June 24, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode, we asked marketing matchmaker Behdad Jamshidi one simple icebreaker: What do you wish you knew before becoming a solopreneur? And wow, did he deliver.
From climbing the unexpected business ladder to spotting red flags when hiring marketing help, Behdad shares the lessons no one tells you—but every solopreneur needs to hear.
Feeling overwhelmed by your options? Struggling to pick a marketing channel that doesn’t make you want to scream into the void? Tune in for practical advice, hard-won wisdom, and a reminder that success isn’t just about the outcome—it’s about loving the process.
Being a solopreneur is awesome but it’s not easy. It's hard to get noticed. Most business advice is for bigger companies, and you're all alone...until now. LifeStarr Intro gives you free education, community, and tools to build a thriving one-person business. So, if you are lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, or are having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even just lonely running a company of one, be sure to check out LifeStarr Intro!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Carly Ries (00:00):
Ever feel like you're climbing the solopreneur
ladder without knowing whatcomes next? In this episode, we
chat with Behdad Jamshidi, theself made marketing matchmaker
who built a business out of pureconnection. From walking away
from engineering to creating awhole new category of service,
Behdad shares the evolutionsolopreneurs don't see coming,
the biggest marketing mistakesto avoid, and how to find
(00:21):
partners you can actually trust.So if you're wondering what
marketing steps to take next orif you should be outsourcing at
all, this episode is yourroadmap. Bonus, you'll learn why
the process beats the outcomeevery time.
You're listening to The AspiringSolopreneur, the podcast for
those just taking the bold stepor even just thinking about
taking that step into the worldof solo entrepreneurship. My
(00:44):
name is Carly Ries and my cohostJoe Rando and I are your guides
navigating this crazy butawesome journey as a company of
one. We take pride in being partof LifeStarr, a digital hub
dedicated to all aspects ofsolopreneurs that has empowered
and educated countlesssolopreneurs looking to build a
business that resonates withtheir life's ambitions. We help
(01:06):
people work to live, not live towork. And if you're looking for
a get rich quick scheme, this isnot the show for you.
So if you're eager to gainvaluable insights from industry
experts on running a businessthe right way the first time
around or want to learn from themissteps of solopreneurs who
paved the way before you, thenstick around. We've got your
back because flying solo inbusiness doesn't mean you're
(01:27):
alone. Okay, B We just told youoffline that we have now
published over 200 episodes,which is crazy and Joe, I feel
like we need to celebrate atanother time because we haven't
actually said that to each otheryet, which is nuts.
But in honor of our twohundredth episode having been
released, we thought we'd mixthings up a bit. And we thought
(01:49):
it'd be really fun to kind ofhave an icebreaker around before
we dive into the nitty grittythings that solopreneurs want to
know. But the ice breakerquestion still revolves around
that. So we wanna ask you, whatdo you wish you would have known
before becoming a solopreneur?
Behdad Jamshidi (02:04):
Yeah. So it's a great question. Like a week and
a half ago, actually did apresentation on the 10 things I
wish I knew before I moved outof being a full time employee.
And the number one thing for mewas everyone knows that when you
work as a full time employee,there's a business ladder.
Right?
You start as a junior, you moveinto senior roles, director, AE,
and you move up. But not a lotof people tell you that there's
(02:26):
a whole ladder on the businessside as well. And so you always
start out as a solopreneur andyou go, I wanna make 10 to
$15,000 a month and typicallyyou wanna do that passively
because you wanna live a goodlife. But then once you become
that solopreneur, you startmaking that kind of money, you
start realizing, oh there'sthings that I don't like doing
in my business, and I'm gonnaneed to hire someone. And so you
start hiring people, and as youstart hiring people you start
(02:46):
becoming a manager.
And so all of a sudden you'relike, okay, well now I'm
managing anywhere from three toeight people, I'm the manager of
the business. And then you getto a point where you're like, I
don't wanna manage people allthe time.
So you start hiring people kindof underneath you in terms of
the leadership role. And all ofa sudden you become a business
owner with some leadershipthere, not not full leadership,
but some leadership to manageyour team. And you start
realizing over time, you'relike, oh, the business is
(03:08):
actually growing, people areactually doing things. Now,
maybe I need to build up buildout a full leadership team
because I either wanna becomethe visionary of the business,
or the COO of the business, orthe operator.
And so you build out a biggerteam, and you get to a point
where you fully do that, andthat can take anywhere from like
three to twenty years, twentyfive years. Some people never
get to that point. But let's sayyou get to that point, and then
you go, well I have this money,this business is running, how do
(03:30):
I grow this business? I eitherstart going to M and A or
investing and all this stuff. Noone tells you that there is this
ladder of evolution withinbusiness too.
And I think the joy of when yourun a business is at some point
you decide what level you wantto be at. And so some people
will grow, realize it's not forthem, and then they will back
down to simplifying things forexample. But that's the one
(03:51):
thing that I wish I knew beforeI got into the business is that
there are ladders on both sidesand it's very similar to each
other.
Carly Ries (03:58):
I feel like that even goes for people that don't
even necessarily hire employees,but just bring on contractors.
Because even if you work with aton of contractors and you're
still technically a solopreneur,you're still managing all the
contractors.
Joe Rando (04:11):
Hopefully.
Carly Ries (04:12):
Yeah. Hopefully. Or you really will trust them and
that they're doing a great jobor there are other issues.
Behdad Jamshidi (04:18):
100%.
Carly Ries (04:18):
Well, speaking of you leaving the corporate world,
you were in engineering. So howdid you go from that to starting
CGM marketing? And what was kindof the biggest challenge in
taking that leap from corporateinto your own thing?
Behdad Jamshidi (04:32):
That's a great question. It's funny because I
say I never really wanted to bean entrepreneur. It just kinda
came to me, like I just wouldalways try new things. I always
worked as a sales engineer. Idid that for seven out of the
ten years that I used to workfor TELUS.
But throughout that path, Ibecame a personal trainer, I
picked up personal trainingclients, realized I didn't like
doing that because it was moremental than it was actually
physical to get people to wherethey wanted to be. I did a
(04:55):
financial course, I did a wholebunch of stuff. And c gen
marketing was the one thing thatkinda like, I was doing it and I
kinda kept iterating on it, andat some point it just started
kind of working. Right? And so Iwas like, oh, I have something
here.
And it was fun to do because itwas on the side of my full time
job and I didn't have to put,you know, a ton and ton of
attention to it, and it waskinda cool making, a couple
thousand bucks on the monthextra, and you're like, cool,
(05:18):
this could be used for, youknow, other things in life. But
CGM at some point, it got toabout between the year of '3 and
four, as I kept running bothbusinesses, or working full time
and running the business, it hitthis kind of flywheel. And I
didn't expect it. Like thebusiness from the January to the
end of that December had 10 x'd.And I got to a point where I was
(05:40):
like, wow, I'm not even puttingmy full attention into this.
What happens if I go and put myfull attention to it, what could
it potentially become? And so Ikinda hit this crossroads where
I was like, I know if I continueto stay as a sales engineer I'll
be very successful in life, I'llbe able to retire early
regardless because get paidwell, but this other path, I
don't know what the outcome is.And that was kind of exciting to
(06:01):
me at that time, and I was like,I'm gonna go see what becomes of
this if I put my full attentioninto it, because I could always
come back to the old path. Andso that's kinda where that shift
happened, where I was like,gotta make a decision and go all
in and just see what ends uphappening.
Carly Ries (06:16):
So what was the difference in the feeling of
personal training not workingand you kinda being over it, to
you hitting your stride withyour current business? you said
it just felt right, what was itthat felt right?
Behdad Jamshidi (06:30):
Yeah. that's a great question. So on the
personal training front, I felt,okay, you look at the end run,
for everything that you do, youlook at what the outcome looks
like. So when it comes topersonal training, what is the
kind of evolution of thatbusiness is one, I saw a lot of
personal trainers having to wakeup at five in the morning to
take care of clients and dothat, and then during the middle
of the day nothing's happening,and then they have to work in
the evening again because theyhave clients coming in. that's
(06:52):
not the lifestyle I want. Ialready have a pretty cool like
I like being a sales engineer, Ilearned a lot that there's a lot
of things to learn, so it neverreally made sense for me to make
that leap to that. On the CGM,the marketing connector side,
what was interesting was I wasbuilding a business that had
some form of passive income. Andso as I connected businesses and
(07:13):
stuff together, I'm gettingpassive income because I added
value to both, and if both thebusinesses are growing, I was
getting paid passively. And thepassive income was more
interesting to me because I waslike, I'm getting my time back,
I'm getting more of my freedomback, which I think a lot of
people can resonate with, andthat's what they're trying to
build. And so I think that'swhat the alignment was, it's
like, oh I found a businessmodel where this works.
