June 18, 2025 • 46 mins
What causes some businesses to scale while others stay stuck in survival mode?
Jennifer Christensen, co-founder of Beacon Media + Marketing, knows the answer firsthand. After growing her Alaska-based digital marketing agency to the Inc. 5000 list, she shares the honest story of how expanding too fast—and too wide—nearly ended it all.
In this episode of Small Business Pivots, Jennifer pulls back the curtain on the real growth strategy that saved her business: radical clarity. By cutting services, redefining her mission, and doubling down on what worked, Jennifer turned a debt-ridden company into a thriving national agency.
She explains:
- Why clarity must come before marketing
- How chasing every marketing trend can sabotage growth
- Why trust is the most valuable currency in today's economy
- How customer reviews and a humanized website outperform flashy funnels
- And how her biggest breakthrough came not from strategy—but from personal development
Now operating in the “age of intelligence,” Jennifer says modern business owners must evolve or risk being left behind.
If you’ve ever felt stuck, scattered, or unsure where to focus—this episode is a must-listen.
Jennifer Christenson: Beacon Media + Marketing Co-Founder
Website: https://www.beaconmm.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferchristensenak/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beaconmm
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beaconmm/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BeaconMediaMarketing
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3BDBxY9jDasCTJtRkX7EJ2
#SmallBusinessPivots #JenniferChristensen #BeaconMediaMarketing #MarketingStrategy #BusinessGrowth #DigitalMarketingExpert #Inc5000 #EntrepreneurJourney #MarketingClarity #SmallBusinessSuccess #BusinessTransformation #WomenInBusiness #TrustInMarketing #PersonalDevelopment #BusinessCoach #AlaskaEntrepreneur #MarketingMistakes #ScalingSmart #MichaelDMorrison #BusinessPodcast #Oklahoma
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivot.
Today we have another specialguest and we are here to help
small business owners grow theirbusiness past the stuck phase,
and I know that no one canintroduce their business or
themselves like the businessowner, so I let you have the
floor to do that.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself, where you're from and
your business in your business.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thank you so much.
I'm excited to be here as well.
My name is Jennifer Christensenand I own a digital marketing
company.
This is our 13th year inbusiness.
We started a small agency inAnchorage, alaska, and served
our local market for the firstsix years and then we decided to
expand nationally.
We picked a niche market to dothat in in the health and
wellness, mental health space,and we have grown substantially.
(00:48):
We now serve clients all overthe U?
S.
We have staff all over the U?
S.
I am still in Alaska, but myco-founder is in Reno and glad
we have clients everywhere.
East coast is actually ourlargest client base now.
So it's been an incrediblejourney and have learned a lot
about myself and the businessalong the way.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I bet, I bet.
Well, what do you think we'regoing to talk about to help our
business owners with today?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I have, I have open, I have I've had three areas that
I feel like when I share withother business owners, either
when I'm speaking on stage or inperson, and that is really you
know, what is it that gets usstuck and how to get through
that.
I mean that's, you know, everybusiness owner I know is very
solution oriented.
They're like you know, I know Ineed to get to this next phase
(01:40):
or something's holding me back,and they don't always know what,
and that's normal.
So the personal development, Iwould say growth side of even
knowing yourself, having thatradical honesty and emotional
intelligence, is a hugecomponent and I'd love talking
about that because there's noway we would have scaled to an
(02:01):
Inc 5000 company like we have.
I'm a radically differentperson today than I was six
years ago.
I bet, so that's one and thendefinitely just some of the more
you know business challenges asyou get to different levels are
very different that you'refacing.
So it's even understanding thatjust because you know you get
(02:22):
to that first million, that'skind of like one section.
And then when you get to, Iwould say, like the next layer
where you're adding on employeesbeneath you that are basically
focusing on the culture and therunning of the company, that is
a whole nother phase, and so Ilove talking to people about
that too, because all you thinkof at least for me, I thought it
(02:46):
was just growth and it wouldall kind of look the same, but
it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Right?
No, you're, you're absolutelyright, so I'm ready to dig in.
Well, founder and CEO of Boss,where we make business ownership
simplified for success.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours.
Atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom,
(03:30):
we have a special guest againtoday and she shared with us a
little bit of her insights thatwe're going to talk about today.
But you're also a marketingguru and AI and some other
things.
But let's start with.
The biggest challenge that mostbusiness owners have is they
start this business, they gothrough the honeymoon and then
(03:52):
they want to jump off a cliffbecause everybody else seems to
be successful except for them,and they just can't figure it
out.
And you mentioned the wordstuck, so let's start there.
Did you have a journey whereyou got stuck and how you
overcame that, so that peoplecan learn from your experience?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Absolutely.
I think failure is a greatteacher and we've had many
failures along the way or areasthat we were very stuck.
So I'll give one example in thebeginning that happened, which
is we launched, you know digitalmarketing company in Anchorage,
alaska, 2013.
Nobody else was really in themarket there was a couple
(04:30):
freelancers, but we were earlyto market.
We actually got some prettygreat response right away.
We started growing year one andyear two with some of the
smaller businesses, which wasour passion to serve.
So that was really exciting.
And then, as we got into it, twoyears in, it was almost like
our success.
I don't want to say went to ourhead, but we started losing
(04:52):
focus, and what I mean by thatis that we knew we were supposed
to stay in this digitalmarketing niche.
That was what made us stand outin the market.
That was why people were comingto us.
But instead, when clientsstarted asking us to add the
entire rest of their marketingon so meaning, like print and
trade shows and all these otherthings that a lot of marketing
(05:14):
agencies do media buys we didn'twant to lose that business.
Hey, these clients love us, wehave good relationships.
We'll now expand into all theseother areas.
Well, all these other areas wedidn't know well, and so it
wasn't like replicating thesuccess of what we had already
done.
Now we had to learn all theseother areas.
We didn't do them as well.
(05:36):
We had to hire people to helpus.
It was two years into thatreally that expansion, what I
would call horizontally and wealmost filed bankruptcy.
We were at the point we werehundreds of thousands of dollars
in debt.
We had gone from beingprofitable at year two to now
year four.
We're hundreds of thousands ofdollars in debt.
Many people told us we shouldjust quit at that point, but
(05:59):
we're both two very stubbornwomen.
We wanted to continue to succeedand we also didn't want to let
down on our commitments.
So we just dug in.
We literally had to cancel likea third of our business.
We got rid of a third that wasoutside of our core focus.
We returned to our true North,I would call it, and it took us
(06:23):
about a year to pay everybodyoff, to dig out of that, to
refocus on what we were supposedto do.
I look back on it now in a year.
It's really a miracle that wewere able to do that.
And then we got to the end of2016, 2017, and we were
positioned to be able to growagain.
I would love to say we've nevermade mistakes like that again
(06:45):
and we, you know, stuck again.
But that is not true.
But this, that one, was verypainful.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
That was a very painful Let me ask real quick
because, as a business coach,you mentioned something you said
you lost focus and I'm lookingat your website and you've got
your core mission and values.
Did you have those before youlost focus or did you get those
afterwards?
Because I have business owners.
They get frustrated.
They feel like some of theseexercises are just busy work.
(07:14):
Can you explain how impactfulthose were to get you out of
that hump and get you refocused?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
we actually.
I remember sitting and writingthose with my business partner.
It was so overwhelminglydepressing and scary.
When we wrote those out, wewere literally at the bottom and
everything in you.
When you're, like you said, inthat situation, the last thing
you think you want to do is doquote unquote busy work.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Right.
So, like, I just need to makemoney, I just need to like we
got to solve these problemsright now.
But after being through thispainful experience where we were
, we realized if we don't focuson who we actually are, who we
want to serve, what reallymatters to us, moving forward,
we don't really have a companyanyway, and so we took the time
(08:02):
to do that in 2016.
Company anyway, and so we tookthe time to do that in 2016.
It was again.
It took almost like incrediblediscipline not to oh right, it's
like you want.
It's like it's like when you'rereally struggling on a diet and
you know you need to exercise,but it's like the hardest thing
in the world to do that firststep.
(08:22):
So that did guide us out of it.
Once we had those principles,then we started making decisions
based on those principles.
That's how we decided to evenniche down.
We actually did a full analysisof every client that we had and
we picked the top 20% ofclients that we loved working
with, that we gave greatexperience to, they loved us, we
(08:45):
got good results for, andthat's how we decided to expand
is off of that one niche of thattop 20%.
But that was all based on thoseexercises of mission, values,
beliefs, niche, all of thattogether.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Wow, that's a powerful statement because I
most business owners you canrelate to, because when they're
in a slump they want to get moresales.
Right.
But just because you get moresales doesn't mean you're going
to make more money.
It's so you're.
You're saying it was costingyou money to get those sales.
Is that what I'm hearing?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Well, yeah and I mean we just had this discussion
here we are 13 years in and wejust had this discussion
yesterday at our executivemeeting you cannot sell your way
out Now.
I know it feels that way in thebeginning and there is a
certain amount.
Yes, you do have to sell andmarket.
