July 31, 2023 • 29 mins
Are you ready for success & exponential growth? This year?
'cause, here's the thing:
Our minds are mostly trained to guard against failure. After all 70% of startups fail in years 2-5 so we really need to be thinking about future-proofing
But, when it comes to the future, ask yourself this: how would your business change if you could triple your revenue overnight? If you could get not one, but 100 of your dream clients?
It would be great, right? It could be. But only if you’re ready for it.
While you may have a ton of backup plans for failure I'll bet you don't have any for massive success.
We think a lot about the worst thing that could happen and we plan for it, but it's rare that we do this for the best-case scenarios.
It's more important than ever for us to imagine a successful & sustainable future... To help us do that, I invited digital marketer & trend analyst, Adriana Tica onto the Standout Business Show.
Listen up because Adriana is going to walk us through how you can build a solid foundation for long-term sustainable growth AND future proof your business!
Adriana underscores the importance of laying a rock-solid foundation, making the right client choices, and assembling the perfect team for long-lasting success.
Don't forget to join us every Thursday at 11 am Eastern Time for more insightful business strategies. Let's build standout businesses together!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
I believe that if you lay down and solid and a strong
foundation for your business inthe very early days, you will
set up yourself for success inthe long run.
If you go on to chase growthhack after growth hack and
buying all the systems andframeworks that are that are
mostly battled by the hustlegrows online, then you might see
some growth, but it won't befor long.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome to the standout business show, where
it's all about making a biggerdifference by doing business
differently.
I'm Brad Powell and today we'relooking at what future proofing
means for your business in 2023.
Here's my first question Areyou ready for success and
(00:56):
exponential growth this year?
Because here's the thing Ourminds are mostly trained to
guard against failure and, afterall, like 70% of startups are
going to fail in the first twoto five years.
So we need to be thinking aboutthis idea of future proofing If
(01:19):
we're going to make it to thatgroup small group of businesses
that survive or not just survive, but thrive this year and next
year and year after.
How would your business changeif, all of a sudden, you were to
triple your revenue?
I mean, if you had like 50 ofyour dream clients come in next
(01:39):
week, would that be great orwould it be a headache?
Would you be ready for it?
And while I'll bet you have alot of plans for failure, I'll
also bet I'll bet you $5, so youdon't have a plan for radical
success.
So I think it's more importantthan ever right now for us to be
(02:02):
thinking about how we canimagine the sustainable and
successful future for our workand to help us do that, I've
invited digital marketer andtrend analyst, adriana Tikka
onto the show, and I want you tostay tuned because she's going
to walk us through how you canbuild a solid foundation for
(02:24):
long term sustainable growth andfuture proof your business.
So with that let's start theshow.
All right, adriana, welcome tothe show.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Hey, Brad, happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
All right, well, to start us off, I got a lot of the
idea for this particularepisode by looking at your blog
and reading one blog post inparticular where you were
sharing a story about how youhad your business and it was
getting 70% growth year afteryear and that almost killed it,
(03:01):
which is kind ofcounterintuitive, and most
people might say 70th, thatsounds great.
You know what happened, so tellus that story, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So what happened was that I opened up an agency back
in 2015.
And, just like everyone elsehoping it's a new business, I
was very, very focused on growth.
I wanted more clients.
I wanted to charge them more,so eventually I needed to hire
more people.
And you know how this circlegoes it can be a virtuous circle
(03:30):
or it can be a vicious circle.
For me it was a vicious circlebecause I did not discriminate.
If anyone wanted to be a clientof ours, I was yeah, sure, come
on on, come on on board To dothat.
I hired more people.
And guess what?
None of these people neitherthe clients nor the new writers
(03:53):
I had hired none of them were agood fit.
We ended up onboarding thewrong type of clients.
We were doing a lot of contentmarketing and copywriting back
then and we were very, veryclose to turning the agency into
a content mail.
And at some point I figured outthat I was way far from my
(04:13):
initial tagline that was aboutique approach, grant results
.
We no longer had boutiqueapproach.
We were just onboarding peoplewith a couple of emails.
We barely offered anypersonalized onboarding.
So I figured that out.
I fired nearly half my team.
I also fired a lot of clients.
We took a massive revenue hitin our second quarter, I guess,
(04:37):
but then we were back on trackby the end of the year and we
managed to stay true to ourvalue proposal again.