(07:34):
That being said, connectingpeople is a lot of work. So a
piece of my business is passive,but all of it is impassive.
Right? So I think a lot ofpeople don't see that aspect.
Joe Rando (07:46):
Yeah. Let's just briefly describe your business
because we're talking about it,but we're not, we haven't told
people what you do. So, yeah,give us a quick description of
what your business is and whatyou mean by connecting people.
Behdad Jamshidi (07:57):
Sure. So my business is basically, I'll talk
to businesses on the front end,understand what a business
needs, and then I match themwith the right marketing
partner. So over the course ofthe last six years, I've talked
to 35 different marketingagencies and experts, and my
entire thing is talking topeople, understanding what they
need from a business sense, andgoing based on that, here's the
avenues of marketing that Ithink you need help in, and
(08:18):
based on the avenues that Ithink you wanna run, these are
the people that I recommend youhave a conversation with. So
essentially, I'm just amatchmaker between marketing and
business businesses together.
Joe Rando (08:27):
It's a really great idea. it's one of those things
where you go, and how do you dothat? And I won't ask you to go
into the details of how you dowhat you do, but that sounds way
simpler than it probably is.
Behdad Jamshidi (08:41):
Yeah. It is way simpler than it is. so there's
people that are trying toreplicate this model, and the
way that they replicate it is byjust sending a bunch of emails
out, building out a database ofagencies, and then businesses
say they need something, andthen they'll just shoot an email
to those the database and say,who can do this? Right? And
every agency will say they cando stuff, but they can't
actually do it.
Joe Rando (09:00):
Never heard that happen before.
Carly Ries (09:02):
You'll experience that.
Behdad Jamshidi (09:04):
Right, exactly. And so my part and the hard part
of it is, having to meet thisamount of people. Like, when I'm
saying I met athousand thirty-five. I've
jumped on calls with thesepeople. I'm not even accounting
for the people that I met inconferences and things like
that.
And so as you're doing that,you're just trying to assess
what are they really good at?What are they good at in terms
of the size of business and allthis different kind of stuff.
(09:25):
And so essentially you'rematchmaking on both sides. And
Joe and Carly, sure you know, asbusinesses are growing, they're
broken as they grow. right?
Every single time your businessgrows, you break. And it's no
different on the agency side. soas an agency grows their
business, they also break. Soessentially, you're trying to do
matchmaking with two brokenentities at the same time where
(09:47):
they're just the right amount ofbroken that they can help each
other kinda grow together.
And that's extremely hard to do.
Carly Ries (09:55):
What I love about your business is you identified
your strength of being like, I'ma connector. I'm good at
building relationships andfinding a niche because I feel
like people just kinda fall intowhatever their background is or
I can do my own marketing forpeople. But you're just like,
no, I'm really good atintroducing people to other
people, and I'm gonna make acareer out of that.
Behdad Jamshidi (10:15):
Yeah.
Carly Ries (10:16):
wading into your slang, because you just have
found such a creative and uniqueway to do that.
Behdad Jamshidi (10:22):
yeah. it's funny. My wife said something to
me yesterday, and she alwayssays to me. She's like, Behdad,
when I tell my friends, I'mlike, Behdad basically just
created this like magical role,and it didn't exist before, and
then you got people to pay youto do it and found a way to make
money out of it. I was like, Inever thought about it like
that.
Like, the marketing broker thingnever existed, and I just kinda
(10:42):
like randomly made it.
Joe Rando (10:44):
It's pretty interesting because you don't
see a lot of solopreneurscreating a new kind of business.
I mean, you know, but it happensonce in a while, and you're a
great example of it. We talkabout that in the solopreneur
business for dummies book. Andit's like, here, you can create
a whole new business. Think hardbefore you create a whole new
business
Behdad Jamshidi (11:04):
cause you're paving the road.
Carly Ries (11:05):
There may be a reason it doesn't exist.
Joe Rando (11:08):
Exactly. Exactly.
Carly Ries (11:11):
Right. So you have spoken to thousands of people.
We'll include the conferencesand everything and boost that
number from the 1,035. Not thatyou need boosting, but we're
solopreneurs just starting out.Of the conversations you've had,
what would you say the firstmarketing steps they should take
should be?
Behdad Jamshidi (11:31):
I mean, if they have something they love doing,
like they already know thatpiece, the next piece becomes
what channels interest them.Like, if you're a solopreneur
you're running a business, yeah,there's gonna be certain
channels that are gonna workreally really well. Right? but
the ones that youare gonna have fun doing, like have fun learning
Joe Rando (11:49):
Define channels. Define channels.
Behdad Jamshidi (11:51):
So channels you could be doing like SEO, you
could be doing paid ads, youcould be doing social media, and
then when you break down socialmedia, it could be literally
Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit,like, there's so many channels
that you can choose from inmarketing. And if you just do
ChatGPT and go in there and say,this is my business, I wanna
know what marketing channelsmight make sense for my
business, that at least willgive you a starting list of
(12:12):
starting to go do some researchand figure out what you like.
Joe Rando (12:14):
If ChatGPT tells you to try to use non local SEO as a
solopreneur, it will.
Behdad Jamshidi (12:20):
Be aware.
Joe Rando (12:20):
It will. Don't listen. It's not a good strategy
anymore.
Behdad Jamshidi (12:24):
Yeah. Just use that as a way just if you don't
know what channels are outthere, at least to give you a
little bit more insights, andthen do your research. But then
just start looking at thechannels of which one you're
excited about doing. some peoplelike building out content on
YouTube and they just love to dolonger form videos. Right?
Others might like to do theshort term, like shorter videos
for example. So Instagram andTikTok might make more sense.
(12:46):
Obviously you have to know thatyour audience is on those
platforms too. But I thinkwhatever you wanna give energy
to and you're excited about, Ithink start there first because
you're gonna be able to do itfor longer. And in marketing,
sometimes you'll get reallyquick and fast wins, is like 1%
of the marketing world, but alot of it is just stuff that's
done over time that ends up kindof just compounding and
(13:07):
expanding and then hitting thattipping point.
Carly Ries (13:09):
Well, for solopreneurs, a lot of times
they'll start the business andthey're not marketers, they're
just focused on the one thingand the reason they started in
the first place. So when they'reflying blindly, how should they
assess their own marketing needsbefore they seek outside help?
What should they look out for?
Behdad Jamshidi (13:27):
Yeah. I mean, educate yourself as much as you
can. there are courses that youcan take on, like, high level
marketing stuff. There are bookson it. Like, educate yourself a
bit. at least have a foundationaspect to it. And if you're, a
solopreneur and you have a fulltime job, for example, use some
of money that you're making inyour full time job to just help
you learn faster. Like if itmeans hiring a consultant at 200
to $300 an hour to just give yousome ideas around marketing
(13:48):
strategy and that kind of stuff,that might be money well spent
because it'll actually fastforward the amount of time that
you have to actually learn thatstuff. Like $300 per an hour
might actually save you a yearof time. Right?
And you don't need to do itongoing, just find the
expertise, reach out to yournetwork, and see if you can get
some people to kind of help youpush you forward and give you
those ideas so that you don'thave to keep hitting a wall. So
(14:08):
that would be kind of two ways.Like if you don't have the
money, there are books,there are really cheap courses
that you can get, if you just dosome searching around marketing,
and then if you have the money,just invest in some consultants
every now and then. You don'tneed to hire them full time or
ongoing, but you can pay themone time to learn different
things.
Carly Ries (14:25):
So let me ask you, if solopreneurs are overwhelmed
with everything related tomarketing, they're like, well
you say I can read books.There's a million books on
marketing. You say I shouldreach out to a marketing
consultant. There's a million ofthose. And then if they type in
that list for ChatGPT just tosee their direction, and are
like, well, I like long formvideos.
