in the dip, because it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of time. They’re not seeing that same return on investment of time. But here’s the thing. This is what’s that talks about. So in the dip, you have to have the courage in the commitment, the determination to get through it because it’s difficult to get through. And then you put in your 1000 hours or 10,000 hours of practice. You hire a coach, you go to workshops, you read books, you watch videos, you train As you level up your skill up, and you start to climb that steep ascent, and it starts to get good again, until you get to this very rare place, we’re only a few people exist, the masters, the experts, the thought leaders. So instead of looking at the dip as your enemy, look at it as your friend, because difficulty creates natural barriers to competition. And it creates scarcity. If only a few people can become a doctor, if only a few people can be a brand designer for global companies in the Fortune 100, that creates value, because you’ve reduced the competition by just going through the dip. So maybe there’s a couple of things to unpack here, you need to focus and commit, you have to put in the work, you have to find joy in the difficult because if you don’t, it’s going to be really hard to get through it. And the last thing I’ll say is, and I put this on a tweet recently, you have to be kind to yourself when you fail, because every journey is full of failures. And what happens is we hear the voice of whoever is most influential in our lives, oftentimes one of our parents, when we mess up, when we lose a job, when we totally effed up when clients yell at us, we’re like, All right, we’re in our mind, just destroying ourselves. And the thing is, you’re going to need that resilience, to bounce back up and to wake up tomorrow, full of determination, say, You know what, instead of just dogging myself on this, I’m going to ask myself this question, what was the learning opportunity here? What was the teachable moment, the thing that the universe sent to me to learn, and knew that I had the strength to get through, because if I don’t learn that lesson, this will be all in vain. And I’m almost destined to do this again. And I’ve had many failures in my life. I don’t code them in my mind as failures. I just look at them as learning opportunities. Sometimes they’re very expensive learning opportunities. And I want to grow because I don’t like making the same mistake and failing again.

Natalie Franke
Chris, thank you so much. There were so many mic drop gold moments, just throughout the entire conversation, I have no doubt that our listeners are going to want to follow along and continue learning from you. Where can they do that? Where do you recommend they find you on the internet?

Chris Do
You can find me just about anywhere on social media, at the Chris doe and DOS about do I have a website I try and teach and help creative people just like you are listening to this with all kinds of tools and resources, many of which is free, some of its paid. I gotta pay the bills. And if you go to the future.com, F ut you are there’s no E and then somebody asked me where did the ego we dropped the ego. That’s why we do. It’s just the future or the couture.com.

Natalie Franke
I love it. Thank you so much.

Natalie Franke
That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything that we’ve discussed today can be [email protected]. Head to our website for access to show notes, relevant links and all of the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests in love on social. Thanks again for listening.

Natalie Franke
When you start an independent business, the odds are stacked against you. But what if you could defy them? That is precisely what I am sitting down to speak with Diana Wei Fung, a systems architect, a breakthrough coach. All about today on the podcast, Diana has supported hundreds of businesses in architecting their systems such that people can do more of what they love, and the business can run even when they’re sleeping. She is a dear friend of mine. We have known each other for several years, and I have watched as her career has taken shape, and she has really become the thought leader when it comes to automations systems and the magic of client flow. I can’t wait for you to dig into this episode, we talk about some nitty gritty details of systems, we talk about mindset shifts that are required for success. And you’re going to absolutely love Diana’s personal story at the very end of the show. Hey, everyone, this is your host, Natalie Frank, and you’re listening to the independent business podcast, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve victory.

Natalie Franke
Diana, thank you so much for joining me.

Diana Wei Fang
I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Before we hopped on,

Natalie Franke
I was joking that I’m like, we should start by talking about Hamas. And you gave me a look. And I’m like, No, we should our shared love of Hamas and bonding in Tel Aviv, and all of the things because it is important. I think we’re friends, we’ve been friends for a really long time in the industry. And I have been dying to get you on the show absolutely dying, because I have the privilege of getting to chat with you behind the scenes about the independent business world about what we see unfolding in the macro sense for our community. And so often we’ll be chatting and I will say to you like oh, oh, that thought we need that on the show. I just I need people to hear that. So thank you for truly carving out the time to join me in this episode, because I already know how profound and impactful it’s going to be. And for everyone listening, it’s going to be, you know, as delicious as hummus and as impactful as a rocket ship taking off with your business attached to it to the moon because that is Diana in a nutshell.

Diana Wei Fang
Wow. Should we also talk about what you like? What kind of dark personality you think I am to

Natalie Franke
know my secrets to the listeners? Don’t do it. Don’t do it. I might. Yeah, the long story in that for any going dog personality. You know, my mom growing up, never let me watch the Power Rangers and instead gave me an encyclopedia of dogs. And so yes, I was the nerdy child that memorized every dog breed. But we don’t need to go into that today. What I want to go into today is I want to start by talking about a phrase that you and I both love and share that I have seen on your website. I have seen you speak about on stage I have heard you talk about in the community. And that is the concept of defying the odds. I want you to start there, what odds are we defining and give us a little bit of an understanding of you know how you got into doing the work that you do today as a systems architect and a breakthrough coach, and what it has to do with defying the odds?

Diana Wei Fang
My gosh, there’s so much I can talk about this. So stop me whenever you need to. But essentially, the big statistic is in 2019 90% of small businesses failed. That is an enormous number. And even as like a small business owner myself, when I first started, the stats are always like, that’s a stat everyone knows, you know, like, oh, it’s really hard to make it as a small business owner, are you sure this is what you want to do? You know, like, as soon as you’re like, I’m gonna start my own business. I’m like, okay, you know, I think the idea of failure is more prominent than the idea of success. And so as soon as you start in good health and I think that’s why it’s so scary to tell someone your dream, because you know that as soon as you verbalize it a it’s real and be someone is going to be negative Nancy out there in the world. You know, someone it’s going to rain on this brand new thinking parade. And sometimes you just want to shut it down. But also, instead of looking at the statistics and looking at everything and saying, Well, why even try? Right? What if we just adopted the mindset of defying the odds? It’s possible you’re living proof of it. I’m living proof of it. Everyone who’s ever been on this podcast is living proof that it is so possible to defy the odds? It just takes a lot of courage, bravery, grit, resistance, joy, love, of what you do, right. But it’s not impossible, you just some of these things we have. And some of these things we don’t and we develop along the way. Community, like, it’s not impossible. But so just encouraging people to defy the odds to, to it’s a rallying cry. I mean, you use that phrase a lot. But for me, that’s what it is like, instead of hearing about it all the time. And that’s, that’s genuinely how it started. I live in a culture where it is common for small business owners to start their thing, I have the privilege of my previous full time job, I got to hear a lot of dreams. And my my former like CEO, he say, this is a dream factory. This is a dream factory. And we would hear these big dreams, like farmers in Colombia who were growing cocaine, chopping out all the cocaine plants, and like now growing coffee beans as like a living, like a way of providing for their family and changing the industry. That is a dream. And we are just so good at dreaming. And if you were being honest, there’s probably like 1000 dreams of yours that you’ve actually never told anyone else. Maybe your husband, right if that. And we just keep it because it’s like, there’s so many what ifs in the world. And then we go out and we are very good at baking the pie. We are very good at cutting the hair, we are very good at taking the pictures. And then a year later, I see them. I see them, how’s it going? How’s it going? And they’re just like, Oh, I think I’m gonna close. Can we talk about that? And it’s just, it’s easy to get cynical about it. It’s easy to say, oh, you know, it’s just terrible marketing or all your social media presence, you never asked enough favors, right? It’s so easy to say that. But what it comes down to is a decision to not give up, find the answers are low. And I I get that I get finances get low. But what it comes down to also is that your system isn’t in place. It’s not about your social media at all. If I gave you if I gifted you 1000 Pain clients today. Could you sustain that? Can you deliver and provide your service to 1000 paying clients today, because you know, the clients that I work with, I’ve seen it all, they’ve broken the contact form codes, because they can’t handle any more orders. And they get nervous, I can’t fill them that fast. And other than that, they ignore and shut down their emails because they can’t respond to 1000 people. And that’s genuinely alien, you’re like, Oh, this is a dream world. That’s not true. The community that I’m a part of, when that CEO tells the world, hey, this is a coffee company we’re all gonna buy coffee from you can bet 4000 orders is going to go into the night. But you can also bet but that same company shut down because they couldn’t handle the orders. And it has nothing to do with your social media has everything to do with what’s your welcome email look like, what’s the next step people are waiting, and they’re ready. And at some point, after trying to buy the coffee a few times, you kind of think, Oh, well, they’re just really busy, and they don’t need my business. And meanwhile, this coffee farmer is desperate for your business. But they don’t know how to take you to the next step. And so it’s not, we blame a lot of symptoms, we focus ourselves on a lot of symptoms. But the root of it is your system. And I’m just I’ve seen the flip, I’ve seen the success, it is just such an increase. Like once you get your system in order, your chances of converting leads go up by 79%. That’s a huge, huge, and so why am I not spending the rest of my life, ensuring that what you were meant to do on this earth is successful, is successful. You can’t give up. I’m not gonna give up but I also can’t want it more than you. So you have to decide to defy the odds.

Natalie Franke
I love that you’ve dedicated yourself to that phrase. I love the idea, the mission of helping others to defy the odds and as you were talking, it reminded me of my own trajectory as a small business owner many many years ago as a wedding photographer I vividly remember how I went into it say thinking, I’m never going to have enough clients in order to sustain this business. And that didn’t end up becoming the biggest problem. The problem was, I didn’t have the systems to support the demand as I scaled, and I never imagined in a million years, and I’m sure business owners listening to this, especially those that are 2345 years into the business, or who are experiencing demand for the first time, or who are pivoting into a new market. And, you know, kind of ramping things up, once again, can relate to me when I say that sometimes success can be the very thing, right? That challenges you and creates friction in your business such that you can’t keep doing it anymore. You know, you trade working nine to five for working 24/7, you get burnt out by the very thing that you once loved doing. But that’s not how it has to be. That’s the outcome when you don’t have systems when you aren’t setting yourself up for success as a business owner, and so not to steal kind of the first way in which you help people to defy the odds and kind of, you know, spoil that, like we always hate when someone spoils a good movie, right. But I do want to say you have in your title systems architect, talk to me a little bit about how systems in particular can help business owners.

Diana Wei Fang
Oh, I believe it as the foundation of your business. I definitely do because it dictates your vision for what you want, right? It’s more than just saying, I’m going to be a phenomenal photographer, there is a reason why you are a different photographer than the millions of other photographers in the world. There’s a reason why someone chooses you over someone else. There’s also a reason why you left the corporate world. There’s also a reason why we I never quite fit in, like I liked corporate world. But I once I really started my own business, I felt like I understood, like before, I just always felt like my wings were clipped. And now it’s like the sky is the limit. There is a different mentality to owning your own business, right. And there’s a different, it’s just different. Like if you if you’re in it, you know. And honestly, for some of you, when I said if I gifted you with 1000 clients today paying clients today, some of you, actually, that terrified you. Some of you are ready to quit just by me telling you, there’s 1000 paying clients waiting for you because we sabotage ourselves. So well, we sabotage success, we are so afraid of succeeding, because it means that your dream is coming true. And your purpose is coming alive. And there is something about that, where the universe is suddenly going to put all these doubts in your head. And you’re going to say no fear, buddy.

Natalie Franke
It’s terrifying. It’s terrifying, absolutely terrifying to succeed. And so I do think it’s something that, you know, we will talk about, we will share about our dreams. But you’re right. No one is going to challenge us in the pursuit of success more than ourselves. Jon Acuff, one of my favorite quotes from his new book is right along those same lines, you know, he says something to the effect of like, you know, I’m always the one standing in my own way. And, you know, I love I love kind of how he said, you know, the guy is impossible meaning himself, right. And he’s so he’s so true. And in that, and so as the business owner, who maybe does have these big dreams or heard, for example, if I gifted you with 1000 clients that were ready to book you right now, and that scared you? If that’s the person listening to this, what advice do you have? Where do they start? What is the first thing that they need to take a good hard look at?

Diana Wei Fang
I think the first thing that I always ask someone when I do my breakthrough accelerator program with someone one on one is that I say to them, what’s riding on this? Because if, if it’s like you need to provide for your family, and this is the only outcome which for many it is okay. Well, it’s not necessarily like your why, but it is driving you to say, I have to put food on the table. So I therefore I must succeed. But for many of us, we are fortunate and privileged enough to have multiple streams of income. And for us something when we talk about something as big as your dream and the purpose of what you’re doing. When we talk about something like that. That’s not I have to put food on the table kind of dream. That is, this is going to change the next five generations kind of dream It’s not going to change me today. But it’s actually going to affect the way that my child lives on earth and their children and their children and their children. And the way globally, right, and I live in Washington, DC, I live in the city of dreams. Everyone lives in DC to change the world. We may not agree on how to do that. But that’s what people are here for. Okay. And so I am surrounded by Dreamers. And the question here is, is it worth it to you, is the next five generations worth it to you? Because if so, again, it’s not impossible for you to lay the foundation so that you can take 1000 paying clients, so that you could change the next five generations lives so that you can provide food on your family’s dinner table, and someone else’s dinner table. Because when you employ me, you also employ my team member who is studying to the Art Therapist, you’re employing my other team member who’s a doula and also works with children with cardiac heart diseases, your employer employing someone who’s trying to foster children, do you see the ripple effect of what you are doing? And then for every business that I help? Can you imagine if the farmers who switched from cocaine plants to coffee plants, the ripple effect across the country in the drug industry, and their families and the farmers around the world? Can you imagine the effect that one coffee farm? could do? Does that see like, we talk about these big lofty dreams, but you guys are out there doing? You’re doing the thing. So the idea is for you to not give up? What do you need? How can I help you? No, I don’t. I’m not here to answer your emails. But I’m here to give you long term success, not success to get you through tomorrow. I’m thinking the next five years, I’m thinking that next 20 years for you. And I want you to have the courage to also keep dreaming that because I think sometimes we get scared to do that.

Natalie Franke
I love that Diana and I have a picture of my kids on my phone. Part of the reason as the background, right the wallpaper when I go to open my phone. And part of the reason that I do that is because I’ve noticed when things get tough, I’m having a tough day in between meetings, we’ve all been trained to reach for our phone. And I want the first thing that I see in any circumstance to be my family, because very much as you were talking about legacy, which is one of my top core values as a human being is legacy. It resonated with me, right, I have to remind myself that the work that I’m doing here at HoneyBook, the work that I’m doing, as a mama bear for small business, in anything that I do the work you’re doing right now with your craft, cultivating a business building, you know, something supporting others, whatever it is, it is for a greater purpose, there is so much more, right that is connected to all of the actions that we undertake. And I love that I absolutely love that. I want to double click in to the systems conversation a little bit deeper, because I’m going to be honest with you, the word systems is not sexy. There’s a reason why people focus so much on social media, both as a hopeful channel for growth and as something to blame when things aren’t going right. But you and I do share a belief and perhaps it’s a hot take that very often we’re focused on the wrong things very often as business owners, we do focus on what is sexy, and right in front of us. And that is social media followers likes validation approval, the outside world clapping, when that is not what makes or breaks a business. It’s not social media at the end of the day, the longer I do this, the more I can say that with confidence. Very often it is what people don’t see. It is the systems that are hidden from the outside. We talked about client flow as a concept. It’s the flow part, right? Like the client journey part. They get to experience the world sees and that is critically important. The workload part, the system’s part the the actual I think it was like a skeleton, the ribcage of your business like that is the absolute most critical thing and it transforms someone that is interested in working with you into an evangelist for your brand. Who wants to tell everyone they’ve ever met just how extraordinary you are. That’s not built by an Instagram post. Right? That doesn’t happen because you have a witty tick tock video. That happens because they go through an experience with you because of the systems that you’ve built, where their life is transformed, where they have an extraordinary time where the experience that you offer is unmatched. And so I want to kind of talk about systems for a second. You know, what are some of the key parts of that that you see? being important for business owners, what are the key areas where you see people making mistakes? Give it to us, give us the real real because you live in hundreds of business owners businesses from that lens every single day. And I want Diana’s take on it.

Diana Wei Fang
Okay, well, you’re gonna get the real world because you asked for it. So I did

Natalie Franke
the record for this. She’s clearing her throat. I like one time I got really nervous, and I started sweating. I had to take off my blazer. Okay. All right, I’m ready. I’m prepared. Give it to me.

Diana Wei Fang
All right. Listen, I know that, like, I’m the same boat as you. We chase being viral, you know, but same thing. If you got a million views tomorrow? How many clients does that get you? Let’s just say, for example, it got you 100 clients out of a million views? Sure, why not? Can your system handle that? We talked about that earlier? Right? Can your system handle that? When we talk about your system? It is I think we spend a lot of time getting a client, like nurturing the client, we talk about emails and nurturing them and prompting them to buy from us. And then they buy from us. And you’re like that’s where it starts. But for us, we think of it as the end game. You bought for me done. And now. And now comes the hard part. Because now your client is like, Excuse me? Hey, what comes next? I’m so excited that and now your inbox is flooded. And you’re like, I regret all of this. I don’t want to you know, like, because you’re just getting a million emails. And I just want to say like, that’s the beginning of your system. What happens after they pay you? And honestly, 99% of you come to me and you don’t know the answer to that question. The answer everyone gives me is, well, now I work with them. But what we are spending a lot of days and times and so like if you have heard, you know, Steve Jobs used to only wear all black. And it was because it seemed one decision that he had to make. The system takes is also those pre decisions that you’re making, that gives your brain fatigue. You Natalie already said that you’re a small business owner, you work in honey book, you’re a mama bear for small businesses, you’re an actual mom of two, you have a dog, you have a spouse, right? You’re carrying a lot of hats. You are making a lot of tiny decisions throughout your day that are exhausting. There are days when I finish my day, and I’m like, I don’t I don’t know what I went for dinner. Please don’t ask me. Someone ordered for me. That has become my love language lately, because I’m just like, Please don’t ask another question that true. Everyone

Natalie Franke
listening. By the way, Diana can relate to that. Just as a side note, because we’ve talked about this before I get like everyone’s nodding as they’re like, yes, please don’t ask me what I want for dinner. It’s an identity. But I do feel like Ali in the notebook, where she’s like, it’s not that simple. He’s like, just tell me what you want? And she’s like, I don’t know. It’s Keep going. Keep going. Yes, decision fatigue, it gets impossible to make any decision if you don’t have a system making some of them in advance for you.

Diana Wei Fang
Yes. Because and that’s, it’s like a double edged sword. For some of you, I can already hear you. I know. Just hear me out. Just hear me out. I know that some of you are people hire you for you. And you think that there was magic to it. There was magic to you thinking on the fly, there was magic to you delivering and being creative and thinking outside the box. And you think that if I say the word systems, you don’t get to do that anymore, when nothing could be further from the truth. Because if you had a system, what you get is someone booked a call with you instantly so that you can start the brainstorming process as soon as they paid for you. And guess what? They won’t email you asking you what’s next? Because they are we’re already told what’s next automatically from their system. You know, what’s also next is that right before that call, if you need them to fill out a questionnaire, the system sends a questionnaire for that. And you don’t have to remember if you did that or not, because that’s one less decision for you. Because if you think that the six emails going back and forth asking you if you’re free tomorrow at 12, or actually I had to go pick up my kid. So can we do 1230 Because I didn’t know they had a half day at school is not chipping away at that decision fatigue, you’re lying to yourself. So however, we can streamline those decisions for you on a day to day basis. That’s the foundation of it. Then you can go be creative. You can think outside the box, you can go and be the superstar that you are because you’re gonna have brain space to actually do this. And if we’re talking about scaling, when you hire someone in the future, not only do you not no longer have to write down everything from your brain and try to explain it to them. And then you delay hiring someone because you’re embarrassed about how discombobulated this whole situation is, you’re ready to hire, and you know where the weak spots are. So you’re very clear about who you want to hire, a lot of people will come to me and say, I’m ready to hire someone new, but I don’t know what they would do. Everything requires me. And that’s valid. It did for a long time. It did. But that is also a mistake we make we make the mistake of thinking no one else can do what we do. And while that is true, someone can send an email for you, someone can book your flights for you, someone can decide what you are eating for dinner, someone can you know what I’m saying? There are decisions that you don’t need to make as a business owner that you can let go of, and still deliver your magic. In fact, I can’t wait for you to DM me and tell me how much more magic you have. Because you have brains. Imagine that. It’s very exciting.

Natalie Franke
That was one of the hardest mindset shifts. For me personally, and my journey, it really was to recognize that I am not my business. Like, I want to say that again, you know, like you are not your business, you might be the magic that makes the outcome of what you offer, you might be the creative, that brings about something new into the world, you might be the leader, you might be the like, whatever it is, but the business is actually a separate entity from you, it may feel like an extension of your identity, it might be an extension of your identity. But it is not you. And the more that you can build something that truly does live beyond you such that when you step in, you’re able to do what only you can do. Like I love that you’re talking about that, no, it’s not going to strip you of the magic that you bring to the table technology building systems, leveraging things like automation, actually should, if done right enable you to be more human. What it should enable you to do is be more successful in the sense that you’re able to do those things you love able to do those things that light you on fire and that your clients are hiring you for in the first place. You know, we’ve done a lot of research at HoneyBook on what to clients want. We partner with VSA. We did a big survey, I will link to it in the show notes for anyone that’s interested in digging into the data at a at a larger scale. But one of the things that we found that I just it, it both rattled me but also affirmed something that I had been feeling was, you know, we found that most clients book the business that gets back to them first period. That right there is critical, because what Diana is saying is you know, we as business owners tell ourselves, if I don’t hit the Email button, if I don’t type the copy myself from scratch, then it’s not magical, then it’s not unique, then it’s not personal. But what do the clients really want? Do they want to know that your finger hit the Email button the submit on the form? Or do they want you to get back to them quickly, such that they feel like their time is valued, such that it indicates a level of trust in communication that they’re going to hear from you when they ask for something they can expect a response. Like it’s that first impression, and many of us because of our hesitancy to lean into these systems are essentially giving clients away without even realizing it. We’re telling ourselves that we’re getting ghosted because our work is not good enough. But in reality, we just didn’t get back to them fast enough. That’s one example in a multitude. But I say that to say, you know, are there other nuances like that, Diana, that you’ve seen in regards to things that maybe we’re telling ourselves that are holding us back? It could be about change, for instance, AI? You know, you and I have had long conversations about AI and the future of tech. I’d love to know from you, you know, what is something you see in that mindset space that business owners are struggling with that you want to set the record straight about?

Diana Wei Fang
Yeah, there’s two things here. One is shame, and one is change. So let’s talk about change. First. One is that this is a lot. 2023 is a lot 2024 is going to be even more, okay. Technology moves fast. We have always known that technology has moved fast. And we as human beings are very resistant to the unknown. Okay, and I get that you can’t quite see the technology in the eyes. It’s not the same as if you were writing it yourself. I get that. I get that. But also, it can be just as effective. It doesn’t have to be you physically typing the words to For this to be effective, and I think that the shame part comes into when we say, Oh, I, I, I’m not getting clients because I’m not posting consistently on social media, I reached out to five people, and they all said no. So I guess I wasn’t, I guess I should change it right. And coming to me for help is such a big ask, I get it. And that’s why we hate doing your taxes, too. It’s a reflection of where we have spent our time and money, and effort and in the back of your mind, whether or not you, you admit it to yourself, This is something that you know, you should do. And we procrastinate, because it’s easier to have that dopamine hit of an instant, like an instant DM et Cie, it works, it’s just fine. I have made it this far, just fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. And that is when you will get to a point everyone does, where it’s not fine anymore. And you are asking for help. And all of my clients come to me at a point of breaking point. This is their Hail Mary. And I would like for you to get to a point where this is not your Hail Mary. This is where you start. Because this is again the foundation. And you know, we can reiterate listen to this podcast again about all the reasons why. But adapting the change, you have to hit that breaking point, you have to hit the bottom for you to finally say something has to change. But what if we adopted that mindset? earlier? What if we just said, Okay, maybe all these tools and AI, maybe like there’s something here to that? What if we didn’t approach everything with cynicism? And we just tried it? Try it. Because if running your small business is not about running experiments, the world is, right. There’s a lot of trial and error out there. I think that is something and then a lot of times a lot of clients will come to me too. And say, You’re the expert, what you tell me what I should be doing. We are so afraid of doing our own thing, right? It’s like a double edged sword, you are the magic. And yet, how do I make this successful and not fail? You know, and so therefore, I’m going to mold myself to what everyone else has already done. And you lose some of that magic. And then, you know, it goes in circles, it’s cyclical. You are your own magic, you are your own small business and adapting to that change, adapting to the change of times of tools of technology, asking for help. That is a mindset shift of saying, I’m ready for someone else to step into the mess with me of my taxes. That’s what I do by by your automations admitting that to yourself, What if we did that earlier? What if you, as a small business owner, accepted, owned, that you are different and therefore your business shouldn’t be run exactly the same way that the other person that’s running it, that there was something different to it? Which is kind of like why I love honey book, honestly, because it’s customizable for everyone. I have made hundreds of custom systems for everybody. You’re not meant to do things the way that the other photographer did, the other Baker did, the other farmer did. Because if so back to this cocaine farmer, he would still be growing cocaine. Right? Because if so, we would actually all be incorporations. Right? And so we have to it just we have to get there faster. We have to accept the change faster, but it comes with fear and shame. And there’s just what if we adopted the attitude that define the odds? What if we adopted the attitude of resistance and grit and being willing to accept that this is not the end, but this is the beginning? earlier? way earlier? Like today?