So for me, fast, rapid growthnearly meant the death of my
business, and it was all becauseI wasn't careful enough to
build a solid foundation beforeI started promoting my business
(04:58):
and before I started taking onclients.
And I see this type of thinghappen regularly with all types
of businesses and, more recently, with creators.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, well, the thing that stuck out to me in what
you were just talking aboutthere is all around working with
the right people, and thisworks both for the clientele
that you are saying yes to, aswell as the team that you bring
on and sort of who they are.
So can you unpack that a littlebit?
You can start on either side ofthose fences, whether it's with
(05:34):
your clients or with your ownpeople.
But how did you and how do younow approach that recruitment in
terms of whether you know, howdo you decide who you're going
to work with in terms ofclientele, and also who you're
going to work with in terms ofthe people who are on your team?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think there's a choosing howto work with either clients or
people who work for you.
There's something.
There's something both of thesethings have in common you have
to make sure they're the rightfit, because if they are not,
they're going to make youmiserable.
I know very few people talkabout this, about whether you're
happy in your business or youjust go through the motions
(06:10):
because you need to pay thebills and keep the lights on,
and that's a perfectly validreason to have a business.
But if you're only goingthrough the motions and if
financial gains are your onlymotivation, you're going to end
up being miserable very, verysoon.
It happened to me and it showedin my business too.
So this is not a recipe forlong-term success.
(06:30):
What I did after my initialmistake was that I paid more
attention, first and foremost,to the clients I was working on.
I started sending them detailedbrief.
I started asking what theyneeded out of us.
I never, ever signed, neveragain.
I mean, I never signedyear-long contracts before
(06:51):
asking them to do a test run.
This works well in more waysthan one.
First of all, it helps thembuild trust because they don't
have to lay down a huge sum ofmoney in the beginning and they
get to test our services, but atthe other end, we also get to
test how we get along with themand whether we have good
(07:12):
communication and whether theirvalues are aligned to ours.
So this new approach allowed meto stop working with clients
that were a bad fit andconsequently I could also stop
hiring people who are a bad fitfor my company culture.
Don't get me wrong, it's a verysmall business.
It was a small business backthen, so I was never working
(07:36):
with hundreds of clients orhundreds of writers, but even so
, even one bad apple can spoilall of them, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I've got one comment fromNatalie.
She says I love your candidness.
We can all get sidetracked andforget why we're in business
sometimes, Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, I was very rich back then.
You know I mean very rich formy standards and for my
expectations.
My business took off so fastthat it literally left me behind
, you know.
But I still realized that Icouldn't keep it up at that pace
.
I mean, money be damned, but no, it wasn't the kind of life I
(08:17):
wanted to build, nor the kind ofbusiness.
There were tons of thosealready and I didn't want to be
one of them.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, it reminds me there's awoman by the name of Pia Silva
who not only has an agency, butshe helps other small agencies
do their marketing.
One of her approaches issimilar to what you were talking
about in terms of like not thelong, year long contract but she
actually works.
When she brings on a client andthis is what she teaches she
(08:46):
does something that she calls alead product, which is this
initial very small engagement,and it's all about building
their relationship and buildingthe trust to go through this
first relatively small round andthen you both know whether or
not it's good to be workingtogether.
And, in the best case scenario,this new client that you're
(09:08):
bringing on now sees what it'slike to work with you and they
really like.
If they like you and they likehow you work, then they're
really ready to buy intowhatever the much higher ticket
and longer term contract mightbe, whereas if you do it the
other way around, where you'regoing, hey look, here's this
long thing and high price andwhatever that that potential
(09:32):
client is going to look at thatin a very different way and go.
Well, I don't know like.
I have to go talk to three orfour other people before.
I can say yes to this.
So it's a really interestingrelationship building method
which I think is much morelikely to build a successful
relationship in terms of how thetwo of you can function and
make whatever project you'reworking on be successful.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Absolutely.
It's a proof of concept ofsorts and it's the approach that
help us keep clients for sevenyears or more.
I mean, we still have clientsthat have been with me since I
was a freelancer and then theymoved on to my, to my agency
business and so on.
This is something that I'm thatI'm very proud of and I can't
believe I almost lost it.