I like short form videos. LoveTikTok trends, but I also like
(14:48):
connecting with people onLinkedIn, and they're just all
over the place, what would yourecommend they do?
Behdad Jamshidi (14:54):
Choose one. just choose one that you wanna
start with, because if you'reall over the place and you're
trying to do everything at once,it's gonna be just too hard.
Right? So find the one thingthat you like to do, and it's
okay, there are all of these,rank them. Like as an engineer,
I always do selection sort.
So let's say I have fiveoptions. I'll literally take the
top option, I'll put it on theright hand side, and then the
second option I go, do I likethis more or less than the first
(15:15):
option? And then I put it in,put it on top. And then use the
third one, same thing. Do I likeit more than the second one?
And then you just basicallyselection sort this list, and
all of a sudden you're like, oh,this is the top one because I
like this the most. Go that way.Right? The thing with business
and entrepreneurship and allthis stuff is there's gonna be
so many avenues to take all thetime, you just need to make a
decision and just start movingforward with something, and then
(15:35):
just reevaluate every two orthree months, be like, is this
working? Do I still like this?
And the thing is, a lot of timeswith marketing, you have to do
things for a long time untilthey actually hit, right? a lot
of people that you see, forexample, I have a friend of mine
and she looks up to me, but shedoesn't realize how much I look
up to her. She started basicallydoing videos in the automotive
industry. She's working theremaking probably I think 40 to
(15:58):
$50 a year. And she was reallygood at video editing, like
really good at video editing,and you could just see that
talent.
And so she started playingaround with it, started getting
in front of the camera more,started becoming more confident
in front of the camera Aroundlike a year three and four,
kinda the same as me, shestarted getting different
projects. A company startedreaching out. She became an
(16:18):
influencer. She has like over500,000 followers on TikTok. She
has Instagram at 400,000followers, but it built over the
last four or five years.
And she was just at Procter andGamble this last week, doing
videos for them. it just blowsmy mind on just how it grew
because she just chose herchannels, Instagram, TikTok,
stuck to them, met othercreators, kept improving, and
(16:39):
just insane what she's been ableto do in the last five years.
Joe Rando (16:43):
Yeah. That's great. Wow.
Carly Ries (16:44):
Yeah. Joe, we were talking about the two hundredth
episode, but I feel like we werekinda like that even with this
podcast. Like, were just kindawe were growing steadily. We
were constantly growing. Andthen I would say just like six
months ago or so, you saw it golike this to zoop.
And we're on Apple now forsolopreneur, and I mean, I wanna
(17:05):
say it's because we cracked thecode and changed things, but
also we put in the reps too.
Joe Rando (17:11):
Well, that's absolutely true. I mean, really
a lot of these things come downto putting in the time and the
energy and just, you know,making it, happen week after
week. And you can't shortcutthat stuff sometimes.
Behdad Jamshidi (17:25):
Yeah. That's a 100% it.
Carly Ries (17:27):
Well, B, let's say somebody's listening to this,
and they're like, oh, I didn'tknow your business existed
because nobody did becauseyou're kind of your own unique
little, in your own uniquelittle world. But they're like,
that's exactly what I neededbecause I don't know what to
look for in outsourcing mymarketing. I don't know what's
considered good and what's not.So can you walk us through kind
of the process? Let's say a oneperson business owner is
(17:50):
listening, they need marketinghelp, and they're like, b, help
me.
What does that process looklike?
Behdad Jamshidi (17:56):
Yeah. So with businesses that are typically
one person, I typically workwith businesses three to thirty
million, like that's my rangewhere I do a lot of the
connecting, but people that aretypically like businesses that
are smaller than that, youalmost have to work from the
ground up. And so I typicallyjust offer one or two consulting
sessions to kinda get them onthe right path and what to think
about. And so the way thattypically works is one, talking
to the solopreneur,understanding their business,
(18:18):
how it works, what they'redoing, what kind of customers
they have, all that differentkind of stuff to just understand
where they're fundamentally atand what revenue range they're
at. And then reallyunderstanding like, is there
profit left in the business? ifthere's no profit left in the
business, there's not much youcan do. Right? Like you just
gotta keep hacking at it untilyou have a little money saved up
so that you can go, hey, I nowhave, you know, 2 or $3,000 a
month that I can dedicate tosome form of marketing. And that
(18:41):
doesn't mean hiring an agency.Like it could literally mean hey
I'm doing social media posts andI don't wanna be posting them on
the weekend anymore orscheduling them myself. So it's
like, cool. you should probablybe hiring a BA for social media.
You don't even need to startworking with agency at this
point, you just need to get theexecution stuff off your plate
so you can do more of whatbrings you money.
Right? So my recommendationalways kind of in the beginning
(19:04):
is figuring out what your keychannels are, and then how do
you basically get people to helpyou execute those for the least
amount of cost possible. Andthen as you keep growing, then
you can start using the biggerplayers. Typically, once you
start hitting that like 2 or$3,000,000 range is when you
start working with more legitand stronger agencies. Up until
that point, I think you're kindof like bringing things
together. case in point, I havea call later today with one of
(19:27):
my good friends who's now acustomer of mine, and he
literally just wrote me out amarketing strategy, and he's
like, I don't know how toresource this. I wanna do all of
these things, but I don't knowhow to resource this thing. So
I'm doing a consulting sessionfor him to literally go, hey,
based on the stuff that you havehere, you likely need some sort
of marketing director for thispiece. You likely could use this
kind of contractor for thisspecific thing, and then these
(19:50):
other things have to be filledin by someone else. Like, and
just organizing how he'd be ableto do all that, and then also
resetting expectations, becausehe's expecting for things to
happen in the next three months,and I'm like, this is probably
gonna take way longer than that,and I just need you to mentally
be prepared for that, becauseit's gonna probably take you six
months to twelve months to dothe thing you're trying to do
there.
Does that help answer thatquestion?
Carly Ries (20:10):
Oh yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Well, for people, so
like misunderstood timelines,but for people that decide
they're like, oh, I don't needyour service right now, I'm
gonna go this alone, and theytry to look for a marketing
partner by themselves, whatmistakes do you see people make
when they try to find them ontheir own?
Behdad Jamshidi (20:28):
Yeah. This is fun. So one, I just wanna talk
about the how much it hurts whenyou pick the wrong marketing
partner, right? and I've seenthis multiple times because I
mean Joe, sure you know too,like whenever you hire a
marketing agency or partner, youhave to ramp them up. And so it
takes you three to six monthstypically to ramp these people
up, find out they're not good,let them go, and then you have
(20:50):
to go through the whole processagain.
Right? And typically it takesthree to five tries to find one
partner you really like. And sothat hurts. It could take you
two years to find someone youreally like to work with.
Joe Rando (20:59):
And a lot of wasted money. Because they don't do
that ramp up for free.
Behdad Jamshidi (21:02):
Exactly. So that's like one of the biggest
factors. The other thing ispeople will just go through
their network and just whoeverthey get, they won't talk to
enough people. Right? So they'llgo to the network, people
recommend two or three people totalk to to the two or three
because they don't want to dothe extra work.
They'll just pick one of the twoor three people and go, it's
good enough, I'm going to do mything. But good enough a lot of
the times in marketing isn'tgood enough. You don't really
(21:25):
get anywhere with it. So that'sthe other piece. The second one
would be communication. you haveto be able to communicate and
understand the other side.Right? So if you have a very
basic level of marketingexperience, and then you're
hiring an expert, and thatexpert is talking at a level of
let's say nine out of 10 onFacebook ads for example, and
(21:45):
you understand it at a zero oneout of 10, there's gonna be a
lot of context and a lot ofinformation missed, and you're
just gonna blindly trustsomeone, but not realize that
they're actually not goodpotentially. Right? and other
one, because it's actuallyhappened the last three weeks
twice now, a business will hiresomeone for some form of
marketing, so say Facebook orGoogle ads, and never actually
(22:07):
go into the accounts to seewhat's going on, and this is
where both these businessesactually hire business
consultants just to look at ahigh level, like I'm not a
massive expert, deep levelexpert of Facebook or Google
Ads, but I know my way around togo, hey, this Google Ads
account, they're spending a tonof money on so the business for
context is like a physio clinic,anyone who meets physios, chiro,
(22:27):
that kind of stuff.