To get to a certain point Likeit's called what I call MVP or I
(09:44):
think what everybody calls itthat You're proving the value
proposition of your business.
You have to know that youactually have a viable business
first.
Once you've got that and you'vebasically proved, okay, this is
a viable business, whatevermistakes you make, if you're
selling the wrong thing, or it'snot your core product or it's
not profitable, you literallycan sell yourself into
(10:07):
bankruptcy, like we almost did.
If you look at our numbers atyear four, we had grown like
500% right From year one and yetwe were hundreds of thousands
in debt.
I trust me.
I come from a sales andmarketing background before I
became an entrepreneur.
That is my entire focus.
(10:27):
I get it Like.
That seems like that solves theproblem.
It does not for long-termbusiness growth.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, sounds like it compounded the problem, or could
have.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
It did.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, that's, that's awesome.
So you had your first failure,so you failed forward, as they
say.
What kind of came next?
Because it sounds like you havethe typical small business
growth pain.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
We did.
What came next out of that wasone just this.
I mean, I remember like theincredible relief we paid
everybody off, we're back tokind of zero, so to speak, and
there was just this, I don'tknow such an excitement that we
had made it through that.
We now knew our goals and ourmission.
We felt good about the nextsteps at that point.
(11:19):
Um, a lot of in digitalmarketing, everything changes
all the time.
The algorithms were constantlychanging, yeah.
So in that period we startedreally digging into who do we
want?
Now we know who we are overview.
What services do we really wantto focus on?
So we started really digging inon that.
Um, that's when we decided toexpand nationally.
(11:39):
We chose the mental health andhealth and wellness markets, and
so we started figuring out howdo we reach what we call in
Alaska the lower 48.
So how is these two women in asmall agency in Alaska?
How are we going to reachnationally?
And so we created basically ourown SEO campaigns, our own
(12:01):
content marketing campaigns, ourown social campaigns, and we
started that whole marketingpresence to dive into the market
nationally.
And that was actually a reallyexciting time, you know, coming
out of that that, you know, dip,I never thought we would be
where we are now.
I didn't.
I mean, it's hard to imaginewhen you're there, you know,
just starting that one isactually going to work, and then
(12:24):
it's, you know it's going togrow to that level, um, so
that's been great.
But yeah, that was a, that wasa special time.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
We talked earlier about business owners wanting to
market themselves, but they'renot quite ready, and so for
those business owners, some ofthem come to us as well in that
situation.
But how do they get ready?
I mean, what does it take totruly, because you're a
marketing company, where do theytruly need to be as a company,
(12:54):
focused wise?
Is it based on revenue?
Is it based on just clarity,like the processes exercises
that you went through?
What does it look like?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah, that is such a good question.
As I was telling you, we'reonly able to take a small,
pretty small percentage of theclients that come to us, and one
that's just being ethical,because other people would sign
up but they wouldn't really getthe value from it.
But what we've learned over theyears as a marketing agency is
that clarity you already said itis probably the number one
(13:29):
thing that is going to achievesuccess, and what I mean by that
is that we've had clients cometo us that actually have very
low revenue, like you know,$100,000.
Like they're just really atthat startup phase right,
they've proven viability andthey're just kind of there.
But they had so much clarityabout who they are and what
their vision is and what theirmission is and they're willing
(13:51):
to invest in the deeper work ofbrand, of really like
establishing who they are andtheir ideal customer.
We have a lady, a testimony onour website.
She went from like I think itwas under a hundred to like I
want to say half a million thenext year, and now she's a
multimillion dollar company, butshe was so clear on what she
(14:13):
wanted to do.
And then we've had other peoplethat have come in.
Maybe they even have, let's say, a couple million revenue, but
they're all over the place Rightand they just even.
They can be very successfulmarketing.
But there is what I call ahumility and confidence that
need to go together.
So the humility is beingwilling to really listen and
(14:36):
learn and really hear fromexperts on.
If you don't know where you areat that moment or where you're
going to really listen to peoplelike you and even people like
us that they're kind of therebut they're not quite sure we
can give them all that marketdata and research.
If they're not open to thatpart of it, if they just kind of
(14:57):
want somebody else to solve alltheir sales problems and their
revenue problems, we know thatthat's not going to be a client
that's probably going to do well, so we would just be taking
their money if, if and not andnot getting the results.
So I don't know if I've said itwell enough.
There's so much to the processbecause I always say like.
(15:18):
I mean there's that commonsaying of like you have to slow
down to go fast.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yep, I say it all the time.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yep and the one that I love to use.
It's actually part of our corevalues, if you look at it, is
that you have to go deep if youwant to go high.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
And so I'm a big mountain climber.
That's one of my favoritethings to do live in Alaska, so
it's perfect for that.
But before you start climbingmountains, you need to prepare
and you need to like get yourlungs together, and you need to
have your um, your month, youknow, your training done, and so
I consider that the same thing.
(15:55):
You have to be willing to godeep into really asking yourself
those hard questions beforeyou're going to be able to rise
to a high level.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
What were the first things that you did to actually
increase your revenue so youcould spend it to scale, to hire
a business coach to do thesethings, that, to grow through?
What were some of those thingsthat you did to get the sales?
I know a lot of business ownersare also stuck, especially
today with the digital marketingbecause it's so robust.
(16:26):
I feel like it's unfortunatethat the window is almost closed
for small business owners.
I know just five, 10 years agoit was wide open.
It's like you have access toall these tools just like the
big boys and girls do.
Now you got to be aprofessional to use them or
you're not.
You know you're not.
You're pretty much wasting yourtime, in my opinion.
So how do people get sales sothey can pay people like
(16:51):
yourself and me and otherprofessionals?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
That's a great question and it has changed
rapidly.
I do think we're going to see aswing back with AI.
That's going to make thingsmore accessible for people.
Small businesses again, we want.
Yeah, I really believe that.
I think we're coming back.
Maybe the next six months to ayear, you'll start seeing more
AI driven tools that will bemore approachable.
So that window that we hadabout seven years ago.
(17:18):
I think we're kind of headedback that direction, which is
great.
Small businesses deserve to beable to compete, right, but okay
.
So this is the number onelesson that I learned.
I should know better.
I have a sales and marketingbackground.
I've done this for most of mylife, but you know, when it's
your own business, it'sdifferent, Right?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Right.
So the number one lesson Iwould say to people is, instead
of worrying about what you don'thave in your marketing like I
don't even want people to thinkabout that at first what I want
them to think about is what isworking now.
So if they are doing, if theyhave a referral program, if
they're getting referrals, ifthat's how they're getting their
(18:01):
clients right Just randomly.
This is where this is what Ithink we all do as entrepreneurs
.
You think, oh, I've got acouple of people referring to me
.
I've got some business.
Okay, now I need to add digital.
Okay, well, have you maximizedyour referral?
Like, do you have agreementswith everybody?
Are you like, giving the fullvalue to, like, the people that
(18:21):
are referring to you?
Could you scale that?
So, if you already havesomething that's working, first
of all, don't throw it out.
I've actually seen businessesdo this, like they'll have a
company helping them, let's say,do SEO, and then they don't
quite feel like they're gettingenough from it, even though they
are getting some business, andthey'll fire them and hire a
(18:41):
company that does pay debts.
It seems logical, but it's not,because now you've lost what
was working, you're tryingsomething new.
There's going to be a crossoverof probably less sales for a
while before you actually getthe benefit of the next thing,
or it could be vice versa, right, but I've seen that over and
(19:04):
over and over again, where it'slike they try something and I
have no judgment, because I'vedone exactly the same thing you
try something for three months.
You kind of start to gettraction and then you're like,
oh, I'm gonna go try somethingelse, you know, and you do that
three or four times and you'redown the road a year and you're
like, oh my gosh, like nothing'sreally working.
(19:24):
So if you can just change yourmindset to, if something is
working and getting tractionmaybe it's just your Google
business profile, maybe it'slinks that you're getting online
, maybe it's chamber, maybe it'sBNI have you totally maximized
that out?
Is there anything else you cando to kind of get the extra
(19:45):
juice out of that so that youhave more sales and have more
revenue and then you can build?
So I like to think of marketingas you're building like a
foundation and they all worktogether.
So paid ads is not going tosolve everything.
Paid ads should only be 30% ofyour revenue.
If you're trying to run a wholebusiness on paid ads.
That is very, very difficult tomake that work from a revenue
(20:11):
standpoint and a return frominvestment.
Paid ads are very expensive.
But if you have the social andyou have referrals and you have
an email list and you have otherthings that then combine with
that, potential clientsgenerally will see your ad.
Then they'll go to your website, then they'll look at your
(20:32):
Facebook page, then they mightread a blog.
It all works together as anecosystem and if you're only
trying to get one thing to solveall of your problems, it's just
not going to work.
So back to your first thingfocus on what's working,
maximize that and then build onthat.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
That's fantastic advice.
I mean, no one has ever said itthat clear, because I always
tell people pick up the freakingphone, like, go talk to people
face to face, you will get asale today, versus spending the
time to create an ad.
Post it, work with it, tweak itnext week, look at the
(21:11):
algorithm.
No, no, you know.