Natalie Franke
I love it. We had an interview with Jason Pfeiffer, the editor in chief of Entrepreneur Magazine and the entire conversation was about this inevitability of change as a business owner and you’re hitting it right on the head. I think we are often so afraid of the change and also when it comes to The shame as you mentioned, asking for help can feel incredibly daunting. It can feel, you know, almost like admitting defeat, which it’s not, it’s absolutely not I always say asking for help is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness, and yet, right as visitors, sometimes we expect to be able to do everything and wear all the hats. And we forget that in a corporation, somewhere, there is someone who does one of the 1 million jobs that we do, and that’s their nine to five. And here we are, right? Juggling 1000 of those jobs in a 24 hour period. So we talked about fear of change, and they need to address that head on, we’ve talked about not feeling ashamed to ask for help, not feeling ashamed, you know, to approach change with this experimental mindset, which I love the experimental mindset. You know, it took me until my 30 Astana to realize that it’s okay to suck at something, like you can just do something and be absolutely terrible at it. And that’s okay. You know, you don’t have to be perfect at whatever you go after. And some of you are rolling your eyes and the rest of your going, wait, what do you mean? And I’m saying, yes, write a song, no one will ever hear sing it and break the windows in your home like or maybe don’t, because they’re expensive knit a sweater, no one’s ever going to wear, right, take a photograph that is completely underexposed. But you’re learning the art of photography, one failed photo at a time, the point being, the moment that we stop being so afraid of making mistakes and looking like a fool and failing. That’s the moment where we embrace the possibility of something better for ourselves the change that could actually bring about our greatest success. And so I’d love to hear from you in your own journey. You know, you’ve you’ve kind of held a lot of different positions along the way used to run brands for over 50 Different businesses on social media, right. And you’ve worked with editing manuscripts, and books and all sorts of things. You’ve I literally could sit here all day, just list the number of jobs that you’ve had, and how that ultimately led you to becoming a systems architect to sitting down and working with hundreds and 1000s, arguably, of businesses to build out these systems. I would love to know from you though, you know, did you struggle with this as well? How has your journey evolved over time? When you think about where you’re going in the future? You know, what scares you but also what excites you?

Diana Wei Fang
Oh, yes, I grew up in a very untraditional home. So I grew up legitimately starved. Like, I did not know where my next meal was coming from. I was actually sick a lot as a kid, as Superman nourished anytime, like someone would my birth mom, she would take me to homes, and like, invite herself over for dinner with friends so that I could get a meal. But then like by then, it had been like, a few days since my last meal. So of course, I’m like, and then he gets so sick, I get so sick. So I, I get it. I get the intensity and requires to provide for someone, I understand that. And I think that I grew up with that resilience of, I need to figure out the next step. before it happens. You know, I moved around a lot. We moved every nine months. And then I also don’t know if I should be saying this on the podcast that I definitely lied on my college application. I didn’t, we’re not going

Natalie Franke
to tell anyone, don’t worry. We’ve got your back. We’re not going to tell anyone.

Diana Wei Fang
I’m on their board now. I had to lie on my college application. Mostly because I couldn’t afford to apply to college. And my friend filled it out for me. So technically, and then she forged my signature. And then she emailed me or she called me it was very, very old. She called me and said, you know, send him your transcript to the school. And I said, I then applied she goes, I did. And she paid for my application fee. That took change. You know, and us moving every nine months that I always moved around to different family members, because eventually she couldn’t take care of me anymore. And that also came with new rules. Every family has their own rules and upbringings. And growing up just as an Asian American in America to assimilation is a really big thing. Even just the way that people say my name. I’m just like yeah, you could say however you want, you know, I have school certificates that say like Ilana i L A. Dave Yeah, truly. Diana’s very difficult. Don’t ask it’s very hard for people to spell. So just assimilation and that I think that’s just the way I grew up. It was. It was never, it was never a question. If I wanted to eat tomorrow, we’re going to figure this out. You know, and probably more intense than most people experienced that. And I definitely acknowledge that. But I think that I have seen what’s possible. Because of it. I know that if I get over the fact of like being embarrassed to ask for help, it will come. You know, if I get over the pride, that’s really what it is, it’s pride of asking for help, being embarrassed to let someone see my living conditions. At the time that I lived in the trailer, there was like a dead mouse in the corner, probably because I definitely not touch with that. And I was 16. And so that’s like a totally different scenario of inviting someone over, you can just invite friends over when you live, it truly was a dead mouse in the corner. It’s just a different kind of take, you know, but I now have also like, graduated, I’m now on the board of that university in one of their committees, you know, I am now like, able to, it wasn’t always easy. I worked for many different corporations. And I figured out my life, but I also like, did it figure out? Let’s be real. I thought I was like, I took the easy way. All the time. When I first started my business, I was like, Yeah, I’m gonna do whatever you need. You want me to write an email, I can write an email, you got to pay me for that. Great. Not what I like, clearly, from this conversation, what I want to do is see you succeed, it took me 30 plus years to figure that out. And even now, like as you talk about experimenting, and like singing so badly, you break the windows that I struggle with that I do, I can’t even sing in my car by myself, no one else is gonna hear me. But I’m like, what if they did? That like, is that ingrained situation, but it comes. It’s just, it’s hard. It’s hard. I know, everyone listening to this podcast right now, is thinking it’s so easy for you to say that because you’re on the other side of it, I get that I do. I get a get what I’m asking you to do is trusting something you you don’t know trusting something you can’t see, trusting an automation trusting an AI. And like, I get that? I do, I really do. But also, that’s what I had to do when I blindly trusted someone to literally drive me from the other side of the country. So I could go to school, you know, because we’re sure we weren’t not flying. That’s what I did to get my first job paying job. I like blindly trusted someone as a host ranch person in Northern California. In case you don’t know, I was born in LA grew up in New York City, Live in Washington, DC cities, I live in cities, and I was a horse ranch. California, because I needed to get paid. Okay. I definitely didn’t know what the other side of that was. I didn’t have an exit strategy, if that didn’t work out. So I know I’m asking a lot when I say you kind of just have to go through it. No, please take it from someone who has gone through a lot of change, that it’s going to work out. You have to believe in yourself more than I believe in you. But if you do, and you’re willing to put in some work with me, Well, then let’s go change the world because I’m ready. You know what I mean? So I know it’s a big ask I get it. Yeah.

Natalie Franke
I’m going to replay that last snippet over and over again, whenever I need a pep talk. I’m going to replay that. Just even as your friend I mean, gosh, you are such an incredible, inspiring, brilliant, hardworking, heart centered. I could go on and on with additives galore. And it still wouldn’t touch truly the magnitude of who you are and the impact that you’ve made over the many years that I’ve known you and our community, both at HoneyBook. And, you know, rising tide, a multitude of communities you’ve always shown up and you know, Diana really does walk the walk. And so, you know, at the at the risk of keeping you all day long, which you know that I would do. I want to lead into our final question and get your take on something that I asked every guest of the show. There is no right or wrong answer. There’s only your answer. But Diana, I would love to know from you. What do you believe is the biggest differentiator between the businesses that succeed and the ones that fail?

Diana Wei Fang
Well? i It’s It’s an attitude. It’s an attitude, it’s something bigger than yourself, I really believe that it’s, again, there’s nothing wrong with putting food on the table, I get that 100%. But when it’s about building a foundation and a legacy, huge game changer, because people want to be a part of that. And it fuels you, it’s really weird to say, because I understand the mounting bills that we all face, I understand that more deeply than most, I’ve had $0 in my bank account more times than you can imagine. But it is the it’s, it’s, that feels like it’s yourself, it’s your own power to put food on the table to pay your bills. But when this is bigger than yourself, people want to be a part of it. If the community you’re gonna find that it’s actually an easier ask for help for community for change for all the things because it is not about you. And the shame breaks off, because it’s not about you anymore. And it’s just a different path. But also, it’s Grant resilience. Because you believe in something that’s bigger than yourself. It’s not just for today, right? It’s for the next five generations. It’s an attitude, the belief in yourself. Again, Natalie, you and I were champions of small businesses. And so we can’t believe in this more than you do for yourself. And that is honestly a hard boundary I’ve had to place because I’m just like, I’m devastated. When someone closes their business, I’m actually really devastated when that happens. And I’ve had to tell myself a few times, I can’t make this happen more than they want to, and that’s honestly for my own protection, more than anything, because I so desperately want them to see them succeed. But the resources are there. The people are there. You’re living proof of it. This podcast, honey book as a company, they’re so generous. And it’s just I think it’s a huge mindset. It’s and systems. Let’s be real.

Natalie Franke
I love that. systems, and systems, not the truth. Diana, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast for folks that want to learn more about you get plugged in connect with you. Where can they do that?

Diana Wei Fang
I am an Instagram girl. You can find me over at the finer point.

Natalie Franke
Amazing. We’ll make sure to link that your website all the things in our show notes. Diana, thank you so much for joining me.

Diana Wei Fang
Thank you so much. It was so fun.

Natalie Franke
That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything that we’ve discussed today can be [email protected]. Head to our website for access to show notes, relevant links and all of the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests in love on social. Thanks again for listening.

Natalie Franke
Did you know that 85% of small businesses agree that word of mouth recommendations brought them the most customers 85% And yet often when we talk about marketing our independent businesses, you hear conversations about social media first and foremost, but very rarely about the power of community led growth. Today, I am sitting down to talk with Matt Gartland. He is an entrepreneur with 10 plus years of experience and four exits under his belt. He specializes in online companies that operate in some combination of the media, education, tech and ecommerce markets. Today, Matt serves as the CEO of SPI media, that Smart Passive Income, which is a pioneering brand in the crater economy. He’s also an advisor and investor in early stage tech startups, and related venture capital funds. Matt is absolutely brilliant. And in this episode, we talk about the future of growing your independent business, taking into account the current landscape and headwinds that all of us are experiencing this conversation. It left me feeling fired up. And we’re having to reevaluate some of my own notions on the subject of community led growth. But nonetheless, it’s filled with hot takes with spicy opinions and with knowledge that’s going to help to propel you forward. Let’s get into the episode. Hey, everyone, this is your host, Natalie Frank, and you’re listening to the independent business podcasts, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve victory.

Natalie Franke
Hey, Matt, thank you so much for joining me.

Matt Gartland
I’m thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me, Natalie.

Natalie Franke
I want to jump right in no softball style, we are going right for you hitting a home run out the gate because I love and appreciate and honor your thought leadership in the space of online business ownership. And I’m eager to know from you to kick us off. What is again, I feel like I’m asking the biggest of questions, but why not? Matt? What is the future of small business online? What does this look like? Well, I feel like we’re entering into a brand new season, a big season, a lot of possibilities, a lot of changes. What are you seeing and what are you anticipating,

Matt Gartland
I see a return to small business being small, because so much of learning so much of connection has been big has been mass market has been how big can we get on social media? How big? Can we sell our dry online courses? Like how many units can we move? Right? And that has really, I think driven a lot of the innovation that I have seen in different corners of the internet over the last 10 plus years, you know, from E commerce through to what we now call the crater economy to freelancers and small agencies, right, it’s always been more and bigger and louder. But because of I think galvanizing moments, certainly like the pandemic through different incentivization, and even technological advancement, and we’ll know dig into community probably on a lot of levels here soon, I see small sort of returning, you know, smaller groups, cohorts, you know, Cohort Based Learning to where it like outcomes, and action is prioritized more than just consumption, right? So and to be able to really do that we have to be more intimate in how we are designing our products and services in smaller ways. So I’d say that’s kind of the through line of what I’m seeing, and not just in terms of what I believe, but see and see in terms of the results that are being realized for my companies, certainly, but then also my friends and others that are doing the same thing. You mentioned

Natalie Franke
the pandemic as something that is precipitating some of the shift, i see i By the way, I aligned 100%. And I see sort of a pendulum swinging now back towards right, small experiences mattering more than ever before, away from kind of mass and scale. What do you think, are some of the other things that are influencing this? Is it AI? Is it you know, social media and frustrations with the algorithm? And like, what other kind of contributing factors do you think are moving small business back to being small and focusing kind of on that on that intimate relationship?

Matt Gartland
You’ve hit on a couple and they’re certainly more it’s a multivariate probably answer. You’re not to be you know, too sophisticated about it. I think in person, you know, connection is returning certainly a very common point of analysis, right kind of post pandemic, but when we think about, again, trying to build, you know, some version, you know, of a community if we want to use that word, capital C or even lowercase c right. If we are, you know, in a endeavor to you transform someone in some way right through again, the the exchange of have value through products and services, right? I think getting back in touch in person in some way, shape or form, it doesn’t have to be a major conference where you’re selling 1000 tickets or anything like that. But are you connecting with your local community in terms of entrepreneurial meetups? You know, are you? Are you returning to those events? Again, in those forums, where you maybe had to start? I know, I know, I did. You know, a lot of us, you know, back in the day, we’re just hanging out at coffee shops, kind of talking about our startup ideas right. Now, are you? Are you returning to that? Are you kind of re galvanizing some of your creative energies? And is that leading to new breakthroughs, new ideas, right, and kind of getting through maybe a point of stagnation and really thinking about what is your differentiation in this moment? You know, kind of returning to your roots of your core proposition? So that’s one thing is the in person connection opportunities? Are we going to industry events, you know, stuff like that. Also, you mentioned AI, certainly, that has taken off in the last, you know, 18 ish months. And I think that’s, it’s interesting for those of us that are kind of the the galvanizing force for, again, our brand, or content or services, whatever it is, you know, as entrepreneurs, and especially if we truly are independent, we don’t have a business partner, we don’t have funding or backers or anything like that, then, you know, this is maybe a whole other vein of conversation we can dig into, but what, how are you developing your range as an entrepreneur, and I use the term deliberately because I just love and rave constantly about David Epstein’s book called range, and how, you know, generalists are going to, you know, continually overperformed specialists, and we need to develop, you know, specialization and expertise. Don’t get me wrong, but I think as a small business owner, you know, especially in this world now, with AI and other things are getting increasingly democratized and automated, and you’re never going to, at some point, be able to compete with how fast you know, chat. GBD can output something for you, right? Is, okay, if you’re independent, how are you developing your complementary skills? How are you developing some unfair advantages that isn’t just like, oh, cool, you know, I have an idea, or Oh, cool, I’m a so called visionary. That’s great. That’s nice. That’s cute. And that’s important. Like it starts there. But it can’t end there. Like you have to get good at business, finance, you have to get good at copywriting. You have to be good about product development and innovation and actually taking the initiative to listen to your customers and ask them good questions. And, like, there’s just so many things. Right. So, so yeah, so I get a multivariate answer. And I’m throwing a lot of back back at you. Sorry, Natalie. But um, yeah, I think that’s why in part, like, we need to get kind of small again, right, and be able to talk to the right people, you know, have circles of trust, you are the average of the five people you surround yourself with the most sort of mentality. Right?

Natalie Franke
Right. And leaning into that with community, you know, one of the challenges that I’ve come up against in the sort of like entrepreneurial Zeitgeist and general ethos is that, you know, communities a nice to have not a must have, or that it’s sort of this fluffy, you know, difficult to measure the ROI of portion of our lives in our businesses. But what I’m hearing from you and what I also believe, and maybe it’s my own bias is that it’s not a nice to have community is fundamental to your success, not only as a professional as an independent, but also as a human being. And you alluded to a couple of, you know, the benefits of having that trusted circle of investing in those relationships. But I’d love to know from you, you know, what do you see as the benefit of leaning into community, whether that is a community of your peers, whether that is the community that you cultivate through your business with your clients, or your customers? What are some of those benefits? What are some of the successes that you see arise from making that investment intentionally?

Matt Gartland
Number one is the feedback loop, right, and being able to have more feedback loops faster. We operate as entrepreneurs with so much in insecurity, sure, but but lack of information, imperfect information, unknowns, yet? Maybe another great book, if I can plug one is Annie Dukes, thinking bets. She is a psychologist that is also a champion poker player. Brilliant read read the book, but it’s like how can we operate our businesses with finite resources? Again, we’re small, right? We don’t have venture capital, I’m guessing. Right? I know, I don’t I have friends that do, but I don’t. So we have limited very limited resources, time, energy dollars, we’re probably bootstrapping and operating off of free cash flow to try to invest back into ourselves and our companies, right. So we have to be make bets. Well, if you’re making just one really big bet that is a massive gamble, right? So surrounding yourself with community, again, depending on how you want to define that gives you an opportunity to make more bets, smaller bets, faster bets, and learn and learn through that process around you know what it is you’re doing. Have you found market fit. Is this working? Is this a scalable thing? Is there a derivative thing that could scale you know beyond that? So yeah, feedback loops is number one. Number two, I’d say is humility, or just groundedness. Right as an entrepreneur, especially again, for those of us that are operating in online spheres, right, so So you’re, you’re, you’re not the sharpest tool in the box, at any given moment. There’s always someone smarter, more experienced. So if you, if you’re gonna be intentional, again, with these networks, public or private, you know, that you’re building for yourself in investing into and try and show up with as much humility as you can, you’re going to benefit from that in ways that you can’t even predict, you just got to put yourself in those experiences.

Natalie Franke
I couldn’t agree more. I love I love both points that you made there. I’ll start with humility. I think there’s so much power and just recognizing, you know, wow, I have a lot to learn. And there are people yes, that are further along in their career that have different superpowers than I do. But also, then when you have the ability to make them your friends, and surround yourself with people, I always say like I make an up habit of surrounding myself with people that are smarter than me better than me, you know, in different seasons than me with different lived experiences, different perspectives, because when we build communities that are rich in that level of diversity in all capacities, we’re all better for it. So instead of seeing those folks is your, your competition or threat, right? If you can actually say, No, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, there’s a multitude of different folks in here with different talents that are, you know, just killing it. But I’m not threatened by them, I’m empowered by them, I’m inspired by them, like, I’m going to be surrounded by those people and make a habit of showing up to support them. When you do that. It’s transformational. Have you seen that I feel like this is something that, you know, you’ve built just from knowing you and the relationships of how even we’ve been connected. But I’d love you know, for anyone listening to this, who maybe is in that place of just feeling that view but in a defeated way, you know, it’s kind of feeling like, Oh, you’re right, like, I’m not where I want to be, and other people are smarter further ahead. Could you just share a little bit of encouragement from the circles that you’ve cultivated and the relationships that you’ve built? You know, in regards to? How do we how do we forge those relationships? Is it worth it? You know, I want to just hear your take on it.

Matt Gartland
Yeah. No, that’s a great question. And it’s so true to the entrepreneurial journey is a roller coaster of ups and downs. I don’t think that that ever stops. One stock for me is is my bed. So I’ve had startups that have gone? Well, I’ve had startups that have not gone well, right? I don’t like to term serial entrepreneur, at least for myself, it just kind of feels like a suit that doesn’t fit all that great. But yeah, so it’s sort of a, you know, just keep swimming, you know, sort of Dory search sort of phrase, right? Because, you know, whether it’s it’s the wins the losses, the extreme highs, or I’ve had a navigated some extreme lows. And I’m not saying that this is easy, but like if you can get some distance from it, and kind of look back at it, and honestly, just be grateful for for all sides of those things. I think that that adds to the the composition and the character, you know that in, I guess, in my strong opinion, that’s almost required to be an entrepreneur, because it’s it’s not a game. That is an easy game where success is guaranteed. Yeah, Natalie, you know, is maybe better than anybody just how fraught that game is. And you talk about how, from, from the industry data, at least here in the US, you know, being US based small businesses, you know, that most don’t make it, you know, 50% are gone after five years. And I want to say it’s about 20, or 30% are gone after even the first year, first year, right? And it’s like, Can we can we have an honest conversation about that, like, look, this is hard. So you have to keep leaning in. And again, making small bets and being very cognizant about your, your resource allocations and being sensitive to that, and kind of take the hits as they come. It’s not going to be you know, this not Disneyland. Like there’s animatronics behind the things you’re looking at. And it’s fun, and it’s exciting, you’re gonna meet great people. But guess what, you know, it’s not just all pixie dust, you gotta lean into it. And it’s hard. And, and that’s, that’s what you’re signing up for. And I think that anyone listening hopefully knows that. And if this is a breath of fresh air at any level, it’s like, look, we’re all in this together, I take punches, I have taken punches, I’m guessing you have to. And you know what, you’re gonna get better and shorter for

Natalie Franke
talk about some encouragement. Okay, feedback loops, you brought up feedback loops, and all the light bulbs started going off in my mind, and I really hope for folks listening to this, the light bulbs are going off to when we talk about community, you know, like I mentioned, a lot of people think it’s the fluffy, it’s the Kumbaya, but I also really have always advocated that people also see the ROI. And, you know, numbers are never going to fully capture the power of investing in community in the multiple layers of it. However, you know, they do indicate that there is more benefit to community than just feeling good about ourselves and making positive impact in the ways of helping others to keep fighting keep going feeling better about themselves, there is business impact. And when we lean into the feedback loops portion of the conversation and you mentioned you know, like do you have product market fit? Do you need to change the way you’re operating your business? What can you learn by being in conversation with and in this case, I’m I’m in my head going you know, with your clients with your customer’s actually focusing more on serving them than on competing right with with who else is in the market like focusing on what they need their problems solving for them. Let’s double click in, talk to me a little bit about, you know, the power. This is where we kind of lean into, like community led growth, but even the power of, you know, investing in community as it relates to those feedback loops, or as it relates to, you know, planning what you offer in your business, even from a foundational level.

Matt Gartland
Yeah, I would start by saying having a direct relationship with your customer and finding different community methods and mechanisms to enrich and intensify even, you know, that relationship, not that community has to be the product and that, you know, your community members must be, again, your direct revenue source, they are for me these days with with SPI happy to kind of diagnose that and come back around to that point, perhaps, you know, there’s different manifestations of community. But, you know, at the start of the question there, Natalie, you talked about, at least I think, how some folks kind of just slap on community, maybe, you know, at least historically speaking, sometimes it’s like, hey, marketing team, can you do communities like, well, community done? Well, it’s not a marketing function. Sometimes communities use as customer acquisition, you know, it’s free, it’s kind of a part of a freemium play tech companies that have done this to varying degrees of success and authenticity. You know, sometimes without also, it’s like, Okay, how are we doing that? Right? Is it just a, an kind of an unruly on moderated forum of some kind? Because, okay, someone might call that community, I don’t candidly with maybe some spicy opinion, mixed in. Now. That’s not it. Right, you know, for for us and what I have seen and learned through especially the online education space, and where online learning, especially for entrepreneurship and small businesses going, you know, we need to have more private communities, you know, so not social media, right? To just like, Oh, cool. Let’s talk about all the fun stuff and the sexy stuff like Nah, let’s talk about, hey, I can make payroll, right? If I have payroll, or my cash flow is tight, hey, there’s more competition. How do I differentiate myself? Because, you know, bingo, that’s real strategy. Strategy is not just being better at something, strategy is actually being different at something big difference. So and I think we need to build more safe, private, well facilitated, not moderated, but also facilitated conversations. I mean, we learn to Yes, a lot of people come to us at SPI for this very reason, especially these days, given the big pivot we’ve made in the business over the last 18 months to two years. But yeah, that’s kind of how I get, again, kind of spicy about community.

Natalie Franke
I want more of the spicy because I think we, we agree on this friend, and I’ll give an example. You know, I have a hot take where a lot of the time you’ll hear folks referring to their audience as their community. And there’s a huge difference between an audience and a community. You know, I’ve always believed that an audience is very much you speaking to a group of people that are listening, but a community is one in which the people themselves by virtue of being connected to one another, right? They form value just by having each other, yes, you contribute immensely. But even if you were to go away a community, you know, those relationships, they live beyond you, they are a part of something that is living and existing and in very, you know, in very good community, you’re the facilitator of that, and I love that you use the word facilitator, because I think it’s really important. Let’s lean into that, you know, what do you think makes a good community when we’re talking about it, and I love that you said, you know, a private space, a facilitated space, you’re leaning back into what we started with, which is like, we’re going back to small, like less, you’re speaking to 5 million people and point 00 1% Or even hearing it and more, you know, small, intimate cohorts where we really know one another, we’re really able to have those deep conversations talk me more about that. What makes a good community in your eyes? What have you seen with all of the work that you’ve done with SPI you know, in what what communities work with communities last and what doesn’t work? What doesn’t last?

Matt Gartland
Yeah, well, it starts with actually what you just offered up, which is a critical point of context. It’s not audience you know, when when you are building audience an audience building is important, especially for almost any version of online business. It is largely a consumption sort of mentality, especially with the algorithms and things that you know, again, we could fall down that rabbit hole if it makes sense to but you know, you are you are doing top of funnel work audience building you want to foster or begin fostering really, you know, authentic relationships, but that’s mostly going from okay, I don’t know who you are, Natalie, Do I like you kind of begin to develop some level of trust in you and what you’re putting out there? Do I see myself in you to some degree in terms of the shared experience in terms of maybe a common set of goals or lifestyles or something, you know, in that realm, right. That’s audience building done? Well, you know, it’s kind of classic Kevin Kelly 1000 true fans way back from like, feels like The dawn of the internet, you know, it’s still out there as a very, you know, timeless sort of concept. But that’s not where the journey ends, at least, you know, again, strong opinions based opinion. Maybe it shouldn’t. And they’re right. So, so the, the big inversion point is going from a kind of Content First approach to audience building, to then not content being community, you know, what you want are? Or do trust me enough to tell me your problems? You know, what are you struggling with right now, you know, soliciting for the questions, to go back to even talking about bets, right, you know, in your making bets, because you don’t know to use again, the poker reference from any Dukes book, you don’t know what cards Natalie, you’re holding on the other side of the table, right. So if you can get people to reveal their cards too, because you’re in a safe space, not because you’re playing the game or competing, right? Just because like you’re holding your cards close to your chest, I have insecurity, XYZ other thing, if you can just get people to show you your cards or their cards, and because maybe you have to go first. And which is something that is oftentimes a hard thing to do, especially if you are the you know, kind of so called important person in the room, you know, that’s fostering the community. And you know, there’s maybe some ego, there’s, but if you can actually put that aside and lean back into that humility, and you can show your cards first. That’s vulnerability, right? That is That is real vulnerability in a safe space, where it’s like, yeah, we’re struggling with X, you know, are you willing to show up in that space? Also, that’s community, right? That’s community. It’s not a content driven thing.