And they were basically spending80% of their budget in RMT,
registered massage therapy. Andhe's like, Behdad, I've actually
let go of one of my RMT's, wentfrom two to one, we're not even
trying to fill that service, sowhy is 80% of my Google Ads
budget going into that? And thenwe went into his negative
keywords, and he's like, thereis information on recovery after
(22:50):
an ACL injury, or like programfor an ACL injury. Those were in
his negative keywords, which Ifound bizarre because I go to my
physio, and the thing he talksabout the most is they have an
entire program on how to getback from ACL and MCL injuries,
like that's what they do. And itwas in the negative keywords
list, and then I was like What?
Joe Rando (23:09):
This is worse than what we went through, Carly.
Carly Ries (23:14):
I didn't have to deal with the brunt of that
because I was on maternityleave.
Joe Rando (23:17):
Yeah. It was But it's stuck with that. It's amazing.
Yeah. And we're fortunate now wefound somebody very good for
that.
But oh, boy. You know, that'sincredible. Yeah. Let me have
negative keywords for the thingsyou want for business.
Behdad Jamshidi (23:34):
Yeah. And he was shocked. He's like, Behdad,
what does negative keywords meanand why is this under there? And
I was like, it's exactly whatyou think it is.
And he's like, oh, okay. So youcan even do this stuff yourself.
Like you probably don't evenconsult. I haven't looked on
YouTube, it was like how toaudit in the Google Ads account.
I'm sure if you search that,someone is gonna teach you how
to do it.
Joe Rando (23:54):
They teach them to do anything.
Behdad Jamshidi (23:56):
Yeah, exactly.
Carly Ries (23:57):
Well I think this episode is just so helpful for
people that are starting out, orare in their business a little
bit, and are like, okay, it'stime for me to outsource some
marketing, and just kinda whereto start, the red flags and
everything. But I have to ask,since you are in the marketing
world, what kind of trends doyou think solopreneurs should
keep track of over the next fewyears?
Behdad Jamshidi (24:16):
Yeah. So it's interesting. I got asked this
question also yesterday, and Ihad a jumbled up answer. And
then I thought about it and Iwas like, it's jumbled up
because it's so crazy right now.Like everything is kind of
shifting in the marketing worldright now.
And when you simplify it down,it's like, oh, execution is
becoming so much easier to dofor smaller businesses. Right?
There are so many AI tools outthere that you can now start
(24:37):
creating really good creativefor your Facebook ads, for
example, yourself withoutneeding a ton of experience. you
can create copywriting that canbe a four or five out of 10
level without needing a ton ofexperience. it's not like
getting to average now is somuch easier with AI that it
allows smaller businesses tobasically have more things that
they're able to do because theyhave better like, they can use
(24:59):
the resources more effectively,if that makes sense.
Joe Rando (25:01):
But what does that really mean in the big picture?
If everybody's, you know, Ialways think of, Lake Woolby
Gone. I don't know if youremember that radio program
where all the children are aboveaverage. And it's like, what
does it mean when the averagemoves up like that? Does it
really help, or is it justraising the bar and now you've
gotta do even better to getnoticed?
Behdad Jamshidi (25:22):
Yeah. So that's exactly it. So what it'll help
is the solopreneurs who need toget from let's say a level zero
to a level five. Right? at leastpeople will have some sort of
solid foundation. more peopleare gonna have a solid
foundation. But the differenceis gonna be in the experts. And
so I don't think AI is gonnatake over any strategic stuff,
expert level type work. Like touse AI effectively, for example,
(25:44):
for storytelling, you need to bean expert level storyteller to
know if what it's giving you isgood. Right?
And it's gonna be the same forliterally everything from
development to creative towhatever it is to branding. you
ultimately need to be an expertin that area to be able to
create great and expert work. SoI think it's just gonna be the
level of person has to amplifyto just become even better, and
(26:04):
those people are gonna becomeeven more valuable. What I'm
noticing in the marketing agencyspace is that if people are
gonna sit into execution, likethose marketing agencies are
really gonna struggle, it'sgonna be the marketing agencies
that shift over to strategy andtruly understand marketing
strategy, which I would say alot of them don't. Like when I'm
saying a lot, I'm saying like90% don't.
(26:25):
And so they're gonna have toupscale. And then it's the
people that are able to bringmultiple aspects together now.
So it's no longer gonna be theGoogle Ads person, and then you
have a landing page person, andthen you have an email person.
Right? I think because executionis gonna become so much easier
to do, agencies have to bringall of these services together
and say, hey, we run your GoogleAds, we take care of your
(26:46):
landing pages, we also doserial, and we do email.
And we do it well, because wecan actually do it effectively.
And so I think for solopreneursit's just being aware that this
shift is happening, and so a lotof marketing agencies right now,
I don't think are gonna survivein the in the longer term,
they're gonna have to shift intobecoming different, but the
marketing fundamentals alwaysstay the same. You're still
dealing with people. You'restill dealing with their
emotions, and you're stilldealing with what they want to
(27:08):
be. Right?
Joe Rando (27:09):
I think that you said something that I think is a
little bit unlikely, but yousaid they're gonna have to
upskill. I don't know thatpeople can upskill into being
strategic. That's a leap. Imean, you think about somebody
that's, focused on tactics andexecution as a business, you
know, shifting that businessinto a strategic I don't know,
(27:32):
it sounds hard to me.
Behdad Jamshidi (27:34):
Yeah. It might not be them, it might be they
have to bring a partner in thatthinks that's a strategic piece.
we both know, there'svisionaries and executors of
companies, right? and so theexecutors are gonna have to
understand, like, we probablyneed a visionary to come into
here and help us with strategybecause we're not gonna figure
it out.
Or it's not their strength,which is gonna be
Joe Rando (27:50):
And the visionaries need the executors too because
the visionary is always havingtested as a visionary, which I
thought was great when I tookthe test, and then realized, no.
Not so great. It's visionariesneed reining in. So, yeah, that
you're right. That's probablythe best thing is for those
people to come together and keepeach other focused and in check
(28:13):
and but anyway so for all ofour, executing solopreneurs
might wanna be thinking a littlebit about finding a way to get a
little more strategic because Ijust think about making like
like you said, a level four orfive out of 10 copywriter is now
(28:35):
$20 a month.
Behdad Jamshidi (28:36):
Yeah. It's not expensive anymore.
Joe Rando (28:39):
It's crazy.
Carly Ries (28:40):
I think this episode will help lead so many people
into or hopefully give them somedirection of where to go with
their marketing efforts and howto outsource it and what to look
for. And so you will help themfind success with that. So thank
you. So we have to ask, what isyour favorite quote about
success?
Behdad Jamshidi (28:54):
It's not about the outcome, it's about the
process. I think I just reallyinternalized that like in over
the last two years. Right? So weall have this expected outcome
that we wanna hit, and I thinkthe more you tie to I need to
hit this thing, I think the moreyou're gonna struggle within
business versus just enjoyingthe process of what you're going
to. So having the goal, havingthe thing you wanna do, but just
(29:14):
enjoying the process of it, Ithink this becomes more and more
important, and who you become asyou go through that process.
Carly Ries (29:20):
Could not agree more. Well, if people want to
learn more about you, where canthey find you?
Behdad Jamshidi (29:26):
Two places. So LinkedIn is somewhere I'm quite
often, so looking up BehdadJamshidi. I put a lot of content
on LinkedIn and try to helppeople not get caught by
marketing agencies and tactics.And then the second aspect, if
you go to my websitewww.cjmmarketing.com, in the
resource section, there's abunch of questions that you can
use for vetting agencies, thetop questions to ask, and just
(29:47):
how to think about hiringpartners. So feel free to use
those resources yourself.
Joe Rando (29:51):
And that's c as the letter c, jam marketing.
Behdad Jamshidi (29:54):
Exactly.
Carly Ries (29:56):
Cool. Awesome. Well, thank you so so much for coming
on the show today. We soappreciate it.
Behdad Jamshidi (30:01):
Thanks for having me.
Carly Ries (30:02):
And listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. We
would love that five starreview. We'd love it if you'd
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next time on The AspiringSolopreneur. You may be going
solo in business, but thatdoesn't mean you're alone.