So that's, that's perfect.
And it sounds like I'm kind ofbuilding this little thing here.
It sounds like if someone wereto go, maybe, to their like,
look at their client list andlook at your last 10 to 15, 20
clients and see, like what youwere talking about, see what's
working and go make it work more, is that?
(21:32):
I mean that would be a fairstatement, I think.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
It's totally.
I mean again, I did the samething, so I completely relate to
this Guilty Yep me too.
Yeah, we're all looking for thatnext bright, shiny object and
we might only be getting 20% offof like what we're already kind
of getting success from.
So even like the client list,like you said, what if you just
called all those clients andsaid, hey, love that, your
(21:56):
client, you know what are wedoing well for you?
What could we do better?
Who else do you know?
We all know that, but likethat's the scary part.
Like nobody really wants to dothat Right, but that's a
goldmine usually right there.
You know that that part, likenobody really wants to do that
Right, but that's a goldmine,usually right there.
You know, that, that part yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
So how much?
Since we're kind of on thisearly stage, because that's
where most people are, I think Ithink less than 8% ever hit a
million dollars.
I think was the last statistic.
So that tells me that we gotsome people that are stuck down
probably in the a hundred 200,and I just can't seem to get out
(22:33):
of that phase.
So, with all the digital things,I love what you said about find
where you're getting yourclients, but you know, sometimes
you do have to have some kindof digital presence.
So what's your recommendationwhere?
Here's the essentials of whereyou absolutely have to be,
because I see a lot of peoplewasting time on videos and
shorts and reels and it's likethat's a long term.
(22:55):
Play those ads, all that stuff.
What would you say is kind oflike at least do this so you can
be found?
You're listening to SmallBusiness Pivots.
This podcast is produced by mycompany, boss.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
(23:16):
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Now let's get back to ourspecial guest.
What would you say is kind oflike at least do this so you can
(23:38):
be found.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, so thank you for that.
That's a great question.
It does depend a little bit onindustry.
So the way I like to havepeople think about it is there's
two basic ways that marketingworks in today's era.
You either are at the place andyou show up online and or in
person at the place where peopleare already looking for your
(24:02):
service.
So that's what we call inboundmarketing or outbound marketing,
which means you are presentingthem with an ad or something
where they not they aren'tnecessarily looking for your
service, but they find out aboutyou.
So that would be like theshorts, the reels, things like
that, and that's kind of thementality of a lot of people.
Think you know, okay, well, Iwant to.
(24:24):
To like as soon as they see myad, they're going to be so
excited about what I do thatthey're going to call me and buy
my cutting board or buy myactivity or whatever it is Right
, and think about all you haveto do is just break it down and
go.
Okay, human psychology Dopeople really buy from an ad of
a company they've never heardfrom and they don't know who
(24:46):
they are and they have noconnection to them and there's
no trust?
In today's economy, trust is themost scarce thing that exists,
and when something is incrediblyscarce, it means it has high
value.
So, taking all that that I justgave you in mind, back all the
way up.
What is going to increase mylevel of trust for the least
(25:07):
amount of money?
What is going to increase mylevel of trust it for the least
amount of money, like what isgoing to give me social proof
and have people trust me so thatwhen I do show up where they're
looking for my service whetherit's google, my facebook page
you know somebody refers them tome or I have an ad out that
they actually will convert andbuy.
The best way to do that is tohave real people that write
(25:32):
reviews for you.
That's the number one way thatpeople look at you, know, decide
if you're trustworthy or not.
A video on your website is alsoreally helpful them seeing you,
knowing you, liking you,trusting you.
You have to have a website, youhave to have an online presence,
like that is non-negotiable.
Um, if you can't afford word,you know wordpress or any of
(25:54):
that stuff to start with.
Don't worry about it.
I have built sites for friendsof mine and wix.
I don't even like wix, but theycouldn't afford it.
You know, and it was just.
But you have to have somethingto start.
So if it's that 500 bucks, um,that is where you can start.
Think of it as your foundation,that you can start building all
that social proof.
So you're going to want to havereviews on there as soon as you
(26:17):
can get them.
You're going to want to havephotos of you and your team.
Anything that's personalized inthe era that we're in now, like,
take you up a notch completelyin that trust factor.
So website number one, but justa basic website that says
nothing about you, that will notdo anything for you.
Like it just doesn't work.
(26:38):
Like I could make that website.
People don't even know if it'slegit.
It could be a foreign websitewas copied.
That happens all the time.
So it has to have thosepersonal markers.
You need to have at least twoto three social accounts.
So Facebook, linkedin,depending on your industry.
Facebook, linkedin, instagramare usually my go-to.
(27:00):
Youtube's great if you're intovideo.
Everybody says video convertsbetter.
That's true.
But if you don't have thefoundational basics and you're a
typical service business inAmerica or even retail, and
you're below a million dollars,like, you are wasting your money
.
So the chances of you goingviral are and I hate saying this
(27:23):
because I love video.
It's very effective, but it'severybody wants to get like,
ignore the foundation and go tothe sexy thing.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Like that.
It's just just think about yourown behavior and how you buy
things right, the chances of youseeing a video that even
appeals to you and you clickthrough.
If you click through to theirwebsite and there is nothing
that tells you this is a legitcompany and they want a
significant amount of moneybeyond like 10 bucks or
something you're not going tobuy it right.
(27:55):
So, if I can get you know, whenyou're in that business owner
space it's hard to think thisway, but you have to think like
you have to think like your most, your toughest customer yeah,
like what, what is right?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, that's golden advice.
And you mentioned somethingearlier, kind of got off on
marketing, but that's importantto grow your business.
But you mentioned somethingthat you are a different person
today and I think a lot ofbusiness owners forget that.
And or at least I say thisuntil I change, nothing around
me changes right.
So if I'm just stagnant, mybusiness becomes stagnant.
(28:32):
What were some of those thingsthat you went through, that
you're changed today, that youmentioned personal development
and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
That's so great.
It's my favorite subjects.
I think that a couple of things.
One, my business partner movedto Reno in 2019.
And so we actually became aremote company before COVID hit,
and I did not like that.
I'm a super extrovert, I lovebeing around a lot of people, so
that was like a forced changewhich made me have to reevaluate
(29:05):
Okay, well, one, do I like this?
And two, how do I grow in thisarea?
How do I expand this?
And two, how do I grow in thisarea?
Or how do I expand my knowledge?
How do I learn other ways tostill get joy, even though I
would rather be in a workenvironment?
So that really prepared me forCOVID, which was great.
I was already ready.
But the really big thing is wehired a business coach.
(29:26):
I think it was 2020 or maybe2019, right around there and
those deeper questions.
What I started realizing is atthat point we were, you know, we
had just become like a sevenfigure company, um, which is a
huge.
You know that I totally getwhat a big deal that is.
I used to have that percentageactually on my wall of like how
(29:47):
many women entrepreneurs everhit that number.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
And it's actually 1% for women, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
A little bit under 1% and so I had that.
That was like my first goal,right, and not that it should be
money all the time, but it justhelps me not feel bad.
You know, it helped give melike perspective and feel like,
okay, we're working towardssomething.
But the business coach itwasn't even.
It was like the sum total ofall the things that were talked
(30:15):
about in those conversations,the books that we read, changing
my way of thinking.
The big aha moment for me wasrealizing like we were going for
this next really huge goal andrealizing would I hire myself in
the position and the company?
I know other people have saidthis, but it hit me like a ton
(30:37):
of bricks would I hire myself todo the work that I'm doing for
beacon to be?
And if the company were at thatlevel where we're going, you
know, 10 times basically biggerthan where we were now, and the
question was mean, the answerwas unequivocally no, I would
not hire myself.
I was not prepared for that.
So it led me down this wholepath.
(30:58):
I actually went back to school,took some business courses at
Harvard.
I read, I like read a book amonth.
I still read a book a month.
Like started really likegetting into following people
who had already been there sothat I could learn from them and
their thinking.
I had to literally change theway my brain thought because I
(31:18):
had no experience in thatcorporate, bigger world.
And so reading like for me,reading stories and biographies,
and I mean even like peoplelike Winston Churchill, like I
expanded it even by on businessyou know leaders right, how to
how to leaders operate I was alittle disappointed there
weren't that many women that Icould read about, but I did find
(31:41):
a few that were, that werehelpful, but that started to
expand my thinking.
And then, as we face problems atthe higher level, which you're
going to face, differentproblems there I felt so much
more prepared and you know otherpeople had faced them, so I
didn't feel like I was facingthem for the first time.
I had knowledge and informationof okay, this is how other
(32:04):
people have walked through, that.
This is not unusual.
This makes sense for the phasethat we're in, Right, and I mean
the answer today is what I hiremyself is yes, so that's so.
That really built my confidencetoo of just knowing that I had
this next goal to look forwardto.
I want to be proud and feelgood about the work that I'm
(32:27):
doing in the company and theneventually exit Right.
For right now I want to feellike you know what I'm
contributing, that I couldanswer that question.
I feel good about it.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Wow, what is your?
So?
Two books.