Natalie Franke
I love that talk to me a little bit about community led growth as a concept. What is that? What does that mean, talk to you, like, I hear a lot of folks use it. And they’ve used in different capacities, but for the independent business owner, who maybe isn’t familiar with the concept, or even how community can drive growth for a company. Talk to me a little bit about that. Yeah,

Matt Gartland
I think about it as an honest to goodness, like product innovation pipeline, sort of as like a philosophy or strategy. So if you start small, and maybe you started Uber small, so you’re starting with a one to one service, like so many people do, you are a freelance designer, wedding photographer, was the right, exactly. Yeah, if you are, you know, certainly a coach of some discipline or expertise, right, that is a marvelous way to get started. And I want to emphasize the marvelousness of that, because I think especially over the last, again, five to 10 years, when it’s all been about growth, it’s all been about, hey, you know, what’s the biggest thing that I can hockey stick scale, right, and it doesn’t even have to be a piece of software, you know, my online course, you know, that’s DIY can could go to the moon. In terms of scale, right? Like, there’s almost been, I fear, sort of a devaluing of like, one on one service work. And that’s a shame in my book, because when you start small at that level, you know, and lean into, again, the community of this, which is like really understanding the other person’s life in business and goals, and getting them again, to reveal their aspirations as along with their problems, you know, even in a one on one context, that you can learn from that and then apply that forwards. So then product innovation wise, you could potentially, if you want to go from one to one to small group, right, that’s a way that you can potentially find some more breathing space in your business could be, you know, an expansion revenue point, you get into your really good unit economics, we could talk all day long about pricing strategy, probably not right now. But right, so then you could go to small group, and then from small group, you learn, you’ll lean into that community, you get feedback, you realize, man, this experience I just put out there just nope, like just dead flat didn’t work. Okay, glad to know that. But it only took a month to learn that not not a lot, not a big risk, or a big bet to have made and lost. So how can I learn from there, and then after enough reps there, maybe you do ultimately end up with a piece of curriculum that you can design into some version of a course. Right? So you can reverse engineer a lot of this stuff, in my experience, and my view, beginning with like, community in a one on one setting, which is maybe a weird thing that kind of say, but like, you and me have community right now.

Natalie Franke
Yep. I also love that what you didn’t say which was okay, when you’re creating a business, you know, just just go after whatever you want to do and create, you start with the people that you’re serving. If you’re doing one to one, you know, serve that person well focused on serving their needs. I think something that I see a lot in the independent business space, and I am so guilty of doing this so many times myself is I have all these ideas and I just want to start chasing 50 different things at you know, at whim like that makes me excited without going back to but what’s the problem I’m solving or the service I’m offering and who am I helping and growing based on the learnings right at a small scale like start one to one and one to one, maybe all that you want to do and you may Not go to small group, you may not even scale to, you know, having a larger one to many format in your business. And for a lot of people, you know, we have a lot of people in the community where the one to one service space is truly the dream. That’s the dream. That’s what they want. That’s great, too, like, please no, that’s extraordinary. You may also uncover, though, in the pursuit of doing that, that there are these other revenue streams and potential routes to serve that you weren’t even aware of. And I know that’s also been my journey, right, going from not even fathoming in a million years that, you know, there were all of these multitudes of variations of how to grow a photography business, for example, or, you know, you mentioned coaching, we have ton of consultants in the community, freelancers that do all sorts of different things. But I love Matt, that you keep going back to, like, you know, focus on the community you have, if that’s one to one that counts, that’s community, that’s where you start. And you can scale and grow from there. I’d be curious to know, you know, what are some of the mistakes that you see people make, we mentioned the hot take on audiences and community. But is there anything else where you see people kind of maybe making a misstep or a mistake when it comes to kind of leaning more into community led growth?

Matt Gartland
A big one is some version of taking your eye off the ball after onboarding. So you know, if you’re doing community in a way where it’s okay, not one to one, or maybe very small group, where it’s almost, I would argue, impossible to take your eye off the ball in this way. But so if you’re building community on a community membership platform, right, like we do, at some sort of size, you’re going to have to contend with onboarding, to design a very thoughtful and tailored onboarding process. Very frequently, community builders, especially first time community builders in this sort of a now version of community, you know, the onboarding stops at some point, right? That might sound obvious, it should stop, right? Because, okay, they’re onboarding and now they’re in, but it’s like, okay, then what, and oftentimes, it just kind of goes dark, there’s a big drop off in terms of what you are doing to continually, I’ll say, earn the show up of that person, you know, whoever that person is. So how are you inviting them back? If they don’t come back? Do you somehow know that? And are you then reaching back to them say, hey, Natalie, I haven’t seen you around here for a couple of weeks. Are you okay? Right? Like, do you yourself, if you are independent running this? Or if you have a small team and someone is doing that for you? Have you somehow codified you know, that approach, right doesn’t have to be overly formal? Like you have a seven step SOP? Or maybe you do, right, but like, essentially, what happens after onboarding, what’s the next experience to keep that connective tissue going and growing?

Natalie Franke
And so many businesses, even when they think about growth, right, they focus on conversion, and nothing after that. So I hear you saying, you know, onboarding, and you’re like, Yes, don’t just stop at onboarding. And it’s so funny, because as you’re talking, I’m thinking about all of the independence with a client flow, where it’s like, okay, just acquire the client, like, just get the client to sign on the dotted line, sign that contract, and we’ve done it. But what I’m also hearing in this is that parallel, where it’s like, Look, if you want a community led growth engine and a business conversions, just truly a stepping stone, then it’s about okay, retention and nurturing. And how do you turn a customer into an evangelist? How do you turn a client into someone that wants to tell everyone they’ve ever met about you, your program, your business what you’re doing, because it doesn’t end the moment you take their money, because it’s not just a transaction, because it’s truly relationship building. And that works for, you know, again, the one to one business ago, when I was a wedding photographer, I thought about this all the time, loving and nurturing my clients, even if I was, you know, they’re not returning. It’s always client acquisition when you’re a wedding photographer unless they get divorced and come back to you, in which case, okay, client retention, but for the most part, constant acquisition, nonetheless, if you provide an extraordinary experience, and you stay in touch and build a community where those clients can connect with one another, and they stay in touch with you, the sky’s the limit, because as you do that, and you you no longer drop off with your intentional nurturing at the point of conversion. You’re generating a essentially a word of mouth engine that is unstoppable. And as we know, word of mouth although we love to discount it, although we love to, you know, we hear all the time the sexiness of like paid spend, and you know, these big launch campaigns, it comes down to word of mouth, it is at the end of the day, when you run a business, what are people saying about you? It’s not just that they’re talking? What are they saying?

Matt Gartland
1,000% my god, okay, many things. One, my are our wedding photographer, Allison, just phenomenal. In her business. She does, you know, essentially additive services right, or different contexts, right? So newborn baby photos, and she family holiday shots, guess what, we’ve come back to her a half a dozen times, at least probably now more than that even, you know, we have two young little girls. And you know, it’s like, we want to capture those moments. So like, she has done an amazing job of developing community and word of mouth, just among the local folks here, you know, that have been again, wedding clients first. But though not not just clients, not just transactional, like, like, she’s someone that we trust to kind of capture these really important moments, right? So it is about retention, longevity, you know, the techie word that does matter if you’re really trying to build something where there’s again, like a subscription revenue coming from your community members would be then lifetime value LTV, right, right, which is something like, guess what, you should measure that, right? Because you should enter software that makes it easy to do, but like, so we track that for us. Because it’s not just about the acquisition and the initial payment, you know, we want to earn the ongoing payment, and you have to earn it with the experiences and the programming that you’re providing in the community.

Natalie Franke
I love it. And I never hear especially in the service based business space. I never hear people talk about LTV, right, I never hear it. And yet, the moment you just said that, I’m like thinking, dang, if people only take one thing away from this, you know, think about for a second, once you do acquire someone, what is the lifetime value? If you do that job? Well, if you nurture that relationship, if you serve them well. So yes, it could be that they, you know, continue to come back to you for other types of services or sessions, you know, and in even in sort of a broader, perhaps not completely true to the definition of LTV, but arguably, in this context, we can consider it, you know, what is like the referral potential, even of someone who served well. So for every one client you serve, well, how many people do they know who might also be a fit for your business? If we’re talking about it from that lens, or from kind of a scale perspective, referrals are also incredibly powerful?

Matt Gartland
Tremendously. Again, for folks that are running, what I could probably say, now is the classic idea of a creator based business, right? Then you’re probably how the affiliate mechanic somehow, right you’re, you’re referring a piece of software that you use to run your business, you’re an affiliate for it, and maybe that’s some supplemental income coming into your business, right? Or maybe the opposite, which is like you then have an affiliate program for the thing that you’re selling, right? Well, that’s just mechanizing word of mouth, like, like, it all does boil down to word of mouth, like it is phenomenally timeless, it’s never gonna go away. If you’re a coach or a one on one consultant. That’s true. But even for us, like we want to play into our membership, and galvanize them and evangelize them, so that they will evangelize us, yes, we have some software helping us with the, again, the mechanization of of an affiliate program to add some notable incentive there. But that’s almost like the cherry on top of the whole thing, like if you’re actually helping them, and they’re transforming in the way that they want to, and we’re helping them arguably, they would do it, you know, even without some, some incentive, you know, in play.

Natalie Franke
Yes. And that’s always been something, you know, on the HoneyBook side, and again, talking more on kind of honey book as a SaaS platform client flow management. But that’s always been a core tenant and a foundational, almost like value that we’ve talked about on the team, which is, if we’re going to invest somewhere, we would rather invest in giving money back to our members that are referring us then into paid ads, for example, like, we’d rather put money back into the pockets of the members that love the platform and want to tell their friends about it. And I think when you kind of take that mindset and then apply it to the independent business, I’ll never forget, I was maybe three to four years into my photography business at the time, I didn’t even I had never thought of a referral program. I didn’t even quite know what that was. But I heard a photography educator speaking about how within his wedding business, he had built out a very simple didn’t require software type of referral structure, where his whole goal was, I never want to have to market myself, again, I want my clients to do it for me, if I have a client that I love, there’s a good chance they have a couple friends that would equally be a great fit for me. What if I could invest instead in them and, you know, walk through this idea of just building a very basic, very fundamental, you know, one client refers one client equals this incentive, you know, as they refer more equals more incentives. We’ve all seen structures like that, but to someone listening to this, who’s maybe very new to the concept of an affiliate program or, you know, referrals or even says, oh, but I’m a service based business nap mat, like that’s not super relevant to me, I’m going to hit is kind of like hit pause for a second and say, think about it. Would it be advantageous for you to examine the client flow that you have today and how, yes, you acquire customers, but you continue to serve them throughout the lifecycle of their business. And then if and when There’s a point to give them the tools they need to refer you or add incentives to that referral structure. Have you ever considered it? Is that a better use of your time perhaps, than posting the, you know, 1000 photo on Instagram that only point 000 3% of your audience or whatever it is now, gosh, is going to see? That’s up to you to answer. But maybe I’ll ask Matt, thoughts on that thoughts on, you know, in terms of the future of really growing a business? Do you think this kind of smaller community led, maybe even we say not so small, but word of mouth referral space, is going to be more or less impactful going forward? And then how do you think that impacts these other channels that a lot of us have maybe counted on and been frustrated on in recent years, like Instagram, like Twitter? What do you see happening there? Just overall, I’d love your take on on the future.

Matt Gartland
I genuinely do not just to keep maybe agreeing with everything you’re saying. But there are some existential I think realities, you know, that are, you know, currently in flight, you know, online, we already hit, you know, a big one, which is where we’re at with AI, right, and what that could possibly have, and I’m not a prophet, I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. But, you know, that’s something that we should all pay attention to, you know, the, the fabric of the internet is definitely changing and seemingly at an accelerated rate. Social media as an entire category, right, is also going through some interesting, you know, transformations, with the algorithms with, you know, government oversight and regulation, you know, you know, being discussed and discussed even more vehemently, you know, and not to take like a side on it, but just like that’s the thing that is happening right now, right now. So to the degree that you are reliant on, you know, a Facebook ad that worked eight years ago, right, as the top end of a funnel, like I know, so many people, unfortunately, that have had a lot of adversity, because like, Guess what, that adds not converting like it used to, or, you know, the rates on that ad have just skyrocketed, and now they’re, you know, their row as score their return on that investment has inverted. Right as well. I’m sorry, and I’m generally feeling for you, but also, like you haven’t innovated, and you haven’t done some sort of even basic kind of SWOT assessment, you know, for your little small business to understand what are some existential threats that you might want to have some fallback plan for? So yeah, so I think this the social media, kind of calculus for a small business owner, again, we’re finite resources, maybe no paid ad spend budget? Or if anything, maybe it’s pretty small. Right? Like, yeah, I would rather invest and build my defensible moat. No, I’m using a bunch of buzzwords sorry. But like, build my moat around direct relationships in the inner circle of my fandom. You know what my friend and partner Pat, obviously would call like, super fans, right? is like, how do I continue to serve them and invest in them and earn their word of mouth referral, whether they share it on Instagram, or Tiktok. Or I mean, anywhere that would be deemed public, right? I’d much rather honestly someone to refer me privately at this point, than even public.

Natalie Franke
That last bit there, you just dropped in very casually, but I just want to highlight it because I was feeling the same way as you were speaking, which is, I’d much rather have someone refer me in private, even the public. And it goes back to the heart of where we started with this, that is, you know, there is such immense value in the one to one there is immense value in sometimes going back to focusing on small experiences, relationships, how you can serve and show up. Yes, there will always be benefit to the Tick Tock that goes viral, the Instagram posts that everybody sees the, you know, spark that catches fire and that level of virality. However, in a world where it feels as though everything is vying for our attention, the level of trust that you get when a friend says to you, Oh, you don’t need to go look for somebody I already know who you should work with, here’s what you need. It’s done. It’s a done deal. It’s it is like, just such a significant amount of confidence that is essentially passed from one person to another, and to build a business that earns that again, I believe this is my hot another hot take just to close out the hot take series we’ve got going on here. I believe that a good referral has to be earned that a reputation therefore has to be earned. It can’t be bought in the same way that an ad can or awareness can that like you can buy awareness. Yes. And some would argue with me that you could by you know, this positive sentiment but I actually believe that you have to earn it. You have to earn somebody’s trust you you can you can get their first offer of trust, but you have to keep it you have to earn it and you have to show up with value to them such that they stay you know, with you and your business beyond the initial conversion that they don’t just hand you your money and then ask for a refund because you’re not delivering on your promises. But instead you’re showing up and over delivering without rambling on On and on and on, because I could talk to get go, I could talk to you

Matt Gartland
all, I was gonna give you a kaboom for that, because that was fantastic. And was going to very quickly offer up like another great way to think about it and even study it is in the retail sector, you know, so is, you know, the shirt, you’re wearing the blazer you’re wearing, you know, who referred that to you? Where did you find that? You know, where do you have trust in the merchandise honestly, that you’re physically wearing? A part of my, you know, interesting and diverse career has been in E commerce and was a co owner and CEO of a firm, where we were working with some of the biggest retail brands on Shopify. And gosh, there’s another layer here, which is like the importance of real honest to goodness, b2b business partnerships, and not just going after b2c all the time. Natalie, have me back, we’ll talk about that. But you know, it from those experiences where, again, we were working with bomba socks and chubby shorts, and some of these really iconic and different brands that are doing or at least back then Gosh, 20 to 30 million, and I’m not exactly sure what they’re doing right now. But like, they were winning, because they had built community in different regards, almost like through their merchandise, and then, you know, sort of the additive experiences, you know, and branding you that they’re doing, and sometimes they have philanthropic components, you know, bombas socks has a, as a philanthropic component, much like a TOMS Shoes does, you know, in terms of giving, which is really important. But, you know, it’s it, again, I think kind of emphasizes and what I’ve tried to even bring from those experiences in my career now forward into the online education kind of space and everything kind of creator oriented is, yeah, how are you earning, like the next t shirt that you’re trying to sell? Right? Even if you’re not selling T shirts, it’s like, like, it’s the same idea.

Natalie Franke
I love that. And I’m actually wearing Bompas right now. So that’s actually quite funny and amazing. And I’m wearing them because a friend told me like she was worried like, Okay, this is weird. I’m, but I am obsessed with my socks. Like, who is obsessed with their socks. No one’s no one’s obsessed with their socks. And yet here, I am also obsessed with my socks. And my mom was actually, I love I love that example. And I think it’s always good to be able to look at other industries that are not our own, and just take away those learnings as we can. Matt, as we wrap this up, I have one final question that I asked all of my guests, there’s no right or wrong answer. And everyone’s sort of answered differently and in their their own way. But, Matt, I’m really curious to know, what you believe is the biggest differentiator between the businesses that succeed and the ones that fail

Matt Gartland
resiliency, because we all we always hit headwinds, there’s always going to be the unknowns, the things we don’t plan for the lack of information and insight. It’s the ones that you’re committed. And you have to adapt along the way. I’m not saying like people headed as a definition of resiliency, but rather, you adapt. You’re humble enough to know hopefully early on that you don’t know it all. And when some something hits, you have the resiliency to learn from it, and you keep going.

Natalie Franke
I love that so much, Matt, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been such a good episode, I am on fire hose. It’s it’s so fun. Now, folks are going to want to know where to learn more about you where they can get plugged in. So let them know where they can find you and what you’ve got going on.

Matt Gartland
Yeah, maybe two things if I can just super quick one is because again, I have a weird career. I’ve done a lot of different things. If you want to, like connect with me in that way or me directly like LinkedIn is the best. I’m not really a social guy. Like you’re not going to find me on Twitter. Find me on LinkedIn, just search for me, Matt Gartland. So that’s me. And then you know, my primary kind of project and thrust right now is SPI so smart, passive income, Smart Passive income.com You might know of my my good friend, Pat Flynn. So that’s our work there. And we’re completely community powered at this point, I’m proud to say so we do live what we preach.

Natalie Franke
I love that we will link everything in the show notes as we always do. Matt, thank you so much for joining me.

Matt Gartland
A real pleasure. Thanks, Natalie.

Natalie Franke
That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything that we’ve discussed today can be [email protected]. Head to our website for access to show notes, relevant links and all of the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests some love on social. Thanks again for listening.

Natalie Franke
Did you know that 72% of independent business owners didn’t know that they were going to become entrepreneurs when they started their career, they had no intent in doing that, but as we often find our paths are rarely linear. Today on the podcast, I have the honor of speaking with Ashley Menzies Babatunde and undergrad from Stanford, who then went on to Harvard Law School. And now is a podcaster of the no straight path podcast, a career coach, a storyteller and an extraordinary entrepreneur. Ashley explores the human stories behind success. And in today’s episode, we’re not only going to look at her story on her road to success, but the learning she has had from her highly successful podcast. Let’s get into the episode. Hey, everyone, this is your host, Natalie Frank, and you’re listening to the independent business podcast, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve victory.

Natalie Franke
Ashley, thank you so much for joining me.

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Natalie. I’m just excited.

Natalie Franke
Before we even hopped on, we just started hitting it off about your podcast, and I’m a huge fan recent episodes that you have launched, I was telling you like, just hit me right in the soul right in the heart as an achiever, and we’re gonna get into all of that your career success where you are today. But I want to backtrack a little bit and ask you how you got here? What was the entry to your career journey? How did it start? And what inspired you to share more about the fact that the path of success is rarely linear?

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
Absolutely. So I think we actually need to start from my childhood. So you can just get to know me a little bit. But I was born in tents. I always say this. I was born an overachiever, I had very supportive parents and family. But they weren’t really pushing me it was very much me, I would color outside of the lines and cry where my cousins would move to the next activity, unbothered. I wrote letters about my ambitions. I wrote when I was 10 years old, that I wanted to go to Stanford, that I wanted to go to Harvard Law School. And then I wanted to be a lawyer, amongst other things about how I loved fashion and pasta, which is true to this day. But I achieved all of those things. And for much of my life, I thought that the path was linear. I had worked hard, I seen positive results. So as long as I worked hard, and there were bumps and twists and turns, but I always thought as long as I work hard, I will see positive results. And it will look the way that I thought it would look because it happened like that for much for much of my life. And I had my first big roadblock setback with the California bar exam. And that really shook me, because it was the first time I had failed anything. And I really started to feel like I was a failure, I internalized it. And that was really challenging. And I had to decouple who I am as a human from the work that I do from my accomplishments from my achievements, went through a whole self discovery process during that time. And I remember just feeling really lonely. Because no one was talking about this, especially in these overachieving spaces. No one’s really talking about the doubts and the setbacks and the failures, and all of the humanity behind it. We’re just seeing the shiny things. And so I thought, okay, when I pass this, I’m going to share my story. And so that’s what I did. I put it out initially in a blog post. And it resonated with a lot of people. And then I thought, okay, I love podcasting. One day, I’m going to put out a podcast about this. And so ultimately, I did put out a podcast about it. About four years later, I became an attorney. So as you know, life happens, it’s very challenging to do anything outside of practicing law. But I decided to release the podcast on my mother’s birthday to honor her memory. It was something that she really was just so excited about. I think it’s also just a reflection of who she was an is as a person to me because she was like a speaker and an inspiring woman encouraged her. So I really did it, too, as a passion project, and as a grief project. And then ultimately, it turned into something much larger and very quickly, which I can delve deeper into.

Natalie Franke
I absolutely love that journey. And I love how you have honored not only yourself but your mom in the process of that blood to double click into some of the challenges, you know, you mentioned not passing the bar exam the first time around. And that being a revolutionary moment for you kind of shaking things up and forcing you to have some of these tough conversations with yourself. Are there other moments along your career journey that you found to be challenging? I’m even curious, like stepping into this entrepreneurial space of like podcasting and coaching. And that is terrifying in its own right. So I’d love to know some of the challenges and some of the friction that maybe you came up against and how you overcame it.

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
Absolutely. So so many challenges. So just to give you a bit more context, once I put out the podcast teaser, I was invited to join hub spots Podcast Network. So that happened three weeks after I put it out. And I was thinking, Okay, this is my mom, this is divine timing. Yes. I was literally just working at my law firm. And I remember getting the call a friend of mine had sent the teaser to the team there. And I had to google creator, I had to google accelerator as okay, what is this? This seems interesting and initially said, No, because I thought it would be challenging to kind of balance the work that was required for the program and the work I was doing as an attorney, also planning my wedding at the time. But then I thought about what my mom would say, I thought about pouring into my passions for storytelling and doing the work that is aligned with who I am. And then I said, Okay, I’ve got to do it. So I said, Yes. And so quickly, what happened were initial challenges, because when you start something as a passion project, and then it quickly turns into a business where they’re giving me funding, and they are giving me marketing support. And they’re using a new language that I don’t understand, I don’t have a marketing background, I didn’t even work on a case related to marketing, because sometimes that’s how I’m able to know about different business industries based on my legal practice. And so I had to learn the new language, I had to understand what I was trying to do, because initially, they were asking me, What is your brand? So that was also a challenge? I don’t know, I just want to tell a story. You know, and now I’ve been able to have more clarity around that. But I had to do a lot of work to figure out okay, what am I actually trying to do with this brand? How do I want to grow it sustainably? How do I want to feel like I went through this entire process, trying to figure out how I want to do this work. And that was really hard, because my mindset, it wasn’t a business mindset going in. And so I had to change my mindset, and kind of separate some of the internal passion work that I wanted to do from the business work and figure out systems and create them so that I can optimize the processes to actually succeed and achieve my goals.

Natalie Franke
We see this all the time. In our community. I mean, a lot of business owners in general, you know, I mentioned most don’t get into their career thinking they’re even going to own a business in the first place. It sounds like even you, you’re on this professional track to become a lawyer. And this whole side of the world maybe wasn’t even on your radar. But yet, you know, life takes us in directions that we never could have imagined. And amongst business owners, a lot of times they’re not getting into this to run a business, they’re getting into this because they have a passion, right, they have a talent, they have something they want to say something they want to do that actually is is much larger even than the concept of making money. And yet, you still have to develop those tools in those skills such that you can do the thing that you’re passionate about, it sounds like you, you know, kind of went on that journey yourself from I’m going to do this podcast to getting picked up by I mean, arguably, the top network in the marketing business space at the moment like HubSpot is phenomenal. And then from there realizing Okay, well wait, I am an entrepreneur, I have started a business. What were some of the learnings that you had in that process, that mindset shift from, you know, attorney to creator, before you knew what that word meant to? Okay, now, this is a business to even looking into your future and the aspirations that you have, you know, going forward, what what were some of those milestones? What were some of those kind of steps along the way that helps you to make that mindset shift? I think a lot of us are, are in that boat from time to time where we need to progress.

