May 22, 2025 • 55 mins
In this episode, Rachel welcomes Tish Baldez back to the podcast to continue their inspiring conversation about taking the leap into entrepreneurship. Together, they stress the importance of not going it alone, emphasizing the power of delegation, partnerships, and leveraging resources. Their discussion shines a light on the value of seeking expert help and implementing practical strategies to overcome the challenges of the entrepreneurial journey.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
Welcome to Imperfect Genius, the podcast that provides technical advice on effectivelynavigating the business development journey and offers advice on building successful
careers in the tech industry.
I'm your host, Rachel Foster, a tech professional, educator, and entrepreneur.
Today, I'm thrilled to welcome back Tish Baldez.
As a reminder, Tish is co-founder and leader of P31 Consulting and P31 Academy.
(00:28):
P31 Consulting is a global corporate training and management consulting firm.
Tish, welcome back to the podcast.
Thank you, thank you.
I am so excited to continue our conversation.
It was so great.
We were talking so much, we had so much to say.
And it was, it ran long.
(00:49):
was like, we definitely have to do a second recording.
It was just such good information that I really want the audience to continue to learnfrom that conversation.
So just to recap, last time we were talking about how people can be successful in leavingcorporate America and become self-employed as independent consultants.
And we had a lot of gems for the listeners.
(01:11):
But we ran out of time, like I mentioned, we ran out of time before we got a chance tofinish the conversation.
felt like there was, I mean, it's not like we had an entire like another two hours to go,but I just felt like there was a couple of things that we needed to talk about in order to
make sure that we close out the topic.
So, for example, we were talking about making, deciding that whether or not it's for you,whether it's right for you, talked about.
(01:35):
assessing your tolerance for risk and thinking about the financial components.
So those are some of the things we talked about.
But I feel like we left off with, how to do it.
And a lot of people who do make that decision to go into working for themselves, they makethe decision and then they get into it and they're a little bit overwhelmed and maybe
(01:56):
they're not making as much money as they need to and they need to pay their bills.
And they go, you know what, this isn't working.
And they go back to corporate America.
So I think that a good place to pick up would be, okay, so you made the decision to do it.
How do you stay in business?
Like, how do you keep going?
Yeah, you know what, and I think we talked a little bit about this last time and the quickanswer is don't do it alone.
(02:18):
Right?
What the reason I think we get overwhelmed is because we're trying to do everything all atonce.
Isn't there a movie like that?
Everything everywhere all at once.
This movie is called Everything Everywhere.
All it wants is stars Michelle.
Yo, and I love her.
(02:39):
You won the I want to say she won the Oscar for that.
It's a great movie.
Have you seen it?
I have seen it.
I have seen it because I love her.
She's one of my favorite actresses.
Yes.
But I think that is exactly what, you know, even in that movie, it was all the confusionabout where am I?
What's going on?
And I think we kind of create that for ourselves.
kind of, we, we're trying to do it all because we think we have to do it all alone.
(03:05):
And I think some of that, you and I talked about last time that corporate mindset.
the difference between the entrepreneurial mindset and the corporate mindset.
In the corporate world, we have to focus on us.
We have to think about how we establish ourselves.
How do we set us apart and distinguish us, me, from everyone else to get that promotion,to get assigned to work on that special project, to be seen, to be put in the queue for a
(03:34):
leadership role, right?
When they're doing succession planning.
We are trained internally to think about
demonstrate that I can do it all, right?
So that I will be recognized and have the opportunities to move one in this organization.
Right.
It doesn't work that way in entrepreneurship.
Right.
Entrepreneurship.
(03:56):
What we are trying to do is figure out what we are excellent at, what we do well, what wedo that's going to bring the most value to our clients.
And then all the other things around it, the accounting and the marketing and thefollow-up.
calls and all of those things that support our efforts really should be done by someoneelse.
(04:18):
And that's one of the things I learned in a book called 10X is easier than 2X.
It's a book I highly recommend because one of the things that they mention in the book,and I think it's Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan.
I've had the privilege of meeting Ben Hardy once, but never Dan Sullivan.
I'd love to meet him.
(04:39):
But one of those things they say toward the end of the book is we come, we come from aworld where, know, it's about delegation and, um, that means and delegate the way they
describe it in the book is I know how to do it, but I need someone else to do it.
And I have the expertise that I can assess whether they did it well or not.
(05:02):
And they were saying, and when entrepreneurship, that's not the way we should be thinking.
We should be thinking, I only need to know enough to know who to hire to do the work.
And we need to trust them to be able to do it with the level of excellence and expertisethat we need.
And I think what we miss sometimes is looking for all those people around us.
(05:22):
Who can I bring in to help me versus me focusing on me and demonstrating how smart andgreat I am.
And I think that's a big difference.
And I think it does continue our last conversation.
I'm no longer in a corporate environment where I have to focus on making myself stand out.
I am now in this entrepreneurial environment where I have to learn how to leverage theresources that are around me.
(05:45):
Some of the resources I leverage are friends that offer to help me out and they don't doit.
They don't charge me for it.
Right.
Yeah.
People don't, you know, okay, so I'm going to tell a story.
I think that sometimes to your point, you know, when you're in that mindset, I don't evenknow that it was a corporate mindset per se, but we do, when we're trying to, when we're
(06:08):
starting off in business and we're thinking entrepreneurially, we do tend to just focus onwhat can I do?
What can I do?
So the funny story that I have is when I was starting this podcast, I knew that I neededto add music to, you know, like sort of intro, outro music, and then
transitioning for ads and things like that.
And so I was looking for music packages and there's all of these, know, just like you can,you know, buy stock photos, you know, you can buy stock music and things like, so I was, I
(06:31):
was searching all these things and I couldn't stand any of the music cause they were just,I didn't like any of it.
I was like, man.
was like, well, I could go to, you know, like, uh, it's going to bug me.
I couldn't, now I can't think of what's the thing where you can.
Fiverr.
I was like,
I couldn't think of the service.
I was like, go to Fiverr and I could hire somebody to make some music for me.
(06:52):
I was trying to think.
but anyway, where I eventually ended up was like, I'm going to ask my uncle, I have anuncle.
I need to have him on this podcast.
I have an uncle who is a music producer, used to work in Motown with Barry Gordy.
Like he has his own label.
he, like this is his thing, right?
So was like, I'm going to ask him if he's got, if he knows anybody who could record somemusic for me, et cetera.
(07:13):
So I reach out to him and I'm, you know, and I'm asking him.
And I explained the whole thing to him, what I'm trying to do.
I was like, so was wondering if you had some, and he goes, well, I could do that or have acatalog with thousands of songs.
You could just pick one.
Thank you!
And I won't charge you for it.
You it was like, you don't have to go.
(07:34):
Why are you doing all of this extra work?
Like, why didn't you just ask me?
I could just give you some music.
And I was like, Oh, right.
Why did I think of that?
know, your brain just doesn't go there.
Sometimes you're just so busy trying to figure out how to do the work and how to do thework and how to do the work.
You don't stop and step back and go.
Wait a minute, what's the smart way to do this?
This goes into something I said in a previous episode, the thing that people used toalways say to me, it drove me crazy.
(07:59):
And I finally now get it, which is work smarter, not harder, you know, and I'm alwaysworking hard and working hard and I don't always stop and step back and think about how
can I work smarter?
So.
Something you said just hit me.
You said, we're trying to figure out how to get it done.
And I think what we need to do as entrepreneurs is saying differently.
We need to make a list of what needs to be done.
(08:21):
What we do is jump right into the how.
We need to stop and just say, okay, what are all the things I need?
I need music.
We had a similar situation.
We needed intros and outros and our brother produces music and our nephews.
And we called our brother and we were like, and he said, what are you doing?
And we said,
Well, you know, we're going on all these websites, trying to find all this music and wedon't really like this and we don't really like that one.
(08:44):
And then he said, what do you want it to feel like?
Describe what you want it to feel like.
And he went off and he just made the music.
He just did it.
He just, he just did it.
So we don't always think about like, that was the how, what I need to do as anentrepreneur.
If I don't want that stress and that pressure of all the things that need to be done, makea list of what needs to be done.
(09:06):
Don't try to figure out how to do it yourself.
Ask yourself who can do it.
um Who was the best person?
So the first column is what the second person who was the best person who could do it orthe possibilities, like in your case, it was an uncle, right?
Let me call him and ask him who can do it.
And was like, I can do it.
And then the third column is the how sometimes as an entrepreneur, we don't need toinvolve ourselves in the how I did not ask my brother how he came to decide what the sound
(09:35):
would be.
I don't need to know how he produced it.
I don't need to know whether he did it on a Mac or did it on some other.
don't need to understand the how I needed to know what needed to be done, how quickly itneeds to be done.
And I needed to know who can help me with it.
And sometimes the, who is me.
Maybe I am the only person who can do it, but we need to get out of that.
(09:57):
What is that called?
When you think you're the only one, um, there's a name for that, but we need to get out ofthat mindset that nobody else can do it as well as we can.
There are people who can do it as well as we can.
And if it's not my expertise, I need to figure out who can I call?
Sometimes it's who can I call to figure out how this can get done?
(10:18):
Because like you called your uncle to ask the question.
It didn't mean that he was going to do it.
It just turned out that he did it.
And I think that kind of takes that overwhelming feel of I've got way too much going onand I can't manage this.
it kind of get it out of your head, get it on digitally or on a piece of paper, and thenstart to what in 10 X is easier than two X.
(10:43):
They say you don't delegate.
Remember delegation is when you understand how to do the task yourself and you're givingit to someone else that you can evaluate whether they did it.
Well, you are going to assign responsibility to someone else to get that done for you.
And that takes a lot of that mental and emotional stress away because you know it'sgetting done.
(11:04):
Right.
You have to trust.
Yeah, that's true.
I have two things to say on that.
So one with regard to delegation, I know I've mentioned this.
I don't remember.
It wasn't in our last conversation, but I mentioned it on other podcast episodes.
There's a book that, you know, at end of this, we're going to talk about all the booksthat we've recommended.
But um there's a book that I often recommend called, My Brain Is Not Working Today, Tish.
(11:26):
I swear.
The name of this podcast is called the imperfect genius.
You're you're just demonstrating that you're an imperfect genius.
And thank you for that.
Because now I remember all of a sudden it's called oh the E-Myth Revisited by MichaelGurk.
(11:51):
And in there he talks about the how to approach delegate.
I won't go, I won't recap it here because I've said it multiple times before, but he talksabout the right approach to delegation where, you to your point where you understand the
what needs to happen and you set your standards and you figure out what you want theresult to be.
And then you give it to someone else to,
work or whatever.
So that was one thing that I wanted to say on that.
(12:12):
And then the other thing that I was going to say is another thing that I think happenswith people, especially when they're, they're first starting off in business with regard
to delegation, they they're hesitant to delegate because they are afraid, well, I don'thave the money.
Like it's going to cost me money.
Sometimes it doesn't like, know, first do those, do your columns to figure out the what.