What is your favorite personthat you enjoyed reading about,
that you learned a lot from, andthen, secondly, what is your
favorite business book that youwould recommend to somebody that
really impacted you?
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Oh my gosh, I have so many.
The most impactful book for mepersonally was Chris Voss.
It's called Never Split theDifference.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Oh yes.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, and what an amazing storyteller for one
thing.
Like he's a great storyteller.
What an amazing storyteller forone thing he's a great
storyteller.
One of my biggest weaknesses,coming off of what I would say
kind of a lifetime of being apeople pleaser, more personality
, not liking conflict and Idon't know if most people really
(33:25):
like conflict, but I reallydidn't like conflict.
So you can imagine, as a leadergrowing a business, you're
going to have conflict, you'regoing to have negotiations.
That's a big part of business.
And reading his book, my husbandsaid across the room I was like
yelling as I was reading hisbook because it just opened a
whole awareness andunderstanding for me that there
(33:46):
was a way I could learn this.
You know, I felt very stuck inthat area, knowing that, like my
inability to have hardconversations when you need to
have hard conversations or to beable to negotiate in a way that
was like a win-win for bothpeople, was hurting our business
tremendously, Like that washolding us back.
(34:08):
And so I must've read that bookeight times and it just like
the, and I actually implementedstuff right away.
It wasn't just like I read it,I implemented stuff immediately.
It started working.
I still yeah, I still use todayin my email signature that are
from that book and it itactually again started changing
(34:29):
my thinking because, as I hadthese hard conversations and
then I had good results, thatblew me out of the water.
It was like, oh my gosh, peopledon't respect me because I'm
not speaking the truth.
You can say it in a nice way,I'm not standing up for myself,
(34:49):
and they can sense that.
People can sense that they'rekind of getting the better deal
and then it makes there's a lackof respect.
There can become boundaryissues, all of those things and
I found people respected me alot more.
I respected myself more and ourbusiness was more successful.
So I love that.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
I love that.
I love that.
Who was your favorite person?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
you've enjoyed learning their stories from gosh
, this is probably gonna likenot go well, but I'm gonna say
it anyway.
It's really true.
Um so, elon musk, his thebiography of elon musk not not I
know it's a very controversialperson not for the reason of
necessarily it, maybe not.
(35:32):
I'm not like an Elon Musk hugefan and I'm not an Elon Musk
huge detractor.
What I loved about readingabout him probably like him and
Steve Jobs were my two.
This is going to sound arrogant, I promise you like this is not
what I mean by this, but Icould relate to both of them and
that they were more like thevisionary side of the company
(35:55):
and that is more my style.
Like that's more mycontribution is more like the
visionary piece and like the um,innovation side of the company
and all of that and so and I waspulling that from them out of
the book If you read thebiography of Elon and like his
horrible childhood and like, youjust understand him a whole lot
(36:16):
better as a person.
There's so much pain in thatbook.
But the innovation side Iactually learned pieces from
that book of I would nevercommunicate the way he does and
I would not want to, but how hewould like take the vision idea
and execute it Like that is sucha rare thing to be able to take
(36:39):
this very kind of nebulous bigidea and be able to communicate
it in a way that other peoplecould understand it and bring it
to life.
So that's probably my favoritebook if you're really into
innovation and have really tolife.
So that was that's probably myfavorite book If you're really
into innovation and really bigideas, there's pieces in that
that are really incredible.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
I had a podcast guest probably two years ago that did
a similar thing as you, andI've done that since and so, but
I haven't done it monthly.
I study, pick one personannually and just anything
that's written about them andmine is not controversial
(37:22):
probably, but a lot of peopledon't like him and that's Jeff
Bezos, because he's similar toMusk in the fact that you think
about.
He has the thing that anybodycould have done but nobody did.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
And how did you make that happen?
You know what I mean.
And so just that vision,because I think all business
owners, that's probably ourbiggest weakness is we are
visionaries and we can't slowdown to go fast, because we're
always thinking about the nextbig thing before the other thing
, like you were talking aboutwith sales.
Where are your sales comingfrom?
Don't switch it up, don't messwith what's working.
(37:58):
Focus on that.
And so, yeah, jeff Bezos hasbeen one of my latest guys that
I've been studying.
You really can.
So since that I don't rememberhis name, but since that guest
mentioned what you do, the samething I've been doing it and
it's like wow, it is amazing theimpact it can have on you.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
It is.
Reading is.
I mean, I don't know if youfollow Dan Sullivan or read any
of his books, but I mean hugefan of him, of course, and it
just is so comforting.
I don't even know if I would bewhere I am today if I hadn't
and I don't think this was froma book, but I remember reading
about maybe it was like articlesI was reading.
(38:37):
I'm very, very ADD and I alwaysthought that will keep me from
ever truly succeeding at a highlevel, like Richard Branson and
I can't remember who the othergentleman was but these
incredible leaders and businessfolks that are incredibly ADD
(38:59):
probably even more than me buthow they learn to harness that
and then grow with it.
So I think reading aboutpeople's stories and their books
of how they've gone ahead ofyou like that can not only
inspire you but it can give youa whole different trajectory for
your business.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Absolutely Well.
We've talked about marketing,we've talked about personal
development.
What is one more insight thatyou feel would be relevant for
small business owners who arestuck?
It could be AI, it could be, itcould be anything that you feel
like would really be helpful tobusiness owners.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I would say, if you're in that beginning phase
that first you said you feellike most of the people podcast
are probably right in thatsection whether they're stuck
there I would say two things.
I would say two things.
(40:05):
One, whatever you can do withthis, whether you're current
clients or if you don't havecurrent clients, take time to
interview the people that eitherare clients of your business.
So we're so excited to getthose first sales that we often,
you know and just like getthose sales and momentum and
grow on it that we often don'tactually go back and find out
okay, well, what was it reallythat made you decide to work
with me?
What is the value that you'rereally getting out of this
(40:27):
relationship or this product?
And there's so many ways to dothat.
I know we can do that throughemail.
I know we can do it through,you know, online surveys,
picking up the phone and talkingto somebody or having coffee.
You will get so much moreinformation.
So if you can do that with 10clients, I guarantee you you're
(40:48):
going to be shocked.
I know I have been every timeI've done it.
What I will find, even now, 13years into business, is that the
value that clients are gettingfrom Beacon is different than
what we're selling.
It's different from what wethink is the value you know
they'll come back to.
Oh, I don't have peace of mindabout my tech, you know.
I have peace of mind that mywebsite goes down.
(41:09):
I don't have to worry aboutthis.
That's not what we think we'reselling.
But that can be this hugecomponent.
I can call up my accountmanager.
They always get back to mewithin an hour and they can
answer this question of I don'tknow whether this is spam or not
.
That's not in our salesproposal, but that is literally
(41:29):
this huge value piece.
So that can actually help youcreate better services.
That can help you make sureyou're not cutting something off
that is actually like the coreof your business.
You might cut that off and noteven realize that was a value
for your, for your clients.
And then the second thing Iwould say is two options.
You know, go to therapy, find ayou know faith community, read
(41:54):
books, find something that isgoing to help you grow as a
person so that you can grow.
Your business can grow with you.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Well, let's talk about how people can learn more
about you and your business andwhat's the best place to follow
you, because I'm sure you'vepeeked some ears that people
want to learn more and we onlyhave, you know, just a few
minutes today.
So what's the little bit aboutBeacon?
Who they help, how they helpand then how they can find out
(42:23):
more about you.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Great, thank you.
So beaconmmcom for Beacon MediaMarketing.
Please check out our website.
We have forums in there.
We have a chat bot.
You can do a 15-minute call forfree or 30-minute call for free
.
Definitely, people can reachout to me on LinkedIn.
That's probably my number onechannel where I'm talking to
people a lot.
I always do a free consult ifsomebody just wants advice.
(42:48):
So many people helped me in thebeginning and I am committed to
that.
So I have a couple of peoplethat I mentor and, but you know,
a 15, 20 minute conversationI'm always open to.
So LinkedIn isJenniferChristensenAKcom.
And yeah, just go to myLinkedIn and would love to chat.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
All right, all right.
Well, I always finish with onelast question, and that is if
you were in a room full ofbusiness owners different
industries, different seasons ofbusiness what's one thing that
could be applicable to all ofthem, because some of the stuff
we talk about is for differentphases of business, but what's
one thing you found that couldbe applicable to all of them?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
If I was in a business meeting today with a
group no matter what phaseyou're in, we haven't really
talked about this, but what Iwould say because I think it's
so timely and important forright now, this is not going to
change over the next couple ofyears.
I would say to them, if theyweren't aware from my experience
, what I've been studying forthe last three years and
interacting with we have movedout of the information age and
(43:54):
we have moved into the age ofintelligence, and so there is a
massive shift to the market thatis coming and has already
started, and so, with that inmind, recognize that we're all
in the same boat.
It's not something to be afraidof but, like everything, we have
(44:17):
to embrace change if we'regoing to continue to grow and
decide.
You have to have the deeperconversation before you can move
ahead with this new era.