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
Yeah, I think that the first the mindset shift was it kind of came externally, because I did have pressure to grow, because I was in an accelerator program. So that was the first thing so I really quickly had to figure out how do I grow? And that came from just me having lots of conversations with people like you trying to figure out how do you actually increase downloads, how do you actually mark it? And so I took some classes. I had a lot of conversations, HubSpot was really helpful in helping me clarify that which was really, really great. And then I had some challenges, you know, thinking about it from a lawyer’s perspective. I’m thinking Okay, what else do I need to do to kind of put Take this business. First I need to start it need to actually get the LLC. So I should probably do that. So I went along that journey. And then I looked at trademarks, thankfully, I had a good friend of mine who’s in the business reached out to me and say, Ashley, I just saw this trademark application for no straight path is that you? And I said, Oh, no, it’s not me. And this is three weeks in because I hadn’t, I didn’t think it was going to be a business. So I went down the journey of getting the trademark, which had some legal challenges that that can be another podcast episode, but kind of understanding that whole legal process. And so I think one of the biggest milestones was me really just stepping in to My voice and into my purpose, and really setting goals when it comes to building out the skills that I wanted to build. So one thing that I decided to do is that I wanted to really work on my public speaking. And so I had opportunities, I started to actually pitch myself. And I started to go and speak at different events and get on more podcasts and talk about my story and share my story. And I thought that was really incredible. I got to one of my first interviews, I got to be on Jenna Kutcher show and talk a lot about my journey. And so I think those milestones are really helpful because it showed me what I can do in this space, even though I’m new to this space, because it’s important to kind of look at your smaller accomplishments and help you to move forward because it can be overwhelming when you’re, you feel like you’re an expert in one space, but then you’re in a new space, and then you feel like a baby again. And so it helps me kind of build those muscles. And I think that another thing that’s been really successful is just starting to really build community, some of those milestones when you’re having those days that are hard, because I think building a business is obviously challenging, being a creator is challenging. I was surprised at how hard it is, especially when you love something, and how you can burn out. And so having community and having people reach out and talk about how this story resonated with them, or this story resonated like that has been such great fuel for me because it reminds me of my why and my purpose, and why am I actually doing this? I’m trying to make other people feel less alone in their journey. But simultaneously, I’m kind of feeling alone on this journey sometimes. So what can I do to better step into my purpose, and that’s build community. And so I’ve definitely seen some success with that as well. And that was a big milestone, and even having friends reach out and people who are part of the community too. Can you host this zoom to chat about burnout? Can you host the zoom to talk about podcasting and building community? And so people start to come to you, and recognize your strengths. And it feels pretty amazing.

Natalie Franke
That’s incredible. I think so many business owners, though, don’t even take that next step to get started pitch themselves, try something new launch the podcast, because there’s this thought that, you know, frankly, it’s a lie that a lot of us believe, which is like if I can’t do it perfectly, I shouldn’t do it. If I don’t know everything about a subject. I shouldn’t pursue it. And yet, I’m curious to know from you, do you think there are any advantages to sort of leaping before you’re ready and learning as you go? Which, you know, you sort of you sort of did you truly like took a leap of faith and sort of pursuing a path that you weren’t on before? Is there a benefit to doing that? Are there advantages? Does it give you a different perspective?

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
Yes, no, absolutely. I feel so grateful that I did not know much going into this industry, because if you start to look at the stats, if you start to look at you know, it is a lower barrier for entry compared to my legal degree as an example. And it’s a very different kind of path when you’re going into the entrepreneurial space, if you look at those numbers, and if you are really informed about the industry, it can scare you. Right, right. And so it’s really important to be or it’s nice that I was a little naive and didn’t know everything. Because I was able to take that competence and just try it and not put too much pressure on myself. Right. I started this not thinking I wanted to build this big brand. Now I want to and now I’m doing it. But initially, that was that wasn’t my mindset. And I think that was very helpful. And even meeting big creators in the space, the entrepreneurs in the space, I didn’t really know that they were that big. So I was just myself. And then I looked them I was like, oh wait, this is the person they’re having me talk to and, and things of that nature. So I think it’s very good to just try and to see what happens and to follow your interest and to be curious, because you just never know where that will lead you. And then you don’t have all the self doubt you don’t have all of the inner anxiety going on because you actually just don’t even know as much about the industry to even worry about it, which I think is helpful.

Natalie Franke
Having the courage to leap before you’re ready does come with the benefits of even being Ignite, I love it like I completely have been in that place so many times in my own journey. And I’ve said, You know, oftentimes we have to discover it for ourselves, we almost have to build our success on a foundation of our failures and our learnings, right? When we reframe that concept, I want to share some quick stats that align with exactly what you just said, I think hold a lot of people back from going after either starting the business or once they’re in the business, scaling it hiring their first employee, right, launching a new program 74% of employed adults who are not business owners sight that fear of failure is why they won’t start a business. And I do think that fear kills more businesses than then failure does at the end of the day. It’s as if you know, incredible entrepreneurs don’t even leap, they don’t even take that chance to put their heart and soul into the world to monetize their passion, oftentimes, because of that fear. Have you experienced that fear? Even now? Is it something that you feel like, you know, you’ve learned how to overcome throughout your journey? Because those are some pretty big leaps. And I can imagine if you didn’t do it, without the fear, it certainly was there. So how did you overcome it? How did you navigate it?

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
I am not someone who is fearless. I always say that I’m not someone who’s fearless. But I have more fear of staying stuck and not doing things that are aligned with who I am, than actually going for it. Like, I don’t want to look at my life and say, I lived an uninspired life, that I didn’t live a life that was in alignment, that I didn’t live a life where I pursued my dreams and my passions, and that I just tapped into my gifts like that is fear. I am fearful of that. You know. And so I think I always try to go back to that, which I think is very helpful for the journey. But we’re all afraid we’re all humans. This is a hard journey. But I think if something is calling you, if something inside you is telling you to do it, you should and I’ve seen it time and time again with a guest on my podcast as well. And it’s also my own personal therapy, my own no straight path, you know, storytelling with all the different guests, they all have those same fears as well, and they still went for it. And it always led to a form of success, it may not look exactly how you think it’s gonna look, I’ve noticed that and I’ve let go of the exact picture. But I know that I’m going in the right direction. And I think that is so beautiful and wonderful. And it gives me a certain type of peace that I didn’t have before, when I was moving in spaces where I didn’t feel aligned with the work that I wanted to do.

Natalie Franke
And that’s the thing too, about getting into those rooms with like, people is a big name entrepreneurs, which I love her like I didn’t even know they were a big deal. They were they were a big deal. Like that panic moment, because I’ve been there. Oh, gosh, I’ve been there so many times, so many times. And I’m like, wait, what? Oh, but once you do get into those rooms, right? It’s you realize, like, everyone has fear, this isn’t something that just disappears, because you’ve made it it’s not something that ever really goes away. But so often in those rooms, you realize, they’re just like me, you know, like, folks at the most successful points in their career are battling these very same things. And I think just normalizing that, like sharing what you just shared. It’s so empowering. It’s so empowering. When you you know, run your show, I am so curious, you get to the heart of the stories behind success. You are a storyteller, which I love. Every time I listen to your episodes, I love getting to dive into the story. So I want to pivot a little bit now and ask you about some of those stories. So in uncovering them, you know, what have been some of your favorite learnings from the podcast, favorite stories or guests that you’ve had on the show who in their own journeys to success, you know, have have found it despite a not so linear path.

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
There are a number of stories that come to mind. But you mentioned something earlier about fear of failure. And that was something that a guest talked about. Spencer Paysinger, he is the producer of the show all American on CW I think it’s in its fifth or sixth season now. It’s on Netflix. It’s a great show. But he started as an NFL player who had no experience in television. And we’re friends from high school. And so I always ask, Am I in the show who’s inspired by me? He said, There’s parts of you. Yeah. But he shared some really interesting things. And he said he was talking about his NFL career at the time. And he was in a position that was his dream position. He had worked so hard to get there. And it gave him more responsibility, more visibility. And he just struggled so much and he realized that he was operating out of a space where he was afraid to fail, as opposed to a does desire to succeed. And yes, and it made me think about that sometimes when you’re just in a space like it’s a mindset shift, or it’s even just moving where you are, maybe you need to move to a different space. So you are excited to succeed. And I noticed that in my own legal practice, and even now in my entrepreneurial practice, that when I just move through the world, where I am excited about the journey, where I am excited to succeed, where I’m curious, and I’m interested, as opposed to having all this anxiety and fearing all the things that probably won’t even happen, you’re able to move through the journey with more peace, and likely more success. So that’s something that really, really, really stuck out to me. And another one that I love, too, is Kristen Turner, a friend of mine from law school, she talks about trusting yourself with your own life. And she’s someone who was very successful in law school, like many of us, worked really hard, did everything that they told us to do, got the big law firm offer. And she decided to turn it down, unlike most of her peers, including me, because it didn’t feel like it was an alignment. So she graduated from Harvard Law School with no job by her choice. And she said it was because she was had to trust something within her, she had to trust herself with her own light. And it just looked like a life. But it didn’t look like a life. That was hers. And I love that because it resonated with me and not at the time I took the job because I it was in alignment with what I wanted at that time. But when I made my pivot, that’s where I was, I was feeling that same thing. I was thinking, Okay, do I trust myself without my own life? And if not, how do I get there, and now I’m there. But it took some work. And I thought that was really insightful, to trusting

Natalie Franke
yourself with your own life, those moments of intuition where your gut is telling you, this isn’t meant for me, or I’m meant for more, I’m meant for something different. And having the courage to say, You know what, I trust myself enough to go after it, I trust myself enough to let go of what is known and to move forward into the unknown, because I know that I am capable, that is so profound, so powerful, in all of the interviews that you’ve done, have you seen any commonalities in the stories of you know, people pursuing success? Is there anything that when you zoom out and look at it, you know, with that kind of wide eye lens? that sticks out to you?

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
Yes, definitely. It is the understanding of self. It is self awareness, it is understanding what lights you up, understanding what drains you, understanding what gives you peace, what feels good to you what your goals and your dreams and your aspirations are. But it comes from within understanding your weaknesses, and being able to act on it. So not only having that inner knowing and having that self awareness, but then being brave enough to actually follow it. And that can be really, really challenging to do in our society. And I think we all struggle with it. But a self awareness practice is so important. And I see it in every guest, every guest who has been successful, that is what they do. And that is something that is extremely important to me, because when you know who you are, then it feels it feels so good. It feels so good. When you’re moving into the spaces that are aligned with who you are. And you see it, you see it with all the guests,

Natalie Franke
even in roles of leadership, I find self awareness just to be so important and so critical, because it goes to war against the ego. When we have self awareness, we embrace the fact that we are imperfect, and that that’s okay, that we do have weaknesses, in fact, right? We have strengths that we double down on and in the entrepreneurial space where we say hire for those weaknesses, but having that level of self awareness where you can say, Look, I am on a journey to figure out who I am so that I can show up in the world as the best version of me and also embrace the parts of me, right, that that maybe aren’t my superpowers aren’t my weaknesses. I’d be curious to know for you in this journey that you’ve had, you know, what have been some of those moments where you become more self aware of the person that you’re becoming, or have the strengths that you have, or even have the weaknesses that you had, you know, and have in order to become, you know, a better entrepreneur?

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
Absolutely. So yeah, so many. So, one thing that I’ll say is that I am such a people person, and I like to connect deeply with people. And I can take things personally, and it’s shown up in my entrepreneurial practice. And so I think it’s important that when I’m connecting with People on the podcasts that that is where the deep connection happens, and keeping you there and understanding that, but the business side of things, trying to disassociate my feelings with some of the things that come along with that. And that’s hard to do. But just even recognizing it, I think is extremely helpful. I think that managing expectations, you know, this is my show. So really being able to explain that to the different publicists and the people that might come on. And the different brands like, really defining that has been very helpful, because then sometimes conflict can come up if we haven’t really talked about the expectations. And then I can take things very personally, I’ve noticed. So that has been helpful. And when it comes to my strengths, that I feel like I’ve been able to really hone on this journey is being able to speak publicly, like I actually haven’t taken any public speaking classes or anything like that. I should, at some point to double down on the strengths and really grow there. But I think that I was able to pretty quickly, within a month of starting the podcast two months, I was on stages, and I was talking to people and I was having live conversations, and it felt really, really good. Not that I wasn’t nervous, not that I didn’t need to prep and practice. But it was something that okay, I’m on to something here. And that was really nice, because the entrepreneurial space allowed me to step into my voice in that way where I didn’t really get to do that. In my day job. Because of the level, I was a mid level associate. So I could do some of that. But it’s different when you are getting to speak on topics that you’re extremely passionate about. And where you want to inspire people and serve others, there’s just a different light that comes out of you. And so I think that I also noticed that that was my strength. And, and I guess it’s related, it’s public speaking in the lens of storytelling, because I’m always a person I want to know about you. I’m that person. I feel I don’t like leave in conversation. I want to know like, you know, you’re very Do you have kids? What are you passionate about? Wherever you travel? Dude, what are some of the things that you fear in life? What are your dreams, like, I like to have those interactions often. And now I do, which is nice. But that’s something I’ve also noticed is using story has been really great. And something I’ve been able to use throughout my entrepreneurial journey.

Natalie Franke
And storytelling is so powerful. You know, we talk about this a lot in the independent business world as it relates to brands, or will say, you know, people don’t buy from a business they buy from a human being. And it’s the story that accompanies that person behind the business that really allows us to connect to the brand right to connect to the service or the product. Storytelling is so profound. And we’re more likely to remember something if it’s just wrapped up in a story rather than stated as a fact. So I love that, you know, not only is that a passion of yours, but then you’ve been able to draw those stories out of people that you admire, that you want to know more about, through your show. I’m curious to know, if you have any advice for the business owner listening to this, that maybe has dreamt of starting a podcast or, you know, has jumped up speaking on a stage has dreamt of putting themselves more out there and actually sharing their story, but maybe hasn’t, for whatever reason, fear, you know, not feeling like they belong, not feeling like they have a space to do so like, do you have advice for the person listening to this? who’s like, I want to be Ashley, I want to be where she is, what would you say to that person,

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
I would first say, start. And I would say that it’s so great that you even have this aspiration and that you have this dream, and you’ve identify what you want to do. And that they you want to do more, because so many people don’t even have that so many people don’t even know what they want to do. So the fact that you’ve identified someone out there and you see their story, and you want to be like them, or you want to do something similar, that’s wonderful. So pat yourself be happy about that, then let’s take some action, right, because dreaming is beautiful, but we don’t get to realize our dreams unless we do something. So it can be the good thing with starting a podcast to write is that most anyone can do it, which is nice. Like you can there’s a lower barrier for entry there are affordable options. We all deserve to have our voices heard. And if you have something to say share it. And I think you want to be surrounded next by like minded people. So you want to get some community. This is a great community, that independent business podcasters you know, this is a great community to start with, and talk to other people about how they’ve done it and get just an accountability partner, as well to kind of push yourself because there’s so many things in life that we know intellectually we should do we know we should eat healthy we know we should work out. We know we need to take XYZ step to get to reach our goals who eat Don’t do it, right, because a lot of this is hard. But if you’re doing it in community, if you’re doing it with just a partner, if you have a schedule in, you’re able to check in with one another, then you’re able to really move forward and step into your purpose and realize those dreams.

Natalie Franke
I love that all right now to the person who maybe doesn’t know what the path holds for them. Someone who, you know, isn’t certain, they’re listening to this and they’re going, Okay, I’m just glad that someone’s finally saying it that the path of success. It’s not a straight path. It’s not always linear. You know, it there are twists or turns there are setbacks and successes. It’s a bumpy, rocky road at times. And they’re listening to this and they’re going okay, I don’t know what’s out there for me. Do you have words of encouragement for someone who’s maybe in the messy middle of their journey?

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
I do? I absolutely do. So I think that you should first kind of take stock and inventory inventory of your life. And think about the things that you’re interested in. Think about the things you’re curious about things that light you up. And some people say, I don’t know what lights me up. Okay. All right. Well, let’s, let’s go back and think about this. So and I’ll provide my story as an example, because I had to do it, I even being an entrepreneur, I thought, This isn’t in me, I don’t understand why I’m doing this. And then I went back to my legal career, or to law school specifically. And I forgot I was going to not even go to a law firm. And I remember I was trying to start a business. I was pitching it to Harvard. They said no, at the time, but they liked the concept moves forward with something similar. But I saw a problem with the curriculum. And I wanted to help bridge the gap between the incoming students who might have a legal background and might have parents who are in legal practice Internet, and then the international students and students who don’t have that framework. We I went into a whole pitch competition and created, you know, a pseudo business and tried to do all of that, and I completely forgot about it, you know, but I remember my husband was like, oh, no, you love that you that was your passion project for a whole year. So that was one thing that I thought, Okay, wait. I am an entrepreneur. I actually wanted to do this. When it came to storytelling, I had to look back, I had to go all the way back to college. When I quit the track team, my junior year, what did I do? Oh, I joined the school paper. What did I do with the school paper? Oh, I did feature stories. And I talked to interesting people on campus, because and then what did I do? Oh, I got an award after doing one feature story, right? You also want to see where are you getting rewarded quickly, right? Because that might be your strength. And so then I thought, okay, oh, I am a storyteller. I that’s always been in me to career coaching. Okay, oh, I mentor people. Every week, I was a legal writing advisor in law school. I was a peer mentor through the political science department in college, I was head of recruiting as a paralegal and mentored students there. At my law firm, I was head of the mentoring program. Okay, of course, I should be career coach. But when you’re sometimes inundated in your task at work, right, because we have to pay our bills, and we want to do well. And we have family commitments, and life is busy and crazy, you lose sight of what you’re called to do, and you forget everything you’ve done. So I encourage that person to get that journal out. Or get that audio. Listen, I love audio message, because I’m busy. So I’m like, let me know. And I’d like to speak. So let me just do an audio message in my whole life. And write those things down. And you’ll start to connect the dots and follow those interests in those curiosities. And it can be really, really small, especially building on the side. That’s how I’ve done it. And it can lead you down a really incredible journey.

Natalie Franke
All of that is so powerful. I also want to highlight the fact that there was a moment there where your husband came in and said, No, you did love that you, you know, that is a superpower of yours. Something just to add to your answer that’s been helpful for me is sometimes I need the people that know me best, whether it’s a partner or a friend, to also affirm or even identify those superpowers. So if you get stuck, and you’re not even sure where to begin in regards to looking back on the past, lean into it actually said to about like, sometimes it can be from others in your circle, people that love love you that know you and ask them, you know, like, what, what do you see in me? What is it that you love about me? What do you think I’m incredibly good at? And, you know, like, when you think of me, if I wasn’t doing what I’m doing now, what could you see me doing? What are other careers because you can uncover a lot that way too. And I know in my own journey, I’ve had people say to me, like, you know, you sound like a therapist or psychiatrist and I was like, you know, I’ve never gotten my sister’s a psychiatrist. I was like, I’ve never imagined going down that path. But I guess running a podcast is a heck of a lot like right, bringing stories forth and having deep conversations and and just finding these these beautiful parallels between You know careers, maybe we will pursue ones that are similar strengths that we’ve had in the past that we’ve leveraged, and just asking others like, hey, what do you see in me that maybe I don’t see in myself? I think that’s a really beautiful part. And it ties into to what you’ve said about community. I have a question for you in regards to community. So you mentioned that it’s important. You also mentioned, you know, that it’s been a key catalyst for you, whether it’s like the business accelerator side of things that you’ve let lean into with, if anyone’s listening to this and hasn’t considered joining some sort of accelerator or mastermind program, highly recommend exploring it. I know that it sounds like that was beneficial for you, it’s been beneficial for so many people that I know. But amidst that type of community, a community where you know, you’re you’re surrounded by other achievers, you’re surrounded by other people, maybe even pursuing the same things that you are, it can be really easy to feel competitive to feel comparison creeping in. And I’m curious to know, like, how do you navigate that? How do you how do you find friendships and nurture them? Or how do you view competition in community altogether? I’d love to get your take on that.

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
Yeah, you know, that’s a great question. I haven’t felt competitive in quite some time. Just because I feel like I’ve been unpacking this, I always like to say, collaboration over competition is how I, I like to work. And I think that’s something that I’ve always kind of stuck to, even when I was younger, I it always goes back even to my track career. When I was running my race. I remember, it was high school, but you know, I was a little I was getting recruited and stuff. So reporters would come and everything and they’d ask me about different runners and their times and they’d say, you know, what do you think about this, you have so and so coming up next week, I didn’t know who so and so was, I didn’t know what their times were. And I did not care, because I was running my own race. And the thing about the 400, is you literally run your own race, because you literally stay in your same lane the entire time around the track one time and you do not need to cross lanes, you don’t need to look at anyone else, you can literally just look straight ahead, on your own path. And I think that that is something that I got from my parents kind of really instilling that in me early on, not to be competitive, but to be collaborative. And to know that it’s, it’s me, and that I can do. And I think they also just did that because I was a black girl navigating lots of institutions of privilege. And they really didn’t want me to compare myself. So I always wanted to make sure that I knew that I was different, I was unique. And I could do it. So I would say that I carried that in the creator and entrepreneurial space. And when you meet a lot of these people, especially in the cohort that I’m in right now, everyone’s like, collaborative. Everyone wants to help, which is nice. We’re all very supportive. I think the competition comes in via social media, I think I start to compare myself more. So when I’m disconnected from actual people, and I’m just looking at the squares. But when you talk to the person, like, Okay, wait, they’re human, they’re going through this. So I think it’s like, you can become more isolated when you’re just looking at the accomplishments. But when you actually get to the story, which is essentially very, that’s my podcast, then you realize, oh, we’re all navigating this together. And we all have our ups and downs. And we’re all human. But I think it can be really hard when you just look at the numbers. And that can be intimidating when people are talking about their downloads and their their deals and how much money they brought in. That part, for sure, can be challenging, but I try not to be a part of too many of those conversations. And what I try to do is learn from those conversations. So what’s so nice is I’ve been able to be around really established entrepreneurs who’ve been in the game for 10 years plus, and they will talk to me about numbers. And then I start to think about, okay, how can I get there? It’s not competition. It’s this is collaboration, they’re giving me these numbers. So I know what I need to do.

Natalie Franke
Oh, they’re just showing you what’s possible, right? It’s that idea of when you surround yourself with those successful folks. It’s not Oh, I’m not there yet. It’s Wow, look how far I can go. And I love that. I also think, you know, there’s something to be said for finding those spaces, finding those spaces where collaborative mindsets are flourishing, where people are confident, and that’s what I gathered, I mean, gosh, your parents aren’t extraordinary, really, truly do. And, obviously, you have the strong sense of confidence. And that just radiates and then empowers other people to feel confident in who they are such that collaboration can happen in that sort of space. There’s a final question that I love to ask every guest of the show and there’s no right or wrong answer. Everyone has answered it differently. That I would love to know from you, Ashley, what do you believe is the biggest differentiator between the businesses that succeed and the ones that fail? So I

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
think that it’s the people who continue to move forward. They don’t give up. And they’re also intrinsically motivated by the work that they’re doing. They’re not motivated by the numbers. They’re not motivated by the influence. They’re not motivated by the awards, which are great. We want to be able to recognize our accomplishments. And I think there’s nothing wrong with it. But they are purely motivated and intrinsically motivated to do the work, whether it be to serve others, whether it’s to pursue a passion, but it comes from within, because that gives people the resilience to continue. It gives them that muscle, right because this is hard. This journey is so hard. So it really has to come from within because the outside stuff right, the outside stuff is so precarious. It’s so up and down. But that internal stuff that is permanent, and if you stick to it, then those businesses will be very successful.

Natalie Franke
I love it. Oh my gosh, okay, I’m on fire. Thank you so much for joining me today for folks who want to learn more about you and listen to your podcast where can they find you?

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
Absolutely then thank you so much for having me. I’ve just had loved this conversation. So yeah, you can find me on social media on LinkedIn, Ashley Menzies Babatunde you can find me on Instagram I’m a millennial, so always on Instagram and no straight path. So in Oh underscore straight underscore path. And then also m s underscore Menzies, me NZ i e s on Instagram as well. And one day I will be active on Tik Tok. But for now, I am just trying to navigate those social media platforms. And of course, you can listen to my show on all podcasting platforms.

Natalie Franke
Amazing. Ashley, thank you so much for joining me today.

Ashley Menzies Babatunde
Thank you.

Natalie Franke
That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything that we’ve discussed today can be [email protected]. Head to our website for access to show notes, relevant links and all of the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests some love on social. Thanks again for listening

Natalie Franke
96% of people don’t feel as though they’re living into their fullest potential. Are you one of them? Or are you one of the 4% that truly believes they are at max capacity of everything they are capable of? Today, we are digging into precisely that. I have the opportunity to sit down with the New York Times best selling author of eight books, including soundtracks, one of my favorites, and his newest book, all it takes is a goal, the one and only Jon Acuff Jon talks this today about goal setting about living into your potential and about the roadblocks that often keep us from our greatest success. This episode is packed with information that every independent business owner needs to know and more importantly, needs to implement. Hey, everyone, this is your host, Natalie Frank, and you’re listening to the independent business podcast, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve victory.

Natalie Franke
Jon, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

Jon Acuff
Thanks for having me. We’ve already had a great off podcast conversation, so I think this one’s gonna be even better.

Natalie Franke
I’m pumped, I didn’t even give you a second to breathe. When you hopped on the camera, I immediately was like this book, this book. I always love what you write. I’ve always been a big fan of your writing. But I was joking with you. And I said, rarely do I cackle in jury duty while reading a self help book because it just hits home. And I’ve felt at numerous points while reading all it takes as a goal that I was being called out. And I bet the business owners listening are also going to have that experience of like, I’m sorry, what? And yes, and how did you know? And that is exactly who I am and what I’m struggling with. But before we get into all of that, you did some research leading into this book around people and how they feel about whether or not they are living into their fullest potential. And I would love to hear from you. What did you find? What was the research? What did it indicate?