In fact, millions of people arein your shoes, running a one
(30:23):
person business and figuring itout as they go. So why not
connect with them and learn fromeach other's successes and
failures? At LifeStarr we'recreating a one person business
community where you can go tomeet and get advice from other
solopreneurs. Be sure to join inon the conversations at
community.lifestarr.com.
Ever feel like you're climbing the solopreneur
ladder without knowing whatcomes next? In this episode, we
chat with Behdad Jamshidi, theself made marketing matchmaker
who built a business out of pureconnection. From walking away
from engineering to creating awhole new category of service,
Behdad shares the evolutionsolopreneurs don't see coming,
the biggest marketing mistakesto avoid, and how to find
(00:21):
partners you can actually trust.So if you're wondering what
marketing steps to take next orif you should be outsourcing at
all, this episode is yourroadmap. Bonus, you'll learn why
the process beats the outcomeevery time.
You're listening to The AspiringSolopreneur, the podcast for
those just taking the bold stepor even just thinking about
taking that step into the worldof solo entrepreneurship. My
(00:44):
name is Carly Ries and my cohostJoe Rando and I are your guides
navigating this crazy butawesome journey as a company of
one. We take pride in being partof LifeStarr, a digital hub
dedicated to all aspects ofsolopreneurs that has empowered
and educated countlesssolopreneurs looking to build a
business that resonates withtheir life's ambitions. We help
(01:06):
people work to live, not live towork. And if you're looking for
a get rich quick scheme, this isnot the show for you.
So if you're eager to gainvaluable insights from industry
experts on running a businessthe right way the first time
around or want to learn from themissteps of solopreneurs who
paved the way before you, thenstick around. We've got your
back because flying solo inbusiness doesn't mean you're
(01:27):
alone. Okay, B We just told youoffline that we have now
published over 200 episodes,which is crazy and Joe, I feel
like we need to celebrate atanother time because we haven't
actually said that to each otheryet, which is nuts.
But in honor of our twohundredth episode having been
released, we thought we'd mixthings up a bit. And we thought
(01:49):
it'd be really fun to kind ofhave an icebreaker around before
we dive into the nitty grittythings that solopreneurs want to
know. But the ice breakerquestion still revolves around
that. So we wanna ask you, whatdo you wish you would have known
before becoming a solopreneur?
Behdad Jamshidi (02:04):
Yeah. So it's a great question. Like a week and
a half ago, actually did apresentation on the 10 things I
wish I knew before I moved outof being a full time employee.
And the number one thing for mewas everyone knows that when you
work as a full time employee,there's a business ladder.
Right?
You start as a junior, you moveinto senior roles, director, AE,
and you move up. But not a lotof people tell you that there's
(02:26):
a whole ladder on the businessside as well. And so you always
start out as a solopreneur andyou go, I wanna make 10 to
$15,000 a month and typicallyyou wanna do that passively
because you wanna live a goodlife. But then once you become
that solopreneur, you startmaking that kind of money, you
start realizing, oh there'sthings that I don't like doing
in my business, and I'm gonnaneed to hire someone. And so you
start hiring people, and as youstart hiring people you start
(02:46):
becoming a manager.
And so all of a sudden you'relike, okay, well now I'm
managing anywhere from three toeight people, I'm the manager of
the business. And then you getto a point where you're like, I
don't wanna manage people allthe time.
So you start hiring people kindof underneath you in terms of
the leadership role. And all ofa sudden you become a business
owner with some leadershipthere, not not full leadership,
but some leadership to manageyour team. And you start
realizing over time, you'relike, oh, the business is
(03:08):
actually growing, people areactually doing things. Now,
maybe I need to build up buildout a full leadership team
because I either wanna becomethe visionary of the business,
or the COO of the business, orthe operator.
And so you build out a biggerteam, and you get to a point
where you fully do that, andthat can take anywhere from like
three to twenty years, twentyfive years. Some people never
get to that point. But let's sayyou get to that point, and then
you go, well I have this money,this business is running, how do
(03:30):
I grow this business? I eitherstart going to M and A or
investing and all this stuff. Noone tells you that there is this
ladder of evolution withinbusiness too.
And I think the joy of when yourun a business is at some point
you decide what level you wantto be at. And so some people
will grow, realize it's not forthem, and then they will back
down to simplifying things forexample. But that's the one
(03:51):
thing that I wish I knew beforeI got into the business is that
there are ladders on both sidesand it's very similar to each
other.
Carly Ries (03:58):
I feel like that even goes for people that don't
even necessarily hire employees,but just bring on contractors.
Because even if you work with aton of contractors and you're
still technically a solopreneur,you're still managing all the
contractors.
Joe Rando (04:11):
Hopefully.
Carly Ries (04:12):
Yeah. Hopefully. Or you really will trust them and
that they're doing a great jobor there are other issues.
Behdad Jamshidi (04:18):
100%.
Carly Ries (04:18):
Well, speaking of you leaving the corporate world,
you were in engineering. So howdid you go from that to starting
CGM marketing? And what was kindof the biggest challenge in
taking that leap from corporateinto your own thing?
Behdad Jamshidi (04:32):
That's a great question. It's funny because I
say I never really wanted to bean entrepreneur. It just kinda
came to me, like I just wouldalways try new things. I always
worked as a sales engineer. Idid that for seven out of the
ten years that I used to workfor TELUS.
But throughout that path, Ibecame a personal trainer, I
picked up personal trainingclients, realized I didn't like
doing that because it was moremental than it was actually
physical to get people to wherethey wanted to be. I did a
(04:55):
financial course, I did a wholebunch of stuff. And c gen
marketing was the one thing thatkinda like, I was doing it and I
kinda kept iterating on it, andat some point it just started
kind of working. Right? And so Iwas like, oh, I have something
here.
And it was fun to do because itwas on the side of my full time
job and I didn't have to put,you know, a ton and ton of
attention to it, and it waskinda cool making, a couple
thousand bucks on the monthextra, and you're like, cool,
(05:18):
this could be used for, youknow, other things in life. But
CGM at some point, it got toabout between the year of '3 and
four, as I kept running bothbusinesses, or working full time
and running the business, it hitthis kind of flywheel. And I
didn't expect it. Like thebusiness from the January to the
end of that December had 10 x'd.And I got to a point where I was
(05:40):
like, wow, I'm not even puttingmy full attention into this.
What happens if I go and put myfull attention to it, what could
it potentially become? And so Ikinda hit this crossroads where
I was like, I know if I continueto stay as a sales engineer I'll
be very successful in life, I'llbe able to retire early
regardless because get paidwell, but this other path, I
don't know what the outcome is.And that was kind of exciting to
(06:01):
me at that time, and I was like,I'm gonna go see what becomes of
this if I put my full attentioninto it, because I could always
come back to the old path. Andso that's kinda where that shift
happened, where I was like,gotta make a decision and go all
in and just see what ends uphappening.
Carly Ries (06:16):
So what was the difference in the feeling of
personal training not workingand you kinda being over it, to
you hitting your stride withyour current business? you said
it just felt right, what was itthat felt right?
Behdad Jamshidi (06:30):
Yeah. that's a great question. So on the
personal training front, I felt,okay, you look at the end run,
for everything that you do, youlook at what the outcome looks
like. So when it comes topersonal training, what is the
kind of evolution of thatbusiness is one, I saw a lot of
personal trainers having to wakeup at five in the morning to
take care of clients and dothat, and then during the middle
of the day nothing's happening,and then they have to work in
the evening again because theyhave clients coming in. that's
(06:52):
not the lifestyle I want. Ialready have a pretty cool like
I like being a sales engineer, Ilearned a lot that there's a lot
of things to learn, so it neverreally made sense for me to make
that leap to that. On the CGM,the marketing connector side,
what was interesting was I wasbuilding a business that had
some form of passive income. Andso as I connected businesses and
(07:13):
stuff together, I'm gettingpassive income because I added
value to both, and if both thebusinesses are growing, I was
getting paid passively. And thepassive income was more
interesting to me because I waslike, I'm getting my time back,
I'm getting more of my freedomback, which I think a lot of
people can resonate with, andthat's what they're trying to
build. And so I think that'swhat the alignment was, it's
like, oh I found a businessmodel where this works.