So, you know, if you were inagriculture when the industrial
age happened and you, like, sawthis coming which is again I
think this is even a biggershift than that was actually um,
you would need to have thatdeeper conversation of okay,
(44:39):
where do we want to be?
Who do we want to be in thisera?
How does this work, for youknow where we're going and then
start slowly setting tools, get,get some experts, start moving
that direction, depending onwhat you decide.
But you can't ignore that we'rein the middle of a seismic
shift right now.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Yeah, it's almost like the people that said the
World Wide Web is the dot com,all that's.
You know, I'm not going to dothat.
Well, you should have, becauseyou're not in business anymore.
So that's sound advice.
So I appreciate you, jennifer.
You've been a wealth ofinformation and a blessing to
many today, and I wish youcontinued success.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Thank you for listening to Small Business
Pivots.
This podcast is created andproduced by my company, boss.
Our business is growing.
Yours, boss, offers flexiblebusiness loans with business
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Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
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(45:43):
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We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivot.
Today we have another specialguest and we are here to help
small business owners grow theirbusiness past the stuck phase,
and I know that no one canintroduce their business or
themselves like the businessowner, so I let you have the
floor to do that.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself, where you're from and
your business in your business.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thank you so much.
I'm excited to be here as well.
My name is Jennifer Christensenand I own a digital marketing
company.
This is our 13th year inbusiness.
We started a small agency inAnchorage, alaska, and served
our local market for the firstsix years and then we decided to
expand nationally.
We picked a niche market to dothat in in the health and
wellness, mental health space,and we have grown substantially.
(00:48):
We now serve clients all overthe U?
S.
We have staff all over the U?
S.
I am still in Alaska, but myco-founder is in Reno and glad
we have clients everywhere.
East coast is actually ourlargest client base now.
So it's been an incrediblejourney and have learned a lot
about myself and the businessalong the way.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I bet, I bet.
Well, what do you think we'regoing to talk about to help our
business owners with today?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I have, I have open, I have I've had three areas that
I feel like when I share withother business owners, either
when I'm speaking on stage or inperson, and that is really you
know, what is it that gets usstuck and how to get through
that.
I mean that's, you know, everybusiness owner I know is very
solution oriented.
They're like you know, I know Ineed to get to this next phase
(01:40):
or something's holding me back,and they don't always know what,
and that's normal.
So the personal development, Iwould say growth side of even
knowing yourself, having thatradical honesty and emotional
intelligence, is a hugecomponent and I'd love talking
about that because there's noway we would have scaled to an
(02:01):
Inc 5000 company like we have.
I'm a radically differentperson today than I was six
years ago.
I bet, so that's one and thendefinitely just some of the more
you know business challenges asyou get to different levels are
very different that you'refacing.
So it's even understanding thatjust because you know you get
(02:22):
to that first million, that'skind of like one section.
And then when you get to, Iwould say, like the next layer
where you're adding on employeesbeneath you that are basically
focusing on the culture and therunning of the company, that is
a whole nother phase, and so Ilove talking to people about
that too, because all you thinkof at least for me, I thought it
(02:46):
was just growth and it wouldall kind of look the same, but
it doesn't.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Right?
No, you're, you're absolutelyright, so I'm ready to dig in.
Well, founder and CEO of Boss,where we make business ownership
simplified for success.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours.
Atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom,
(03:30):
we have a special guest againtoday and she shared with us a
little bit of her insights thatwe're going to talk about today.
But you're also a marketingguru and AI and some other
things.
But let's start with.
The biggest challenge that mostbusiness owners have is they
start this business, they gothrough the honeymoon and then
(03:52):
they want to jump off a cliffbecause everybody else seems to
be successful except for them,and they just can't figure it
out.
And you mentioned the wordstuck, so let's start there.
Did you have a journey whereyou got stuck and how you
overcame that, so that peoplecan learn from your experience?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Absolutely.
I think failure is a greatteacher and we've had many
failures along the way or areasthat we were very stuck.
So I'll give one example in thebeginning that happened, which
is we launched, you know digitalmarketing company in Anchorage,
alaska, 2013.
Nobody else was really in themarket there was a couple
(04:30):
freelancers, but we were earlyto market.
We actually got some prettygreat response right away.
We started growing year one andyear two with some of the
smaller businesses, which wasour passion to serve.
So that was really exciting.
And then, as we got into it, twoyears in, it was almost like
our success.
I don't want to say went to ourhead, but we started losing
(04:52):
focus, and what I mean by thatis that we knew we were supposed
to stay in this digitalmarketing niche.
That was what made us stand outin the market.
That was why people were comingto us.
But instead, when clientsstarted asking us to add the
entire rest of their marketingon so meaning, like print and
trade shows and all these otherthings that a lot of marketing
(05:14):
agencies do media buys we didn'twant to lose that business.
Hey, these clients love us, wehave good relationships.
We'll now expand into all theseother areas.
Well, all these other areas wedidn't know well, and so it
wasn't like replicating thesuccess of what we had already
done.
Now we had to learn all theseother areas.
We didn't do them as well.
(05:36):
We had to hire people to helpus.
It was two years into thatreally that expansion, what I
would call horizontally and wealmost filed bankruptcy.
We were at the point we werehundreds of thousands of dollars
in debt.
We had gone from beingprofitable at year two to now
year four.
We're hundreds of thousands ofdollars in debt.
Many people told us we shouldjust quit at that point, but
(05:59):
we're both two very stubbornwomen.
We wanted to continue to succeedand we also didn't want to let
down on our commitments.
So we just dug in.
We literally had to cancel likea third of our business.
We got rid of a third that wasoutside of our core focus.
We returned to our true North,I would call it, and it took us
(06:23):
about a year to pay everybodyoff, to dig out of that, to
refocus on what we were supposedto do.
I look back on it now in a year.
It's really a miracle that wewere able to do that.
And then we got to the end of2016, 2017, and we were
positioned to be able to growagain.
I would love to say we've nevermade mistakes like that again
(06:45):
and we, you know, stuck again.
But that is not true.
But this, that one, was verypainful.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
That was a very painful Let me ask real quick
because, as a business coach,you mentioned something you said
you lost focus and I'm lookingat your website and you've got
your core mission and values.
Did you have those before youlost focus or did you get those
afterwards?
Because I have business owners.
They get frustrated.
They feel like some of theseexercises are just busy work.
(07:14):
Can you explain how impactfulthose were to get you out of
that hump and get you refocused?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
we actually.
I remember sitting and writingthose with my business partner.
It was so overwhelminglydepressing and scary.
When we wrote those out, wewere literally at the bottom and
everything in you.
When you're, like you said, inthat situation, the last thing
you think you want to do is doquote unquote busy work.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Right.
So, like, I just need to makemoney, I just need to like we
got to solve these problemsright now.
But after being through thispainful experience where we were
, we realized if we don't focuson who we actually are, who we
want to serve, what reallymatters to us, moving forward,
we don't really have a companyanyway, and so we took the time
(08:02):
to do that in 2016.
Company anyway, and so we tookthe time to do that in 2016.
It was again.
It took almost like incrediblediscipline not to oh right, it's
like you want.
It's like it's like when you'rereally struggling on a diet and
you know you need to exercise,but it's like the hardest thing
in the world to do that firststep.
(08:22):
So that did guide us out of it.
Once we had those principles,then we started making decisions
based on those principles.
That's how we decided to evenniche down.
We actually did a full analysisof every client that we had and
we picked the top 20% ofclients that we loved working
with, that we gave greatexperience to, they loved us, we
(08:45):
got good results for, andthat's how we decided to expand
is off of that one niche of thattop 20%.
But that was all based on thoseexercises of mission, values,
beliefs, niche, all of thattogether.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Wow, that's a powerful statement because I
most business owners you canrelate to, because when they're
in a slump they want to get moresales.
Right.
But just because you get moresales doesn't mean you're going
to make more money.
It's so you're.
You're saying it was costingyou money to get those sales.
Is that what I'm hearing?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Well, yeah and I mean we just had this discussion
here we are 13 years in and wejust had this discussion
yesterday at our executivemeeting you cannot sell your way
out Now.
I know it feels that way in thebeginning and there is a
certain amount.
Yes, you do have to sell andmarket.
To get to a certain point Likeit's called what I call MVP or I
(09:44):
think what everybody calls itthat You're proving the value
proposition of your business.
You have to know that youactually have a viable business
first.
Once you've got that and you'vebasically proved, okay, this is
a viable business, whatevermistakes you make, if you're
selling the wrong thing, or it'snot your core product or it's
not profitable, you literallycan sell yourself into
(10:07):
bankruptcy, like we almost did.
If you look at our numbers atyear four, we had grown like
500% right From year one and yetwe were hundreds of thousands
in debt.
I trust me.
I come from a sales andmarketing background before I
became an entrepreneur.
That is my entire focus.
(10:27):
I get it Like.
That seems like that solves theproblem.
It does not for long-termbusiness growth.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, sounds like it compounded the problem, or could
have.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
It did.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, that's, that's awesome.
So you had your first failure,so you failed forward, as they
say.
What kind of came next?
Because it sounds like you havethe typical small business
growth pain.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
We did.