(10:15):
You know One of the reasons whyI started my newsletter I
believe that if you lay down andsolid and a strong foundation
for your business in the veryearly days, you will set up
yourself for success in the longrun.
If you go on to chase growthhack after growth hack and
buying total systems andframeworks that are that are
(10:38):
mostly battled by the hustlegrows online, then you might see
some growth, but it won't.
It won't be for long.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, one of the guests I had on just a couple of
weeks ago is Michelle Warnerand she was talking about her
whole thing is relationshipmarketing, and so it's really
turning all your ideas about howdo you want to market yourself
into this intention of well, I'mreally just wanting to build a
good relationship with thepeople who I want to work with
(11:09):
and if you have that as yoursort of everything you do is
oriented around that.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah, it's exactly like that.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Let's move to the other side of the fence and talk
about team building, and so youwant to apply some of these
same principles to when you'rebringing people on to work with
you within your own organization, and so how have you improved
and maintain your approach there?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Right.
So in the beginning, when wewere growing so rapidly, I
simply had to hire people, and Ihad to do it fast.
I needed them to startyesterday, and so I couldn't get
them to go through all thetests and all the steps, so I
ended up, of course, onboardinga lot of the wrong people.
They ended up leaving me in themiddle of a project.
(11:54):
It was a hot mess.
Everything was a hot mess.
I spent many nights working onprojects that should have been
tackled by my writers.
So what I did when Irestructured everything was that
I created my own hiring processthat started with a couple of
small written tests a Zoom call,way before Zoom or Cool and
(12:16):
then, because I had the time todo that, I would get them
started by working on somethingfor our own brand.
They wouldn't start by workingdirectly for our customers, so
this gave me time to assesstheir abilities better and to
make sure they are able to meetdeadlines, because we had built
a reputation where we never,ever, missed a deadline, and so
(12:37):
for me, this was very, veryimportant, you know, to make
sure that my team delivered ontime and that we had enough time
to edit everything to gothrough all the rounds of
changes if needed, and so on andso forth.
So my hiring process becamelonger, but it also became more
future proof, which is what Iwas aiming for.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah, well, you know, a lot of the similar mentality
and idea applies equally wellwith team members.
One of the things that I feellike I've had success with in
terms of people that I'vemanaged is around creating
autonomy for them and also beinglike the vision, not just
(13:19):
creator but carrier.
You know, like there's, even ina very small group, like if
you're only working with threepeople and you can have a vision
and a culture around, well,what does it mean?
Like what are we really after?
Like what's the legendary questthat we're on?
And if you can get people tosee that and buy into it, and
(13:40):
not only that, but contribute toit, like actually expand upon
that particular dream, thenthey're feeling like, oh, I'm a
part of this really good workthat we all get to do.
And when people are workingfrom that kind of inner
motivation, it makes all thedifference in terms of you know
(14:01):
how you work together and whatthey're willing to do, and you
know and how they're actuallywilling to show up for the
clients that are now have hiredyou.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Absolutely, and I love that you mentioned allowing
your team members to contributeto your vision.
It doesn't have to be set instone and I think it's
absolutely essential that it'svery fluid and flexible because,
you know, context change,economies change.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, absolutely, and that's, you know.
I feel it's inclusive aroundyour team.
It's also inclusive around yourclients and your audience.
You know, like, even people whoare reading your newsletter,
people are watching the livestream.
They can all be contributors towhere are we going?
Like, what's happening withthis thing that we're creating
together and what is the like?
(14:55):
In this case, we're having thisconversation about helping
businesses be more sustainableand be more resilient.
I think, you know, everybodyhas the post pandemic malaise of
oh my God, what just happenedto us?
Yeah, and we're, you know,we're still recovering, like
that, you know, mentally andphysically, and a whole bunch of
ways.
So there's all kinds of thingsthat we're still dealing with on
(15:18):
a regular basis, and the newnormal is so undefined that, you
know, this conversation, theconversation like, well, how can
a small business, people,figure out a path forward where
we will be resilient and we can,you know, be sustainable almost
no matter what comes our way?
(15:38):
These are the kinds ofconversations that I think are
terrific right now, thateveryone can contribute to.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, absolutely.
And the post pandemic economicuncertainty doesn't help either.
You know it's thrown a lot ofbusiness owners into anxiety.