(07:34):
That being said, connectingpeople is a lot of work. So a
piece of my business is passive,but all of it is impassive.
Right? So I think a lot ofpeople don't see that aspect.
Joe Rando (07:46):
Yeah. Let's just briefly describe your business
because we're talking about it,but we're not, we haven't told
people what you do. So, yeah,give us a quick description of
what your business is and whatyou mean by connecting people.
Behdad Jamshidi (07:57):
Sure. So my business is basically, I'll talk
to businesses on the front end,understand what a business
needs, and then I match themwith the right marketing
partner. So over the course ofthe last six years, I've talked
to 35 different marketingagencies and experts, and my
entire thing is talking topeople, understanding what they
need from a business sense, andgoing based on that, here's the
avenues of marketing that Ithink you need help in, and
(08:18):
based on the avenues that Ithink you wanna run, these are
the people that I recommend youhave a conversation with. So
essentially, I'm just amatchmaker between marketing and
business businesses together.
Joe Rando (08:27):
It's a really great idea. it's one of those things
where you go, and how do you dothat? And I won't ask you to go
into the details of how you dowhat you do, but that sounds way
simpler than it probably is.
Behdad Jamshidi (08:41):
Yeah. It is way simpler than it is. so there's
people that are trying toreplicate this model, and the
way that they replicate it is byjust sending a bunch of emails
out, building out a database ofagencies, and then businesses
say they need something, andthen they'll just shoot an email
to those the database and say,who can do this? Right? And
every agency will say they cando stuff, but they can't
actually do it.
Joe Rando (09:00):
Never heard that happen before.
Carly Ries (09:02):
You'll experience that.
Behdad Jamshidi (09:04):
Right, exactly. And so my part and the hard part
of it is, having to meet thisamount of people. Like, when I'm
saying I met athousand thirty-five. I've
jumped on calls with thesepeople. I'm not even accounting
for the people that I met inconferences and things like
that.
And so as you're doing that,you're just trying to assess
what are they really good at?What are they good at in terms
of the size of business and allthis different kind of stuff.
(09:25):
And so essentially you'rematchmaking on both sides. And
Joe and Carly, sure you know, asbusinesses are growing, they're
broken as they grow. right?
Every single time your businessgrows, you break. And it's no
different on the agency side. soas an agency grows their
business, they also break. Soessentially, you're trying to do
matchmaking with two brokenentities at the same time where
(09:47):
they're just the right amount ofbroken that they can help each
other kinda grow together.
And that's extremely hard to do.
Carly Ries (09:55):
What I love about your business is you identified
your strength of being like, I'ma connector. I'm good at
building relationships andfinding a niche because I feel
like people just kinda fall intowhatever their background is or
I can do my own marketing forpeople. But you're just like,
no, I'm really good atintroducing people to other
people, and I'm gonna make acareer out of that.
Behdad Jamshidi (10:15):
Yeah.
Carly Ries (10:16):
wading into your slang, because you just have
found such a creative and uniqueway to do that.
Behdad Jamshidi (10:22):
yeah. it's funny. My wife said something to
me yesterday, and she alwayssays to me. She's like, Behdad,
when I tell my friends, I'mlike, Behdad basically just
created this like magical role,and it didn't exist before, and
then you got people to pay youto do it and found a way to make
money out of it. I was like, Inever thought about it like
that.
Like, the marketing broker thingnever existed, and I just kinda
(10:42):
like randomly made it.
Joe Rando (10:44):
It's pretty interesting because you don't
see a lot of solopreneurscreating a new kind of business.
I mean, you know, but it happensonce in a while, and you're a
great example of it. We talkabout that in the solopreneur
business for dummies book. Andit's like, here, you can create
a whole new business. Think hardbefore you create a whole new
business
Behdad Jamshidi (11:04):
cause you're paving the road.
Carly Ries (11:05):
There may be a reason it doesn't exist.
Joe Rando (11:08):
Exactly. Exactly.
Carly Ries (11:11):
Right. So you have spoken to thousands of people.
We'll include the conferencesand everything and boost that
number from the 1,035. Not thatyou need boosting, but we're
solopreneurs just starting out.Of the conversations you've had,
what would you say the firstmarketing steps they should take
should be?
Behdad Jamshidi (11:31):
I mean, if they have something they love doing,
like they already know thatpiece, the next piece becomes
what channels interest them.Like, if you're a solopreneur
you're running a business, yeah,there's gonna be certain
channels that are gonna workreally really well. Right? but
the ones that youare gonna have fun doing, like have fun learning
Joe Rando (11:49):
Define channels. Define channels.
Behdad Jamshidi (11:51):
So channels you could be doing like SEO, you
could be doing paid ads, youcould be doing social media, and
then when you break down socialmedia, it could be literally
Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit,like, there's so many channels
that you can choose from inmarketing. And if you just do
ChatGPT and go in there and say,this is my business, I wanna
know what marketing channelsmight make sense for my
business, that at least willgive you a starting list of
(12:12):
starting to go do some researchand figure out what you like.
Joe Rando (12:14):
If ChatGPT tells you to try to use non local SEO as a
solopreneur, it will.
Behdad Jamshidi (12:20):
Be aware.
Joe Rando (12:20):
It will. Don't listen. It's not a good strategy
anymore.
Behdad Jamshidi (12:24):
Yeah. Just use that as a way just if you don't
know what channels are outthere, at least to give you a
little bit more insights, andthen do your research. But then
just start looking at thechannels of which one you're
excited about doing. some peoplelike building out content on
YouTube and they just love to dolonger form videos. Right?
Others might like to do theshort term, like shorter videos
for example. So Instagram andTikTok might make more sense.
(12:46):
Obviously you have to know thatyour audience is on those
platforms too. But I thinkwhatever you wanna give energy
to and you're excited about, Ithink start there first because
you're gonna be able to do itfor longer. And in marketing,
sometimes you'll get reallyquick and fast wins, is like 1%
of the marketing world, but alot of it is just stuff that's
done over time that ends up kindof just compounding and
(13:07):
expanding and then hitting thattipping point.
Carly Ries (13:09):
Well, for solopreneurs, a lot of times
they'll start the business andthey're not marketers, they're
just focused on the one thingand the reason they started in
the first place. So when they'reflying blindly, how should they
assess their own marketing needsbefore they seek outside help?
What should they look out for?
Behdad Jamshidi (13:27):
Yeah. I mean, educate yourself as much as you
can. there are courses that youcan take on, like, high level
marketing stuff. There are bookson it. Like, educate yourself a
bit. at least have a foundationaspect to it. And if you're, a
solopreneur and you have a fulltime job, for example, use some
of money that you're making inyour full time job to just help
you learn faster. Like if itmeans hiring a consultant at 200
to $300 an hour to just give yousome ideas around marketing
(13:48):
strategy and that kind of stuff,that might be money well spent
because it'll actually fastforward the amount of time that
you have to actually learn thatstuff. Like $300 per an hour
might actually save you a yearof time. Right?
And you don't need to do itongoing, just find the
expertise, reach out to yournetwork, and see if you can get
some people to kind of help youpush you forward and give you
those ideas so that you don'thave to keep hitting a wall. So
(14:08):
that would be kind of two ways.Like if you don't have the
money, there are books,there are really cheap courses
that you can get, if you just dosome searching around marketing,
and then if you have the money,just invest in some consultants
every now and then. You don'tneed to hire them full time or
ongoing, but you can pay themone time to learn different
things.
Carly Ries (14:25):
So let me ask you, if solopreneurs are overwhelmed
with everything related tomarketing, they're like, well
you say I can read books.There's a million books on
marketing. You say I shouldreach out to a marketing
consultant. There's a million ofthose. And then if they type in
that list for ChatGPT just tosee their direction, and are
like, well, I like long formvideos.
I like short form videos. LoveTikTok trends, but I also like
(14:48):
connecting with people onLinkedIn, and they're just all
over the place, what would yourecommend they do?
Behdad Jamshidi (14:54):
Choose one. just choose one that you wanna
start with, because if you'reall over the place and you're
trying to do everything at once,it's gonna be just too hard.
Right? So find the one thingthat you like to do, and it's
okay, there are all of these,rank them. Like as an engineer,
I always do selection sort.