What came next out of that wasone just this.
I mean, I remember like theincredible relief we paid
everybody off, we're back tokind of zero, so to speak, and
there was just this, I don'tknow such an excitement that we
had made it through that.
We now knew our goals and ourmission.
We felt good about the nextsteps at that point.
(11:19):
Um, a lot of in digitalmarketing, everything changes
all the time.
The algorithms were constantlychanging, yeah.
So in that period we startedreally digging into who do we
want?
Now we know who we are overview.
What services do we really wantto focus on?
So we started really digging inon that.
Um, that's when we decided toexpand nationally.
(11:39):
We chose the mental health andhealth and wellness markets, and
so we started figuring out howdo we reach what we call in
Alaska the lower 48.
So how is these two women in asmall agency in Alaska?
How are we going to reachnationally?
And so we created basically ourown SEO campaigns, our own
(12:01):
content marketing campaigns, ourown social campaigns, and we
started that whole marketingpresence to dive into the market
nationally.
And that was actually a reallyexciting time, you know, coming
out of that that, you know, dip,I never thought we would be
where we are now.
I didn't.
I mean, it's hard to imaginewhen you're there, you know,
just starting that one isactually going to work, and then
(12:24):
it's, you know it's going togrow to that level, um, so
that's been great.
But yeah, that was a, that wasa special time.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
We talked earlier about business owners wanting to
market themselves, but they'renot quite ready, and so for
those business owners, some ofthem come to us as well in that
situation.
But how do they get ready?
I mean, what does it take totruly, because you're a
marketing company, where do theytruly need to be as a company,
(12:54):
focused wise?
Is it based on revenue?
Is it based on just clarity,like the processes exercises
that you went through?
What does it look like?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah, that is such a good question.
As I was telling you, we'reonly able to take a small,
pretty small percentage of theclients that come to us, and one
that's just being ethical,because other people would sign
up but they wouldn't really getthe value from it.
But what we've learned over theyears as a marketing agency is
that clarity you already said itis probably the number one
(13:29):
thing that is going to achievesuccess, and what I mean by that
is that we've had clients cometo us that actually have very
low revenue, like you know,$100,000.
Like they're just really atthat startup phase right,
they've proven viability andthey're just kind of there.
But they had so much clarityabout who they are and what
their vision is and what theirmission is and they're willing
(13:51):
to invest in the deeper work ofbrand, of really like
establishing who they are andtheir ideal customer.
We have a lady, a testimony onour website.
She went from like I think itwas under a hundred to like I
want to say half a million thenext year, and now she's a
multimillion dollar company, butshe was so clear on what she
(14:13):
wanted to do.
And then we've had other peoplethat have come in.
Maybe they even have, let's say, a couple million revenue, but
they're all over the place Rightand they just even.
They can be very successfulmarketing.
But there is what I call ahumility and confidence that
need to go together.
So the humility is beingwilling to really listen and
(14:36):
learn and really hear fromexperts on.
If you don't know where you areat that moment or where you're
going to really listen to peoplelike you and even people like
us that they're kind of therebut they're not quite sure we
can give them all that marketdata and research.
If they're not open to thatpart of it, if they just kind of
(14:57):
want somebody else to solve alltheir sales problems and their
revenue problems, we know thatthat's not going to be a client
that's probably going to do well, so we would just be taking
their money if, if and not andnot getting the results.
So I don't know if I've said itwell enough.
There's so much to the processbecause I always say like.
(15:18):
I mean there's that commonsaying of like you have to slow
down to go fast.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yep, I say it all the time.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yep and the one that I love to use.
It's actually part of our corevalues, if you look at it, is
that you have to go deep if youwant to go high.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
And so I'm a big mountain climber.
That's one of my favoritethings to do live in Alaska, so
it's perfect for that.
But before you start climbingmountains, you need to prepare
and you need to like get yourlungs together, and you need to
have your um, your month, youknow, your training done, and so
I consider that the same thing.
(15:55):
You have to be willing to godeep into really asking yourself
those hard questions beforeyou're going to be able to rise
to a high level.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
What were the first things that you did to actually
increase your revenue so youcould spend it to scale, to hire
a business coach to do thesethings, that, to grow through?
What were some of those thingsthat you did to get the sales?
I know a lot of business ownersare also stuck, especially
today with the digital marketingbecause it's so robust.
(16:26):
I feel like it's unfortunatethat the window is almost closed
for small business owners.
I know just five, 10 years agoit was wide open.
It's like you have access toall these tools just like the
big boys and girls do.
Now you got to be aprofessional to use them or
you're not.
You know you're not.
You're pretty much wasting yourtime, in my opinion.
So how do people get sales sothey can pay people like
(16:51):
yourself and me and otherprofessionals?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
That's a great question and it has changed
rapidly.
I do think we're going to see aswing back with AI.
That's going to make thingsmore accessible for people.
Small businesses again, we want.
Yeah, I really believe that.
I think we're coming back.
Maybe the next six months to ayear, you'll start seeing more
AI driven tools that will bemore approachable.
So that window that we hadabout seven years ago.
(17:18):
I think we're kind of headedback that direction, which is
great.
Small businesses deserve to beable to compete, right, but okay
.
So this is the number onelesson that I learned.
I should know better.
I have a sales and marketingbackground.
I've done this for most of mylife, but you know, when it's
your own business, it'sdifferent, Right?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Right.
So the number one lesson Iwould say to people is, instead
of worrying about what you don'thave in your marketing like I
don't even want people to thinkabout that at first what I want
them to think about is what isworking now.
So if they are doing, if theyhave a referral program, if
they're getting referrals, ifthat's how they're getting their
(18:01):
clients right Just randomly.
This is where this is what Ithink we all do as entrepreneurs
.
You think, oh, I've got acouple of people referring to me
.
I've got some business.
Okay, now I need to add digital.
Okay, well, have you maximizedyour referral?
Like, do you have agreementswith everybody?
Are you like, giving the fullvalue to, like, the people that
(18:21):
are referring to you?
Could you scale that?
So, if you already havesomething that's working, first
of all, don't throw it out.
I've actually seen businessesdo this, like they'll have a
company helping them, let's say,do SEO, and then they don't
quite feel like they're gettingenough from it, even though they
are getting some business, andthey'll fire them and hire a
(18:41):
company that does pay debts.
It seems logical, but it's not,because now you've lost what
was working, you're tryingsomething new.
There's going to be a crossoverof probably less sales for a
while before you actually getthe benefit of the next thing,
or it could be vice versa, right, but I've seen that over and
(19:04):
over and over again, where it'slike they try something and I
have no judgment, because I'vedone exactly the same thing you
try something for three months.
You kind of start to gettraction and then you're like,
oh, I'm gonna go try somethingelse, you know, and you do that
three or four times and you'redown the road a year and you're
like, oh my gosh, like nothing'sreally working.
(19:24):
So if you can just change yourmindset to, if something is
working and getting tractionmaybe it's just your Google
business profile, maybe it'slinks that you're getting online
, maybe it's chamber, maybe it'sBNI have you totally maximized
that out?
Is there anything else you cando to kind of get the extra
(19:45):
juice out of that so that youhave more sales and have more
revenue and then you can build?
So I like to think of marketingas you're building like a
foundation and they all worktogether.
So paid ads is not going tosolve everything.
Paid ads should only be 30% ofyour revenue.
If you're trying to run a wholebusiness on paid ads.
That is very, very difficult tomake that work from a revenue
(20:11):
standpoint and a return frominvestment.
Paid ads are very expensive.
But if you have the social andyou have referrals and you have
an email list and you have otherthings that then combine with
that, potential clientsgenerally will see your ad.
Then they'll go to your website, then they'll look at your
(20:32):
Facebook page, then they mightread a blog.
It all works together as anecosystem and if you're only
trying to get one thing to solveall of your problems, it's just
not going to work.
So back to your first thingfocus on what's working,
maximize that and then build onthat.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
That's fantastic advice.
I mean, no one has ever said itthat clear, because I always
tell people pick up the freakingphone, like, go talk to people
face to face, you will get asale today, versus spending the
time to create an ad.
Post it, work with it, tweak itnext week, look at the
(21:11):
algorithm.
No, no, you know.
So that's, that's perfect.
And it sounds like I'm kind ofbuilding this little thing here.
It sounds like if someone wereto go, maybe, to their like,
look at their client list andlook at your last 10 to 15, 20
clients and see, like what youwere talking about, see what's
working and go make it work more, is that?
(21:32):
I mean that would be a fairstatement, I think.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
It's totally.
I mean again, I did the samething, so I completely relate to
this Guilty Yep me too.
Yeah, we're all looking for thatnext bright, shiny object and
we might only be getting 20% offof like what we're already kind
of getting success from.
So even like the client list,like you said, what if you just
called all those clients andsaid, hey, love that, your
(21:56):
client, you know what are wedoing well for you?
What could we do better?
Who else do you know?
We all know that, but likethat's the scary part.
Like nobody really wants to dothat Right, but that's a
goldmine usually right there.