Whatever they, whatever theydid during the pandemic, some
businesses thrived, othersstruggled, others shut down
completely.
But even those who thrivedduring the pandemic most of them
thrives because people wereglued to their screens for the
(16:09):
better part of the day thischanged right now.
I mean, the borders are open,the pubs are open and you really
can't compete with exotictravels and unlimited points at
your favorite pub.
So if you have an onlinebusiness that thrived during the
pandemic, you're going to haveto reinvent it right now to find
other things that people need.
People don't have the samebuying patterns they used to
(16:32):
back then, and oftentimes it's atough pivot.
I mean, the pivot during thepandemic was tough in itself,
but this one that got us into acomfy bubble that had us spend
most of our time online, Ianticipate this one is going to
be even tougher to break out of,you know.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, that's so interesting, I mean.
Yeah, I mean, we all wentthrough this transition where,
oh, we have to talk on Zoom, oh,like I can't go anywhere, so
the only way I can communicateis through this little tiny
square on my screen and a lot ofpeople, a lot of people,
adapted to that and some hadtrouble adapting.
(17:14):
But now it's like the opposite,you know.
Now it's like, oh, I'm reallyrusty about going out into the
real world and how.
You know what do I want?
You know, what am I going to donow in terms of this reverse,
pivot into, you know, somethingentirely new and again, as I say
, like the new normal has justnot been defined, it's something
(17:35):
new and different.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Absolutely.
And the fact that we struggleto call it normal doesn't make
it any more normal than it is inthe world.
Yeah Right, exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
All right.
Well, one of the things thatyou have foundationally and a
lot of people are aware withthis is creating systems in your
business so that you've gotthis almost kind of machine that
can work and be repeatable andit's you're not reinventing the
wheel every time you take on anew client and so forth.
So could you talk a little bitabout that process of
(18:10):
systematizing differentoperations and that, even like
the smallest operator reallyneeds to be thinking about this?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I think in the beginning, inthe very beginning, in the first
days of your business, youdon't even have to think systems
.
I mean, sure, keep themsomewhere in the back of your
mind, but in the beginning, tryto do the things that don't
scale.
Talk to each of your clients,talk to each of your subscribers
, to as many of your audiencemembers as possible.
(18:39):
Do this manually if you will.
You know, don't try to, don'ttry to automate anything, don't
try to systemize anything,because doing doing the things
that don't scale in the earlydays will give you a lot of
insight into what you can andcannot systemize, into what you
can and cannot automate.
So what I have still kept in myagency, for instance, I still
(19:03):
talk to all of our clientsmyself.
Yes, I have, I have briefs thatare that are temptedized and
that I can send to everyone.
But I wanted to retain thisperk of talking to each of our
clients myself.
I'm the interface of the agency, everything goes through me.
This allows me to tailor myservices, to tailor my offers
(19:27):
according to what I learned fromeach client, and I've brought
this mentality into my into mysecond business.
I talk to as many of mysubscribers as possible.
I keep asking them how did youfeel about this issue?
Did you like it?
Do you like this approach?
Did you like the other one?
These are things that these arethings that I don't plan to
systemize anytime soon or toautomate, but of course, I
(19:50):
automate a lot of the otherthings.
I have tiny snippets that I canadd to each email I send.
I don't have to write them fromscratch every time I use the, I
use social media managing toolsso I can post across networks
at the same time.
I don't need to log in and outof every platform every time I
want to post something or everyany time I want to manage the
(20:12):
comments that appear on my post.
I think that after you've beenin business for three to six
months, yes, you can think aboutsystemizing things.
You can think about automatingsome of the things that you do
every day, perhaps evendelegating, but it's important
to do the things that don'tscale in the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Let's do a little planning for success.
I mean, you never know, successcould come any day.
Now, and I'll use myself as anexample Like this past year,
I've introduced a new service,which I call mic drop moments,
which is all about short formvideo, and basically what
happens is that a client willcome and work with me by.
(20:54):
We do interviews remotely and Iinterview them for just an hour
and in that hour I'll ask themquestions, they'll give me their
answers and I'll pull out someof their very best insights, and
I'll take that footage from therecording and I'll edit it down
into short, social mediafriendly videos that will then
get scheduled and posted allacross every social media
(21:15):
channel that they care to be on.