(12:34):
and the who and then the how, you and then maybe when you're doing the how, you've got acouple of different options and maybe some of them are free, you know, so don't, and I
think that's what happens is that entrepreneurs get, especially solopreneurs get veryworried about, oh but I have to do it myself because I can't afford to pay somebody to do
it.
Yeah.
And there's so much that's free.
(12:55):
If you have built a good network, uh you will find people in your network that will helpyou out.
I don't, I'd never go to anyone or rarely go to anyone and say, will you do this for free?
Even with my brother, sometimes he does some bigger work projects for us.
We contract with him.
I don't want, I don't want him not to be paid for that.
Right now.
Sometimes I'll go to people and I'll say, I'm really, I'm stuck with this.
(13:18):
I don't know how to do this.
There are things I don't know how to do.
And so I say, don't know how to do this.
And I also don't know where to go to find someone.
Googling is just giving me another part-time job that's not helping me.
So I might go to someone and they'll say, you know what?
I know someone that does it and someone who's willing to help you out.
Why don't I put you in contact with them?
(13:39):
Those kinds of things happen when we reach out, but it doesn't happen if we try to keep itall to ourselves.
All it took was one phone call for you.
That's how it took.
That was after I'd wasted two months looking for it.
Wasn't a full two months, but it felt like two months.
It was a few weeks, but still, you know, but is, is my question would be because I feellike it's not intuitive, especially again, when you're, going out in the business on your
(14:08):
own.
feel like thinking like that is not intuitive.
how do you have any tips for how do you shift your mindset?
We talked about shifting mindsets previously, but
specifically in this vein, do you have any tips about how you shift your mindset to startthinking that way as opposed to just thinking me, me, me, me, me?
And you know, when you were asking what the word is, I was like, I don't think she meansnarcissist, but that was the thing that I, that was the word that popped into my brain.
(14:32):
was like, narcissist?
No.
Yeah, some of those are narcissists type behaviors, but you know, it doesn't mean that aperson's a narcissist.
I know what you mean.
I think that the first decision and it's a decision we need to make is that we believe andwe know that we don't have the answers to everything.
(14:54):
I am not God.
don't have, I can't do every, I think I can do a lot of things with excellence, but I alsobelieve there are other people out there that can do it better than I can.
It doesn't mean I'm not doing it with excellence, but I think there's probably somebodyout there is doing something that I'm doing.
They're doing it better than I'm doing it.
And I'm okay with that.
I'm okay with that because they have different skills.
(15:15):
have different talents.
They have different experiences.
And we have to make that is I believe that there are people who can do what I need to havedone and they can do it better than I can.
Now I know some people that don't believe that.
I do know some people that have not been able to.
make that mindset shift and recognize that there are people I've had somebody say to me,uh they actually said, I don't think there's anyone that can do any of the things that I
(15:46):
do better than I do them.
And I said, you got to be kidding me.
Where did you learn how to do this?
You learned all this from somewhere.
It was inspired you read books.
How did you know how to do what you just did?
You were on online.
You were reading, you were talking to people.
You didn't figure any of this out on your own.
And I think for that person, he's permanently stuck until and unless he decides, no, thereare smart people out there.
(16:11):
And I think that for me, it was for me, it was more coming out of corporate where I feltlike I had to show that I could do everything I was being expected to do.
And then I came out and realized,
still feel like I need to do that, but I don't have to do it alone.
And I think you have to decide there is someone out there that can do it.
(16:32):
One of the shifts that we made, and I don't know if you've done this, um, you talk aboutlow cost.
We decided that we were going to look offshore for support while we were building a newpart of our business.
So we didn't want to put in, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars into building thispart of the business when we weren't sure what the direction was going to take.
(16:53):
So we went to, think it's uh onlinejobs.ph, which is in the Philippines.
And we went to onlinejobs.ph and we posted a couple of positions and now we have threepeople that are excellent and they're doing it excellently.
And I call them low cost, high value resources.
I don't have to pay the same rates as I would pay in the United States or in Europe fortheir services.
(17:17):
And it's okay for now.
I want to support people in the United States.
Bye.
you're up and I will hire people when we get the business to that point.
We have excellent people that know how to do things we don't know how to do.
For example, great story.
And I am going to say his name and he's going to cringe, but his name is coy.
Um, we hired Coy for through online, um, jobs.ph almost a year ago.
(17:41):
And he came on for one purpose.
And then he said, you know what I really love that I also do on the side.
He said, I love doing digital media, social media posts.
like creating them.
like thinking about them.
like designing them.
I like pulling clips from videos and, creating stories around them.
And he said, would you mind if I do that?
We didn't have anybody to do that.
(18:03):
we said, yes, do that.
Let's see how that turns out.
And if any of you take a look at our channels, have, um, consulting for consultants is ourchannel on YouTube and
He puts a lot of those in the Instagram posts for consulting for consultants.
And he really does it without our supervision anymore.
(18:25):
In the beginning, he would say, here's what I'm going to post, review it, let me know whatyou think.
Now we just tell him to go.
Yeah.
Now, occasionally you post something and I'll go, that's not really in line with ourbeliefs as a company.
It's just little things, maybe a word or two.
I just send it to him and say, can you take it down and do it a different way?
And he goes, okay, I'll take it down and do it a different way.
It doesn't hurt anything.
(18:45):
right
But I think we decided that we were going to go get help and it was very low cost, buthigh, high quality.
And it made all the difference because we weren't even on social media until a year ago.
Last June, we had a business coach that said, you're living in 2024 at this time.
(19:07):
People need to be able to find you.
We let people find us all the time.
And we will talk about that.
How we have a hundred percent referral only business with our corporate clients.
We said, we don't need that because people know how to find us.
And he said, that's not the point.
The point is you have a lot of knowledge and experience to share with people.
And for those people that don't get a chance to call you and contract with you, you shouldbe sharing that with them.
(19:30):
So they get a little bit every now and then so that when they're ready to hire you, theyhave the experience with you.
we only, was last June, we started trying social media.
We know what we were doing.
We had no idea what we were doing.
(19:50):
But then Koi came on board around September and he looked at it and he said, you could usea little help with that.
And so I love it.
said, yes.
Right.
And so it worked out.
And now he, actually had a call with this in this morning and I said, I just have to say,I love you.
Please don't go anywhere ever.
(20:11):
You have to be with us until the company no longer exists or you retire.
You've got to stay with us.
But it turns out he has other skills.
And so for the same rate and the same time he's giving us when we need additional help, wecall him up and say, can you do this and this and this?
And sometimes it's writing a communication, sending an email out from our corporate, fromour corporate email to a group of people.
(20:35):
And he will write it up.
He'll send it out and say, do a quick review.
Is it okay to go?
And he handles it.
So you never know.
what you're going to find in the people that you do.
you, if we just limit ourselves and say, okay, well, I need to hire a person to do mymarketing and that person just does marketing.
We're missing the opportunity to ask them, what else do you do particularly well?
(20:57):
What else do you do that you like to do?
And they talk about that in 10 X is easier than two X to surround yourself with a team ofpeople who love to do what they do because they will do it as much as they can for you.
They say, give them time off.
Don't allow them to work on weekends and holidays.
Make sure they take a break from it so they can reset their brains and come back fresh toyou.
(21:19):
But surround yourself with people that love to do what they do.
And they even encourage, ask them, are you excited to do this every day with us?
Because if you're not excited, let's find something else that you're excited to do.
And I think that's how we begin to surround ourselves with the right people.
question I'm putting on my Michael Gerber hat here for a second and so here's my questionwith regard to the example you gave with Koi.
(21:43):
All of those things that Koi is now doing for you are like out of the, are there policiesand procedures and standards and practices that have been written up for that work so if
something, God forbid something happened to Koi but if he disappears tomorrow can somebodypick it up and do that work?
You know what?
I will.
am so happy to say yes, there are, but, but I have to give Koi credit for this.
(22:06):
Koi came into our organization last year and said, where are the standards written up?
went, um, we don't have time for that.
We barely have time to do it.
Within a week, he had reviewed everything and written up a whole, whole standards andprocess.
said, every time we do something new,
(22:28):
He goes back to that document and he updates it.
And he met with another person, Gracie, who was an intern who became a real critical partof our company, who knew everything that was going on.
And he gave it to her and he said, will you review this and fill in the blanks?
What am I missing?
What details am I missing?
How do Tish and Wendy think my business partner?
(22:48):
How did they think?
And, would they agree that this is the process?
So I am so happy to say, yes, we do.
But it took.
A coy who knew how to do it, who recognized I can do this work for you, but if somethinghappens to me or anyone else, you're going to have to start over each time.
(23:09):
In fact, we've used his document now to onboard new employees.
Perfect.
And all of our, I shouldn't say employees.
have 10 99 contractors, including coy, but we used it for all of our onboarding.
He gives it to them and he highlights the sections that they're going to be.
responsible for or be involved with.
And he makes sure that he makes sure that they know exactly what needs to be done.
(23:30):
So I would say, I don't know that most entrepreneurs or solopreneurs have it alldocumented, but here's the good news about what I just said.
You don't have to do it yourself.
Right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Well, so, that's a perfect segue to the next question I was going to ask.
So going back to where we're talking about finding the people, finding the expert helpthat you need so that you're not doing it alone.
(23:53):
And we talked about like looking into your network.
But let's just say I can't even think of a good example, but let's just say, well, you andI both had people in our family who did music.
But let's just say, you know, I'm a person, I'm trying to do something.
I need to do something that involves me.
I know nothing.
know nobody in nobody in my network knows anything about music.
How then can you find those people?
You know, I'm like, I do it much like you do.
(24:14):
go to Fiverr and what I do, I use Fiverr not just for hiring because we do hire fromFiverr occasionally.
now we do more online jobs.ph because we get better quality and consistency.
But what I do with Fiverr is I put in search what I do know.
Like when I was looking for, I didn't even know it was called an intro and outro.
(24:38):
able to use that language with my brother after I had already tried with Fiverr.
I actually had someone create some music on Fiverr, but I went in and I typed in the wordsthat I did know.
I typed in something like uh digital or video needs music.
was very simple language.
(24:59):
And then all these Fiverrers
a post started popping up and it was like, Oh, it's called digital media.
It's called intro.
It's called outro.
I didn't know that I used fiber to educate me by reading their posts and reading theirprofiles to understand.
(25:21):
And then I was able to create a job.
Say, here's what I'm doing.
Here's what I need.
Here's how long it needs to be.
And then I actually went to, once I knew the language, I went to YouTube.
to find experts on it, but I didn't watch the long 30 minute videos.
I wanted the 10 minute tip.
You're creating intros and outros.
(25:42):
What do you need to know?
What do you not need to know when not to use them, when to use them.
And that's how I did it.
I think that's a good, efficient way because it doesn't take a lot of time.
And it comes back to that delegation.
I'm educating myself enough.
that I can have an intelligent conversation with someone that I might hire.
(26:05):
But I don't have to be the expert at what they do.
you
Right.
So we talked about delegation, we talked about expert help.
(26:26):
think that, you know, and those are great ways to not do things alone.
I think another thing that we need to talk about, another way to not do things alone ispartnerships.