So let's say I have fiveoptions. I'll literally take the
top option, I'll put it on theright hand side, and then the
second option I go, do I likethis more or less than the first
(15:15):
option? And then I put it in,put it on top. And then use the
third one, same thing. Do I likeit more than the second one?
And then you just basicallyselection sort this list, and
all of a sudden you're like, oh,this is the top one because I
like this the most. Go that way.Right? The thing with business
and entrepreneurship and allthis stuff is there's gonna be
so many avenues to take all thetime, you just need to make a
decision and just start movingforward with something, and then
(15:35):
just reevaluate every two orthree months, be like, is this
working? Do I still like this?
And the thing is, a lot of timeswith marketing, you have to do
things for a long time untilthey actually hit, right? a lot
of people that you see, forexample, I have a friend of mine
and she looks up to me, but shedoesn't realize how much I look
up to her. She started basicallydoing videos in the automotive
industry. She's working theremaking probably I think 40 to
(15:58):
$50 a year. And she was reallygood at video editing, like
really good at video editing,and you could just see that
talent.
And so she started playingaround with it, started getting
in front of the camera more,started becoming more confident
in front of the camera Aroundlike a year three and four,
kinda the same as me, shestarted getting different
projects. A company startedreaching out. She became an
(16:18):
influencer. She has like over500,000 followers on TikTok. She
has Instagram at 400,000followers, but it built over the
last four or five years.
And she was just at Procter andGamble this last week, doing
videos for them. it just blowsmy mind on just how it grew
because she just chose herchannels, Instagram, TikTok,
stuck to them, met othercreators, kept improving, and
(16:39):
just insane what she's been ableto do in the last five years.
Joe Rando (16:43):
Yeah. That's great. Wow.
Carly Ries (16:44):
Yeah. Joe, we were talking about the two hundredth
episode, but I feel like we werekinda like that even with this
podcast. Like, were just kindawe were growing steadily. We
were constantly growing. Andthen I would say just like six
months ago or so, you saw it golike this to zoop.
And we're on Apple now forsolopreneur, and I mean, I wanna
(17:05):
say it's because we cracked thecode and changed things, but
also we put in the reps too.
Joe Rando (17:11):
Well, that's absolutely true. I mean, really
a lot of these things come downto putting in the time and the
energy and just, you know,making it, happen week after
week. And you can't shortcutthat stuff sometimes.
Behdad Jamshidi (17:25):
Yeah. That's a 100% it.
Carly Ries (17:27):
Well, B, let's say somebody's listening to this,
and they're like, oh, I didn'tknow your business existed
because nobody did becauseyou're kind of your own unique
little, in your own uniquelittle world. But they're like,
that's exactly what I neededbecause I don't know what to
look for in outsourcing mymarketing. I don't know what's
considered good and what's not.So can you walk us through kind
of the process? Let's say a oneperson business owner is
(17:50):
listening, they need marketinghelp, and they're like, b, help
me.
What does that process looklike?
Behdad Jamshidi (17:56):
Yeah. So with businesses that are typically
one person, I typically workwith businesses three to thirty
million, like that's my rangewhere I do a lot of the
connecting, but people that aretypically like businesses that
are smaller than that, youalmost have to work from the
ground up. And so I typicallyjust offer one or two consulting
sessions to kinda get them onthe right path and what to think
about. And so the way thattypically works is one, talking
to the solopreneur,understanding their business,
(18:18):
how it works, what they'redoing, what kind of customers
they have, all that differentkind of stuff to just understand
where they're fundamentally atand what revenue range they're
at. And then reallyunderstanding like, is there
profit left in the business? ifthere's no profit left in the
business, there's not much youcan do. Right? Like you just
gotta keep hacking at it untilyou have a little money saved up
so that you can go, hey, I nowhave, you know, 2 or $3,000 a
month that I can dedicate tosome form of marketing. And that
(18:41):
doesn't mean hiring an agency.Like it could literally mean hey
I'm doing social media posts andI don't wanna be posting them on
the weekend anymore orscheduling them myself. So it's
like, cool. you should probablybe hiring a BA for social media.
You don't even need to startworking with agency at this
point, you just need to get theexecution stuff off your plate
so you can do more of whatbrings you money.
Right? So my recommendationalways kind of in the beginning
(19:04):
is figuring out what your keychannels are, and then how do
you basically get people to helpyou execute those for the least
amount of cost possible. Andthen as you keep growing, then
you can start using the biggerplayers. Typically, once you
start hitting that like 2 or$3,000,000 range is when you
start working with more legitand stronger agencies. Up until
that point, I think you're kindof like bringing things
together. case in point, I havea call later today with one of
(19:27):
my good friends who's now acustomer of mine, and he
literally just wrote me out amarketing strategy, and he's
like, I don't know how toresource this. I wanna do all of
these things, but I don't knowhow to resource this thing. So
I'm doing a consulting sessionfor him to literally go, hey,
based on the stuff that you havehere, you likely need some sort
of marketing director for thispiece. You likely could use this
kind of contractor for thisspecific thing, and then these
(19:50):
other things have to be filledin by someone else. Like, and
just organizing how he'd be ableto do all that, and then also
resetting expectations, becausehe's expecting for things to
happen in the next three months,and I'm like, this is probably
gonna take way longer than that,and I just need you to mentally
be prepared for that, becauseit's gonna probably take you six
months to twelve months to dothe thing you're trying to do
there.
Does that help answer thatquestion?
Carly Ries (20:10):
Oh yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Well, for people, so
like misunderstood timelines,but for people that decide
they're like, oh, I don't needyour service right now, I'm
gonna go this alone, and theytry to look for a marketing
partner by themselves, whatmistakes do you see people make
when they try to find them ontheir own?
Behdad Jamshidi (20:28):
Yeah. This is fun. So one, I just wanna talk
about the how much it hurts whenyou pick the wrong marketing
partner, right? and I've seenthis multiple times because I
mean Joe, sure you know too,like whenever you hire a
marketing agency or partner, youhave to ramp them up. And so it
takes you three to six monthstypically to ramp these people
up, find out they're not good,let them go, and then you have
(20:50):
to go through the whole processagain.
Right? And typically it takesthree to five tries to find one
partner you really like. And sothat hurts. It could take you
two years to find someone youreally like to work with.
Joe Rando (20:59):
And a lot of wasted money. Because they don't do
that ramp up for free.
Behdad Jamshidi (21:02):
Exactly. So that's like one of the biggest
factors. The other thing ispeople will just go through
their network and just whoeverthey get, they won't talk to
enough people. Right? So they'llgo to the network, people
recommend two or three people totalk to to the two or three
because they don't want to dothe extra work.
They'll just pick one of the twoor three people and go, it's
good enough, I'm going to do mything. But good enough a lot of
the times in marketing isn'tgood enough. You don't really
(21:25):
get anywhere with it. So that'sthe other piece. The second one
would be communication. you haveto be able to communicate and
understand the other side.Right? So if you have a very
basic level of marketingexperience, and then you're
hiring an expert, and thatexpert is talking at a level of
let's say nine out of 10 onFacebook ads for example, and
(21:45):
you understand it at a zero oneout of 10, there's gonna be a
lot of context and a lot ofinformation missed, and you're
just gonna blindly trustsomeone, but not realize that
they're actually not goodpotentially. Right? and other
one, because it's actuallyhappened the last three weeks
twice now, a business will hiresomeone for some form of
marketing, so say Facebook orGoogle ads, and never actually
(22:07):
go into the accounts to seewhat's going on, and this is
where both these businessesactually hire business
consultants just to look at ahigh level, like I'm not a
massive expert, deep levelexpert of Facebook or Google
Ads, but I know my way around togo, hey, this Google Ads
account, they're spending a tonof money on so the business for
context is like a physio clinic,anyone who meets physios, chiro,
(22:27):
that kind of stuff.
And they were basically spending80% of their budget in RMT,
registered massage therapy. Andhe's like, Behdad, I've actually
let go of one of my RMT's, wentfrom two to one, we're not even
trying to fill that service, sowhy is 80% of my Google Ads
budget going into that? And thenwe went into his negative
keywords, and he's like, thereis information on recovery after
(22:50):
an ACL injury, or like programfor an ACL injury. Those were in
his negative keywords, which Ifound bizarre because I go to my
physio, and the thing he talksabout the most is they have an
entire program on how to getback from ACL and MCL injuries,
like that's what they do. And itwas in the negative keywords
list, and then I was like What?