And so, for the time challengedentrepreneur, this works well
because they only have to spenda single hour of their time and
they get a month of social mediacontent basically done for them
, where they get to be the faceof their brand on a daily basis,
(21:38):
all over the place, whereverthey feel like their best
audience is.
And, of course, this kind ofmedium is working really well
right now, because all of theplatforms are feeling challenged
and threatened by TikTok, whichmeans that they're like well,
we need to do short form videotoo, and we need to make it even
better.
(21:58):
And if people are doing it, weneed to encourage them to come
onto our platform and do thiskind of video making, so that if
you do it on YouTube orInstagram or Facebook and even
on LinkedIn, the algorithm isgoing to say great, we want more
people to see this type ofcontent.
So it happens to perform verywell, and this is a long way of
saying that in the last littlewhile, my business has seen a
(22:21):
growth spurt and so it's like ohno, more people are coming to
me and we have a lot of work andI have to hire new people and I
need help and I need tosystematize stuff.
So what can you say to someonewho's in this position, where
they're going, wow, things aregrowing awesome.
And then like okay, but I needto be careful because too much
(22:43):
success might derail everything.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Well, first of all, I congratulate them.
You know because, because, when, when your business starts
growing, if you're notcompletely overwhelmed with the
work you have to do, you shouldalways and I mean always take a
bit of time to celebrate, togive yourself a hand.
You know you've made it, you'vegotten where you want it to be.
Second of all, I'd startthinking about how this growth
(23:08):
can be replicated in the future.
Hiring the right people andmaking sure that the right fit
for your organization is, ofcourse, the first step.
Like you mentioned that you'rehiring people right now, but he
also said that you're you'rewriting this trend where short
front video is the darling ofevery algorithm out there.
So what I would do if I were inyour shoes, I would think I
(23:30):
have.
I have all these happy clientsright now.
What else can I offer them inthe future, in the near future
or in the medium future?
What else can I offer them tohelp them systematize their work
even more or to help them growan even better presence on
social media or outside of it?
Is there any other service thatthey might need except for the
(23:53):
mic drop videos, while I'mcertain that this trend is going
to be with us for a while.
It's short form.
Videos aren't going anywhere.
Perhaps there's something elsethat they could use.
Since you're alreadyinterviewing them, I'm sure you
have some insights into theirbusiness and into into what they
do and into what they strugglewith, and perhaps you can
partner with someone else whodoes something other than video.
(24:16):
Perhaps they do written contentand you can offer them a while
during the package or somethinglike that.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, yeah, that's all really great advice and, in
fact, right to that point I am.
One of the things that I'mdoing right now is that I'm like
I know that this sweet spotwith the algorithm, like all
things, will only last so longand then it'll disappear and
it's like, okay, well, what else?
What else can we do with thiskind of content?
(24:42):
And so one of the things thatI'm experimenting with is
something that I call the shortform sales letter, so that,
instead of landing on a landingpage and getting this long,
boring video that is just abunch of slides and doesn't even
show your face and goes on likehas no controls of whether you
can play it or stop it or speedit up or any of that stuff, like
(25:05):
, it's just like oh my gosh, howlong do I have to sit here?
Kind of experience.
That instead of that, you createa set, like a really small set,
of maybe four one minute videosthat each one brings in one
element and or handles oneobjection or does all the things
that you want to do in thesales journey, or at least one
has a cliffhanger, so thatthey're bingeable, and so the
(25:29):
person coming there will watchvideo number one and go oh well,
I have to go to the videonumber two.
That ended super quick, so it'ssort of interactive.
It's even choose your ownadventure, like they could start
with video number three if theywanted to, and so I'm just sort
of looking at this andexperimenting with it and it's a
really fun, creative project.
But it's answering the questionlike, well, what else can we do
creatively with short formvideo that's not just simply
(25:52):
posting on social media?
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Oh, I love this idea.
It's what video sales lettershould?
Letters should be in 2023.
Yeah, yeah, no one has the timeto listen to half an hour of
you pitching your own service.
Yeah, really, I mean, it'sexcruciating Right.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, it's painful, and it's.
It's painful especially becausemost of those sales letters or
webinars or whatever they allhave the same format where the
person gets on, they go.
Oh you know, I used to sleep onmy parents' couch and I had no
money and I didn't know what Iwas going to do.