So I just wanted to get some of your wisdom about partnerships.
Yeah.
My whole, our whole business P 31 consulting is building partnerships.
It's a quick, we're a consortium.
would call us a consortium.
(26:46):
It's just that we all work just for P 31 pretty much exclusively.
So what we did to expand and make our business more global, we had all been, there was asmall group of us had been working globally.
So clients would say, U S space clients would say, can you go to London?
Can you go to Shanghai?
Can you go to Tokyo?
(27:07):
So we would go, we would go, but they were US based companies that were sending us there.
And then our clients started to move across organizations.
These are corporations, right?
And they would call us from the new organization and say, can you come over here and dothis for us?
Because now I work for this UK based organization.
Can you come here?
And what we realized was while we could do that, there had to be a better way to buildthose businesses and give them confidence that we have people.
(27:36):
feet on the ground near where they are.
So here's what we did.
One of the first relationships we forged was with a person named Ian Bradley, who was apricing and market access expert in the UK, who was doing similar type of work with us,
some training.
He was still doing some consulting with pharmaceutical companies, helping them with theirpricing strategies.
(27:56):
We approached him because we had done some work with him and said, we want to expand P31to have foot, feet on the ground in Europe.
the UK and Europe.
And we'd like you to be that partner.
We'd like you to lead the business over there.
Would you be willing?
Cause he had his own successful business.
weren't, we were not suggesting buying his business.
(28:18):
We said, would you be willing to partner with us?
We'll bring you in and you will be a partner.
You will have equal status.
If there's a status as, as Wendy and Tish and Mike will bring you in as a partner.
But what we want you to do is build a business in the UK under the P 31 brand.
And he didn't say yes right away.
(28:39):
He said, I have to think about it.
I have to talk to my wife because I have my own brand, which is my Ian Bradley brand.
And I have to figure out if this aligns with that and what impact that would have on mine.
Do I shrink it?
Do I eliminate it?
He had to make these decisions.
Well, he came back and said yes.
And he's now been working with us over 10 years.
(29:00):
And he oversees our European, Middle East and UK business.
He has grown it substantially and he still does a little bit of work under his Ian Bradleybrand, but he, he, that focuses on his pricing and market access expertise, everything
else he does into P 31 brand.
(29:21):
did the same thing in Latin America.
Um, actually someone from there approached us and it was a person who used to be a client.
who hired us with several companies that she went to.
Every time she jumped company, she called us and said, can you come here and do work?
And then she decided she wanted to go out on her own and she called us and said, I wouldreally love to work with you.
(29:42):
Do you need any people to help with facilitating your training?
And so we had a little powwow and said, we think we want her to run our Latin Americanbusiness because we were doing work in Latin America too.
And so we brought her on as a 1099 type of person, but she lives in Latin America fortraining only.
(30:04):
And she was very humble.
She was like, I'm just really happy to do what I have my own business called lovehumankind that, that she does, which is about wellness in a corporate environment.
So it didn't conflict with us.
She said it actually compliments.
And after about a year, we just said, would you run our Latin American business?
Because we wanted to give her a chance to make sure this was a good fit.
(30:25):
Right.
it, think partnerships are excellent.
We also, by the way, have someone who runs our Canadian business, right?
And we forged a partnership with her and all of these people work.
Most of their work is with P 31, but they still maintain their brand for the other workthat they do.
(30:45):
But because of that, they have expanded P 31 in our brand and we brought in excellentpartners.
who are excellent business builders who are excellent at forging and establishinglong-term relationships, which is what you need to have success in business where they are
valued for their individual unique contributions, but they're also valued.
(31:10):
They've established the value that P 31 brings.
So people are no longer saying call Ian, call Mafay.
They're saying call P 31 31.
And those partnerships enabled us to create them.
Right.
Okay.
So as a follow-up question, at what point do you think a solopreneur entrepreneur shouldstart thinking global?
(31:32):
it really something that's realistic for every business or is that something only once youget to a certain, you know, revenue dollar amount that now you can think about going
global?
Just talk to me a little bit more about going global.
Yeah.
In my case, when we're doing our coaching, business coaching, whether we're doing it forentrepreneurs, small business owners or corporations, we're coaching them on selling
(31:57):
services.
So I'm going to answer the question from when you're selling services, when that's whatyou're offering is services, not product, because I don't really have the product
experience to share that.
When you are selling services in most cases, especially if they're professional typeservices like consulting services, it's most likely something that's needed globally.
(32:21):
And so the challenge though is for me, I think, and for, most entrepreneurs isunderstanding the differences in the cultures.
So I've had the privilege of working across cultures, but one of the things I do is I makesure it is a culture that I want to work with.
Meaning.
Can I accept the differences in how business is conducted?
(32:43):
And for most European cultures, the answer is yes.
Right.
If you go to Germany, make sure you have a black suit and a white shirt on.
That's what they still wear the work every day.
Make sure you understand.
uh Humor will be a little bit different over there, you know?
So understand this a quite serious culture, quite respectful culture.
You are not going to work after five o'clock.
(33:04):
Everyone's going to go home.
You probably break a law there if you work, if you ask anyone to do anything at five 15.
So just make sure I think it's that you understand the culture.
think one of the easiest transitions is from a U S space business to a European or UK.
Um, there are so many similarities in terms of how we conduct business across thoseculture, all of the cultures.
(33:28):
There are some nuances.
There's a big difference between France and Spain.
There's a big difference between Spain and Portugal.
But we need to, as long as we understand what those differences are, it makes it easy tomake the transition.
And I would encourage anybody, if you have relationships with anybody, that's the best wayto start when you forge relationships, establish relationships with people who are already
(33:52):
in those countries so they can educate you.
One of the things that Ian Bradley and I are UK, European guy, we work together a lot on alot of projects.
And we often joke about how he's a very polite Brit and I'm a very in your face American.
Right?
So even when we're, when we're facilitating programs and teaching and coaching, you know,he's very much, would you please do this?
(34:17):
And I'll say, no, no, no, no, go do that.
Not an option.
I'm not pleasing it.
I'm telling you, you have to go do that.
I'm not mean, just, I just sound very American.
But when I'm in the UK, I have to tone that down.
I have to add the pleases in.
I have, I know that even though I'm telling someone to do something, I have to put it inthe form of a question.
(34:41):
I'm not really asking, but I'm, I'm, respecting the culture.
I'm, being polite.
I'm honoring where I am.
We're still going to get to the same outcomes.
Right.
Just doing it in a different way.
I think.
anyone who has a service and a professional service can take their business global.
It might be different if you're an attorney or something and you only know patent law inthe United States, you don't know global.
(35:08):
When you have to have your your what now I want to say certificate.
What's the what's the term you have to have your degree or you have to be what is thething they take when they take the bar exam?
What is it that they're getting?
They're getting the our like license practice.
Yeah.
It's a practice.
Exactly.
Right.
Yeah.
And so I think I would encourage people to do it, to give it a try.
(35:29):
I would encourage people to talk to people like me who've done it.
I have a global business.
We're a small business, but we are global people in, China know who we are.
People in Japan know who we are.
People in the UK and across Europe, they know P 31.
That's the brand they know.
Um, and it's because we have worked hard to create.
(35:50):
of a brow value around the brand.
Right.
And that's why they remember the brand.
And it doesn't take a lot of work to do it.
Right.
And I don't want people to hear that it takes a lot of work.
It's not about hustling.
Don't hustle.
It's about establishing the right relationships, forging those relationships, starting todo some small projects.
(36:17):
with those people offering your services up to help them so you can build thoserelationships.
And then it's expanding it because once you start meeting a few people, we had severalpeople in Europe, we actually have two people who work from the UK that cover our UK
business at Ian overseas, right?
And they're a routine, regular part of the projects that we do, we call them first.
(36:40):
If we need more people, there are other people that Ian can call, but think about it,Ian's calling them.
because Ian has the relationships.
I don't have all of those relationships over there.
It's worth it.
don't, we, know from, don't know about your background, Rachel, but I wasn't raised tothink globally.
was raised to go to college, get a good degree, get a good job in a corporation and go upthrough the ranks.
(37:04):
That's what I was taught.
I was never taught to think outside of the United States.
You know, it's funny you say that because I was raised the same way.
However, I don't know.
I don't know where this came from.
So I have this book.
It's called A Thousand Places to See Before You Die.
And I've been I've not even come close to I've been to about 38 of them.
(37:26):
But the reason I say because when you were talking about knowing the culture in all thesedifferent areas, the reason I say it's funny you ask that question because I was raised
exactly the way you just said.
So I'm trying to figure out where this mindset came from for me.
But I used to travel to, you know, was going to all these places.
And the thing that I would do is before I would go to a country, I would learn the cultureand the language.
(37:47):
Like, for example, when I before I, and it's just like for vacation, before I took avacation to Italy, I learned Italian from Italians.
So like at the Italiano language center.
I just have to say amen because that we will go on vacation and not learn anything aboutthe culture, right?
I am like you I learned everything I can about the culture.
(38:08):
I just had to say amen uh
Well, the irony, so when I took this trip to the Amalfi Coast, the short version of thisstory is something that happened with our hotel, ended up in a legitimate Italian
mob-owned hotel.
That was not the hotel we were supposed to be in.
And everybody else in my tour group, they didn't know any of the language and they were sorude.
I was, uh I'm sure I sounded like an idiot, but at least I was trying.
(38:31):
And so I was the only one who spoke the language and understood the culture.
And they were so nice to me.
Like they were mean to everybody.
All the mean, all of the rude Americans, they were mean to everybody else.
And they treated me like a princess because I had this pride, you know?
And then, you know, there was another time I was, I got lost in downtown Papillete, whichis the capital of Tahiti.
was doing a sailing around the society islands, like, you know, like before Bora Bora andTodd and all those anyway.
(38:57):
And so coming back.
The ship got back and there was a 12 hour time frame between when we got back off the shipand when our plane left.
So I just decided to go like, just go wander around downtown and got lost and didn't thinkabout it.
And the only languages that they spoke were Tahitian and French.
And luckily, I mean, hadn't practiced my French ahead of time, but luckily I had studiedFrench for like six years and I'm like,
(39:22):
Okay, what can I do?
It was so funny because you know, I said to this guy because I was lost.
I'm trying to figure out how to get back to the hotel.
And I was like, you know, probably blue on, probably, I can't even say it.
Probably blue on grace.
He said, no, he's just eating.
No.
Okay.
Okay.
I got to figure out how to get back.
Like I said, when I say, you know, I sounded like an idiot.
(39:44):
So basically they're, they're public transportation is called Litchlock.
And it's like, you know, it's just an open air truck.
jump on and you go, you know, I'm looking at thinking about it, like the bus system in,you know, the U S and I'm thinking, I got off on this side of the street.
I get back on to go the other way on the other side of the street.
That was not the case.
And so I said to the guy, I said, where's the truck, which is, know, where's the truck?
(40:06):
And he looks at me and he goes, where's the bus?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway.
And then.
He's like giving me directions, but he's going so fast.