Jon Acuff
Well, I didn’t feel like I was. So whenever I read a book, like, I think this is a good business principle too. So let’s just jump right in the gate with an actual tool people can use, I look for three things, a personal connection, I need to be personally connected to the item. I’m creating the service, I’m creating the book, I’m writing whatever. The second thing is, is there a need to people really need it? Am I hearing people if the neighborhood pool talk about it? Am I hearing clients talk about it? Am I seeing it online? And surveys? What am I finding? And the third thing is, is there a spot for me in the marketplace? Or has it already been overdone? So take the book finish. I wrote this book called finish. I was a chronic starter, I had a million half started things like every entrepreneur has like 50 Terrible GoDaddy URLs. And like they’re like someday I might need copy ninja.tv Like I don’t, I might turn that into something. And it’s like, and my wife and I’s agreement is if I haven’t touched it for a year, I have to release it back to the wild. Like I can’t put it on auto renew because then I’m going to pay for a URL for nine years and be like, Why do I own Okay, let’s write a book. together.me. Like that feels like I’m sure at some point that was brilliant. So I look for Okay, am I personally connected and with finish I was I was a chronic starter and I didn’t finish. Then a bunch of people for the need perspective came up to me and said, you wrote this book called Start I liked it. I’ve never had a problem starting though I can start a million things, how do I finish. And then I went to the marketplace, which for books is Amazon, I typed in finish. And the only thing that came up was dishwashing detergent, because we as Americans, Western culture over celebrates the beginning, and we ignore the middle and the end. So then I had my Venn diagram of that. So that’s a product worth creating. That’s a book worth writing. That’s a service. And so I think from a business perspective, that’s how I look at topics. So when I felt like I had wasted my potential in college, a moment I experienced when I toured my daughter at the college I went to she was going to look at colleges, and I felt this overwhelming sense of regret. I was like, Okay, well, I need to figure that out. I feel like I haven’t tapped into my potential. What do I do with that? And then we did a survey where we asked 10,000 people fish, they think they’re living, you know, 3000 3000 words, this 110 1000 was soundtracks? Are they living up to their potential and 96% said no. So then I had the need. And then I went to the marketplace and so many books about potential were kind of fuzzy and holistic. And I’m a very What do I do with this on a Tuesday kind of guy? Like what Okay, Greg, what do I do with this on a Tuesday? Like, I don’t need the like, the universe loves you. I need the like on a Tuesday, when you have this business challenge. Here’s how you solve it with this thing I just taught you. And so I felt like oh, I’ve got the Venn diagram where it’s worth me spending the years to try to help people with this. Well, let’s go That’s what like that’s what seen so many people say they’re not living up to a potential taught me and then I had the marketplace and a personal connection on Like, Oh, this is gonna be fun.

Natalie Franke
And it is fun. It really is. One thing that you talked about in the book that I wanted to jump immediately into, is you talk quite a bit about the three zones that high performers bounce between, and this community independent business owners, your high performer, period, like low performers

Jon Acuff
don’t listen to this podcast, they don’t even know this category exists. Like they don’t read books like mine. They don’t voluntarily go to events, like most people think high performers or other special people, but I love being able to go no, no, no, if you’re listening this right now, congratulations, you’re a high performer. That’s awesome.

Natalie Franke
Welcome to the club, which means that you’re going to hit certain obstacles that high performers hit because as we know, it’s difficult, it’s difficult to run a business. And so you mentioned three of these zones that you tend to see them fall into. So you talk about the comfort zone, the potential zone and the chaos zone. Let’s talk about it.

Jon Acuff
Yeah, so that was kind of a surprise to me through the research that I’ve heard a million people talk about the comfort zone, like there’s like, you gotta escape again, outside your comfort zone, like get outside the box. But I rarely had heard somebody talk about the chaos zone, which I think is more destructive for high, high performing people, high achieving people. Because the chaos zone is where you do too many actions, too many goals, too many businesses, too many plans, and you get no progress. Comfort Zone is no actions, no goals. But that’s not the problem. Most of the people listening to this podcast, have trouble with, like, the people listen to this podcast when I meet them. And I’ll say, Well, what are your goals, they never go, i have no goals, they go, I have 27 goals. And those are just Tuesday’s goals, just wait till I tell you Wednesdays. And so that’s the chaos zone. And so I related that like, the story I related that to was the tortoise and the hare, which we all know about. And the rabbit was all chaos zone, he was either asleep on the side of the road, or he was sprinting desperately, and he’s still lost. And so the three, those are the two kinds of edge zones, if you think about a line, on one side is the comfort zone on the far other side is the chaos zone. And in the middle is the potential zone. It’s kind of that Goldilocks zone. And what happens unfortunately, as people tend to swing, from comfort all the way over to chaos and back. That’s why we have the phrase yo yo diet, because people bounce, they go, I’m not going to look at any of my business finances, and we really lazy get stuck. And then they go, I gotta know where every fraction of a penny went. And if I find a paper clip that one of my employees bent just because they were fidgeting, I’m going to be furious. And you go, Whoa, that is chaos, you’re not gonna be able to sustain that. Like, you’re really not how do we stay in the middle of the potential zones? That’s that’s what the three zones are all about?

Natalie Franke
Oh, I, first of all, say I’d never heard of the chaos zone. And the minute I started to dig into that I realized, wow, not only is that yes, something I think a lot of business owners experience and struggle with. But it’s never talked about. It’s the thing that we almost don’t want to talk about. It’s we don’t

Jon Acuff
until we burn out like until you destroyed yourself. Nobody mentions it, and we even glamorize it. So we go like, every time I see a business owner, or motivational Instagram guru say I only sleep for hours, I think, right? Well, number one, you’re lying. Or number two, it’s steroids. Or number three, it’s coke. Like it’s one of the three like, Stop it Stop it, nobody, nobody performs well on four hours asleep consistently. Like that’s just not like that’s just by like, biologically impossible. But we glamorize the chaos zone instead of talking about it. And so what this book became for me was, I want long term sustainable success, like that’s what I’m aiming for. So like, one of the phrases in the book is I was late to my 30s, I want to be early to my 50s. And what I mean by that is, I didn’t have a plan, I stumbled through my 20s, I wasted the potential my 20s to, I kind of rolled into my 30s with one wheel flat car was on fire, I had no plan. And now I’m 47. And I’m saying, I want my 60s to be dope. I want my 70s to be dope. So what are the things as a business owner I can put into place with so I have a long term sustainable change, because I meet people that have plenty of success, but they’re on their sixth marriage. And I’m like, That’s not like I always say like, if my if my business succeeds, and my family fails, my businesses failed. Like, that’s just the reality of it. So like, I’m trying to go, how do I stay? I don’t want to the book is like, I don’t want to visit the potential zone. I want to get my mail there. Like I want to be there. So often, I’m a local, I want to be a local to the potential zone, not just experienced at occasionally, because everybody’s experienced it occasionally. So can I stay there? And that’s really what led to going okay, here’s different types of goals that will help with that. But yeah, those are I don’t think we talked about the chaos, so nearly enough.

Natalie Franke
Yeah. And speaking of living in the potential zone, one of the biggest hurdles that we face is ourselves. And this is where I felt particularly called out by your book and I, I’m willing to bet every business owner will can relate to this. You say, the hardest person I deal with every day is me. And then you go on to say, when people say the only person standing in your way is you I think I know that guy is impossible.

Jon Acuff
Yeah, he’s terrible. He knows all my secrets to like, he knows all my weaknesses, like, and then I say, You’re the most persuasive person you’ve ever been. So every bad decision I ever made, I first thought was a good decision. Like, first I talked myself and doing that don’t work out, you should do that. Like, that’s, yeah, let’s do this. And then on the back end, I’m like, why did we do this? You know, this was, it’s because I talked myself into it. And so I think that’s a really universal thing, especially again, I love talking to business owners, because I’ve owned a business for 10 years. And it’s unique, wild, weird, up and down, your identities involved in it’s emotional, it’s got it’s got if you want to deal with every part of who you are, start a business owner business, because it’s gonna get exposed, it’s gonna get, you’re gonna wrestle with it. So I think it’s, I hope business owners do see themselves like you saw yourself in that in that little section.

Natalie Franke
And speaking of the emotion and the identity involved in running a business, you know, another part where I felt called out this is this podcasts going to be called, where independent business owners are called out in all it takes is a goal. You talked about writers, but as I was reading it, I was in your business owners and you write writer say, if only one life is changed by my book, it was all worth it. Because we are afraid it won’t sell. And we’re scared of looking selfish with our goal. Instead, we create fake desires that we think are socially acceptable, and will shield us from future disappointment. We hedge our bets by lying about our expectations, sir,

Jon Acuff
yeah, well, so my point there, and it works for business owners too, like because business owners say the same nonsense they go. I say it, if it only helps one person in my community. Yeah, no, but it’s, I always say if that if you only want to help one person, write them an email, they’ll take three minutes rich text, somebody, like, that’s not your real goal. If you’re going to do to go to the work and the trouble and the hustle and the heart and all this stuff. It should help 100,000 people, it should help a million people. And, and you should be excited about that. But again, as a business owner, you’re like, it’s kind of I don’t mean, it’s hard to talk to people who don’t own businesses about some of this stuff. Because it’s not like just take this, if you work at a huge company, it’s not your money. It’s not your money. So like it’s a budget item. It’s a it’s something you know, like it’s your budget, it’s not your money. So like when you’re a business owner, it’s your money. And what’s interesting is I’ll see business owners underpriced themselves, when they’re dealing with a big company because they’re confused. They think the person they’re dealing with cares about the money the same way they do, because you it’s your money, so they often undersell what they can do, because of that belief that everybody thinks that way they don’t. So business owners have these unique thoughts about that. But again, like I think we did something today, I have this thing called the guaranteed goals community where I help people with goals and we had a like a VIP kind of chat. And we did an impromptu brag table. And a brag table is this thing I do where you have to share something you’re proud of or excited about, because we don’t have spaces to do that. And so people started to share and share and share and share. And so like the internet’s been so hard on that because, like phrases like humble brag, so if you share something you’re excited about people shame you, if you share something, you fail that or you, you’re depressed about a bunch of other sad people come out and go, yeah, it’s the worst life is terrible. So there’s no spot for a business owner to be like, Dude, I just killed it. Like, I just 20x my first salary. I’m not 20x that, alright? This just happened or like, we got out because you’re afraid to like the must be nice police that are going oh, must, must be nice, you know. And so then, to save ourselves from that we do the if one life has changed, like it becomes a shield for us between what we really desire. And again, the main point is a fake does not fake desire will never get you out of a real comfort zone. You can’t fuel yourself with fake desires. You can only fuel yourself with real desires. And no one ever, like gets out of the comfort zone just because no one ever wakes up and goes today I’ll have grit. Today I’ll have discipline like my own business journey. I had a full time job. I had freelance clients. I had two kids under the age of four, we lived in Atlanta. So I had a terrible commute. And I started to blog a little bit and it started to grow. And the joy of that is what changed my behavior. I didn’t change my behavior first. So I didn’t decide. I’m going to stop watching so much TV and start getting up early and making better decisions so that I discover something I love No, no, no, no. I found something I loved and then I couldn’t do. I was desperate to do as much as I could to throw more time into that fire. And that’s what happens with a business owner was where you find something like that. And it doesn’t have to be like a passion in the sense of you become a writer. I’ve heard somebody say like, I don’t like that follow your passion advice, because it’s usually a rich person who made their money doing iron ore smelting, and I’m like, That’s a fair point. But I think you have to find something you’re good at that you enjoy. So it doesn’t have to be like an art. It doesn’t have to be that. But once you do, that’s when you go, Well, I have a real desire. And then you’ll leave a comfort zone like you never like the book talks about there’s two reasons you leave a comfort zone, a involuntary crisis or a voluntary trick. And the voluntary trick is you find something outside of yourself that matters more than staying inside the comfort zone and you go, Okay, I’m willing to go out what’s outside is better than what’s on the inside. And then you start to do it.

Natalie Franke
I love it reminds me when you say, you know, when you play more, you win more. And when you win more, you play more. And even just finding something you’re passionate about, it creates this momentum engine. Oh, right. And it, it’s that and that momentum in and of itself is just such a powerful thing. And it’s the most difficult, like when you’re fully stopped stuck and stagnant to then get into the the prospect of actually moving. That’s the challenge. But then once you start to play, you start to win. And once you start to win, you’re like, I want to keep playing, this is a blast. And I love that I also love in the book, you talk a lot about like games, like you even refer to certain things as like, you know, like the game of this, the game of that. And I found that really refreshing. But just kind of rewinding back a little bit. So let’s say somebody you know, right now is living in the chaos zone, because I agree, I think comfort zones talked about a lot. They’re living in the chaos zone. They’ve got too many ideas, too many dreams, too many businesses, too many Google domains, right, like too many accounts waiting for them to be created. And hopefully all of us have a partner that’s like, look and spend a year you gotta get rid of it. But for those of us who don’t? Where do we start? So?

Jon Acuff
Yeah, totally, I’ll give you an exercise you can do. I call it the time gap analysis. And that I had to do in my own life, because I was the king of the chaos zone, like I got a book signing a big book deal. And my wife said, I don’t think this is gonna work because you’re a jerk for the two years when you write a book, and you’re jerk for the two years when you sell it. And I’d rather you be a happy plumber than a miserable writer. And what you were saying was that my fuel was chaos, my like, stress, like, here’s, here’s how you know somebody on your team is stuck in the chaos zone, they fight process, the person who’s addicted to chaos hates the system, because the system removes chaos. And so it removes their fuel. And so like the person on your team who’s addicted to drama, addicted to chaos, deadline addicted, where I can’t get inspired until the last second, that person will fight process and system at every step of the way, because it’s removing the thing they think they need. So I did this thing called a time gap analysis. And it’s so simple. All I did was I added up the commitments I had made. So I said this was I did this in March, one year, I had three quarters of the year left. And so I said, What are the commitments I’ve made? from a work perspective? How many hours do I want to work? So I said, How many hours do I want to work, vacations, all the stuff, they said, how many hours have I already committed. And then I added like a 10 to 20% unexpected opportunities, because no week is 40 for 40. For me, so I said, Okay, if I want to work 40 hours a week, eight of those hours are going to be unexpected, because new money comes from unexpected spots, that’s the only place new money comes from unexpected spots. So you gotta leave some margin for that. I add it all up. And I was 520 hours short, I was over committed by 13 weeks. So the reason listeners feel busy is because they are busy. The reason they feel out of time is because they’re out of time, just most of us have never looked at our time with that level of clarity. So that forced me to go, I’m 520 hours short. Like there’s ways to deal with like, you can cut your quality, I really don’t want to do that you can, you know, work longer hours. But I’ve said my family is a commitment to me. And so I really had to look at the calendar, I like to say that time is the only honest metric. Like you can manipulate money, you can manipulate feelings, like you can like, but time is like the only honest metric. And then I say, time is our most valuable resource, but it’s also our most vulnerable. It’s also our most vulnerable, it only knows how to flow, it can’t protect itself. It only knows how to do one thing flow flow flow flow, we have to be the protectors. So when you’re in the chaos zone, do that exercise go I feel really chaotic right now. Let me check my time, and see if that’s true. And most people that do that are going to quickly realize they have a deficit. And then you’ve got really like one of three things you can do. You can delete some projects, some goals, some commitments, you can delegate them, like that’ll force you to get better at asking for help. And the best thing I ever heard about delegating was from Judd Wilhite, he said when you delegate something to an employee, they’ll do it 80% of the way you would have done it but you save 100% of the time. And I love that reframe of like I don’t know if they’ve done it 80% of the way I would have done it because I’m unique and they’re unique and they did their own way but I saved 100% of the time by not doing it. That’s a good trade for me. Or three you can delay you can move projects to different parts of your calendar. So that’s a really practical, really tactical way to go. I’m in the chaos zone. How do I get back control over my life, my business let me look at my time, see what’s really happening and then make some Real adjustments.

Natalie Franke
And as a business owner, it becomes a lifestyle staying in that chaos sound

Jon Acuff
it Oh, and it feels good at first like it does like I like the rattling rush. Oh, it’s the dopamine like people people cheer you on. Like, I know I’m into chaos soon when I start really liking when people tell me I’m a machine, they go how your machine gets so much done your machine I’m like, and I start real and like, that’s where so like, for me though I started to make a list of what things do I do, because I feel called to do them as a business owner and what things I do I do because I, they make me feel important. Like I want to do less of that make me feel important. It makes me feel important when I’m at a dinner party and I say, I’ve got 12 people on the team. Do I need 12? People? Maybe not. But I like feet, how it sounds at a dinner party I like because depending on your business, you often get judged as not having a real job. So like somebody goes like, you say what you do, and they go, Oh, that’s cute. That’s like a hobby. And like, you might be making four times as much as that person but because you don’t have something that they understand, like you don’t have a title, like you’re an accountant or a contract or whatever. They go, Oh, yeah, that’s cute. And and you in that moment, you’ll be feel insecure. And you’ll go I’ve 15 employees or like whatever the thing is, but if you don’t need 15 employees, maybe that’s part of the chaos, and you need to pull back and go, Okay, well, how am I doing this? And so those things, I’m always kind of thinking about that in my own life, because it’s a work in progress. It’s not like I’ve finished this, and I’m 100. And I’m, like, reflecting back on a life well lived, like I’m in the trenches, just like everybody else.

Natalie Franke
Yeah, I love that about the way that you write you write from the perspective of a lifelong student. And I’ve always appreciated the brutal honesty that comes with that of how you approach things. One thing just to think about in that chaos, and it came to mind, you know, we talk a lot about business owners like that, that exercise that Jon just gave all of you, I would highly recommend you do and you do it alongside like, especially for those that are service based businesses, that client mapping of your client flow, because one of the things that happens when you get caught in that chaos zone is you can’t actually work on your business, all you’re doing is treading water, you’re a duck, right? Like, on the outside, all the clients look at you and you look calm as can be. But then under the surface, if you’ve ever seen a duck swim, right, their feet are non stop moving. So you know, they may only move, you know a little bit as they’re kind of navigating the water, but their feet are running at a rapid and just wild pace. And so it is important, it’s important to kind of take that moment to pause and say, you know, because I hear all the time, oh, I just don’t have time. I don’t have time. But that what they mean is I don’t have time to, you know, automate my workflow. I don’t have time to build out systems that can run for me, I don’t have enough time to delegate. Like we hear that, like, I don’t have time to delegate. And so

Jon Acuff
it’s just easier for me to do it myself. And you go, Well, you’ve never tried. So you don’t really know, like until you’ve tried it 10 times, you can’t say it’s easier for me to do it myself.

Natalie Franke
It’s so true. It is absolutely so true. Okay, so we’ve talked about chaos zone. But for those folks that maybe still are stuck in the comfort zone, because I do think we talked about the oscillation, a lot of us oscillate, and I have ADHD. And so as you’re talking about chaos, I’m like, well, that’s my dopamine addiction that you’re describing here. But then there’s also the swing that goes the complete opposite direction of, you know, oh, no, no, no, no, I’m just going to stay with what I know, I’m going to stay with, even like how we run our businesses. And we think, Okay, this has been working. So I don’t want to try anything new. I don’t want to leave the margin that you’re talking about for that new revenue opportunity. Because, you know, I just, I just want to stick with what I know. And if I stick with what I know, I will be safe. And we both know that in a world that is constantly changing. When there are new tools coming out all the time. AI is kind of like you name it. It’s shifting. Yeah, that doesn’t really lead to a successful business. What advice then do you have for the folks in that comfort zone? Where should they begin?

Jon Acuff
I think a review is worth its weight in gold. So we’re recording this the middle of the year, like what a great spot, but you have 12 custom design gifted days every year to do a pretty simple into month review. And it’s the last day of the month or the second or last day of the month. So for me, like I say self awareness is a superpower, but you only get to use it if you’re paying attention. And so if I’ll you know, the more I pay attention, and we’ll review something and go, here’s what happened. Here’s how this went. Here’s the real numbers. Here’s what the numbers say like I did that the other day and realize, Wow, this one part of the business is taking a ton of the expenses and giving very little in the revenue. This other part is carrying so much of the weight and will never complain but like this isn’t, this is like even a review where you take away just do this exercise. Take your greatest income stream away from your business and see if the rest of it could be its own business. Because often what happens is you go wow, I have one superstar and four losers that would never make the team but I don’t see that because this one superstar is doing so well. But what if I got rid of the four losers and developed a second superstar like what if I did that and so I don’t think you can really understand what’s going on unless and it doesn’t have to be massive. Like, that’s where all the perfectionist right now are like, Okay, I gotta review everything I do No, no, no, like, pick one part of your business pick one week, pick one month, like don’t make it massive, especially when you’re doing it for the first or second time. So I think a review for me, allows me to see where I’m really headed. And then I can, you know, I did that just the other day, I had my assistant do a pie, a pie chart of all the revenue from all our different streams. And then we had a meeting and people were suggesting ideas. And I would say, well, that that idea fits into the 0% category. It wasn’t big enough for 1% on it. So I really like let’s not, let’s not spend a lot of time lot of money on that, because I got this pie chart. And here’s what you know, like, and you go, Oh, yeah, so I think getting to some numbers is so helpful, because businesses are already emotional enough. But one of the soundtracks I say is that data kills denial, which prevents disaster. So data kills denial, which prevents disaster. So what happens with business owners is they stay in denial, because they don’t want to look at the data, which is the equivalent of somebody who goes, I might be sick, but I don’t want to go to the doctor and find out. So I’m not going to go to the doctor and their cancer runs rampant because they wait a year, two years, whatever. And but the problem is, we don’t like data. The story I always tell is the first time we were at a big restaurant in New York, and we’re all gonna order crazy meals. And the week before they had passed a law that you had to have the calories next to the items. And everybody’s item changed. Everybody’s item changed from like a big crazy cheeseburger into a salad with like grilled chicken and like salad dressing on the side, like your lightest Brown is water like just barely above water. And it was because of the data. Now the meals had the calories whether I knew them or not. That was just data. And so I think the more you can fall and I’m not a data guy by nature, I’m really not like I’m a writer, I’m a messy artists like, that’s not my natural strength. Any more than like, I’m naturally a negative, cynical person. I’ve just tried negativity, and I’ve tried positivity and the ROI on positivity is so much better. So now I work at positivity. But most mornings, I start from a place of negativity, I just have to work really hard to get to positivity because the rewards of positivity are amazing. The rewards of negativity are loneliness, sadness, smaller businesses like failure. Like I know that. Like, I don’t want that I want the other stuff.

Natalie Franke
Yes, speaking of loneliness, you talk about community a little bit in the book as well, which Yeah, I’m a community community builder. So that one always grabs my heart. And I love what you have to say about the fact that, you know, we can no longer really have this accidental community like community has to be intentional in this day and age. And I want to double click in there. Yeah, so

Jon Acuff
the phrase I said was accidental communities over the future is intentional. And I just went through a list of the 10 ways you used to receive bursts of accidental community without even knowing it. So I said, let’s just do this. Let some of the people listening were at a company and they left the company to start their own company, which is one of the loneliest things you can do as a human. And you don’t think about it because you’re like, Oh, I’m going forward. I’m exciting m&m Mom, spaghetti, whatever. And then you realize, I just left accidental community like you when you work in an office, a woman a man pops her head of our cubicle and goes, Hey, we’re all gonna go to that new sushi place. You want to go and you’re like, it’s Tuesday. Let’s do it. That never happens when you have a small business by yourself like in the joke I sometimes do is I know I’m lonely when I overtalk the UPS guy, when like the UPS guy is bringing a box. I’m like, Hey, how’s the family? How’s Pam? And he’s like, I just want to leave this box. Like, can we not? I’m like, I’m alone. I need community. So yeah, I think we get wrapped up in it. And then the other thing is, I think COVID fast forwarded it. I think it fast like COVID threw fuel on a lot of people’s anxieties that they had and they could have worked on over time. But it it made him it made bonfires out of a lot of things, and they’re raging out of control. And I think loneliness is one of them. The phrase I saw this Professor Scott Galloway say was bed writing, where you work from your bed and you never leave your bed. And so and I’m I’m naturally an introvert, like people think I’m an extrovert because I speak on stage. But I always tell people, it’s the most introverted activity you can do. I have one mic. I’m the only one I mean, 100% control. It’s not a conversation, a panel, way harder to me. If somebody goes, we want you to be in a panel of 10 people. I’m like, oh, that’s extroverted. That’s a conversation. Like, that’s hard. And so I’m naturally an introvert. But it just I started to see the rewards of community. So like one of the things I’m doing I have an automatic No, when somebody asked me to do something like as an introvert like if somebody goes Hey, I see you’re coming to town Do you have any time I automatically I don’t have any time No, I’m so busy. I’m so no, I don’t. And so I friend really convicted me about how do you connect with people and then this soundtrack kind of hit me like I just started to think every possibility starts with new people. Every possibility starts with new people. So like if you want other possibilities that your business it’s always going to come via people. So I’ve now made an effort to like it was funny. This week. I was in South Dakota and Maya system thought it was a mistake. She was like, says you got a coffee at three and then like dinner at 530 with a different like is that something happened? I was like, No, I’m doing that on purpose. Like, are you what? Like, because we’ve worked together for eight years. And she knows I’m like, I leave the airport go right into the hotel room. And I usually write or do other things. But now I’m like, No. And now, like I said, yes to this mastermind thing that somebody was like coming for three days to Colorado. And usually I’m like, never, I never. And now like, I’ll go to that. And so like, I’m actively, but you talk about the games relationships is our game to me. And so I’m like, How do I make that a real goal. So I make it a real goal by having a schedule that allows people to fit in it. That’s number one. If you’re so full, as a business owner, you can’t like or you’re so demanding of your time that what happens as business owners as we start to go, I could meet you at like 417 at this one coffee shop that’s next to my house on the third Tuesday, nine months from now. And you’re like, wow, that’s really like we want versus going. Where do you want to meet? Like, where like, what time is good for you? And going like, okay, so I’m trying to put a better priority on community because I think it’s essential.