You know that that part, likenobody really wants to do that
Right, but that's a goldmine,usually right there.
You know, that, that part yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
So how much?
Since we're kind of on thisearly stage, because that's
where most people are, I think Ithink less than 8% ever hit a
million dollars.
I think was the last statistic.
So that tells me that we gotsome people that are stuck down
probably in the a hundred 200,and I just can't seem to get out
(22:33):
of that phase.
So, with all the digital things,I love what you said about find
where you're getting yourclients, but you know, sometimes
you do have to have some kindof digital presence.
So what's your recommendationwhere?
Here's the essentials of whereyou absolutely have to be,
because I see a lot of peoplewasting time on videos and
shorts and reels and it's likethat's a long term.
(22:55):
Play those ads, all that stuff.
What would you say is kind oflike at least do this so you can
be found?
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Now let's get back to ourspecial guest.
What would you say is kind oflike at least do this so you can
(23:38):
be found.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, so thank you for that.
That's a great question.
It does depend a little bit onindustry.
So the way I like to havepeople think about it is there's
two basic ways that marketingworks in today's era.
You either are at the place andyou show up online and or in
person at the place where peopleare already looking for your
(24:02):
service.
So that's what we call inboundmarketing or outbound marketing,
which means you are presentingthem with an ad or something
where they not they aren'tnecessarily looking for your
service, but they find out aboutyou.
So that would be like theshorts, the reels, things like
that, and that's kind of thementality of a lot of people.
Think you know, okay, well, Iwant to.
(24:24):
To like as soon as they see myad, they're going to be so
excited about what I do thatthey're going to call me and buy
my cutting board or buy myactivity or whatever it is Right
, and think about all you haveto do is just break it down and
go.
Okay, human psychology Dopeople really buy from an ad of
a company they've never heardfrom and they don't know who
(24:46):
they are and they have noconnection to them and there's
no trust?
In today's economy, trust is themost scarce thing that exists,
and when something is incrediblyscarce, it means it has high
value.
So, taking all that that I justgave you in mind, back all the
way up.
What is going to increase mylevel of trust for the least
(25:07):
amount of money?
What is going to increase mylevel of trust it for the least
amount of money, like what isgoing to give me social proof
and have people trust me so thatwhen I do show up where they're
looking for my service whetherit's google, my facebook page
you know somebody refers them tome or I have an ad out that
they actually will convert andbuy.
The best way to do that is tohave real people that write
(25:32):
reviews for you.
That's the number one way thatpeople look at you, know, decide
if you're trustworthy or not.
A video on your website is alsoreally helpful them seeing you,
knowing you, liking you,trusting you.
You have to have a website, youhave to have an online presence,
like that is non-negotiable.
Um, if you can't afford word,you know wordpress or any of
(25:54):
that stuff to start with.
Don't worry about it.
I have built sites for friendsof mine and wix.
I don't even like wix, but theycouldn't afford it.
You know, and it was just.
But you have to have somethingto start.
So if it's that 500 bucks, um,that is where you can start.
Think of it as your foundation,that you can start building all
that social proof.
So you're going to want to havereviews on there as soon as you
(26:17):
can get them.
You're going to want to havephotos of you and your team.
Anything that's personalized inthe era that we're in now, like,
take you up a notch completelyin that trust factor.
So website number one, but justa basic website that says
nothing about you, that will notdo anything for you.
Like it just doesn't work.
(26:38):
Like I could make that website.
People don't even know if it'slegit.
It could be a foreign websitewas copied.
That happens all the time.
So it has to have thosepersonal markers.
You need to have at least twoto three social accounts.
So Facebook, linkedin,depending on your industry.
Facebook, linkedin, instagramare usually my go-to.
(27:00):
Youtube's great if you're intovideo.
Everybody says video convertsbetter.
That's true.
But if you don't have thefoundational basics and you're a
typical service business inAmerica or even retail, and
you're below a million dollars,like, you are wasting your money
.
So the chances of you goingviral are and I hate saying this
(27:23):
because I love video.
It's very effective, but it'severybody wants to get like,
ignore the foundation and go tothe sexy thing.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Like that.
It's just just think about yourown behavior and how you buy
things right, the chances of youseeing a video that even
appeals to you and you clickthrough.
If you click through to theirwebsite and there is nothing
that tells you this is a legitcompany and they want a
significant amount of moneybeyond like 10 bucks or
something you're not going tobuy it right.
(27:55):
So, if I can get you know, whenyou're in that business owner
space it's hard to think thisway, but you have to think like
you have to think like your most, your toughest customer yeah,
like what, what is right?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, that's golden advice.
And you mentioned somethingearlier, kind of got off on
marketing, but that's importantto grow your business.
But you mentioned somethingthat you are a different person
today and I think a lot ofbusiness owners forget that.
And or at least I say thisuntil I change, nothing around
me changes right.
So if I'm just stagnant, mybusiness becomes stagnant.
(28:32):
What were some of those thingsthat you went through, that
you're changed today, that youmentioned personal development
and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
That's so great.
It's my favorite subjects.
I think that a couple of things.
One, my business partner movedto Reno in 2019.
And so we actually became aremote company before COVID hit,
and I did not like that.
I'm a super extrovert, I lovebeing around a lot of people, so
that was like a forced changewhich made me have to reevaluate
(29:05):
Okay, well, one, do I like this?
And two, how do I grow in thisarea?
How do I expand this?
And two, how do I grow in thisarea?
Or how do I expand my knowledge?
How do I learn other ways tostill get joy, even though I
would rather be in a workenvironment?
So that really prepared me forCOVID, which was great.
I was already ready.
But the really big thing is wehired a business coach.
(29:26):
I think it was 2020 or maybe2019, right around there and
those deeper questions.
What I started realizing is atthat point we were, you know, we
had just become like a sevenfigure company, um, which is a
huge.
You know that I totally getwhat a big deal that is.
I used to have that percentageactually on my wall of like how
(29:47):
many women entrepreneurs everhit that number.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
And it's actually 1% for women, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
A little bit under 1% and so I had that.
That was like my first goal,right, and not that it should be
money all the time, but it justhelps me not feel bad.
You know, it helped give melike perspective and feel like,
okay, we're working towardssomething.
But the business coach itwasn't even.
It was like the sum total ofall the things that were talked
(30:15):
about in those conversations,the books that we read, changing
my way of thinking.
The big aha moment for me wasrealizing like we were going for
this next really huge goal andrealizing would I hire myself in
the position and the company?
I know other people have saidthis, but it hit me like a ton
(30:37):
of bricks would I hire myself todo the work that I'm doing for
beacon to be?
And if the company were at thatlevel where we're going, you
know, 10 times basically biggerthan where we were now, and the
question was mean, the answerwas unequivocally no, I would
not hire myself.
I was not prepared for that.
So it led me down this wholepath.
(30:58):
I actually went back to school,took some business courses at
Harvard.
I read, I like read a book amonth.
I still read a book a month.
Like started really likegetting into following people
who had already been there sothat I could learn from them and
their thinking.
I had to literally change theway my brain thought because I
(31:18):
had no experience in thatcorporate, bigger world.
And so reading like for me,reading stories and biographies,
and I mean even like peoplelike Winston Churchill, like I
expanded it even by on businessyou know leaders right, how to
how to leaders operate I was alittle disappointed there
weren't that many women that Icould read about, but I did find
(31:41):
a few that were, that werehelpful, but that started to
expand my thinking.
And then, as we face problems atthe higher level, which you're
going to face, differentproblems there I felt so much
more prepared and you know otherpeople had faced them, so I
didn't feel like I was facingthem for the first time.
I had knowledge and informationof okay, this is how other
(32:04):
people have walked through, that.
This is not unusual.
This makes sense for the phasethat we're in, Right, and I mean
the answer today is what I hiremyself is yes, so that's so.
That really built my confidencetoo of just knowing that I had
this next goal to look forwardto.
I want to be proud and feelgood about the work that I'm
(32:27):
doing in the company and theneventually exit Right.
For right now I want to feellike you know what I'm
contributing, that I couldanswer that question.
I feel good about it.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Wow, what is your?
So?
Two books.
What is your favorite personthat you enjoyed reading about,
that you learned a lot from, andthen, secondly, what is your
favorite business book that youwould recommend to somebody that
really impacted you?
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Oh my gosh, I have so many.
The most impactful book for mepersonally was Chris Voss.
It's called Never Split theDifference.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Oh yes.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, and what an amazing storyteller for one
thing.
Like he's a great storyteller.
What an amazing storyteller forone thing he's a great
storyteller.
One of my biggest weaknesses,coming off of what I would say
kind of a lifetime of being apeople pleaser, more personality
, not liking conflict and Idon't know if most people really
(33:25):
like conflict, but I reallydidn't like conflict.
So you can imagine, as a leadergrowing a business, you're
going to have conflict, you'regoing to have negotiations.
That's a big part of business.
And reading his book, my husbandsaid across the room I was like
yelling as I was reading hisbook because it just opened a
whole awareness andunderstanding for me that there
(33:46):
was a way I could learn this.