Like, you know, he's speaking so fast.
You know how French, you, you trail off the end of words and they, they blur together.
So it's hard to distinguish exactly what's being said.
And then just out of nowhere, the phrase pops in my head that I'd remember.
(40:29):
was like, is speak more slowly, please.
And then again, he looks at me like, I'm an idiot.
And he starts like, you're going to go up here and you're going to go go left.
like, I don't talk to me like I'm an idiot.
got to get back to my hotel.
So that's what I was thinking about when you're talking about learning the culture andlearning the language and you know, learning what's humor in one place versus humor
(40:53):
someplace else.
All those things.
So it's funny.
I don't know where that like where that came from, because like say, I was raised the sameway as you in terms of you just, you you get a job, you go up the ladder, all that stuff.
So it's funny.
I don't know where any of that came.
That's interesting because as you were talking, I was thinking, I don't know where minecame from either because I have been all over the world and wanted to go all over the
(41:16):
world and wanted to expand my business all over the world.
But it's interesting.
I don't know where it came from other than there were people early in my career when Ifirst started traveling with with Merck and other companies to other countries for
business that I realized that people in other countries travel all the time.
They think go to the United States for college.
(41:38):
They go to another country for, and I remember thinking, I never knew that was an option.
I didn't know I could go to another country for college.
And I know at some point I wanted it to be clear that I wanted to raise my children tothink beyond the United States.
We live in a world, not in a country and not only in a country.
(41:58):
And I wanted to make sure, and I don't know.
this would be really good to convert another conversation.
Like, where did we cut?
Where?
How did we get here?
Rachel?
Where, where we respect the culture.
We learn a little bit.
I learned a little bit of the language before I go to any country, at least.
Hello.
Goodbye.
Good morning.
Um, where is the bus?
Where's the subway?
(42:19):
No.
Thank you.
I learned how to say, I'm sorry.
always learn the phrase.
I'm sorry that I don't speak your language very well.
Like I always, I always make sure I know certain phrases.
I don't have to speak the language.
I just want to come there and demonstrate that I respect it.
And I love how you said that you do that.
And it makes me wonder where we got that from.
(42:42):
What point in our lives that we go, this is the right way to do this.
And it comes back to business too.
That's what we're talking about.
It is important whether you're working with another country or within your own, with anyclient to understand their culture.
How do they like to communicate?
How do they like to interact?
(43:03):
um What is their, you said humor.
What is funny to them?
What's not?
I am a big emoji person and anybody that's ever gotten an email from me, got an emoji.
Cause I am just an emoji person, but I was an emoji person long before emojis were a bigdeal.
But here's why I used to travel to Asia a lot.
used to spend five to six weeks a year there and they've been playing with emojis for 15,20 years.
(43:27):
So when I would come,
they would emoji me to death.
And I started getting in the habit of emoji.
By the time it became popular here, I was already an emoji person.
But sometimes I think how will this potential client react to the fact that I put an emojion every email?
And one day I decided.
(43:47):
Some people think of it as frivolous.
they do.
not saying that like I don't.
I do.
Yeah, I know that and I have to think about that when I send an email.
So what I typically do is with the first email I send to a new potential client, a newprospect, I don't include the emoji.
Sometimes I do as a test.
I'm thinking they're an emoji person and they're going to like this and I'll include theemoji.
(44:12):
And if they come back with emojis, I know we're good.
Right.
But I think that they need to know who I am and
If you think that you're going to get less from me intellectually and what I'm doing tohelp your business, cause I like emojis, we're probably not a good fit because you're
judging my, my intellect and my ability to help you transform your business based on thefact that I like emojis.
(44:36):
That's like saying, I don't like you cause you like red wine and I like white wine.
Right, right, exactly.
And I think most people don't understand because for I feel like for me, because I'm anemoji person from way back before there were emojis.
I'm a emoticon person when it was just a and you know, open print, they're closedparentheses, know, like I'm emoticon person.
I was like that too
(44:57):
uh But I think but also I know that I process things visually because I'm dyslexic Sovisual processing is easier for me to so like that's one of the reasons why I like visuals
But I think the people who are judging you based on the use of emoticons do not they'renot empathetic and they're not thinking about the fact that different people process
information different yes, and different things resonate with different people They'rejust thinking about themselves.
(45:20):
They're very self-focused.
So maybe the whole you know, understanding other cultures is just an empathetic
quality that both of us have.
don't know.
Yeah, yeah, I think you might be right.
I think you might be right.
Well, know, Tish, we always have such great conversations.
We need to wrap this up.
I want to wrap this up with some um book recommendations, but before we get to that, Iwant to ask you the last time we talked, you were going to a conference and I know that
(45:45):
that conference has already happened.
So I just wanted to ask you, how'd your conference go?
It was great.
the name of the conference conference is the business show Miami.
The business show has shows all over the United.
They have Vegas, they have Singapore, they have London, they have them all over.
And it's, and it was great because we did a masterclass and we offered it seven times,four times on the first day, three times in the second called sell your value, not your
(46:10):
time.
the purpose is because a lot of people who are in service based businesses, B2B, theywill.
estimate their time based on how many hours or days they think something will take.
And they assign some arbitrary value to those hours.
And that's not the way to sell value.
so pulling out a spreadsheet, listing all your tasks and putting a price next to them andadding the total is cost estimation.
(46:36):
It's not value estimation.
And so we wanted to introduce this group to a different mindset, a different way ofthinking.
And we gave three examples of stories.
where because we don't think that way, things turned out better for us and turned outbetter for the client.
But what was exciting is we only had 168 seats, so 24 per class.
(46:57):
We had 787 people register.
Wow.
So the first session had about 100 people standing.
24 sitting, some people sat on the carpet on the floor where there were open spots and therest were standing around.
So it was totally awesome.
We got excellent feedback.
(47:17):
Some people told other people to go back and watch it.
We had one person that I know of that came and watched it twice.
So she came back to do it again and was taking us.
It was real exciting.
And I think it's so important.
And this was for small business owners, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, right?
That we know what we have to offer, but we don't know how to help someone buy it from.
(47:39):
us.
Right.
And that's what we were focused on just because we have something there.
We're really good at it.
It's a really great service and we know how to talk about the service, but that's not howyou get someone to say yes to purchasing the service.
And that's what we were focusing on there.
So it was kind of exciting.
Really exciting.
That's amazing.
I'm so happy for you.
(48:00):
It was real exciting.
That's awesome.
Well, wanted to say I wanted to just sort of recap some of the books that we'verecommended and some that we talked about that maybe we've said or we haven't said.
And this is also going to be in the newsletter.
The newsletter for the first episode will be out before this episode airs.
And then there'll be a follow up for this one that will include these bookrecommendations.
(48:21):
So some of the ones that I mentioned previously in the previous episode.
was I mentioned Spend Selling by Neil Rackham.
I'd mentioned Profit First by Michael or Mike Miklovich.
I think I'm saying his name right.
I mentioned Think Again.
I think I said it was by Adam Scott.
Adam Scott is actually an actor.
The book is by Adam Grant.
(48:41):
Okay, thinking again by Adam Grant.
It's by thing again by Adam Grant.
And then um just earlier I mentioned the E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber.
um And then there was a book.
So you mentioned a book here.
So you talk about the books you mentioned.
And then there's one that you mentioned to me privately that I don't think we talked aboutyet, which is U Squared.
So tell me two books or your book.
(49:04):
two books that I recommend is 10 X is easier than two X by Benjamin Hardy and DanSullivan.
I think this is a must read for anyone who has their own business because the purpose ofthe book is to say basically in a very simple explanation for the title.
You know, we often say we want to, let's say we make $200,000 a year.
We often say, I'd like to double that.
(49:26):
I'd like to make $400,000 a year.
The book, the book makes an argument that.
It's difficult to dispute that it's actually easier to 10 X that than it is to two exit.
So it's easier to make 10 times what you make than it is to make two times what you make.
It's easier.
It takes less effort and it happens more quickly.
(49:49):
And that's why I highly recommend the book.
We at P 31, we've started incorporating all of the practices and we are sayingunprecedented change and the way we're doing our work.
I'm working a lot less.
That's why I was able to go to Japan on vacation for a few weeks.
I was able to turn the computer off, but I would recommend it to anybody.
It just got great tips on, and it's really good if it's your own business.
(50:14):
Gotcha.
The other one I recommend is called you squared.
This is all about mindset and it's about knowing who you are and not being afraid to, tobecome who you want to be or who you should be, right?
That maybe you've been resisting.
It's great.
In fact, this book inspired me and Wendy to create a retreat that we're going to do forwomen of color.
(50:37):
Right now we're collecting wait lists for it.
We're calling it only one, only you.
And it's going to be a three day retreat and we're going to have some guest speakers comein, but it's going to be very relaxed.
Where are your leotards?
Where are you?
Sweat?
Where, whatever you're comfortable in, we're just going to chill, but we're going to bevery focused on identifying.
(50:59):
what distinguishes you from everyone else.
And, I use the word distinguished because I don't believe in differentiating becausedifferentiating, may have mentioned this to you in the past implies that this is a
comparator.
That's what differentiating implies is a comparator.
I don't believe I have to differentiate myself because there is no one to compare me to.
(51:19):
So I believe that we need to learn how to distinguish ourselves like distinguishedprofessors.
Right.
They weren't compared to anybody.
They're distinguished because they do things unlike anyone else.
They have done research and demonstrated things unlike anyone else.
The only one only you is going to help each person who attends to get clarity and definewhat is uniquely only them that distinguishes them from the rest of the world.
(51:49):
There's no comparison.
want people to come to them and say, you're the only one that does this.
want to work with you.
Right, right.
And the only way we can do that is to be clear and be able to articulate whatdistinguishes me.
should be able, you should be able to say, I'm the only one in the world that does this inthis way.
And that's what the only one only re only your retreat is going to do.
(52:11):
So we're excited about that.
We're hoping that to have the first session, it's going to be a small group in 2025.
Okay.
But if any of your listeners want to contact me to get on that wait list so that we willshare what we're going to do.
they can contact me through LinkedIn is probably the best way.
Okay.
Well, actually that's a perfect segue.
(52:32):
So tell the listeners how they can get in touch.
So what's your LinkedIn handle and how can they get in touch with you?
Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn.
Just type in Tish Valdez and it's T-I-S-H not Trish Tish T-I-S-H and my last name isspelled with a B like boy, not a V.
So B-A-L-D-E-Z.
I'm the only Tish Valdez on LinkedIn.
(52:55):
You can also follow me on social media on YouTube at the Tish and Wendy channel type inTish and Wendy.
You'll find it.
You can go to Instagram and type in Tish and Wendy.
You'll find it.
Wendy Ellis Green is my partner.
We're the founders of the company.
So you'll see the Titian Wendy channels and she's my sister by the way There's a wholeepisode there on how do you build it?
(53:15):
How do you build a business and work with your sister?
friends still be all those things.
Still like to after the day is done, you still want to go out and have dinner or somethinglike that.
but the Titian Wendy channels are a good way to follow, follow what we're doing and whatI'm sharing and also to reach me.