Natalie Franke
And prioritization, there is like the key word, as I hear that, because we’re always going to be busy, the schedule is always going to be fully loaded, when never now, which you talk about in like a craft, like looking at it as a craft, you’re never going to be done. Right? You’re never going to when they say I’ve arrived,

Jon Acuff
no embracing that. Yeah. Yeah. Ah, okay. So

Natalie Franke
for business owners who, let’s say whether their comfort zone, their chaos zone, or, you know, they’re finding their way towards the happy middle. Goal setting is just intimidating in and of itself. Because I think sometimes we truly, like we don’t know where to begin, or we’ve done goal setting in the past, and it never works out, right. Like, it’s January 1, we all have goals, but by February 1, how many people still remember the goals that they set even a couple of weeks ago? And so take this in whatever direction you want, but what are just some of the real quick bits of advice when it comes to actually setting the goals following through on the goals that you’ve learned in running your business now for well over a decade that you want to make sure our listeners take away?

Jon Acuff
Yeah, I mean, for me, Sunday afternoon, or Friday afternoon, I’m planning the next week. So that’s what I’m doing goals. So I’m going through, I’m interviewing my calendar, and I’m interviewing my notebook. So I’m going, what’s coming up on the calendar, what have I put in my notebook, like my notebooks, kind of like my running to do list. And so I’m kind of interviewing both of those to go, okay. And then what, like, I make a massive list. And then I find a spot for as many of those as I can. And I go, here’s a spot, here’s a spot, here’s a spot. So then I have then I have a week where I know, okay, this is what success looks like, like, this is what this is what I’m doing this is and there’s gonna be surprises in there. And I do that with my like workouts, I do it with, you know, I put real, like, if you don’t plan a workout, it doesn’t happen any more than you didn’t plan a meeting. So I’m like, Okay, on Tuesday, I’m going to do this. And, and so I have a really simple goal technique I use is, what can I do today that makes tomorrow easier? I’m always trying to hook up future me. So I’ll be like, what, what will I be glad I did this week. So that next week is even easier. And so then I’ll know, I’ll go, wow, I got this project with this client on Wednesday, a week from now. And if I do a little bit every day, which is not my natural tendency, like I’m like, wait to the last second guy by nature. I’ll be so glad when I open a week from now, when future Jon opens up, that document goes, Oh, it’s already half done. Like this is amazing. So I do little things like that along the way, and then just figure out what works for you. I think the reason why goals sometimes don’t work for people is that people give them rigid systems that are designed for the person who wrote it. And it falls apart immediately. And so I you know, I’m always saying how do I modify it? How do I modify this? How do I you know, because I’ll hear some other self help book that’s like, you got to do it exactly this way, you got to get up at 3am. And I’m like, and then if you’d like, if you’re a business owner, and you’ve got four kids, and you’re already balancing the million things, that’s not helpful. That feels discouraging. So I’m like, How do I modify it? Somebody said that, to me today. They’re like, hey, what’s the point of reading all these books, if I don’t retain all the information, I was like, who’s aiming to retain all of it, like, I’m not like, I’m looking for one to three amazing ideas. Like if I get one life changing idea from a book that was worth $20, easy, 20 hours for a life changing idea. And I’m reading it for the feel of it, too. So one of my favorite books ever written is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. And the one thing I took from that, that I still use to this day, 15 days, 15 years later is fear only bothers you when you do things that matter to you, like if you you know as you so the arrival of fear is usually an indicator to keep going not to stop. And so that rewired how I thought about fear. And so I you know, but I wouldn’t say I retained every part of that book. Now, the flip side of that is there’s some books I read, there’s some books I practice. So I read it and I go through it. I can listen to it. 1.5 speed on Audible, whatever. But then there’s some books that I go oh, like your money or your life. I’m practicing that book right now. I’m reading it. I’m trying the activities, and I’m trying the exercises. So that book will take me, I read it probably in two weeks, it’ll take me six months to put it into practice. That’s different. So you also don’t have to read or do your goals the same. You get to kind of modify it to you. But yeah, I, I look like and then the last thing I’d say, I think that I try to present goals in a way that doesn’t intimidate or overwhelm somebody right away. So I honestly believe everybody can make a million dollars. I really genuinely believe that, like, I really do. But I talked to a friend about that I could tell he was like, oh, like, so then I was like, I think you can make 100,000. And he had an easier time with that. And then I talked to some other friends. And I was like, I think you can double your income and that they understood that made them excited. Because if you make $50,000 a year, and somebody goes think you can double your income, you know, the the number 50, you’re not afraid and the number 50. And you go, I can see that. Where if he’s, if somebody tells me you can 50x your income. I’m like, Nah, that I don’t that that feels like pro wrestling, I call a lot of motivational advice, pro wrestling, where it’s just like, it’s not true. It’s just exciting. It’s just not like I know, like, it’s the equivalent of pro wrestling. And I’m like, like, it’s fun to see, and it’s shiny. But I don’t think you’re really living that. I don’t think I heard somebody say like, you should start your day, every day doing two hours on the goal that matters most. And I was like, Who? Who has that life? Like who? Like of course, like there are some things that are technically right, but not practically. Right. And that’s not practically right. And so I’m trying to create goals for people that are busy, that have families that don’t want to lose themselves in it like and go, okay, yeah, technically, if you did two hours a day for seven days a week, it’s 14 extra hours, like great, of course. But practically, here’s how to do it. Here’s like, here’s what to do. So that’s how I think about goals is like, How can I help somebody do them in a practical way, which isn’t a sexy word, but I don’t care about the initial sexiness of it, I care about the sustained success of it. So like, if I can get you to sustain the success over a long period of time, your life changes versus you bought the thing got excited, and then didn’t do the thing and felt discouraged, like I left you even more discouraged with the hype, you know,

Natalie Franke
poof. Jon, this has been incredible. There is one final question that I have for you. And I asked this question of all the guests on the independent business podcast, and no one has answered it the same since we started asking it, which is what I love. There’s no right or wrong answer. But I would love to know from you, Jon, what do you believe differentiates the businesses that succeed from the ones that fail? Or what is the biggest differentiator? What is that thing that kind of stands in, in the in the way?

Jon Acuff
Yeah, so I do this speech about empathy. And I say that this is the six word formula for empathy. Read less minds, ask more questions, like read less minds, ask more questions. And people in the grammar, I know it should be fewer. But less is a better rhythm, and rhythm as a dancer. So we’re I went with less than an idea. But I found over the years that it’s really expensive and time consuming to invent the need. It’s really fun to meet a need. And there’s a big difference. So I find that the companies that meet a need, versus trying to invent the need, have a lot easier go. And so they meet the need, they super serve that need. There’s real people that are excited they fix that they can’t they’re they’re thrilled that it’s there, versus trying to force something on a populations like I don’t even know what this is, I don’t know, I don’t think I need it. So if I can figure out okay with empathy, what are the questions? So like, for instance, I’ll give you an example. So I have a newsletter, that are sending out every Friday, and we did a big customer survey. And one of the top things were people are overwhelmed. Like I am a content machine a people say on my machine call back to earlier. And I was sending out too much content, because I’m a content guy. So it’s like, I think every problem should be fixed with additional content. And they said like Uncle in essence, like it’s too much. So we changed it to twice a month. And we changed the name. It’s called the try this. And now it’s better content, like I spend more time on it. And that starts with a wicked short version for busy people takes 30 seconds to read. I’m from Massachusetts. So wicked is our word for very, and, and it’s really good content. So like, I’m able to say there’s a short version, there’s a long version, here’s something I think you should actually do. It’s a gov.me/newsletter If you’re curious. And so for me, that was me responding to the audience, but I had to ask the question, so that I could respond. And so like that’s, to me, that’s the difference. And the story I tell from stage sometimes is when I worked at Bose we lost multi billions of dollars, because we had a huge head start in consumer headphones like we are crushing but then consumers started to change what they Want instead we want colors. We want different designs, we want different aesthetics. And we didn’t listen, because what we cared about was sound quality. And the sound quality is amazing. But customers wanted something else. We ignored it, Dr. Dre listened, Dr. Dre and beats listened and killed us with an inferior product. Like they. And the joke I’ll do like, and it’s my favorite joke to do from stage, I’ll say, you know, Dre killed us, blah, blah, blah. And I’ll say we broke the first rule of electronics. And then I’ll hold the pause, and I’ll go, we forgot about Dre. And everybody in the crowd is not expecting that line. And it’s just just like, it’s such a fun line to kind of turn because there’s this part of your brain called Broca. and broke his job is to file away ideas. And so as soon as you see something that goes, this reminds me of that restaurant or this and you have to surprise Broca if you want your idea to stick so when I do a Dr. Dre joke in the middle of a serious story, it surprises Broca and it keeps the audience engaged. And so things like that I think are fun.

Natalie Franke
Never did I think we’d end an episode by talking about Broca’s area on the podcast, but of course yeah, as the neuroscience nerd you just made the day I know all about

Jon Acuff
I could see you go Yeah, of course. Of course.

Natalie Franke
Oh, yeah, of course. Of course. Gorgeous area. Okay. Folks are gonna want to know where they can learn more about you get connected, follow along, where shall we send them?

Jon Acuff
Yeah. Jon acuff.com is my website jnacuff.com You can read the first 18 pages of the book at ATG book.com a TG book.com I have a podcast called All it takes is a goal were interviewed people about the goals are working on this super fun to do podcasts, you know, you know that better than anybody. Yeah, and then Instagram I’m Jon Acuff, and then I’m all over the place. Yeah, if you look up Jon Acuff, you can usually figure it figure out where I am.

Natalie Franke
Amazing. Thank you so much for joining me on the show today. Yeah, thanks

Jon Acuff
for having me. It was a blast.

Natalie Franke
That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything that we’ve discussed today can be [email protected]. Head to our website for access to show notes, relevant links and all of the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests some love on social. Thanks again for listening.

Natalie Franke
For a moment, I want you to imagine that the very opportunity you have been working for your entire career is presented to you. You can’t believe it. You are so excited and enthusiastic and they hand you a contract, which you sign right away. 10 years later, that very contract threatens to take away the industry that you love the work that you’ve done your entire career, and even your name. Today on the podcast we are talking with former bridal designer Hayley Paige, now known as cheval, should always stress noteworthy female icons like dove, Cameron, Chrissy Tegan and Carrie Underwood and became one of the most sought after luxury bridal designers in the world. After nine years of working under a very one sided employment contract, her former employer sued her in federal court, and gained access to what she believed were her personal social media accounts. Today, she is prevented from using her own birth name in any business or commerce or even to publicly identify herself. She is also not receiving commission for her designs that are still being sold. And she’s restricted from identifying herself as a bridal designer for the next five years until August of 2027. Rather than waiting though, for left to strike, she’s creating her own one year ago, cheval personally publicly and professionally changed her name. She also launched a 501 C three nonprofit foundation that provides resources to better protect the interests of young women entrepreneurs and creatives during the most formative years of their career. Today on the podcast, we are talking about her learnings, the lawsuit and she holds nothing back. If you have big dreams, this is an episode you need to listen to, because what she has taken away from this experience is something that she hopes every business owner can learn before it happens to them. Hey, everyone, this is your host, Natalie Frank, and you’re listening to the independent business podcasts, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve victory.

Natalie Franke
Chevelle, thank you so much for joining me.

Cheval
Thank you for having me.

Natalie Franke
All right, let’s just start from the very beginning. Did you always know that you were a creative that you wanted to get into design? How did that part of your, you know, early beginning culminate? Where did those inspirational creative vibes come from,

Cheval
I don’t remember a time in life where I didn’t want to express myself creatively. And growing up, my grandmother taught me to sell and bake. And my parents were so encouraging of anything I wanted to create with my hands. And it felt almost innate, I don’t always agree with Oh, you have to be born with it. But I just was constantly exposed. And I think that really helped, getting confidence and just see it as something that brought a lot of joy. And specifically, I did that with wedding dresses for quite some time.

Natalie Franke
And that’s really how I came across your work. And we were chatting before we hopped on about just the impact that you made in the wedding industry, especially during the years where, you know, I was growing my business and so many of us in the space like we all know you and knew you and what you were doing and the impact you were making. And you know, it was such a meteoric rise and impact in that season. And I want to kind of go to a moment back in 2011, when you signed on, as you were offered a role for my understanding as head of design. So you sign on this employment contract. Let’s fast forward to that moment. So your creative by heart, you, you know, build that into your career, you signed this employment agreement. Tell me about it.

Cheval
I felt so excited and thrilled to just be given my opportunity. And in my mind, it was my dream job. I had always loved the emotional attachment and the romance and the craftsmanship that goes into the wedding day in general. And because I had been trained and skilled in pattern making and draping and pretty much every one of my educational products was some form of a wedding dress. It just felt like the timing was right. And I remember at the time being, feeling very confident about what I can bring to the table. And a lot of my focus was on what I could bring what value and I think that’s what Were a lot of my issues, you know, looking at times I started is that I was hyper focused on my craft, and I wasn’t really looking at whether or not a certain environment was going to be right for me or what I could get out of it. And a lot of times people say, you know, you shouldn’t do anything for the money. And I can certainly attest to that. It was going in with the idea that this is what I wanted to do with my life. And I felt like it was my gift. But I didn’t really focus on anything else.

Natalie Franke
Now, the rule itself is pretty prestigious, right? Like to get a role like that. It’s a big deal.

Cheval
For me, it was because when I thought about my pipe dream, and my big dreams, and all that, it always had that desire, being the ringleader of your own creative expression, and being the head of a collection. And the creative vision behind that is definitely a big role. But it also requires a great deal of actual skill set and talent in the form of how do you execute a vision? How do you make a design come to life from start to finish, and I was somebody growing up that while I loved being creative, I didn’t really have the viability and think I was good at it until much later in life, and having the conviction and the validation was a really important part of my journey. So at the age of 25, I’d already had about five years of pretty intense industry experience, I had a full education dedicated to this, and then a lifelong dream of pursuing it. So at that moment, I felt like it was right. And it was a big deal, for sure. And I didn’t want to lose that opportunity.

Natalie Franke
So many business owners, I have no doubt are nodding their heads along with you and completely understand that feeling of, you know, imposter syndrome at times kind of living in the backgrounds of our minds. And when someone does come forward and offer us an opportunity. It does it feels like a gold star, like a big stamp of approval on a piece of our identity and our soul, which can lead us sometimes I think, to leap, perhaps, maybe an opportunity is that, you know, we don’t even imagine the potential negative outcomes of or we don’t see the full picture. And so I’m curious, did you have an attorney ever look over that initial contract? And if not, you know, do you think it would have changed anything? Or do you have any advice for folks that maybe, you know, are signing contracts all the time in their independent business,

Cheval
I did not have an attorney overlook my original contract. And to your point, I think, a lot of attention, and focus goes into optimistic ideals, that anything can be figured out. And as long as I work hard, and I go all in on something, you know, it’ll someday, you know, make sense. And looking back at that moment, now that I’ve had so much time to let this marinate, I genuinely do not think it would have made a difference if I had had counsel or an attorney. Because given the experience, and what I’ve had to go through, I was working for almost 10 years building up something. And when I went into a period of negotiation and trying to get a new contract or renegotiate that contract, I was met with such a special form of disagreement. And almost it felt like in an interview, by the way, that there was like this major departure, which I couldn’t really understand. Because after all this time, I felt like this was a long time coming. And I felt like I would have the ability to be successful in negotiating and figuring out what my future would look like. So going back 10 years without that experience, and without all of that I can’t even imagine that it would have really made a difference. I I don’t see how I think the real solution would have been for me to do more research. And for me to come to this place of abundance, that there are plenty of opportunities to live out my dream goal. There are plenty of capital investors or other companies or ways for me to achieve that dream. And for me, I think I was so small minded and this is my only shot. This is my only opportunity. You know, and so that’s the only way I can really look at it. In hindsight, I should have done a little more due diligence beyond that.

Natalie Franke
I really want everyone listening to this right now to just replay which fall just said because I hear it all the time in our community when it comes to things you know, as simple as like a client reaching out a great opportunity to, you know, photograph a wedding somewhere that you’ve always dropped a photo grasping it or take on a design client that you’ve always dreamed of working with, all the way through these bigger like acquisitions of intellectual property, so on and so forth. Types of conversations because so often, right, we, we feel as though if I don’t see this one opportunity, that’s it for me, there is nothing else I have to take it or we go in, like you’re saying, with that mindset of like, more of what, you know, nothing’s gonna go wrong, everything’s gonna go right not acknowledging that we may have our heart, our soul and our identity tied to a piece of this work. But the entity on the other side doesn’t share that, right. And, for us, it means so much more as independent business owners than perhaps it could ever mean to a larger corporation, especially folks who work b2b. Like they know this. They see this all the time. And so I just I want to make sure folks listening remember that like, it’s okay, sometimes to say no to really good opportunities, if you know it’s not right for you. And that oftentimes, like I, you know, we chatted about this a little bit before, but I turned down the first book deal that was ever offered to me. Out of the blue, I had brain surgery, and a publisher approached me, I was unrepresented. And they offered me this amazing book deal. And like, we want you to write a book. It’s one of the top publishers in the world. And I remember at that time feeling like how you can’t say no to that. I’m nobody, right? Like, I’m nobody, I can’t say no to this. And I was really lucky that a fellow author friend, Jon Acuff, who we’re also going to have on the show that I connected with on on Twitter just said, Hey, before you sign anything, like hit one of his passions, similar to now one of yours is supporting future authors, aspiring authors and unrepresented authors, and just ensuring that nothing, you know, they’re not taken advantage of allowing them to decide for themselves, obviously, but he said, Hey, just have my agent read over it, he’s an attorney just haven’t look at it, haven’t looked at it, you can still sign the thing. You know, like, it’s a great publisher, it would launch you for sure, but haven’t read it. And that and my agent read over the contract and was like this, this, this, this, I like, you can sign this, I would advise against it. But you need to know what you’re getting into. Just make sure you’re aware of what signing this means. And it was like perpetuity right? So uncertain things that I wouldn’t have known what that language was, I would have had no idea. And I’m sharing all of this to say that like these opportunities when they pop up, they might be amazing. They might be career launching opportunities, they might be exactly what you’ve worked for, for 10 years. And sometimes you still got to take them knowing that you know, but you have to have that visibility of what you’re getting into. But other times, like you might want to say no, there’s no one right or wrong. There’s just what’s right for you. The challenge here, though, is that in those seasons, I think we can feel really vulnerable. And we can want to people, please and it’s uncomfortable. I mean, did you feel that way? Like I’m curious, like, did you feel even in that initial contract conversation, in the more recent negotiation like did, how did that come into play those feelings of vulnerability, that imposter syndrome, the notion of wanting to people, please Is that something you struggled with? Also?

Cheval
I definitely related. I nobody does something. I feel like I’ve felt you know, that. I’m nobody. And I hate that phrase, because you’re somebody, and you don’t even know what your capabilities and potential could potentially be. And you’re already putting yourself at a disadvantage. And that can be such a hard habit to unlearn. It makes you compromise too much. And of course, in any business deal, there is given take the transparency, and the clarity is what is so important in knowing what you do want, and what you think you might be able to do. And where you can meet in the middle, I actually read this book called never split the difference. And there were a lot of it that I did agree with. But there’s some to which I feel like you do need to have self awareness of where you can go and where your limitations are, what are those boundaries, because if you do not set them, somebody else looks at them for you. That’s the same thing with your work. Even if you don’t know what your worth is, do not leave it for the taking, because somebody else will set that worth. So it’s really important to know that no deal is better than a bad deal. That will set you back.

Natalie Franke
That right there that lat like that last sentence right there. So important. I’m curious to know from you, you know, going through all of this, have you experienced now where you can’t use your legal name that was on your birth certificate in any sort of commerce, which we know extends now to social media as it’s been perceived social media as part of commerce, so on and so forth. You’ve been through a journey. You’ve really been through it. I mean, we’re rooting for you. All of us. All the independent business owners have been on the sidelines like watching, observing and rooting fiercely. I’m curious, you know, how is cheval different from the woman who came before? How has this experience transformed you? And you know, when we are talking now, like you’re different than than the woman that you were, when you signed that contract back in 2011, I’d love to kind of get a peek behind the curtain of what do you think is changed

Cheval
experience is what has changed me for certain that when everything is uncertain, change is certain. I love that there was the sense of adventure. And there’s a sense of reinvention with a shovel. And the name itself gave me an opportunity to step forward in a way that I had for miss my own identity. Even though I lost so much, I feel like I was able to regain and hold on to pieces that I was really proud of. And also unpacked and leave behind patterns and behaviors that didn’t work. And that’s not to say, you know, I figured it out. But the the learning process and the unlearning and all of that kind of goes together, and it’s forever motion I, I always say I’m forever a work in progress. But being able to be self aware of the mistakes you’ve made, at least identify them, and know that the most important thing is not making them again, just learning from those mistakes. I think that was a really long way. And it’s part of the process, of course. But there are parts of me, I still wrestle with every day, we spoke briefly about being a people pleaser. And I still identify that way, I do like to make sure people feel comfortable around me, and that I’m saying nice things to make them feel welcome and that they belong and the environment we’re in or whatever it is. And I think I’ve had to kind of learn that there is a way to still set boundaries, and a way to say no to things without being confrontational. And that’s something I work through almost every day, you definitely still want to be respected. Because that’s a different form of a relationship. There can be moments where you want us or you’re fighting or you don’t agree with something, but you still have the respect there. And just a general sense of politeness is important without giving away.

Natalie Franke
I feel that I feel that so part of this transformation, though, has also required you to, from my understanding, stop working in the wedding industry, and actually have to truly reinvent your self like creatively work in a different space, at least until what 2027. Is that right?

Cheval
So I am under a five year provision, which some see as a non compete, where I cannot identify to the trade as a designer, in any of the categories my former employer manufactures or sells. So it’s very specific to wedding dress designing or anything my former employer creates. So it’s not that I’m forbidden from the industry or anything like that. It’s more so the actual trade set and the My chosen trade something I went all in on my whole life education industry experience, I can no longer do for a five year period.

Natalie Franke
So you have had to reinvent yourself in a lot of ways as a result of that. What does that look like? What is the current day to day life like for you, I already know, but I want you to share it with our listeners,

Cheval
there’s definitely soul searching every day, I think when your sense of self is challenged in the way that mine has, from my name to what I always thought was my social media, my personal social media accounts, losing access to those or having to turn this over. And then my training, which is something you know, as I said, it’s been a whole lifelong journey. It’s not just been this one period of time. It had me questioning who am I if you know what to think of that scene from zoom Landover, looks into the puddle and is like, who am I? You know, it’s really scary. And I think the good silver lining of it is that it has forced me to look elsewhere. It’s forced me to direct my attention to what I can do, as opposed to what I can’t. And that I think is where optimism does play a really strong responsibility role in looking at my situation, okay, take accountability for where I’m at, you know, and then take a step in front of the other in the direction of how can I still use some form of my skill set. That’s where I did find shoes. And that’s where I’ve reinvented with The name and came up with a brand that was really sentimental and nostalgic to me because it allowed me to remember parts of my journey that were so important in defining who I was as a child, and in school, and through my relationships, all those things that have really led me to where I am, because who I am is not just what I have accomplished, and the money I’ve made and lost, you know, it’s not defined by those as much as it’s defined by what am I attracted to? What friendships do I have? To have? I have a group of people who am I in the unseen hours, and it can sound really boost up. But it’s been so important for me staying sane through a lot of this. And through real moments of unexpressed love and briefs Have you get?

Natalie Franke
Who am I in the unseen hours? I? That question alone, really, like I have little little micro chills all over my arms right now, who are you in the unseen hours and even just hearing you talk about this experience? Like you, you know, I remember the identity in which you feel when you build something with your name on it. I mean, you It’s why it becomes so difficult for so many in our community, especially if their name is attached to their business to take on things like negative criticism, because it begins to feel even like they’re not critiquing the business. They’re critiquing me, you’ve got it, right. Like there is an element of ourselves, that we flood into the work that we do, which is part of what makes it so successful. And also, it’s part of why like, even with you no longer being a part of that body of work that you create it in my mind, it makes that like future under that name. So different. They lost the magic because the magic is the human and for each business owner listening like you are the magic in your business. At the end of the day, I want to share a quote that I heard you saying on a recent interview with Jason Kartik of trading secrets, awesome podcast, you say the secret sauce is the human? It’s the human connection. It’s the human behind the brand.

Cheval
Absolutely.

Natalie Franke
Tell me about that.