You know, I felt very stuck inthat area, knowing that, like my
inability to have hardconversations when you need to
have hard conversations or to beable to negotiate in a way that
was like a win-win for bothpeople, was hurting our business
tremendously, Like that washolding us back.
(34:08):
And so I must've read that bookeight times and it just like
the, and I actually implementedstuff right away.
It wasn't just like I read it,I implemented stuff immediately.
It started working.
I still yeah, I still use todayin my email signature that are
from that book and it itactually again started changing
(34:29):
my thinking because, as I hadthese hard conversations and
then I had good results, thatblew me out of the water.
It was like, oh my gosh, peopledon't respect me because I'm
not speaking the truth.
You can say it in a nice way,I'm not standing up for myself,
(34:49):
and they can sense that.
People can sense that they'rekind of getting the better deal
and then it makes there's a lackof respect.
There can become boundaryissues, all of those things and
I found people respected me alot more.
I respected myself more and ourbusiness was more successful.
So I love that.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
I love that.
I love that.
Who was your favorite person?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
you've enjoyed learning their stories from gosh
, this is probably gonna likenot go well, but I'm gonna say
it anyway.
It's really true.
Um so, elon musk, his thebiography of elon musk not not I
know it's a very controversialperson not for the reason of
necessarily it, maybe not.
(35:32):
I'm not like an Elon Musk hugefan and I'm not an Elon Musk
huge detractor.
What I loved about readingabout him probably like him and
Steve Jobs were my two.
This is going to sound arrogant, I promise you like this is not
what I mean by this, but Icould relate to both of them and
that they were more like thevisionary side of the company
(35:55):
and that is more my style.
Like that's more mycontribution is more like the
visionary piece and like the um,innovation side of the company
and all of that and so and I waspulling that from them out of
the book If you read thebiography of Elon and like his
horrible childhood and like, youjust understand him a whole lot
(36:16):
better as a person.
There's so much pain in thatbook.
But the innovation side Iactually learned pieces from
that book of I would nevercommunicate the way he does and
I would not want to, but how hewould like take the vision idea
and execute it Like that is sucha rare thing to be able to take
(36:39):
this very kind of nebulous bigidea and be able to communicate
it in a way that other peoplecould understand it and bring it
to life.
So that's probably my favoritebook if you're really into
innovation and have really tolife.
So that was that's probably myfavorite book If you're really
into innovation and really bigideas, there's pieces in that
that are really incredible.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
I had a podcast guest probably two years ago that did
a similar thing as you, andI've done that since and so, but
I haven't done it monthly.
I study, pick one personannually and just anything
that's written about them andmine is not controversial
(37:22):
probably, but a lot of peopledon't like him and that's Jeff
Bezos, because he's similar toMusk in the fact that you think
about.
He has the thing that anybodycould have done but nobody did.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
And how did you make that happen?
You know what I mean.
And so just that vision,because I think all business
owners, that's probably ourbiggest weakness is we are
visionaries and we can't slowdown to go fast, because we're
always thinking about the nextbig thing before the other thing
, like you were talking aboutwith sales.
Where are your sales comingfrom?
Don't switch it up, don't messwith what's working.
(37:58):
Focus on that.
And so, yeah, jeff Bezos hasbeen one of my latest guys that
I've been studying.
You really can.
So since that I don't rememberhis name, but since that guest
mentioned what you do, the samething I've been doing it and
it's like wow, it is amazing theimpact it can have on you.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
It is.
Reading is.
I mean, I don't know if youfollow Dan Sullivan or read any
of his books, but I mean hugefan of him, of course, and it
just is so comforting.
I don't even know if I would bewhere I am today if I hadn't
and I don't think this was froma book, but I remember reading
about maybe it was like articlesI was reading.
(38:37):
I'm very, very ADD and I alwaysthought that will keep me from
ever truly succeeding at a highlevel, like Richard Branson and
I can't remember who the othergentleman was but these
incredible leaders and businessfolks that are incredibly ADD
(38:59):
probably even more than me buthow they learn to harness that
and then grow with it.
So I think reading aboutpeople's stories and their books
of how they've gone ahead ofyou like that can not only
inspire you but it can give youa whole different trajectory for
your business.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Absolutely Well.
We've talked about marketing,we've talked about personal
development.
What is one more insight thatyou feel would be relevant for
small business owners who arestuck?
It could be AI, it could be, itcould be anything that you feel
like would really be helpful tobusiness owners.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I would say, if you're in that beginning phase
that first you said you feellike most of the people podcast
are probably right in thatsection whether they're stuck
there I would say two things.
I would say two things.
(40:05):
One, whatever you can do withthis, whether you're current
clients or if you don't havecurrent clients, take time to
interview the people that eitherare clients of your business.
So we're so excited to getthose first sales that we often,
you know and just like getthose sales and momentum and
grow on it that we often don'tactually go back and find out
okay, well, what was it reallythat made you decide to work
with me?
What is the value that you'rereally getting out of this
(40:27):
relationship or this product?
And there's so many ways to dothat.
I know we can do that throughemail.
I know we can do it through,you know, online surveys,
picking up the phone and talkingto somebody or having coffee.
You will get so much moreinformation.
So if you can do that with 10clients, I guarantee you you're
(40:48):
going to be shocked.
I know I have been every timeI've done it.
What I will find, even now, 13years into business, is that the
value that clients are gettingfrom Beacon is different than
what we're selling.
It's different from what wethink is the value you know
they'll come back to.
Oh, I don't have peace of mindabout my tech, you know.
I have peace of mind that mywebsite goes down.
(41:09):
I don't have to worry aboutthis.
That's not what we think we'reselling.
But that can be this hugecomponent.
I can call up my accountmanager.
They always get back to mewithin an hour and they can
answer this question of I don'tknow whether this is spam or not
.
That's not in our salesproposal, but that is literally
(41:29):
this huge value piece.
So that can actually help youcreate better services.
That can help you make sureyou're not cutting something off
that is actually like the coreof your business.
You might cut that off and noteven realize that was a value
for your, for your clients.
And then the second thing Iwould say is two options.
You know, go to therapy, find ayou know faith community, read
(41:54):
books, find something that isgoing to help you grow as a
person so that you can grow.
Your business can grow with you.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Well, let's talk about how people can learn more
about you and your business andwhat's the best place to follow
you, because I'm sure you'vepeeked some ears that people
want to learn more and we onlyhave, you know, just a few
minutes today.
So what's the little bit aboutBeacon?
Who they help, how they helpand then how they can find out
(42:23):
more about you.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Great, thank you.
So beaconmmcom for Beacon MediaMarketing.
Please check out our website.
We have forums in there.
We have a chat bot.
You can do a 15-minute call forfree or 30-minute call for free
.
Definitely, people can reachout to me on LinkedIn.
That's probably my number onechannel where I'm talking to
people a lot.
I always do a free consult ifsomebody just wants advice.
(42:48):
So many people helped me in thebeginning and I am committed to
that.
So I have a couple of peoplethat I mentor and, but you know,
a 15, 20 minute conversationI'm always open to.
So LinkedIn isJenniferChristensenAKcom.
And yeah, just go to myLinkedIn and would love to chat.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
All right, all right.
Well, I always finish with onelast question, and that is if
you were in a room full ofbusiness owners different
industries, different seasons ofbusiness what's one thing that
could be applicable to all ofthem, because some of the stuff
we talk about is for differentphases of business, but what's
one thing you found that couldbe applicable to all of them?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
If I was in a business meeting today with a
group no matter what phaseyou're in, we haven't really
talked about this, but what Iwould say because I think it's
so timely and important forright now, this is not going to
change over the next couple ofyears.
I would say to them, if theyweren't aware from my experience
, what I've been studying forthe last three years and
interacting with we have movedout of the information age and
(43:54):
we have moved into the age ofintelligence, and so there is a
massive shift to the market thatis coming and has already
started, and so, with that inmind, recognize that we're all
in the same boat.
It's not something to be afraidof but, like everything, we have
(44:17):
to embrace change if we'regoing to continue to grow and
decide.
You have to have the deeperconversation before you can move
ahead with this new era.
So, you know, if you were inagriculture when the industrial
age happened and you, like, sawthis coming which is again I
think this is even a biggershift than that was actually um,
you would need to have thatdeeper conversation of okay,
(44:39):
where do we want to be?
Who do we want to be in thisera?
How does this work, for youknow where we're going and then
start slowly setting tools, get,get some experts, start moving
that direction, depending onwhat you decide.
But you can't ignore that we'rein the middle of a seismic
shift right now.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Yeah, it's almost like the people that said the
World Wide Web is the dot com,all that's.
You know, I'm not going to dothat.
Well, you should have, becauseyou're not in business anymore.
So that's sound advice.
So I appreciate you, jennifer.
You've been a wealth ofinformation and a blessing to
many today, and I wish youcontinued success.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Thank you for listening to Small Business
Pivots.
This podcast is created andproduced by my company, boss.
Our business is growing.
Yours, boss, offers flexiblebusiness loans with business
coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
(45:43):
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
If you need help growing yourbusiness, email me at michael at
michaeldmorrisoncom.
We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
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