(53:36):
You can reach me through those channels as well.
Yes, it's the word and A and D and it is Wendy W E N D Y.
Yes, that's a great question because there are lots of different spellings of Wendy.
Welcome to Imperfect Genius, the podcast that provides technical advice on effectivelynavigating the business development journey and offers advice on building successful
careers in the tech industry.
I'm your host, Rachel Foster, a tech professional, educator, and entrepreneur.
Today, I'm thrilled to welcome back Tish Baldez.
As a reminder, Tish is co-founder and leader of P31 Consulting and P31 Academy.
(00:28):
P31 Consulting is a global corporate training and management consulting firm.
Tish, welcome back to the podcast.
Thank you, thank you.
I am so excited to continue our conversation.
It was so great.
We were talking so much, we had so much to say.
And it was, it ran long.
(00:49):
was like, we definitely have to do a second recording.
It was just such good information that I really want the audience to continue to learnfrom that conversation.
So just to recap, last time we were talking about how people can be successful in leavingcorporate America and become self-employed as independent consultants.
And we had a lot of gems for the listeners.
(01:11):
But we ran out of time, like I mentioned, we ran out of time before we got a chance tofinish the conversation.
felt like there was, I mean, it's not like we had an entire like another two hours to go,but I just felt like there was a couple of things that we needed to talk about in order to
make sure that we close out the topic.
So, for example, we were talking about making, deciding that whether or not it's for you,whether it's right for you, talked about.
(01:35):
assessing your tolerance for risk and thinking about the financial components.
So those are some of the things we talked about.
But I feel like we left off with, how to do it.
And a lot of people who do make that decision to go into working for themselves, they makethe decision and then they get into it and they're a little bit overwhelmed and maybe
(01:56):
they're not making as much money as they need to and they need to pay their bills.
And they go, you know what, this isn't working.
And they go back to corporate America.
So I think that a good place to pick up would be, okay, so you made the decision to do it.
How do you stay in business?
Like, how do you keep going?
Yeah, you know what, and I think we talked a little bit about this last time and the quickanswer is don't do it alone.
(02:18):
Right?
What the reason I think we get overwhelmed is because we're trying to do everything all atonce.
Isn't there a movie like that?
Everything everywhere all at once.
This movie is called Everything Everywhere.
All it wants is stars Michelle.
Yo, and I love her.
(02:39):
You won the I want to say she won the Oscar for that.
It's a great movie.
Have you seen it?
I have seen it.
I have seen it because I love her.
She's one of my favorite actresses.
Yes.
But I think that is exactly what, you know, even in that movie, it was all the confusionabout where am I?
What's going on?
And I think we kind of create that for ourselves.
kind of, we, we're trying to do it all because we think we have to do it all alone.
(03:05):
And I think some of that, you and I talked about last time that corporate mindset.
the difference between the entrepreneurial mindset and the corporate mindset.
In the corporate world, we have to focus on us.
We have to think about how we establish ourselves.
How do we set us apart and distinguish us, me, from everyone else to get that promotion,to get assigned to work on that special project, to be seen, to be put in the queue for a
(03:34):
leadership role, right?
When they're doing succession planning.
We are trained internally to think about
demonstrate that I can do it all, right?
So that I will be recognized and have the opportunities to move one in this organization.
Right.
It doesn't work that way in entrepreneurship.
Right.
Entrepreneurship.
(03:56):
What we are trying to do is figure out what we are excellent at, what we do well, what wedo that's going to bring the most value to our clients.
And then all the other things around it, the accounting and the marketing and thefollow-up.
calls and all of those things that support our efforts really should be done by someoneelse.
(04:18):
And that's one of the things I learned in a book called 10X is easier than 2X.
It's a book I highly recommend because one of the things that they mention in the book,and I think it's Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan.
I've had the privilege of meeting Ben Hardy once, but never Dan Sullivan.
I'd love to meet him.
(04:39):
But one of those things they say toward the end of the book is we come, we come from aworld where, know, it's about delegation and, um, that means and delegate the way they
describe it in the book is I know how to do it, but I need someone else to do it.
And I have the expertise that I can assess whether they did it well or not.
(05:02):
And they were saying, and when entrepreneurship, that's not the way we should be thinking.
We should be thinking, I only need to know enough to know who to hire to do the work.
And we need to trust them to be able to do it with the level of excellence and expertisethat we need.
And I think what we miss sometimes is looking for all those people around us.
(05:22):
Who can I bring in to help me versus me focusing on me and demonstrating how smart andgreat I am.
And I think that's a big difference.
And I think it does continue our last conversation.
I'm no longer in a corporate environment where I have to focus on making myself stand out.
I am now in this entrepreneurial environment where I have to learn how to leverage theresources that are around me.
(05:45):
Some of the resources I leverage are friends that offer to help me out and they don't doit.
They don't charge me for it.
Right.
Yeah.
People don't, you know, okay, so I'm going to tell a story.
I think that sometimes to your point, you know, when you're in that mindset, I don't evenknow that it was a corporate mindset per se, but we do, when we're trying to, when we're
(06:08):
starting off in business and we're thinking entrepreneurially, we do tend to just focus onwhat can I do?
What can I do?
So the funny story that I have is when I was starting this podcast, I knew that I neededto add music to, you know, like sort of intro, outro music, and then
transitioning for ads and things like that.
And so I was looking for music packages and there's all of these, know, just like you can,you know, buy stock photos, you know, you can buy stock music and things like, so I was, I
(06:31):
was searching all these things and I couldn't stand any of the music cause they were just,I didn't like any of it.
I was like, man.
was like, well, I could go to, you know, like, uh, it's going to bug me.
I couldn't, now I can't think of what's the thing where you can.
Fiverr.
I was like,
I couldn't think of the service.
I was like, go to Fiverr and I could hire somebody to make some music for me.
(06:52):
I was trying to think.
but anyway, where I eventually ended up was like, I'm going to ask my uncle, I have anuncle.
I need to have him on this podcast.
I have an uncle who is a music producer, used to work in Motown with Barry Gordy.
Like he has his own label.
he, like this is his thing, right?
So was like, I'm going to ask him if he's got, if he knows anybody who could record somemusic for me, et cetera.
(07:13):
So I reach out to him and I'm, you know, and I'm asking him.
And I explained the whole thing to him, what I'm trying to do.
I was like, so was wondering if you had some, and he goes, well, I could do that or have acatalog with thousands of songs.
You could just pick one.
Thank you!
And I won't charge you for it.
You it was like, you don't have to go.
(07:34):
Why are you doing all of this extra work?
Like, why didn't you just ask me?
I could just give you some music.
And I was like, Oh, right.
Why did I think of that?
know, your brain just doesn't go there.
Sometimes you're just so busy trying to figure out how to do the work and how to do thework and how to do the work.
You don't stop and step back and go.
Wait a minute, what's the smart way to do this?
This goes into something I said in a previous episode, the thing that people used toalways say to me, it drove me crazy.
(07:59):
And I finally now get it, which is work smarter, not harder, you know, and I'm alwaysworking hard and working hard and I don't always stop and step back and think about how
can I work smarter?
So.
Something you said just hit me.
You said, we're trying to figure out how to get it done.
And I think what we need to do as entrepreneurs is saying differently.
We need to make a list of what needs to be done.
(08:21):
What we do is jump right into the how.
We need to stop and just say, okay, what are all the things I need?
I need music.
We had a similar situation.
We needed intros and outros and our brother produces music and our nephews.
And we called our brother and we were like, and he said, what are you doing?
And we said,
Well, you know, we're going on all these websites, trying to find all this music and wedon't really like this and we don't really like that one.
(08:44):
And then he said, what do you want it to feel like?
Describe what you want it to feel like.
And he went off and he just made the music.
He just did it.
He just, he just did it.
So we don't always think about like, that was the how, what I need to do as anentrepreneur.
If I don't want that stress and that pressure of all the things that need to be done, makea list of what needs to be done.
(09:06):
Don't try to figure out how to do it yourself.
Ask yourself who can do it.
um Who was the best person?
So the first column is what the second person who was the best person who could do it orthe possibilities, like in your case, it was an uncle, right?
Let me call him and ask him who can do it.
And was like, I can do it.
And then the third column is the how sometimes as an entrepreneur, we don't need toinvolve ourselves in the how I did not ask my brother how he came to decide what the sound
(09:35):
would be.
I don't need to know how he produced it.
I don't need to know whether he did it on a Mac or did it on some other.
don't need to understand the how I needed to know what needed to be done, how quickly itneeds to be done.
And I needed to know who can help me with it.
And sometimes the, who is me.
Maybe I am the only person who can do it, but we need to get out of that.
(09:57):
What is that called?
When you think you're the only one, um, there's a name for that, but we need to get out ofthat mindset that nobody else can do it as well as we can.
There are people who can do it as well as we can.
And if it's not my expertise, I need to figure out who can I call?
Sometimes it's who can I call to figure out how this can get done?
(10:18):
Because like you called your uncle to ask the question.
It didn't mean that he was going to do it.
It just turned out that he did it.
And I think that kind of takes that overwhelming feel of I've got way too much going onand I can't manage this.
it kind of get it out of your head, get it on digitally or on a piece of paper, and thenstart to what in 10 X is easier than two X.
(10:43):
They say you don't delegate.
Remember delegation is when you understand how to do the task yourself and you're givingit to someone else that you can evaluate whether they did it.
Well, you are going to assign responsibility to someone else to get that done for you.
And that takes a lot of that mental and emotional stress away because you know it'sgetting done.
(11:04):
Right.
You have to trust.
Yeah, that's true.
I have two things to say on that.
So one with regard to delegation, I know I've mentioned this.
I don't remember.
It wasn't in our last conversation, but I mentioned it on other podcast episodes.
There's a book that, you know, at end of this, we're going to talk about all the booksthat we've recommended.
But um there's a book that I often recommend called, My Brain Is Not Working Today, Tish.
(11:26):
I swear.
The name of this podcast is called the imperfect genius.
You're you're just demonstrating that you're an imperfect genius.
And thank you for that.
Because now I remember all of a sudden it's called oh the E-Myth Revisited by MichaelGurk.
(11:51):
And in there he talks about the how to approach delegate.
I won't go, I won't recap it here because I've said it multiple times before, but he talksabout the right approach to delegation where, you to your point where you understand the
what needs to happen and you set your standards and you figure out what you want theresult to be.
And then you give it to someone else to,
work or whatever.
So that was one thing that I wanted to say on that.
(12:12):
And then the other thing that I was going to say is another thing that I think happenswith people, especially when they're, they're first starting off in business with regard
to delegation, they they're hesitant to delegate because they are afraid, well, I don'thave the money.
Like it's going to cost me money.
Sometimes it doesn't like, know, first do those, do your columns to figure out the what.
(12:34):
and the who and then the how, you and then maybe when you're doing the how, you've got acouple of different options and maybe some of them are free, you know, so don't, and I
think that's what happens is that entrepreneurs get, especially solopreneurs get veryworried about, oh but I have to do it myself because I can't afford to pay somebody to do
it.