Cheval
Couldn’t agree more with it in that there’s dilution, everywhere you go. Social media, for example, after a while a lot of content just starts to look the same. Everyone’s copying everyone else. But that minute you get that one, real or comment or whatever, that just feels so unique, and so personal. And based on that person delivering it, it feels super authentic. And then you get that sense of magic. And I think that is what does separate you from very, very overwhelmed and diluted areas. You think about it in photography, you know, being a wedding photographer, how have you separate yourself from every other wedding photographer out there, when you all kind of have optimized in your ability to capture light and to filter photos. And to make a couple of amazing? Well, relationships that the service side of it, the thing that you say that they just remember you for that it that’s where there’s that sprinkle on the rim, or the frosting on the cupcake, whatever you want to call it. But I think that is the differentiator. And more and more people are realizing that as they grow their businesses, how important that element is, has things become so much more automated, and AI focused and social media focused. And you know, when you do something for somebody, and it’s not just for pomp and pageantry, it’s not just gobbling up on social media, you do it genuinely, it needs more it matters more

Natalie Franke
music to my ears, and we talk so much about that on this podcast, because we love we’re like huge fans, we love AI we love automations. And we asked like how do you discern sometimes with independent business like you know, where you need to put that unique touch, you can leverage these tools and help it streamline your client flow. And in the process, find those spaces where you bring your uniqueness in a way that otherwise you couldn’t. And so I love what you said, like, you know, in so many words like you are the differentiator like you are that secret sauce, you are that magic and bringing that into your business is so critical and so important. I want to pivot a little bit to the future. So you have created some extraordinary shoe designs for folks, we’re going to link out to all of the things we talked about, as we always do in the show notes, highly recommend checking out the absolutely spectacular pieces of art also known as shoes that cheval has in her shop. But you’ve also created a nonprofit. And I want to double click into this side of the story because I think this to me personally was really exciting and empowering. And we talked about impact being made. You know, when we go through difficult seasons, we can either let it define us or we can let it feel less into our next chapter and this to me was evidenced that you’re doing the latter. There’s a quote here that I pulled from your site that I just want to share before we talk about a Girl you might know Foundation, which is schmalz nonprofit, it says, We believe that going after your biggest dreams should not come at the expense of your rights, your ethics, your morals, or your name. Can you share a little bit more with us about the story behind a girl you might know, foundation and what inspired you to take this experience and turn it into advocacy?

Cheval
I felt the experience in actually going the hard route was very, very valuable and very expensive. As we all know, lawsuits are very expensive. And I felt a large responsibility to give back in some way. Because when I decided to share my story publicly, there wasn’t really a solution. There wasn’t like, I figured it out, you know, and I still have it. I’m still very much in this active litigation. But I do think that some of the story loops and where you can typo some things in the mistakes where you learn the lesson. And where do you know that there is a conversation needed? And where resources fall short? How can we be resourceful. And the nonprofit is really to spill secrets, it is to say, Hey, this is what I actually experienced. And here’s where you should be careful. And while all of our journeys and situations and businesses are niche and nuanced, there are ways to apply the learnings to your business and to yourself that that is helpful. And I also had so many unique people come and support me and all that I was going through that I couldn’t imagine starting a new business and jumping into shoes and manifesting a whole new world. Without this element of real support for young artists and women and making them feel a sense of community should they ever experience their own form of challenges or adversities. And it’s, again, ongoing, it’s a journey. It’s not that we have all the answers. But the nonprofit is very technical, because we are providing advocacy and referrals to real lawyers to law firms that have to account for pro bono hours. We also are not lawyers, in building the foundation. And so because of that, we can’t give legal advice. But what we can do is share our experiences, we can share news and articles, we can provide resources and referrals. And so that’s where we become a little bit of the catalyst in, you know, absorb what you can hear. And then we’ll take you to where hopefully it will address your specific situation. And now we’re seeing tons of artists and even small businesses, entrepreneurs that just want to be in a good situation. And I believe two things can be true, I believe you can be super enthusiastic, super creative, and in a way feel like they’re all in ready to go. But you also have the boundaries, you’re also protected, you also have the right documentation, and you have the right partnership. The partnership aspect, I think, is one of the most challenging because while so much of come down to documenting and documentation, a lot of it comes down to interpretation, and how somebody is willing to argue something or the semantics of things, you can’t really explain in a contract, it goes way beyond that. And then you’re dealing with humans again, right. So you’re not just betting on the contract are betting on also who you’re working with.

Natalie Franke
Any advice you have for business owners in that respect, right there? Like is there something you would tell them, if they are looking to get into a partnership with either another company or you know, work with a partner, even in their business, any, you know, red flags to keep in mind when they’re, you know,

Cheval
getting into now that I’ve gone through stuff, I mean, I see so many red flags now, which is great, because I used to paint those pains, you know, but I, I delve a little nerdy in my approach now. And I actually related to studying for a test. When I was, you know, in grade school, I used to sit down and study hours and hours and hours, read every chapter, learn as much as I could, so that I could do well on the test. And I think it’s kind of an easy way to think about going into a job interview or going into a negotiation, that you do your research. And you actually give yourself time to prepare and understand and position yourself so that you know what questions to ask so that you can be an active listener as well. Because when you’re sitting in a room with somebody, you know what you want, hopefully you know before Interviewer before the meeting you, you know what your objective is. But the key is to really understand what the other person is also looking for. So that there is a real understanding of the positioning. And that both can be really clear and transparent. If you find yourself in a situation where somebody is saying, Oh, we’ll get to that later, let’s just get this contract done. Or, oh, you know, we’re really tight on time here, you know, there are these things that can feel like, Oh, we got rushed into this, we got to do it, we’ll just figure it out later. And it’s really the opposite, it is time to really understand and take a beat, and slow, right, like really slow to hire, you know, in that sense, so that you’re understanding how do they fight? How do they compromise? How do they? What’s the confrontation, you don’t have your first bite really early? Because you’re gonna want to know what is triggering, potentially, for that potential partner or for that situation, you should know what they want, and you should know what you want, and then work on it. It sounds

Natalie Franke
kind of nice, ya know, it’s such great advice, is there anything that looking back you wish you would have done differently, or any advice you’d impart that, you know, you’re like, I just don’t want you to make the same mistake.

Cheval
I tell myself every day Don’t be in a rush. Because every day in a rush, and I don’t know if it’s because I lived in New York for 15 years. But I have always in a rush to go to the next thing. And like, a designer mindset, I think, too, is you put all this work and effort into a collection, and then the collections out there, and then you’re going on to the next collection. You know, it’s like there’s there’s this constant like, next thing, next thing, and maybe there’s a part of that achievement focused like, you know, being mindful and slowing your role. stance is what I tell myself every day, that’s the lesson to learn is to be patient and to sit by the dock of the bay and carefully observe what is happening before we get into

Natalie Franke
that I mean, that’s something we all struggle with. I feel like every other day, there’s like, you know, a new social media platform or algorithm or you know, competitive consideration, we have to take into account or inflation or get like, there’s not a day in the last couple of years that has gone by that as a business owner hasn’t felt like you’re on a hamster wheel just like running endlessly, right and unable to stop the rush. And some of the urgency is true urgency, and sometimes it’s manufactured. And I just I love I really love that advice. What are you most excited about for the future? What just fires you up? Like you’ve gone through so much? What did though is like your joy, your hope? What are you looking forward to?

Cheval
I can’t wait to marry my fiance. I know that’s not a business answer. But you know, that’s just something we’ve really had to put on hold for a number of reasons. And having a support that I’ve had in my life with my fiance, I think it’s been so incredibly life changing, but just, I think to go through the adversities, and the setbacks and everything that we have, as a couple, I’m very proud of our relationship. And that is something I always want to celebrate is that if you have somebody in your life, you know, and it’s not necessarily love interest, but just a friendship, a parent or figure, a mentor, I think that can go a really long way. Because when we spend most of the day alone, working or in our little holes, and I have a tendency to really be afraid of it. You’re only listening to yourself all day, you know, and a lot of times, you’re not so kind to yourself, and you can get into these really bad dooms in your head of like, what could go wrong and constantly worrying and thinking about these scenarios, that probably will never happen, you know. So I think those moments of recognition and support and having relationships and friendships and mentorships and or maybe it’s a mentee that I think, are important to assess in your life and try to nurture so that you’re not alone.

Natalie Franke
I also just want to point out that there is nothing more refreshing than asking one of the most successful figures, truly and I mean this like successful entrepreneurial, creative figures, a question about what she’s excited about. And she talks about relationships. She talks about people, because so often I think in our journeys as independent business owners, we define success by what the world tells us to define it as like we’re excited about the next launch the next venture the next business opportunity. And what I loved in your answer is that it brought us right back to the fact that so much of the work that we’re doing is not for the work itself, but for the life we’re trying to build for Right. We’re not working for work sake, right? We’re working to live. And I think it was the I’m glad you didn’t give me a business answer. Because frankly, it was so refreshing just to be reminded that like, even those of us who are the most successful we go back to like the why, why are we doing this? And it’s to build a life that we love. And you are doing precisely that. And we are so excited for you. And we are so excited for you to marry your best friend. The final question I have, and I asked this of every guest on the podcast, and there isn’t a wrong answer. It’s just so cool to see everyone’s unique perspective, is this. cheval? What do you think is the biggest differentiator between the businesses that succeed and the ones that fail?

Cheval
I feel like it’s failure. It’s failure, it’s, we only see the highlight reels these days, I swear, and even the ones that are highlight reels are feel very manufactured in a way. I think, the more mistakes you make, and the more you fail. The process of elimination isn’t your favorite. You know, it’s almost like as long as you’re learning, of course, from those failures and those mistakes, but I think that that’s where the grit comes in. And that’s where the gumption to continue getting up when you’ve fallen down. And the ability to have that compare and contrast of having nothing having things stripped from you, and then having to get really creative and find a way forward. Because you always have a choice. You always have an option. And then the scenario of very limited resources, resourcefulness, kicking into high gear with cute shoes on.

Natalie Franke
I love that so much. I have no doubt that our listeners are gonna want to learn more about you find you on the interwebs many of them right now might be connecting the dots and being like, Wait, she is a girl that I know. I actually know her very, very well. Where can they go though, to stay in touch with you today? What are those social media handles? What’s the website? Go ahead and let us know.

Cheval
I am all that glitters on the gram. It’s like the longest handle name, but that’s actually the tag. Yeah, the podcast, my fiance and I started back in COVID. And so I kind of usurped that account as my personal account. And then we started she is cheval, which is a phrase she is shuffle. And that’s the French word for horse. That’s our other business, Instagram, but also creative base. I like to be really personal and the approach there. And a girl you might know foundation is the handling for a nonprofit NGO, you might know foundation.org.com. And yeah, I just hopped on threads. You know, that was fun.

Natalie Franke
Oh my gosh, threads has been just a whirlwind. What I do, I love it. I hope it’s here to stay cool. It’s refreshing. It’s refreshing. It’s like, you know, a cold lemonade on a summer day. It really is. digging it. Well. Thank you so much for joining me.

Cheval
Thank you. This is such a great chat. It’s always cathartic. I appreciate it.

Natalie Franke
No, I appreciate you.

Natalie Franke
That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything that we’ve discussed today can be [email protected]. Head to our website for access to show notes, relevant links and all of the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests some love on social. Thanks again for listening.

Akua Konadu
surprised, okay, obviously, I’m not Natalie. But we’re gonna see her here in just a second. I have had the pleasure of interviewing Natalie in honor of her book, gutsy, that comes out next week. And y’all when I tell you, this book is truly, truly life changing, we talk about all the things we talk about, what does it mean, to stop allowing other people’s opinions to get in our way, and be who we truly are, and go for our dreams. This book, I know, in this conversation, you are going to enjoy just as much as I did. So stop whatever you’re doing, put on those headphones, do whatever you got to do. And join me for this conversation. It was truly truly a blast. So let’s get into the episode.

Natalie Franke
Hey, everyone, this is your host, Natalie Frank, and you’re listening to the independent business podcast, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve victory.

Akua Konadu
Obviously, we’re here talking about gutsy, which I have read. And the one thing that I want to say is, is that you’ve changed. You have changed. And I feel like you are it’s just been beautiful to see your evolution. It’s been amazing. I feel like Natalie has arrived. Natalie has arrived. She is here and she is home. And you and for me it felt just so damn good. And so how are you feeling

Natalie Franke
about it? You are 100% Spot on. I’ve changed in the first chapter of gutsy I say you know, and I’ve joked to friends, I’m like, you know, built to belong. It’s a hug. It’s a warm cup of tea.

Akua Konadu
warm cup of tea. Gutsy.

Natalie Franke
Yeah, it’s not. It is a kick in the pants. It is a rallying cry. It is I say like, I’m like, you know, this isn’t a sweet bell pepper, we’re going habanero are hotter here. And there’s a reason for that. You know, I truly believe in my heart, that the thing stopping so many people from going after what they want in life, the thing that keeps so many people from truly pursuing what uniquely they have to offer and give this world is this fear. And often this fear is rooted not in their own opinion of themselves, but in the opinions that they believe others have of them. And often those opinions that they’re imagining aren’t even true. And we are so held back by that. And you know, in all the work I do with small businesses. And you know this like right before the pandemic, we picked a very convenient time to sell our house and pack up into a suburban January 2020. Number 120 20 is going to be our year was 2020. We’re like this is it. This is all of our year

Akua Konadu
going all out. I’m gonna accomplish everything. Yes,

Natalie Franke
yes, we were like, that’s the year of course, my word of the year was home. I remember that. Yeah, I really have not lost on me now. But 2020, we pack up, we get you know, on the road, and we’re going city to city and we drove from Annapolis, Maryland, all the way down south to Miami, and then around the tip of Florida and all the way across the United States to California and back up the California coast. And in every single city that I went into on that road trip I was meeting with and hugging business owners talking to them about their businesses. And it amazes me that even the most successful business owners that I’m having conversations with, are still struggling with this. It is not something that you overcome. You know, it’s not something that you can get over I even say and I think chapter one or chapter two, where I’m like if anyone’s ever told you just stop worrying about what other people think, yes, you can’t. Yeah, your brain is wired to care. So it’s not about you know, something that it’s not something that you can just dismiss or ignore. We’re really dealing with this. And it’s the very thing that holds high achievers back entrepreneurs back parents back. You know, it impacts every area of our life, and it never really goes away. So why aren’t we talking about it? Why aren’t we talking about the fact that we do feel deeply concern for the opinions of others.

Akua Konadu
And I think we don’t fully admit it to ourselves, but we easily get caught up in it. That’s what I love so much about this book, is because even you also offer a lot of tangible exercises in there, which I love. Because it’s they’re simple exercises, right? Like it’s, I think sometimes a lot of us, especially when dealing with fear, we’re looking for the answer to be this very extra big thing. And usually the answer is typically right in front of us. And it’s usually pretty simple to do. It might just be uncomfortable, it just might be uncomfortable. We have this expectation like No, no, there needs to be more like I have to do more work in order to be able to accomplish this specific like to get over this specific thing. And that’s just never never the case. Yeah, and I loved what you said of how gutsy can really just mean differently for every like for so many of us. We all have our own struggles. We’ve all walked through so many different things. So somebody sitting next to me what they can’t get over, I can easily do but you know, if it’s vice versa, we all have our own thing. So you just have to really build and think about what being gutsy means to you. And then move forward, which is what I love about that. So what are your thoughts? Like what is God see me mu? Oh, look

Natalie Franke
at you turn that around, because I’ve been asking everybody now for weeks, like what does it mean to be gutsy for you? You know, the way that I would answer that is this book is one bit of evidence that I am moving into my guts era. And I think that’s what you felt when you were reading it cuz you know me well. Oh, yeah. And you the first thing you said, when you finished reading and you came down, you’re like, This is different. This is different. And I think that’s, you know, what gutsy means to me is having an opinion. Gutsy means voicing that opinion. Gutsy means pursuing the things I know I need to be pursuing even if I fail. And then when I fail, it means getting back up and not caring if I look like a fool, not caring if there are critics and naysayers are like I told you she wasn’t going to do it. I told you she wasn’t going to succeed it that. Who cares? I did it anyway. There’s a section later in the book real far back towards the end, where I talk about a woman that I admire immensely. Simone Biles, and I talked about her decision to withdraw from the Olympics. And I talked about the fact that because that was all unfolding, as I was writing the book, I was witnessing, as people who had never set foot in that arena had a heck of a lot to say about her decision. And it was that reminder to me as well. And to everybody else out there that yes, there are always going to be people that have opinions about what you decide to do what you say to go after. But being gutsy means that the opinion you hold of yourself should always matter more than the opinions that others have of you. And it means that that is your compass that is your Northstar, not you know, somebody watching you from a distance, who has a lot to say, how do you feel about that decision. And in that moment, Simone chose her health. In this moment, I’m choosing to have a voice. And I’m choosing to fight for things I love and believe in both through my writing with gutsy and in the work that I do every day for small business. And sometimes it’s easier than other times. Like sometimes I don’t necessarily need to pull on that courage to get up and get moving. Yeah. But there are other times where, you know, I still struggle, a little bit with the doubt. And I still struggle a little bit with the fear. And again, like we talked about, it’s never gonna go away. But I’m choosing to do it scared anyway.

Akua Konadu
Yeah. One thing I will say is, as business owners, I feel like sometimes there is a disconnect. But even in terms of success and stuff, like when we talk about success, and all the things that we did to get there. We never ever fully highlight to be in our work. Never do. Right? Especially when we’re wanting the content. I want to know how much like how, you know, I wonder how this person made millions of dollars and on data data, and you’re doing those exact same steps, but you’re not getting the same results. Well, why is that? You’re not doing the internal work, you’re not healing your traumas. You’re not you know what I mean? You’re not taking a hard look in the mirror and being realistic about where you truly are. Because even if you had that success, what are you going to do with it, especially if you’re not in the right framework, if you’re not in the right mindset, and I’m not saying that you have to be fully healed in order to gain something. But what I’m saying to you is, you said this a couple of weeks ago, new levels, new devils, I heard it somewhere I think I’ve heard from the YouTube like, I’ve been hearing that word lately, because the problems will get bigger as you grow your business. So are you going to be in the right place to receive the good that is coming to you? But also to when you are facing that conflict? How are you going to handle it?

Natalie Franke
And what’s the story you’re telling yourself when you’re going through it? Yes, the last five years of my life, and I just sort of turned a pretty big corner. Personally in the past couple months, the last five years of my life have looked like getting told by brain surgeons I need to go in for brain surgery, going in for brain surgery, spending months recovering, and heck, I’m still different than I was before that moment. Then going through fertility, treatment, getting pregnant, high risk pregnancy, preeclampsia, giving birth, postpartum, repeating the process. This time, it’s harder IVF. That’s been my five years. My five years I’ve been going through it. So I think another thing that you know, This all brings up for me and around being gutsy. Is that amidst those five years, I’m not the same person. If you chatted with Natalie, Frank, prior to that moment, I don’t know that you’d recognize me. I think if I walked in the door, you’re like, I don’t know who she is. And I’m proud of that. I don’t say that to be like, Oh, I you know, yes, of course there are pieces of me that I left behind. But there was a refinement process, going through hard things. It does change us how we communicate that story within ourselves that inner work of once we’ve survived it or heck, even as we’re going through it. What are we telling ourselves now are we stepping into a space where I, you know, and I and I know this is the part because when you get down, I was like, did you get to that part? There are going to be seasons also, though, when I say this, where we can’t be the only ones supporting our inner work process, because I’ve gone through those to where I actually need somebody to step in, and to help me community to carry me time and time again. But nonetheless, those five years were a lot of work that nobody ever saw. Those five years, the way I showed up, not just in my business, and not just in my family. But probably most importantly, the way I showed up for myself, in loving myself, despite the changes that were happening to my body, loving myself as my mind change, loving myself through chronic illness through navigating recovery, loving myself, learning my own skills and weaknesses as they changed because I changed becoming a parent and realizing some things I’m good at. And some things I’m not so good at. But I’m still worthy, I’m still enough, I’ve still have something to offer, going through burnout, all of these things. And these are not just unique to me, these are very much experiences that many people feel and go through in their business in their life. Going through all of that nobody on the outside saw the inner work that was happening. But the inner work is the work that matters most the inner work is the work that’s leading to any conversation we’re having today or this forward for all of us. So I don’t think we’d like to talk about it, because it’s not sexy. Yeah, we don’t like to talk about because it’s stigmatized. You know, whenever we bring up therapy, I’m always like, there’s somebody out there rolling their eyes. My hope is that one day, they’re not rolling their eyes. Because it is a powerful tool to work with a professional, a mental health professional, you know, and so whatever it is, I think that inner work is so important. We just don’t talk about it.

Akua Konadu
We don’t at all. And like I said, I feel like that’s treated so separately, especially with like our success, our business and all these other things. We act like they’re different. They’re different we do we keep it apart, man. And so even that story definitely got to me. And there were so many things that you had shared within that. But I love this quote, and I said that we talked about to you’re gonna read a couple quotes, but never underestimate the power of transforming your understanding of a prior moment. So even you looking back, right? Even the things that you were saying now, like, it’s changed the way that you show up, it changes every single decision that you make, because you’ve done the work, to process it, to deal with it to welcome the negative emotions, right. I think sometimes we view emotions as a bad thing. And there was another story that well, there was a piece that you said in relating to that story about how you just broke Yeah, you were shattered. And what I loved about that is that you saw the beauty in shattering sometimes that is the unanswered prayer. Sometimes that is what you need to get to the next step. So instead of a lot of the times us shying away from it, and of course it still sucks, but welcome it allow the waves like I think is it like a rock with with rate waves crashing it was like a quote one of your favorite quotes, and it’s like, allow that to come hate you.

Natalie Franke
Yeah, so they’re, they’re sort of uh, so for folks who haven’t read it yet are going to read their story in the book where I talk about the expectations and pressures that we feel. And if you’re a business owner, I know you’re nodding your head right here. Like you’re like, Yep, I pressures. Sorry, what, like pressures are my best friend. They’re here every day, you feel the weight of the world, all the shoulds of who you you know, you should be you should be doing this, you should be launching that you should be making this. There are a lot of shoulds and a lot of pressures. And I talk about how, from a very young age, I was always told Ben not break. Yes, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben Ben. And that chapter is about, but what if you spend your whole life bending and shrinking and trying to fit some mold that other people expect from you trying to be the business owner that you think you need to be trying to follow their formula to success and you’re bending and bending under all that pressure? Is that really the life you want to live and is breaking so bad after all, and I talk about the fact that you know, I share a story of a season in my life where I didn’t just break, I truly did shatter. And in that I realize that very often breakdowns or breakthroughs in disguise, that very often the vet the things that we think are going to destroy us are the foundation from which we build our greatest successes. You have to be able, though, to look back on the stories of your life that have held you in those cyclical mindsets of pain and suffering and shame and guilt, and have the courage to also acknowledge that you are the author of your own story. You can rewrite that story in your own mind. And that is one of the exercises that I have in the book where I say, you know, think back to a moment, you know, think back to a time in your life where you felt that criticism somebody said something nasty about you or you know, doubted you or gossip got back to you or whatever it was Is that really, really like it hurts still? You feel it still, then is there a way for you to rewrite that story? Is there a way for you to change and transform your relationship to the past such that you can move forward, not that you forget. Not that you need to eliminate it. But instead that you need to understand that there is very often a story you can tell the gives you the power in the present, to make prolific impact in your life to go out and do the things that you might be afraid to do. Because you’re still holding on, you’re still telling yourself that you’re that person from the past. The one they laughed at the one they teased, the one they made fun of the one who struggled, you’re still telling yourself that story. And while there is beauty in knowing your past and being honest and open, there is also beauty and acknowledging that that very thing helped to shape you into the person who’s uniquely suited to go out and make your dreams happen.

Akua Konadu
So much goodness. It’s just I sound so cheesy, but I loved it. I love that because that’s the rawness and the realness that I was pleasantly surprised to like to get in the book. I’m like, she’s going there. She’s not sugarcoating it. Right? Because I kind of have to be honest, I was like, alright, gutsy. Great, right? Like, the way that I thought that this book was going to be is completely different. Right? I thought, okay, great. Like, it’s gonna be another book, just just really inspirational. And

Natalie Franke
I’m gonna make some self help authors very mad. There are a couple sections in here where I’m like, you’ve heard this advice. No, yeah. No, let’s talk about the the neuroscience behind why that doesn’t even work. Or, you know, can we just be honest, I promise to be honest. And at the end, it’s event? Yeah. Yeah,

Akua Konadu
I just was like, this is totally different from a really good, fresh perspective that I think many of us needs. And I personally just felt a lot of shame just wither away. Because there were just certain things that we as people humans in the way that our brains are wired, that we just can’t help. So no matter what, it’s just going to keep coming anyways. But how can I just equip myself in a very healthy way to, to go after what I want? But even you know, when we think of pursuing our dreams, we always, of course, you want to be hopeful, right? Like, yes, like, you know, I want to accomplish this in the present. But what if we don’t, right? It makes it harder for us to try again. And so this just, I just felt so powerful, I felt powerful that I can, I knew that things aren’t still going to be easy. It’s very, like realistic, I knew that things aren’t going to be easy. But I now have the tools. And my mindset has changed to where I’m ready and willing to just take anything on. So I hope that was a objective reason why you wrote this book.

Natalie Franke
Well, watch out world because yeah, it is the objective. Because what happens when the occurs with the world realize just how powerful and incredible they are. Yeah, watch out. That’s what I want from this book. If you ask me, What’s the objective of this book, like my goal in writing it is, I believe the world is better when people truly feel empowered to step into the things that only they can do, where they stop hiding. I don’t want anyone taking their dreams to the grave. That’s what I and it’s also selfish, because the moment that other people start to bring that power that they have to offer their voice, their talent, their gift, their creativity, their genius, whatever it is, they bring it to the table, they bring it boldly, without apology. Yes, this world is is rattled for the better. And we need more of that. This is a moment in time where we need more of that. And so my hope is I’m glad you felt that way. Because that’s that’s what I wanted. And I, I can’t wait years from now, you know, just to hear the impact that that that mindset shift can have? Oh, yeah, no, I think the ripple effects from it.