Joe Rando (23:09):
This is worse than what we went through, Carly.
Carly Ries (23:14):
I didn't have to deal with the brunt of that
because I was on maternityleave.
Joe Rando (23:17):
Yeah. It was But it's stuck with that. It's amazing.
Yeah. And we're fortunate now wefound somebody very good for
that.
But oh, boy. You know, that'sincredible. Yeah. Let me have
negative keywords for the thingsyou want for business.
Behdad Jamshidi (23:34):
Yeah. And he was shocked. He's like, Behdad,
what does negative keywords meanand why is this under there? And
I was like, it's exactly whatyou think it is.
And he's like, oh, okay. So youcan even do this stuff yourself.
Like you probably don't evenconsult. I haven't looked on
YouTube, it was like how toaudit in the Google Ads account.
I'm sure if you search that,someone is gonna teach you how
to do it.
Joe Rando (23:54):
They teach them to do anything.
Behdad Jamshidi (23:56):
Yeah, exactly.
Carly Ries (23:57):
Well I think this episode is just so helpful for
people that are starting out, orare in their business a little
bit, and are like, okay, it'stime for me to outsource some
marketing, and just kinda whereto start, the red flags and
everything. But I have to ask,since you are in the marketing
world, what kind of trends doyou think solopreneurs should
keep track of over the next fewyears?
Behdad Jamshidi (24:16):
Yeah. So it's interesting. I got asked this
question also yesterday, and Ihad a jumbled up answer. And
then I thought about it and Iwas like, it's jumbled up
because it's so crazy right now.Like everything is kind of
shifting in the marketing worldright now.
And when you simplify it down,it's like, oh, execution is
becoming so much easier to dofor smaller businesses. Right?
There are so many AI tools outthere that you can now start
(24:37):
creating really good creativefor your Facebook ads, for
example, yourself withoutneeding a ton of experience. you
can create copywriting that canbe a four or five out of 10
level without needing a ton ofexperience. it's not like
getting to average now is somuch easier with AI that it
allows smaller businesses tobasically have more things that
they're able to do because theyhave better like, they can use
(24:59):
the resources more effectively,if that makes sense.
Joe Rando (25:01):
But what does that really mean in the big picture?
If everybody's, you know, Ialways think of, Lake Woolby
Gone. I don't know if youremember that radio program
where all the children are aboveaverage. And it's like, what
does it mean when the averagemoves up like that? Does it
really help, or is it justraising the bar and now you've
gotta do even better to getnoticed?
Behdad Jamshidi (25:22):
Yeah. So that's exactly it. So what it'll help
is the solopreneurs who need toget from let's say a level zero
to a level five. Right? at leastpeople will have some sort of
solid foundation. more peopleare gonna have a solid
foundation. But the differenceis gonna be in the experts. And
so I don't think AI is gonnatake over any strategic stuff,
expert level type work. Like touse AI effectively, for example,
(25:44):
for storytelling, you need to bean expert level storyteller to
know if what it's giving you isgood. Right?
And it's gonna be the same forliterally everything from
development to creative towhatever it is to branding. you
ultimately need to be an expertin that area to be able to
create great and expert work. SoI think it's just gonna be the
level of person has to amplifyto just become even better, and
(26:04):
those people are gonna becomeeven more valuable. What I'm
noticing in the marketing agencyspace is that if people are
gonna sit into execution, likethose marketing agencies are
really gonna struggle, it'sgonna be the marketing agencies
that shift over to strategy andtruly understand marketing
strategy, which I would say alot of them don't. Like when I'm
saying a lot, I'm saying like90% don't.
(26:25):
And so they're gonna have toupscale. And then it's the
people that are able to bringmultiple aspects together now.
So it's no longer gonna be theGoogle Ads person, and then you
have a landing page person, andthen you have an email person.
Right? I think because executionis gonna become so much easier
to do, agencies have to bringall of these services together
and say, hey, we run your GoogleAds, we take care of your
(26:46):
landing pages, we also doserial, and we do email.
And we do it well, because wecan actually do it effectively.
And so I think for solopreneursit's just being aware that this
shift is happening, and so a lotof marketing agencies right now,
I don't think are gonna survivein the in the longer term,
they're gonna have to shift intobecoming different, but the
marketing fundamentals alwaysstay the same. You're still
dealing with people. You'restill dealing with their
emotions, and you're stilldealing with what they want to
(27:08):
be. Right?
Joe Rando (27:09):
I think that you said something that I think is a
little bit unlikely, but yousaid they're gonna have to
upskill. I don't know thatpeople can upskill into being
strategic. That's a leap. Imean, you think about somebody
that's, focused on tactics andexecution as a business, you
know, shifting that businessinto a strategic I don't know,
(27:32):
it sounds hard to me.
Behdad Jamshidi (27:34):
Yeah. It might not be them, it might be they
have to bring a partner in thatthinks that's a strategic piece.
we both know, there'svisionaries and executors of
companies, right? and so theexecutors are gonna have to
understand, like, we probablyneed a visionary to come into
here and help us with strategybecause we're not gonna figure
it out.
Or it's not their strength,which is gonna be
Joe Rando (27:50):
And the visionaries need the executors too because
the visionary is always havingtested as a visionary, which I
thought was great when I tookthe test, and then realized, no.
Not so great. It's visionariesneed reining in. So, yeah, that
you're right. That's probablythe best thing is for those
people to come together and keepeach other focused and in check
(28:13):
and but anyway so for all ofour, executing solopreneurs
might wanna be thinking a littlebit about finding a way to get a
little more strategic because Ijust think about making like
like you said, a level four orfive out of 10 copywriter is now
(28:35):
$20 a month.
Behdad Jamshidi (28:36):
Yeah. It's not expensive anymore.
Joe Rando (28:39):
It's crazy.
Carly Ries (28:40):
I think this episode will help lead so many people
into or hopefully give them somedirection of where to go with
their marketing efforts and howto outsource it and what to look
for. And so you will help themfind success with that. So thank
you. So we have to ask, what isyour favorite quote about
success?
Behdad Jamshidi (28:54):
It's not about the outcome, it's about the
process. I think I just reallyinternalized that like in over
the last two years. Right? So weall have this expected outcome
that we wanna hit, and I thinkthe more you tie to I need to
hit this thing, I think the moreyou're gonna struggle within
business versus just enjoyingthe process of what you're going
to. So having the goal, havingthe thing you wanna do, but just
(29:14):
enjoying the process of it, Ithink this becomes more and more
important, and who you become asyou go through that process.
Carly Ries (29:20):
Could not agree more. Well, if people want to
learn more about you, where canthey find you?
Behdad Jamshidi (29:26):
Two places. So LinkedIn is somewhere I'm quite
often, so looking up BehdadJamshidi. I put a lot of content
on LinkedIn and try to helppeople not get caught by
marketing agencies and tactics.And then the second aspect, if
you go to my websitewww.cjmmarketing.com, in the
resource section, there's abunch of questions that you can
use for vetting agencies, thetop questions to ask, and just
(29:47):
how to think about hiringpartners. So feel free to use
those resources yourself.
Joe Rando (29:51):
And that's c as the letter c, jam marketing.
Behdad Jamshidi (29:54):
Exactly.
Carly Ries (29:56):
Cool. Awesome. Well, thank you so so much for coming
on the show today. We soappreciate it.
Behdad Jamshidi (30:01):
Thanks for having me.
Carly Ries (30:02):
And listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. We
would love that five starreview. We'd love it if you'd
share it with a friend andsubscribe on your favorite
podcast platform, includingYouTube. And we will see you
next time on The AspiringSolopreneur. You may be going
solo in business, but thatdoesn't mean you're alone.
In fact, millions of people arein your shoes, running a one
(30:23):
person business and figuring itout as they go. So why not
connect with them and learn fromeach other's successes and
failures? At LifeStarr we'recreating a one person business
community where you can go tomeet and get advice from other
solopreneurs. Be sure to join inon the conversations at
community.lifestarr.com.
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