Yeah.
And there's so much that's free.
(12:55):
If you have built a good network, uh you will find people in your network that will helpyou out.
I don't, I'd never go to anyone or rarely go to anyone and say, will you do this for free?
Even with my brother, sometimes he does some bigger work projects for us.
We contract with him.
I don't want, I don't want him not to be paid for that.
Right now.
Sometimes I'll go to people and I'll say, I'm really, I'm stuck with this.
(13:18):
I don't know how to do this.
There are things I don't know how to do.
And so I say, don't know how to do this.
And I also don't know where to go to find someone.
Googling is just giving me another part-time job that's not helping me.
So I might go to someone and they'll say, you know what?
I know someone that does it and someone who's willing to help you out.
Why don't I put you in contact with them?
(13:39):
Those kinds of things happen when we reach out, but it doesn't happen if we try to keep itall to ourselves.
All it took was one phone call for you.
That's how it took.
That was after I'd wasted two months looking for it.
Wasn't a full two months, but it felt like two months.
It was a few weeks, but still, you know, but is, is my question would be because I feellike it's not intuitive, especially again, when you're, going out in the business on your
(14:08):
own.
feel like thinking like that is not intuitive.
how do you have any tips for how do you shift your mindset?
We talked about shifting mindsets previously, but
specifically in this vein, do you have any tips about how you shift your mindset to startthinking that way as opposed to just thinking me, me, me, me, me?
And you know, when you were asking what the word is, I was like, I don't think she meansnarcissist, but that was the thing that I, that was the word that popped into my brain.
(14:32):
was like, narcissist?
No.
Yeah, some of those are narcissists type behaviors, but you know, it doesn't mean that aperson's a narcissist.
I know what you mean.
I think that the first decision and it's a decision we need to make is that we believe andwe know that we don't have the answers to everything.
(14:54):
I am not God.
don't have, I can't do every, I think I can do a lot of things with excellence, but I alsobelieve there are other people out there that can do it better than I can.
It doesn't mean I'm not doing it with excellence, but I think there's probably somebodyout there is doing something that I'm doing.
They're doing it better than I'm doing it.
And I'm okay with that.
I'm okay with that because they have different skills.
(15:15):
have different talents.
They have different experiences.
And we have to make that is I believe that there are people who can do what I need to havedone and they can do it better than I can.
Now I know some people that don't believe that.
I do know some people that have not been able to.
make that mindset shift and recognize that there are people I've had somebody say to me,uh they actually said, I don't think there's anyone that can do any of the things that I
(15:46):
do better than I do them.
And I said, you got to be kidding me.
Where did you learn how to do this?
You learned all this from somewhere.
It was inspired you read books.
How did you know how to do what you just did?
You were on online.
You were reading, you were talking to people.
You didn't figure any of this out on your own.
And I think for that person, he's permanently stuck until and unless he decides, no, thereare smart people out there.
(16:11):
And I think that for me, it was for me, it was more coming out of corporate where I feltlike I had to show that I could do everything I was being expected to do.
And then I came out and realized,
still feel like I need to do that, but I don't have to do it alone.
And I think you have to decide there is someone out there that can do it.
(16:32):
One of the shifts that we made, and I don't know if you've done this, um, you talk aboutlow cost.
We decided that we were going to look offshore for support while we were building a newpart of our business.
So we didn't want to put in, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars into building thispart of the business when we weren't sure what the direction was going to take.
(16:53):
So we went to, think it's uh onlinejobs.ph, which is in the Philippines.
And we went to onlinejobs.ph and we posted a couple of positions and now we have threepeople that are excellent and they're doing it excellently.
And I call them low cost, high value resources.
I don't have to pay the same rates as I would pay in the United States or in Europe fortheir services.
(17:17):
And it's okay for now.
I want to support people in the United States.
Bye.
you're up and I will hire people when we get the business to that point.
We have excellent people that know how to do things we don't know how to do.
For example, great story.
And I am going to say his name and he's going to cringe, but his name is coy.
Um, we hired Coy for through online, um, jobs.ph almost a year ago.
(17:41):
And he came on for one purpose.
And then he said, you know what I really love that I also do on the side.
He said, I love doing digital media, social media posts.
like creating them.
like thinking about them.
like designing them.
I like pulling clips from videos and, creating stories around them.
And he said, would you mind if I do that?
We didn't have anybody to do that.
(18:03):
we said, yes, do that.
Let's see how that turns out.
And if any of you take a look at our channels, have, um, consulting for consultants is ourchannel on YouTube and
He puts a lot of those in the Instagram posts for consulting for consultants.
And he really does it without our supervision anymore.
(18:25):
In the beginning, he would say, here's what I'm going to post, review it, let me know whatyou think.
Now we just tell him to go.
Yeah.
Now, occasionally you post something and I'll go, that's not really in line with ourbeliefs as a company.
It's just little things, maybe a word or two.
I just send it to him and say, can you take it down and do it a different way?
And he goes, okay, I'll take it down and do it a different way.
It doesn't hurt anything.
(18:45):
right
But I think we decided that we were going to go get help and it was very low cost, buthigh, high quality.
And it made all the difference because we weren't even on social media until a year ago.
Last June, we had a business coach that said, you're living in 2024 at this time.
(19:07):
People need to be able to find you.
We let people find us all the time.
And we will talk about that.
How we have a hundred percent referral only business with our corporate clients.
We said, we don't need that because people know how to find us.
And he said, that's not the point.
The point is you have a lot of knowledge and experience to share with people.
And for those people that don't get a chance to call you and contract with you, you shouldbe sharing that with them.
(19:30):
So they get a little bit every now and then so that when they're ready to hire you, theyhave the experience with you.
we only, was last June, we started trying social media.
We know what we were doing.
We had no idea what we were doing.
(19:50):
But then Koi came on board around September and he looked at it and he said, you could usea little help with that.
And so I love it.
said, yes.
Right.
And so it worked out.
And now he, actually had a call with this in this morning and I said, I just have to say,I love you.
Please don't go anywhere ever.
(20:11):
You have to be with us until the company no longer exists or you retire.
You've got to stay with us.
But it turns out he has other skills.
And so for the same rate and the same time he's giving us when we need additional help, wecall him up and say, can you do this and this and this?
And sometimes it's writing a communication, sending an email out from our corporate, fromour corporate email to a group of people.
(20:35):
And he will write it up.
He'll send it out and say, do a quick review.
Is it okay to go?
And he handles it.
So you never know.
what you're going to find in the people that you do.
you, if we just limit ourselves and say, okay, well, I need to hire a person to do mymarketing and that person just does marketing.
We're missing the opportunity to ask them, what else do you do particularly well?
(20:57):
What else do you do that you like to do?
And they talk about that in 10 X is easier than two X to surround yourself with a team ofpeople who love to do what they do because they will do it as much as they can for you.
They say, give them time off.
Don't allow them to work on weekends and holidays.
Make sure they take a break from it so they can reset their brains and come back fresh toyou.
(21:19):
But surround yourself with people that love to do what they do.
And they even encourage, ask them, are you excited to do this every day with us?
Because if you're not excited, let's find something else that you're excited to do.
And I think that's how we begin to surround ourselves with the right people.
question I'm putting on my Michael Gerber hat here for a second and so here's my questionwith regard to the example you gave with Koi.
(21:43):
All of those things that Koi is now doing for you are like out of the, are there policiesand procedures and standards and practices that have been written up for that work so if
something, God forbid something happened to Koi but if he disappears tomorrow can somebodypick it up and do that work?
You know what?
I will.
am so happy to say yes, there are, but, but I have to give Koi credit for this.
(22:06):
Koi came into our organization last year and said, where are the standards written up?
went, um, we don't have time for that.
We barely have time to do it.
Within a week, he had reviewed everything and written up a whole, whole standards andprocess.
said, every time we do something new,
(22:28):
He goes back to that document and he updates it.
And he met with another person, Gracie, who was an intern who became a real critical partof our company, who knew everything that was going on.
And he gave it to her and he said, will you review this and fill in the blanks?
What am I missing?
What details am I missing?
How do Tish and Wendy think my business partner?
(22:48):
How did they think?
And, would they agree that this is the process?
So I am so happy to say, yes, we do.
But it took.
A coy who knew how to do it, who recognized I can do this work for you, but if somethinghappens to me or anyone else, you're going to have to start over each time.
(23:09):
In fact, we've used his document now to onboard new employees.
Perfect.
And all of our, I shouldn't say employees.
have 10 99 contractors, including coy, but we used it for all of our onboarding.
He gives it to them and he highlights the sections that they're going to be.
responsible for or be involved with.
And he makes sure that he makes sure that they know exactly what needs to be done.
(23:30):
So I would say, I don't know that most entrepreneurs or solopreneurs have it alldocumented, but here's the good news about what I just said.
You don't have to do it yourself.
Right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Well, so, that's a perfect segue to the next question I was going to ask.
So going back to where we're talking about finding the people, finding the expert helpthat you need so that you're not doing it alone.
(23:53):
And we talked about like looking into your network.
But let's just say I can't even think of a good example, but let's just say, well, you andI both had people in our family who did music.
But let's just say, you know, I'm a person, I'm trying to do something.
I need to do something that involves me.
I know nothing.
know nobody in nobody in my network knows anything about music.
How then can you find those people?
You know, I'm like, I do it much like you do.
(24:14):
go to Fiverr and what I do, I use Fiverr not just for hiring because we do hire fromFiverr occasionally.
now we do more online jobs.ph because we get better quality and consistency.
But what I do with Fiverr is I put in search what I do know.
Like when I was looking for, I didn't even know it was called an intro and outro.
(24:38):
able to use that language with my brother after I had already tried with Fiverr.
I actually had someone create some music on Fiverr, but I went in and I typed in the wordsthat I did know.
I typed in something like uh digital or video needs music.
was very simple language.
(24:59):
And then all these Fiverrers
a post started popping up and it was like, Oh, it's called digital media.
It's called intro.
It's called outro.
I didn't know that I used fiber to educate me by reading their posts and reading theirprofiles to understand.
(25:21):
And then I was able to create a job.
Say, here's what I'm doing.
Here's what I need.
Here's how long it needs to be.
And then I actually went to, once I knew the language, I went to YouTube.
to find experts on it, but I didn't watch the long 30 minute videos.
I wanted the 10 minute tip.
You're creating intros and outros.
(25:42):
What do you need to know?
What do you not need to know when not to use them, when to use them.
And that's how I did it.
I think that's a good, efficient way because it doesn't take a lot of time.
And it comes back to that delegation.
I'm educating myself enough.
that I can have an intelligent conversation with someone that I might hire.
(26:05):
But I don't have to be the expert at what they do.
you
Right.
So we talked about delegation, we talked about expert help.
(26:26):
think that, you know, and those are great ways to not do things alone.
I think another thing that we need to talk about, another way to not do things alone ispartnerships.
So I just wanted to get some of your wisdom about partnerships.
Yeah.
My whole, our whole business P 31 consulting is building partnerships.
It's a quick, we're a consortium.
would call us a consortium.