Akua Konadu
I love that you were just talking about there is power in showing up fully as yourself. And it’s not an easy thing to do. I feel like again, a lot of these things that we were like, yeah, yeah, I know it. Of course, of course. But are you doing it? Are you living it out in your day to day? Right. And I think just you mentioned it briefly to in the book, like it’s for some people or certain places, it’s you can’t fully be yourself. Right? You literally said it’s a quote here fitting in comes with safety and privilege standing out comes with risk. Correct. And it is very, very true. Correct. But then you said this here, which, like totally stuck with me, there’s only one thing that is more terrifying than being who you truly are. And that is abandoning your authenticity and retreating into the person that the world expects you to be. Is that a risk you are willing to take to spend your life being a fraction of the person that you really are to surrender your uniqueness, your potential, your purpose at the altar of other people’s approval? Hell no, I’m not doing that. Exactly. Is that a risk you are willing to take? Yeah. When you really stop and think about it. I’m not willing to take that risk for what wasted another day of my life trying to appease other people. While I’m still struggling and weathering like I’m not doing that and I deserve more you do

Natalie Franke
you do you deserve a life Beyond the opinions of others. Exactly. You deserve that.

Akua Konadu
So it’s like give yourself the truth of honesty, like the gift of honesty of where you’re really at and tackle these things. So I really love that. And there’s another thing that I also love, but I want you to read it, okay? Because I feel like when we’re going through anything, and that you don’t have to be going in to throw anything when you’re in a season of life, and there’s something new that you want to do. And that voice in your mind starts saying all of these limiting beliefs are like what people are gonna think of me? Am I gonna look like an idiot? I don’t feel like I can do it because somebody else is doing it. That’s a big one in business. Big one and business. People need to need to say this. So I totally want you to read this. Okay. It’s the last one. Yeah, okay.

Natalie Franke
I’m going to read it and then I’m going to give additional content. Yes. Okay. Don’t you dare forget who the hell you are. Don’t you forget what you have overcome? What you have survived, what you have accomplished? Don’t you dare forget how loved you are strong you are. Don’t you dare give up now. So those are the words that my husband said to me shout out to you. When I was struggling at my darkest point with postpartum depression, after Carlos birth, and in the book, when we talk about shattering, I tell the story of going through a season where I was in the depths of it. I really was. And I felt like every morning I woke up, and it was just difficult to get out of bed me being gutsy in that season, was waking up in the morning. So when I say it’s different for each person in each season of life, that’s what I mean the same courage for when I’ve, you know, stepped on a stage in front of 1000s of people publish something into the world didn’t hold a candle to the courage it took me to get up out of bed and depths of postpartum depression. And there’s a moment where you know, my husband, I just remember coming up to me and kind of holding my shoulders and just saying, Natalie, remember who you are told you dare forget who the hell you are. You have overcome so much you have survived so much, you have accomplished so much. Fight. I need you to fight. This is

Akua Konadu
why I came prepare y’all.

Natalie Franke
And sometimes we just need to be reminded who we are. And it doesn’t, you know, have to this is a very personal moment for me. But I’m telling you, there are business owners out there who have dreams, there are people who have wanted to chase after something their entire lives and their life is racing them racing by passing them by. And I just wish they had a hue they had somebody they have me they have gutsy where it’s saying to them, like remember who you are. Because every day you don’t show up and you don’t go after those things that you uniquely have to offer this world. You’re not just robbing yourself of that opportunity. You are robbing the world of the gifts that you bring to the table and acknowledge those things you’ve overcome. Don’t be ashamed. Be proud. I’m not ashamed of the things I’ve struggled with. I talk openly about my mental health, I talk openly about having a benign brain tumor going through infertility treatment struggle, I talk openly because when I shine a light on it, and I and I’m acknowledging that there is no room for shame in my story, I am giving myself and others permission to to move forward. And the same applies to you. When you remember who you are. And you remember what you’ve overcome. You are that much more ready to go forward into your future. So yeah, that was huge. Who gets all the credit?

Akua Konadu
The credit because Ruth is out here looking at me like girl I told you not to make me cry. Give me a look. When I read that. And I thought of every single thing that I have been through to get here. Why the hell would I bow out now? Right? So let me get up, brush myself off and keep going. Even if I have to crawl, scratch I don’t hear even if all I moved that day was a flippin millimeter. It was literally further than I was yesterday. I have worked too damn hard, right? Like, we have worked so damn hard to be here. Yes. There’s a reason why we are at this specific place in our life. And when you think about the journey, you’re like, this is nothing let me get up and get going.

Natalie Franke
What was its I don’t even like the term small business anymore. There’s nothing small about it. There’s nothing small about what you’ve done. The moment you decide to become an independent, nothing. Nothing. If you move one inch. I love a coup it like you’re 100% Right. We somehow believe the lie that you know, and we hear all the time. It’s like, you know, it’s not that big of a deal. I just I’m just I wish I was in the book too. I say I hate the word just, you know. I’m just a blank. There’s nothing small about what you are doing. All that you have put in to declare yourself an independent business owner, the courage that it takes to put your heart and soul on the line, to hone a skill set to hone a craft to say, I’m going to put my entire purpose out there for the world to see to criticize or ridicule, but I’m doing it because I know that it’s going to make an impact. I know that it is exactly what I need to be doing. I just hope people realize like, remember who you are. Remember who you were the day you decided that you would rather pursue a life on your own terms and build an empire for somebody else. Remember who you are, when you took that leap of faith and you bet on you. When the rest of the world didn’t, you still believed you had the possibility of achieving your dreams, you believed you were capable. That’s not a small feat. Remember who you are in business in life. And when you see a friend out there, or if you need a reminder, be that light when somebody else needs it. If you see a friend struggling, remind them who they are. Yes, because for me, that was a moment where I needed my partner to come in, and I needed him to be that voice for me. And so I just hope like business owners listening to this, please, please, please know, you are already gutsy. The question just becomes for your future. As you look forward. What are those things that you really want? That you have either been denying yourself? Because you are afraid? Or because other people have told you that it’s not possible for you when you believe their criticism over your own belief in yourself?

Akua Konadu
Right? You said this as well. Courage is not competition.

Natalie Franke
Courage is not a competition.

Akua Konadu
What did you mean by that? By the way,

Natalie Franke
I mean, that very oftentimes, we assume we can decide who’s more courageous, based on what we see on the outside, that we like to make snap judgments and say, Oh, they’re very brave. But if I were to ask you in a roomful of people to line everybody up against the wall, most courageous to least courageous, how would you do it? You can, you can. And I say this to say that there are battles people are fighting every single day that none of us will know anything about. And the courage that they bring to the table just by showing up and walking outside their door needs to be recognized by them. First and foremost, don’t discount the very courage that it takes you to show up in your daily life, the things that you write off as, but I just, I just have to give yourself a moment today to just feel that and sit in that and acknowledge the courageous choices you make from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed. Give yourself the credit for it. Because once you start to realize you are capable, it’s building blocks. It’s building blocks. Courage is a muscle. It’s a muscle that we build, and we grow. But when I say Courage isn’t a competition, what I’m really trying to get at is please don’t discount the courage that it takes for you to show up as yourself every single day. Don’t look at somebody else bungee jumping and say, well, they must be braver than me. Yes, yes. Again, like I said, I’ve been bungee jumping. I’ve gotten a tattoo. I was the first in my family to get a tattoo I wanted in my whole life. And I set off a chain reaction. I’m sorry, my mom up in heaven, like I did. She was like, she was never a fan of tattoos. And now my whole family’s tatted up, okay, it’s my fault for my tiny little boy. It took a lot of courage for me to go get that tattoo for me in that moment. Maybe not for everybody. But bungee jumping, getting a tattoo speaking on stages books, as I said, there have been moments in my life we’re getting out of bed, were a heck of a lot harder than any of those things that the world would say were braver, the world would say, Oh, that was courage right there. It wasn’t. And I think it’s important for us to remember that as we move through through our own journey and battle with what it means to be gutsy. Because we can be so quick to discount ourselves and then put everybody else on a pedestal as if they are the brave ones. And we are the ones that don’t have the courage that you know, we do have we just don’t acknowledge it.

Akua Konadu
Absolutely. I mean, whether it could be one day that you’ve signed your dream client and your business is hustling and bustling to the next day. You can’t even get up out of bed.

Natalie Franke
Yep, yeah, but even the client like Do you remember what it felt like to book your first client? Oh, yeah. Think about the amount of courage it takes to even put a service out there and book that first client

Akua Konadu
I just remember the fear like how terrified I was right? Like I think all of us will even just finally launching your business because you’re like, I can’t I can’t turn back. No, it’s out there. Now there now it’s out there. Now I was like, well, we got to figure it out. You know, but it was just such an empowering feeling. But like I said, no matter what stage of business like you said that earlier, you’re always

Natalie Franke
always dealing with it just like you might not have the same you might not need to draw up that same level of courage you might not have the same insecurities about booking a client five years in that you did on that first client where you’re double checking every line in the email you know, it’s like when you first start dating somebody I don’t know my husband always says used to double check he’s spellcheck This is back for like Grammarly spell check his aim messages to me. Yeah, it’s like, I don’t want you to think I was stupid. I was like spell checking everything. You know, that’s the level of, you know how you might feel with that first client versus five years and you’re not even your booking clients and you’re not even thinking about it. That doesn’t mean that you don’t need to draw on that courage. That doesn’t mean that you don’t need to Be gutsy. It just looks different. Yeah. And that’s the key. It just looks different.

Akua Konadu
Yes, absolutely. I love that. I wanted to shift it a little bit because I want to ask you, I want opinions.

Natalie Franke
Opinion me. There’s a whole chapter about opinions. Exactly. And

Akua Konadu
we, we do we get caught up in people’s opinion, we do even sometimes where I’m like, I don’t care what nobody thinks of me. Like, we all do that, right? We all will be like, oh, yeah, I don’t care. I don’t care. But when it really boils down to it, we absolutely do care. So somebody, you know, you’re out there a lot. Like now you show up for everybody. A lot of people know who you are. Have there been times where you have failed publicly? Yes.

Natalie Franke
And how many? How long do you have

Akua Konadu
answered? How did you deal with that with especially people people love to put their two cents in? We all do we all do it, we all have opinions about everything good or bad. And a lot of us, you know, we all state our opinions, and we just move on. But we never stopped to think about how it actually affects the person that we gave the opinion to, because now they’re stuck with it. They’re carrying it, they’re carrying that burden of what you just said to them. So while you were, you know, skipping away, they’re stuck with it. And so I kind of asked like multiple questions within that. But let’s break it down.

Natalie Franke
So, in the book, I talk a lot about opinions. And there’s some interesting science on opinions that I won’t bore the non nerds out with. But I will say if you’ve ever thought yourself, I’m not really influenced by because I hear a lot, I’m not really easily influenced. And it’s like, well, your brain science says differently, you know, not that you’re easily influenced, but that we are far more impacted by the opinions around us that we often realize, yes, our brain is wired to push us towards agreeing with the opinions around us. That’s a safety mechanism. If you don’t agree with the opinions, you’re surrounded by you’re at risk, you’re at risk of authorization, you’re at risk of being thrown out. And as we know, throughout human history being, you know, removed from the community is not fared well, you know that it was certain death and many points of our evolution. And so I say all that to say that you do pay a lot of attention to the opinions of others, whether you realize it or not, you will have a tendency to absorb the opinions that surrounds you, whether you realize it or not, your opinion will even start to move like if you move parts of the country, you might notice your political ideology shifting as you move. This is part of the brain. This is this is this is part of who we are. And I talked about in the book. And there’s some really great sources cited in there from the scientists that did this research. I obviously am not one of them. But I say all that to say, you know, opinions carry a lot of weight in our lives. And when it comes to running a business, and it comes to running a business in 2023. People have opinions and your world, your life is a spectator sport, everybody’s watching. And so you have to develop a muscle of learning that again, the opinion you have of yourself needs to be louder, needs to be stronger, it needs to be firmly rooted, such that when you are challenged by differing opinions, you’re not immediately defensive. You’re not immediately running to hide or feeling like you’ve been attacked, you have the ability to take like we were talking about feedback that we’ve gotten on the podcast. Yeah. And and at first, I was like, Look, I know this feedback is really critical. But let’s find the truth. Yes, that comes from practice, right of saying, I know, I’m really proud of this work that I put out there. I also know that other people’s opinions do have value, and that I can listen to them even when they’re not like mine. And so I think there, there’s a lot when it comes to opinions where that’s the positive side, the negative side being if you are operating from that place, if you are in a season of fear or insecurity of doubt, where you’re not maybe ready to receive, it can be really heavy, you can absolutely carry it I share. You know, stories were the early days of rising tide, we had this big Facebook group, and I’ll never forget, you know, we instituted some protocols around like what could be shared and not shared in the group and things as simple as no self promotion. It’s a rule, it’s there, you can read it, someone would self promote, it would get removed. And the messages that I would get and I wasn’t even moderating the group. I just do you know, the messages, I would get the hate, I would get paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs on paragraphs. And to that person than I actually think there’s a specific story in the book. I think I left it in there, gosh, I’m have to go back in left. I almost took it out. And I think I left it in there. There was a specific moment where somebody really went ran into me for their posts being removed, because it was for self promotion. And you know, again, it’s a rule. It’s, it is what it is. It’s the same for everyone in the group. They were really upset. And I remember those words. I remember what they said, I remember their profile picture at the time. Like it, it was like someone took like a brand, like like, literally branded piece of my soul. And I met them at an event recently, like two years ago. So it’s like years later. And they had no recollection of that being the last interaction that we had and we were chatting and chatting, chatting. And so then they go to message me something like on Facebook and they see the last conversation they had said to me Oh Oh, and then that. So all of that to say, like, you have to you have to realize, I think, you know, from all friends of this opinions are out there, everybody has one. And oftentimes, you know, the very things that we cling to other stone. Yes, the very things that we that and it applies, then we got to think about think about your on your worst day. Gosh, I mean, I think of us sometimes, like when I get mad, somebody cuts me off, and I’m driving on the highway, when my kids aren’t in the car, I might have a few choice words, right? That’s me, not at my best. Okay, I wouldn’t want that to be the only opinion that is carried forward, right. But we do that when it comes to other people, we carry this opinion forward. So especially when it comes to your business, like it really comes down to understanding the science of opinions and understanding that, you know, you there are going to be some that you carry with you. But again, it goes back to rewriting that story, like what can you pull from that in retrospect, or you can maybe write it, that person who said those very mean things to me, you know, like, they were having a really bad day. And it said more about them than it did about me. It’s more about what they were going through in that moment. And the way that it was positioned than it did about, you know, the rule about not promoting yourself, for example, it’s such as Pacific and simple example. But yeah, we struggle with it, we do

Akua Konadu
it. And I hate saying this, but it also like implies it and I know it’s it’s easier said than done. But it’s like just some things you just can’t take personal, right? You can’t. And even at times when you do try to come from a place of curiosity, try to ya know what I mean? Yes. Because why? Why are they behaving this way, right. And maybe you you won’t get the full resolution of what you’re wanting from the situation. But then you quickly realize that it’s no longer yours to carry. And you you leave it where it’s at, and you move on,

Natalie Franke
I love that. And curiosity is so critical. It’s about when you’re confronted with something really challenging, especially when it comes from somebody’s opinion, or criticism or doubt of you or critique of work you’re doing that we talked about being able to be curious, right? That requires you to have already done some of that inner work. Because if you’re showing up to the conversation from that place of, they don’t like me, because I’m not enough. This is proof this is evidence, all those fears I’ve had, this is proof, then you either wither and isolate, or you defy at all costs, and refuse to receive maybe the little bit of feedback that could have been really beneficial. And I think that inner work that precedes is, is just not sexy. We don’t like to talk about it. But it’s required, it’s required so that when you know somebody comes and says, Hey, you know, I didn’t have a great experience with your business. I really didn’t like my wedding photos. The design process was full of friction, I was not happy. You don’t immediately think, well, there, it’s them. It’s the client, the client, something’s wrong with the client. Because even we hear all the time. Why are these clients inquiring? That they can’t afford our prices? Why are they always undercutting us? And my question is, why do they feel like they can inquire with you in the first place? Because when you come from a place of I believe in my worth, and I but wait, they’re coming in the door? Let me evaluate? Am I putting my pricing out? Or am I being price secretive? Am I being transparent or secretive? Do I give benchmarks? Am I positioning my brands in a way that it is received by telling my story in a way that is received and understood that what I’m doing maybe as a boutique service, or maybe it’s the point being we’re so quick, sometimes when we’re coming from that place of fear, to blame the other, to shut them down that opinion down? And in business? You know, we do take it personally, because it’s a piece of our identity and our soul. Like I said, you’re doing that gutsy thing, you’re putting your heart into the world. So I think when you do that inner work, you’re able to then say, okay, if I’m getting clients come into the door every single day that are so far below my rates, maybe there’s something I can do to fix that. Maybe it’s not just them, right? Maybe it is me, maybe I can make those changes. But in doing that, that’s that growth, you know, that growth ability to be able to see an end it’s so important. And that’s that takes courage to Yeah, that takes courage to

Akua Konadu
1,000% I think those even coming from that place of curiosity and asking those questions is a huge difference whether you’ll make six figures, right like between 50,000 and 100,000 100,000 200,000. I mean, those questions and those can lead to those tweaks that can absolutely shift your future

Natalie Franke
because if you never change you’re never going to get to that next milestone. If you continue to shut down anything that doesn’t align with how you think the business needs to run. You’re not gonna last because again, while we talk about this all the time, the market tells you what they want. Your clients tell you what they want, your customers tell you what they want, but are you listening? And when it comes to the opinions of others, even when it’s opinions you don’t like are you listening? Yes, it is so important and in business knowing when to listen and what to listen to and how and we talked about as I was in the book, like even just crafting out, you know who who is an inner circle others And exercise never actually have you craft your inner circle, who are the opinions that you want, you know, in that inner circle and challenging you some of those should be from people who, you know, they’re not going to agree with you most of the time, but you trust them enough to have them in your inner circle, those types of right that is so important. If everybody agrees with you, that is not that’s an echo chamber. That’s not an opinion that that’s a straight, we don’t want that either. So crafting that inner circle and being really intentional that we walk you through how to do it, but it’s same applies in business, have that business circle, how those people that can look at your rebrand, look at your initiative, the launch that didn’t go well, that you can receive that feedback and know it’s coming from a place that they want you to win. They’re not trying to tear you down, they’re building you are building you up.

Akua Konadu
And it’s such a from a loving place to and I think even having that inner circle, even in times of struggle, I think about this story just popped into my head, you played a part in it, we didn’t really like we knew of each other. We’re like we knew each other, but we weren’t like friends. And it was at the imperfect boss camp, you gave your speech. And of course everybody’s sobbing. And at the camp, they had a wall where they have these little pockets, and everybody and I had every single participants name on the wall. And you could write notes to people that you just saw, were shining anything positive about people at the end of the camp, everything was full, every single person’s name was full with a whole bunch of notes. I literally was going through a hard time. And your note was in there and so many other people’s notes. And so even I’m having a hard time those words of encouragement that now like I now like, I feel like you are in my eyes like we’re already in each other’s circles. I’m like, Oh my gosh, it’s like comes back circle. I still read your note till this day of what you said to me. And every single person at that camp and I’m having a hard time, or I’m like really questioning what can I like? Am I doing the right thing? I don’t feel good enough. I don’t feel like I’m capable enough. I feel incompetent. I go back and look at those notes. Because people sometimes can see the things that you can’t see in yourself. And so what do I know to be true? And I go to that like, okay, like somebody I’m like, okay, yeah, I’m very funny. Well, yeah, but funny as business owner. It may not make me money that day, but um, money. You know, just stuff like that, where again, it’s just having that inner circle that it’s going to love on you. Yeah, hold you accountable, because they want the best for you. They want you to succeed in any way that you can. And so there’s just some opinions are very valuable, how they are friendly to take what you need. What you need, she always says that it does literally take away the need. It’s so true. So it’s so true. So this was, this was great. I love love loving this conversation. And so now that gutsy is launched, right? Yeah, it’s coming

Natalie Franke
out. I think this will I think we’re publishing this. Maybe we like within a week, within a week. It’s some of you almost all start getting a very soon because some of the indie stores like to ship it out early. Yeah. But yes, yeah. It’s it’s basically here,

Akua Konadu
it’s here. How are you feeling now that when it’s finally going to be in people’s hands, like terrified,

Natalie Franke
terrified, good, terrified, but terrified. I you know, even I wrote the introduction last. So whenever I write the, in the book process, you know, I think everyone kind of imagines what okay, what is an author’s experience, like, the actual process of writing it is for me isn’t very hard, editing it, and rereading what I wrote and still having the courage to leave it in there. That’s a different story. But I wrote the introduction. Last, I mean, in writing the introduction, I actually remember very vividly being like, I’m terrified, I’m terrified to publish this book. I’m, I’m scared to put this much of me out into the world. But, you know, it’s one of those things where we have to do the very things that scare us in order to live the life that we deserve to live. Nobody gets to the end of their life and goes you know, that that one time in my comfort zone? Never. Nobody, you know, and so it’s it’s about like this yes, I’m terrified to have this book out in the world. I, you know, this is it’s a spice It’s spicy, it is. It’s fiery people they’re gonna be parts of this book. I’m telling you self help authors are gonna come in for me in parts this book, because I call it out. I call stuff out and I’m, but it’s precisely what I needed to write. And I know without a doubt that some people are going to feel fired up enough to go after things that they’ve been putting off for a long time. Yes. And so I can’t wait. I’m also very excited, not just for this month of the books here. But I want to see a year from now. I want to see the people that read this book now, what they’re doing in their business, what they’re doing in their life, the things that they’ve spent years watching past them by watching other people chase after their dreams. Like this is going to be the moment that that changes. And so I’m pumped to watch that ripple effect happen. I think that’s the the flip side, the tear of the vulnerability paired with the excitement of the impact.

Akua Konadu
And I just love that just you being so transparent about how you feel because it’s a prime example of the fact that yes, I feel fear. Yeah, I’m terrified. I’m terrified for you to know the very intimate details of my life. I’m terrified because how this information is going to be received, but you’re still doing it anyways, you’re doing it scared doing it scary. And it’s just proof that okay, you don’t have it all figured out, none of us do know. And this is still a journey that you’re still figuring out that you’re still walking through. Yep. So you’re none of us are alone in that. Like when people I’m thinking, I think a lot of times, especially in the industry, we see entrepreneurs, right, they have these huge followings everything, but we forget that they’re also human, that they’re walking through the same journey that we’re walking through, and

Natalie Franke
they also have no idea what they’re doing.

Unknown Speaker
Seriously, exactly. I read, I read that in there, I

Natalie Franke
literally say I’m like, this is not so much a thesis in the perfection of the perfect way to be courageous. This is a recipe book that I have written through trial and error, and I am a terrible chef. And I just don’t want to set off the fire alarms when I’m cooking. Like that’s, that’s Welcome to gutsy. Yeah, you know, and in some ways we laugh because I’m like, I had we had a conversation, you know, in a recent episode that you might have listened to. And I don’t know if it’s gonna make the cut in there. But we were chatting. And my friend Kayla James was like, you know, I’ve never had an interview. I don’t even know how to do a resume. I don’t know, I don’t know anything. Welcome to my episode. And it feels a little like saying that. But then in the same breath, it’s like, but that’s the kind of radical honesty that we need to have, if we’re going to be gutsy. That’s the kind of radical honesty I wanted to bring to this book, not to show up and be like, if you want to be brave, follow these 10 steps and your life will be perfect. No, this is messy. This is hard. It is uncomfortable. And it is the type of work that no one’s going to pat you on the back for. But it’s the type of work that at the end of your life, you’re not going to be sitting there going, I wished I had lived that life. I wished I had gone after the things I wanted. I wished I had had the courage to do the very thing that other people told me I couldn’t do. That’s what I’m trying to fight for that at the end of your life, you are not having those regrets. Instead, you are sitting back and you are so proud, both of the successes and the failures, because you were brave enough to go after it.

Akua Konadu
You deserve success like the next person. So I just love hearing that about Kaitlyn too. But we all we all feel that way. Yeah, we do. We really, really do. And so this conversation has been wonderful.

Natalie Franke
Thank you for having it with me. I’m I’m so honored. This was just so great. This was great. I

Akua Konadu
just y’all please get gutsy. Okay, because this book will truly change your life in more ways than one, not just business, but everything outside of that you as a person. Because we do we deserve to have a life that we’d love. We deserve to be free and who we are, who we are meant to be. And we deserve to have all the good things and do good. So thank you so much for having me interview you. This was a great.

Natalie Franke
One more fun thing. I’ll say, you know, if you are gonna grab the book, and you want a signed copy of the book, I’m doing something really special with independent bookstore. I mean, no surprise there. But with independent bookstores exclusively. If you head over to my website, Natalie free.com/gutsy, you’ll see the button that says get a signed copy, click on that. We’re partnering with independent bookstores to support them. Because this is a really important moment to be fighting for other small businesses as we know. And exclusively you can get signed copies through these indie stores. It’s my way of helping to drive some sales their way. So if you haven’t picked it up yet, and you’re going to let’s say you have to grab it from an indie but I am saying on the independent business podcast, we wanted to make that as easy as possible. But thank you so much for this combo and having me interviewing me on the path. I wanted to

Akua Konadu
be like, thanks for coming on. I’m like it’s her podcast. So thanks for having me to come hang out with you. It’s so fun. Thank you.

Natalie Franke
That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything that we’ve discussed today can be [email protected]. Head to our website for access to show notes, relevant links and all of the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests some love on social. Thanks again for listening