(26:46):
It's just that we all work just for P 31 pretty much exclusively.
So what we did to expand and make our business more global, we had all been, there was asmall group of us had been working globally.
So clients would say, U S space clients would say, can you go to London?
Can you go to Shanghai?
Can you go to Tokyo?
(27:07):
So we would go, we would go, but they were US based companies that were sending us there.
And then our clients started to move across organizations.
These are corporations, right?
And they would call us from the new organization and say, can you come over here and dothis for us?
Because now I work for this UK based organization.
Can you come here?
And what we realized was while we could do that, there had to be a better way to buildthose businesses and give them confidence that we have people.
(27:36):
feet on the ground near where they are.
So here's what we did.
One of the first relationships we forged was with a person named Ian Bradley, who was apricing and market access expert in the UK, who was doing similar type of work with us,
some training.
He was still doing some consulting with pharmaceutical companies, helping them with theirpricing strategies.
(27:56):
We approached him because we had done some work with him and said, we want to expand P31to have foot, feet on the ground in Europe.
the UK and Europe.
And we'd like you to be that partner.
We'd like you to lead the business over there.
Would you be willing?
Cause he had his own successful business.
weren't, we were not suggesting buying his business.
(28:18):
We said, would you be willing to partner with us?
We'll bring you in and you will be a partner.
You will have equal status.
If there's a status as, as Wendy and Tish and Mike will bring you in as a partner.
But what we want you to do is build a business in the UK under the P 31 brand.
And he didn't say yes right away.
(28:39):
He said, I have to think about it.
I have to talk to my wife because I have my own brand, which is my Ian Bradley brand.
And I have to figure out if this aligns with that and what impact that would have on mine.
Do I shrink it?
Do I eliminate it?
He had to make these decisions.
Well, he came back and said yes.
And he's now been working with us over 10 years.
(29:00):
And he oversees our European, Middle East and UK business.
He has grown it substantially and he still does a little bit of work under his Ian Bradleybrand, but he, he, that focuses on his pricing and market access expertise, everything
else he does into P 31 brand.
(29:21):
did the same thing in Latin America.
Um, actually someone from there approached us and it was a person who used to be a client.
who hired us with several companies that she went to.
Every time she jumped company, she called us and said, can you come here and do work?
And then she decided she wanted to go out on her own and she called us and said, I wouldreally love to work with you.
(29:42):
Do you need any people to help with facilitating your training?
And so we had a little powwow and said, we think we want her to run our Latin Americanbusiness because we were doing work in Latin America too.
And so we brought her on as a 1099 type of person, but she lives in Latin America fortraining only.
(30:04):
And she was very humble.
She was like, I'm just really happy to do what I have my own business called lovehumankind that, that she does, which is about wellness in a corporate environment.
So it didn't conflict with us.
She said it actually compliments.
And after about a year, we just said, would you run our Latin American business?
Because we wanted to give her a chance to make sure this was a good fit.
(30:25):
Right.
it, think partnerships are excellent.
We also, by the way, have someone who runs our Canadian business, right?
And we forged a partnership with her and all of these people work.
Most of their work is with P 31, but they still maintain their brand for the other workthat they do.
(30:45):
But because of that, they have expanded P 31 in our brand and we brought in excellentpartners.
who are excellent business builders who are excellent at forging and establishinglong-term relationships, which is what you need to have success in business where they are
valued for their individual unique contributions, but they're also valued.
(31:10):
They've established the value that P 31 brings.
So people are no longer saying call Ian, call Mafay.
They're saying call P 31 31.
And those partnerships enabled us to create them.
Right.
Okay.
So as a follow-up question, at what point do you think a solopreneur entrepreneur shouldstart thinking global?
(31:32):
it really something that's realistic for every business or is that something only once youget to a certain, you know, revenue dollar amount that now you can think about going
global?
Just talk to me a little bit more about going global.
Yeah.
In my case, when we're doing our coaching, business coaching, whether we're doing it forentrepreneurs, small business owners or corporations, we're coaching them on selling
(31:57):
services.
So I'm going to answer the question from when you're selling services, when that's whatyou're offering is services, not product, because I don't really have the product
experience to share that.
When you are selling services in most cases, especially if they're professional typeservices like consulting services, it's most likely something that's needed globally.
(32:21):
And so the challenge though is for me, I think, and for, most entrepreneurs isunderstanding the differences in the cultures.
So I've had the privilege of working across cultures, but one of the things I do is I makesure it is a culture that I want to work with.
Meaning.
Can I accept the differences in how business is conducted?
(32:43):
And for most European cultures, the answer is yes.
Right.
If you go to Germany, make sure you have a black suit and a white shirt on.
That's what they still wear the work every day.
Make sure you understand.
uh Humor will be a little bit different over there, you know?
So understand this a quite serious culture, quite respectful culture.
You are not going to work after five o'clock.
(33:04):
Everyone's going to go home.
You probably break a law there if you work, if you ask anyone to do anything at five 15.
So just make sure I think it's that you understand the culture.
think one of the easiest transitions is from a U S space business to a European or UK.
Um, there are so many similarities in terms of how we conduct business across thoseculture, all of the cultures.
(33:28):
There are some nuances.
There's a big difference between France and Spain.
There's a big difference between Spain and Portugal.
But we need to, as long as we understand what those differences are, it makes it easy tomake the transition.
And I would encourage anybody, if you have relationships with anybody, that's the best wayto start when you forge relationships, establish relationships with people who are already
(33:52):
in those countries so they can educate you.
One of the things that Ian Bradley and I are UK, European guy, we work together a lot on alot of projects.
And we often joke about how he's a very polite Brit and I'm a very in your face American.
Right?
So even when we're, when we're facilitating programs and teaching and coaching, you know,he's very much, would you please do this?
(34:17):
And I'll say, no, no, no, no, go do that.
Not an option.
I'm not pleasing it.
I'm telling you, you have to go do that.
I'm not mean, just, I just sound very American.
But when I'm in the UK, I have to tone that down.
I have to add the pleases in.
I have, I know that even though I'm telling someone to do something, I have to put it inthe form of a question.
(34:41):
I'm not really asking, but I'm, I'm, respecting the culture.
I'm, being polite.
I'm honoring where I am.
We're still going to get to the same outcomes.
Right.
Just doing it in a different way.
I think.
anyone who has a service and a professional service can take their business global.
It might be different if you're an attorney or something and you only know patent law inthe United States, you don't know global.
(35:08):
When you have to have your your what now I want to say certificate.
What's the what's the term you have to have your degree or you have to be what is thething they take when they take the bar exam?
What is it that they're getting?
They're getting the our like license practice.
Yeah.
It's a practice.
Exactly.
Right.
Yeah.
And so I think I would encourage people to do it, to give it a try.
(35:29):
I would encourage people to talk to people like me who've done it.
I have a global business.
We're a small business, but we are global people in, China know who we are.
People in Japan know who we are.
People in the UK and across Europe, they know P 31.
That's the brand they know.
Um, and it's because we have worked hard to create.
(35:50):
of a brow value around the brand.
Right.
And that's why they remember the brand.
And it doesn't take a lot of work to do it.
Right.
And I don't want people to hear that it takes a lot of work.
It's not about hustling.
Don't hustle.
It's about establishing the right relationships, forging those relationships, starting todo some small projects.
(36:17):
with those people offering your services up to help them so you can build thoserelationships.
And then it's expanding it because once you start meeting a few people, we had severalpeople in Europe, we actually have two people who work from the UK that cover our UK
business at Ian overseas, right?
And they're a routine, regular part of the projects that we do, we call them first.
(36:40):
If we need more people, there are other people that Ian can call, but think about it,Ian's calling them.
because Ian has the relationships.
I don't have all of those relationships over there.
It's worth it.
don't, we, know from, don't know about your background, Rachel, but I wasn't raised tothink globally.
was raised to go to college, get a good degree, get a good job in a corporation and go upthrough the ranks.
(37:04):
That's what I was taught.
I was never taught to think outside of the United States.
You know, it's funny you say that because I was raised the same way.
However, I don't know.
I don't know where this came from.
So I have this book.
It's called A Thousand Places to See Before You Die.
And I've been I've not even come close to I've been to about 38 of them.
(37:26):
But the reason I say because when you were talking about knowing the culture in all thesedifferent areas, the reason I say it's funny you ask that question because I was raised
exactly the way you just said.
So I'm trying to figure out where this mindset came from for me.
But I used to travel to, you know, was going to all these places.
And the thing that I would do is before I would go to a country, I would learn the cultureand the language.
(37:47):
Like, for example, when I before I, and it's just like for vacation, before I took avacation to Italy, I learned Italian from Italians.
So like at the Italiano language center.
I just have to say amen because that we will go on vacation and not learn anything aboutthe culture, right?
I am like you I learned everything I can about the culture.
(38:08):
I just had to say amen uh
Well, the irony, so when I took this trip to the Amalfi Coast, the short version of thisstory is something that happened with our hotel, ended up in a legitimate Italian
mob-owned hotel.
That was not the hotel we were supposed to be in.
And everybody else in my tour group, they didn't know any of the language and they were sorude.
I was, uh I'm sure I sounded like an idiot, but at least I was trying.
(38:31):
And so I was the only one who spoke the language and understood the culture.
And they were so nice to me.
Like they were mean to everybody.
All the mean, all of the rude Americans, they were mean to everybody else.
And they treated me like a princess because I had this pride, you know?
And then, you know, there was another time I was, I got lost in downtown Papillete, whichis the capital of Tahiti.
was doing a sailing around the society islands, like, you know, like before Bora Bora andTodd and all those anyway.
(38:57):
And so coming back.
The ship got back and there was a 12 hour time frame between when we got back off the shipand when our plane left.
So I just decided to go like, just go wander around downtown and got lost and didn't thinkabout it.
And the only languages that they spoke were Tahitian and French.
And luckily, I mean, hadn't practiced my French ahead of time, but luckily I had studiedFrench for like six years and I'm like,
(39:22):
Okay, what can I do?
It was so funny because you know, I said to this guy because I was lost.
I'm trying to figure out how to get back to the hotel.
And I was like, you know, probably blue on, probably, I can't even say it.
Probably blue on grace.
He said, no, he's just eating.
No.
Okay.
Okay.
I got to figure out how to get back.
Like I said, when I say, you know, I sounded like an idiot.
(39:44):
So basically they're, they're public transportation is called Litchlock.
And it's like, you know, it's just an open air truck.
jump on and you go, you know, I'm looking at thinking about it, like the bus system in,you know, the U S and I'm thinking, I got off on this side of the street.
I get back on to go the other way on the other side of the street.
That was not the case.
And so I said to the guy, I said, where's the truck, which is, know, where's the truck?
(40:06):
And he looks at me and he goes, where's the bus?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway.
And then.
He's like giving me directions, but he's going so fast.
Like, you know, he's speaking so fast.
You know how French, you, you trail off the end of words and they, they blur together.
So it's hard to distinguish exactly what's being said.
And then just out of nowhere, the phrase pops in my head that I'd remember.
(40:29):
was like, is speak more slowly, please.
And then again, he looks at me like, I'm an idiot.
And he starts like, you're going to go up here and you're going to go go left.
like, I don't talk to me like I'm an idiot.
got to get back to my hotel.
So that's what I was thinking about when you're talking about learning the culture andlearning the language and you know, learning what's humor in one place versus humor
(40:53):
someplace else.
All those things.
So it's funny.
I don't know where that like where that came from, because like say, I was raised the sameway as you in terms of you just, you you get a job, you go up the ladder, all that stuff.
So it's funny.
I don't know where any of that came.
That's interesting because as you were talking, I was thinking, I don't know where minecame from either because I have been all over the world and wanted to go all over the
(41:16):
world and wanted to expand my business all over the world.
But it's interesting.
I don't know where it came from other than there were people early in my career when Ifirst started traveling with with Merck and other companies to other countries for
business that I realized that people in other countries travel all the time.
They think go to the United States for college.
(41:38):
They go to another country for, and I remember thinking, I never knew that was an option.
I didn't know I could go to another country for college.
And I know at some point I wanted it to be clear that I wanted to raise my children tothink beyond the United States.
We live in a world, not in a country and not only in a country.
(41:58):
And I wanted to make sure, and I don't know.
this would be really good to convert another conversation.
Like, where did we cut?
Where?
How did we get here?
Rachel?
Where, where we respect the culture.
We learn a little bit.
I learned a little bit of the language before I go to any country, at least.
Hello.
Goodbye.
Good morning.
Um, where is the bus?
Where's the subway?
(42:19):
No.
Thank you.
I learned how to say, I'm sorry.
always learn the phrase.
I'm sorry that I don't speak your language very well.
Like I always, I always make sure I know certain phrases.
I don't have to speak the language.
I just want to come there and demonstrate that I respect it.
And I love how you said that you do that.
And it makes me wonder where we got that from.
(42:42):
What point in our lives that we go, this is the right way to do this.
And it comes back to business too.
That's what we're talking about.
It is important whether you're working with another country or within your own, with anyclient to understand their culture.
How do they like to communicate?
How do they like to interact?
(43:03):
um What is their, you said humor.
What is funny to them?
What's not?
I am a big emoji person and anybody that's ever gotten an email from me, got an emoji.
Cause I am just an emoji person, but I was an emoji person long before emojis were a bigdeal.
But here's why I used to travel to Asia a lot.
used to spend five to six weeks a year there and they've been playing with emojis for 15,20 years.
(43:27):
So when I would come,
they would emoji me to death.
And I started getting in the habit of emoji.
By the time it became popular here, I was already an emoji person.
But sometimes I think how will this potential client react to the fact that I put an emojion every email?
And one day I decided.
(43:47):
Some people think of it as frivolous.
they do.
not saying that like I don't.
I do.
Yeah, I know that and I have to think about that when I send an email.
So what I typically do is with the first email I send to a new potential client, a newprospect, I don't include the emoji.
Sometimes I do as a test.
I'm thinking they're an emoji person and they're going to like this and I'll include theemoji.
(44:12):
And if they come back with emojis, I know we're good.
Right.
But I think that they need to know who I am and
If you think that you're going to get less from me intellectually and what I'm doing tohelp your business, cause I like emojis, we're probably not a good fit because you're
judging my, my intellect and my ability to help you transform your business based on thefact that I like emojis.
(44:36):
That's like saying, I don't like you cause you like red wine and I like white wine.
Right, right, exactly.
And I think most people don't understand because for I feel like for me, because I'm anemoji person from way back before there were emojis.
I'm a emoticon person when it was just a and you know, open print, they're closedparentheses, know, like I'm emoticon person.
I was like that too
(44:57):
uh But I think but also I know that I process things visually because I'm dyslexic Sovisual processing is easier for me to so like that's one of the reasons why I like visuals
But I think the people who are judging you based on the use of emoticons do not they'renot empathetic and they're not thinking about the fact that different people process
information different yes, and different things resonate with different people They'rejust thinking about themselves.
(45:20):
They're very self-focused.
So maybe the whole you know, understanding other cultures is just an empathetic
quality that both of us have.
don't know.
Yeah, yeah, I think you might be right.
I think you might be right.
Well, know, Tish, we always have such great conversations.
We need to wrap this up.
I want to wrap this up with some um book recommendations, but before we get to that, Iwant to ask you the last time we talked, you were going to a conference and I know that
(45:45):
that conference has already happened.
So I just wanted to ask you, how'd your conference go?
It was great.
the name of the conference conference is the business show Miami.
The business show has shows all over the United.
They have Vegas, they have Singapore, they have London, they have them all over.
And it's, and it was great because we did a masterclass and we offered it seven times,four times on the first day, three times in the second called sell your value, not your
(46:10):
time.
the purpose is because a lot of people who are in service based businesses, B2B, theywill.
estimate their time based on how many hours or days they think something will take.
And they assign some arbitrary value to those hours.
And that's not the way to sell value.
so pulling out a spreadsheet, listing all your tasks and putting a price next to them andadding the total is cost estimation.
(46:36):
It's not value estimation.
And so we wanted to introduce this group to a different mindset, a different way ofthinking.
And we gave three examples of stories.
where because we don't think that way, things turned out better for us and turned outbetter for the client.
But what was exciting is we only had 168 seats, so 24 per class.
(46:57):
We had 787 people register.
Wow.
So the first session had about 100 people standing.
24 sitting, some people sat on the carpet on the floor where there were open spots and therest were standing around.
So it was totally awesome.
We got excellent feedback.
(47:17):
Some people told other people to go back and watch it.
We had one person that I know of that came and watched it twice.
So she came back to do it again and was taking us.
It was real exciting.
And I think it's so important.
And this was for small business owners, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, right?
That we know what we have to offer, but we don't know how to help someone buy it from.
(47:39):
us.
Right.
And that's what we were focused on just because we have something there.
We're really good at it.
It's a really great service and we know how to talk about the service, but that's not howyou get someone to say yes to purchasing the service.
And that's what we were focusing on there.
So it was kind of exciting.
Really exciting.
That's amazing.
I'm so happy for you.
(48:00):
It was real exciting.
That's awesome.
Well, wanted to say I wanted to just sort of recap some of the books that we'verecommended and some that we talked about that maybe we've said or we haven't said.
And this is also going to be in the newsletter.
The newsletter for the first episode will be out before this episode airs.
And then there'll be a follow up for this one that will include these bookrecommendations.
(48:21):
So some of the ones that I mentioned previously in the previous episode.
was I mentioned Spend Selling by Neil Rackham.
I'd mentioned Profit First by Michael or Mike Miklovich.
I think I'm saying his name right.
I mentioned Think Again.
I think I said it was by Adam Scott.
Adam Scott is actually an actor.
The book is by Adam Grant.
(48:41):
Okay, thinking again by Adam Grant.
It's by thing again by Adam Grant.
And then um just earlier I mentioned the E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber.
um And then there was a book.
So you mentioned a book here.
So you talk about the books you mentioned.
And then there's one that you mentioned to me privately that I don't think we talked aboutyet, which is U Squared.
So tell me two books or your book.
(49:04):
two books that I recommend is 10 X is easier than two X by Benjamin Hardy and DanSullivan.
I think this is a must read for anyone who has their own business because the purpose ofthe book is to say basically in a very simple explanation for the title.
You know, we often say we want to, let's say we make $200,000 a year.
We often say, I'd like to double that.
(49:26):
I'd like to make $400,000 a year.
The book, the book makes an argument that.
It's difficult to dispute that it's actually easier to 10 X that than it is to two exit.
So it's easier to make 10 times what you make than it is to make two times what you make.
It's easier.
It takes less effort and it happens more quickly.
(49:49):
And that's why I highly recommend the book.
We at P 31, we've started incorporating all of the practices and we are sayingunprecedented change and the way we're doing our work.
I'm working a lot less.
That's why I was able to go to Japan on vacation for a few weeks.
I was able to turn the computer off, but I would recommend it to anybody.
It just got great tips on, and it's really good if it's your own business.
(50:14):
Gotcha.
The other one I recommend is called you squared.
This is all about mindset and it's about knowing who you are and not being afraid to, tobecome who you want to be or who you should be, right?
That maybe you've been resisting.
It's great.
In fact, this book inspired me and Wendy to create a retreat that we're going to do forwomen of color.
(50:37):
Right now we're collecting wait lists for it.
We're calling it only one, only you.
And it's going to be a three day retreat and we're going to have some guest speakers comein, but it's going to be very relaxed.
Where are your leotards?
Where are you?
Sweat?
Where, whatever you're comfortable in, we're just going to chill, but we're going to bevery focused on identifying.
(50:59):
what distinguishes you from everyone else.
And, I use the word distinguished because I don't believe in differentiating becausedifferentiating, may have mentioned this to you in the past implies that this is a
comparator.
That's what differentiating implies is a comparator.
I don't believe I have to differentiate myself because there is no one to compare me to.
(51:19):
So I believe that we need to learn how to distinguish ourselves like distinguishedprofessors.
Right.
They weren't compared to anybody.
They're distinguished because they do things unlike anyone else.
They have done research and demonstrated things unlike anyone else.
The only one only you is going to help each person who attends to get clarity and definewhat is uniquely only them that distinguishes them from the rest of the world.
(51:49):
There's no comparison.
want people to come to them and say, you're the only one that does this.
want to work with you.
Right, right.
And the only way we can do that is to be clear and be able to articulate whatdistinguishes me.
should be able, you should be able to say, I'm the only one in the world that does this inthis way.
And that's what the only one only re only your retreat is going to do.
(52:11):
So we're excited about that.
We're hoping that to have the first session, it's going to be a small group in 2025.
Okay.
But if any of your listeners want to contact me to get on that wait list so that we willshare what we're going to do.
they can contact me through LinkedIn is probably the best way.
Okay.
Well, actually that's a perfect segue.
(52:32):
So tell the listeners how they can get in touch.
So what's your LinkedIn handle and how can they get in touch with you?
Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn.
Just type in Tish Valdez and it's T-I-S-H not Trish Tish T-I-S-H and my last name isspelled with a B like boy, not a V.
So B-A-L-D-E-Z.
I'm the only Tish Valdez on LinkedIn.
(52:55):
You can also follow me on social media on YouTube at the Tish and Wendy channel type inTish and Wendy.
You'll find it.
You can go to Instagram and type in Tish and Wendy.
You'll find it.
Wendy Ellis Green is my partner.
We're the founders of the company.
So you'll see the Titian Wendy channels and she's my sister by the way There's a wholeepisode there on how do you build it?
(53:15):
How do you build a business and work with your sister?
friends still be all those things.
Still like to after the day is done, you still want to go out and have dinner or somethinglike that.
but the Titian Wendy channels are a good way to follow, follow what we're doing and whatI'm sharing and also to reach me.
(53:36):
You can reach me through those channels as well.
Yes, it's the word and A and D and it is Wendy W E N D Y.
Yes, that's a great question because there are lots of different spellings of Wendy.
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