And then all of a sudden, I hadthis thing and I made a million
dollars.
And now that I made a milliondollars, I'm going to show you
how to make a million dollars.
(26:28):
And only the trouble is thatthat doesn't take 30 seconds.
That story lasts like half thewebinar.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Absolutely.
It's actually what I, what Iwrote today in my, in my
newsletter, where I wassuggesting people could try
doing webinars or workshops forfree to help get more leads, you
know.
But I also warned them againstmaking half the webinar a pitch.
This is this is painful.
This is this is not a webinaranymore, you know, it's an
infomercial.
This is this is what they feellike.
(26:56):
So, yeah, please don't do that.
If you host your own webinar oryour own workshop, even if it's
free, even if it's paid, makesure that you you pitch your
higher ticket offer for no morethan 10 percent of the duration
of the webinar.
It's enough, they get it.
They'll get it in three minutesor less, trust me.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah right, exactly, ok.
Well, we're getting close tothe end of our time here today,
and so if there's one thing thatyou would like to bring on as a
way to close this up in termsof the world of future proofing,
what would that be?
Speaker 1 (27:30):
I would advise anyone who's starting their business
today to go back to the basicsof marketing before they move on
to the hacks.
Before they figure out how tobe the kings of LinkedIn or the
kings of Twitter, they shouldlay down their, their marketing
principles.
Their foundation even startedKotler, if you must, philip
Kotler, the the guy who spokeabout the four piece of
(27:51):
marketing a product price,promotion and placement.
These are still the basis of ofany healthy marketing strategy.
Get, get those done.
First, make sure you have asolid mission.
Make sure you understand whatpeople need.
Make sure you sell somethingpeople actually need.
Make sure you're not a solutionlooking for a problem, and then
(28:14):
you can move on to figuring outwhich hacks are going to spark
your growth and make you abillionaire within three months
or less.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Right, we could all become billionaires.
Who knows?
You know, it could happen.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Absolutely that framework, and I'll teach you
how.
Right, right All right?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Well, if somebody's going OK, well, I want to know
that.
What's the best way for them toget in touch with you?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
So they can find me on Adriana at the dot com.
My newsletter is called ideasto power your future.
Of course, I encourage you tosubscribe.
You'll find an email from meevery every Thursday, and I
promise there is no growth hacksinside, only solid, sustainable
marketing strategies.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Right, well, I'll echo that I'm going to say that
your email has got really greatstuff in it.
It's definitely worth it foranybody who wants to grab ahold
of that.
So, adriana, thank you so muchfor coming on to this.
It's just been great.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Thank you to Red.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
And for you guys who are listening at the end, I just
want to remind you that ifyou'd like to go get the entire
archive of the Standout BusinessShow, just go to
standoutbusinessshow and it'sall there.
You can binge to your heart'scontent, all the audio, all the
video, all the links to all thedifferent resources, and we go
(29:36):
live every Thursday, 11 amEastern time.
And until the next time, solong.
I believe that if you lay down and solid and a strong
foundation for your business inthe very early days, you will
set up yourself for success inthe long run.
If you go on to chase growthhack after growth hack and
buying all the systems andframeworks that are that are
mostly battled by the hustlegrows online, then you might see
some growth, but it won't befor long.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome to the standout business show, where
it's all about making a biggerdifference by doing business
differently.
I'm Brad Powell and today we'relooking at what future proofing
means for your business in 2023.
Here's my first question Areyou ready for success and
(00:56):
exponential growth this year?
Because here's the thing Ourminds are mostly trained to
guard against failure and, afterall, like 70% of startups are
going to fail in the first twoto five years.
So we need to be thinking aboutthis idea of future proofing If
(01:19):
we're going to make it to thatgroup small group of businesses
that survive or not just survive, but thrive this year and next
year and year after.
How would your business changeif, all of a sudden, you were to
triple your revenue?
I mean, if you had like 50 ofyour dream clients come in next
(01:39):
week, would that be great orwould it be a headache?
Would you be ready for it?
And while I'll bet you have alot of plans for failure, I'll
also bet I'll bet you $5, so youdon't have a plan for radical
success.
So I think it's more importantthan ever right now for us to be
(02:02):
thinking about how we canimagine the sustainable and
successful future for our workand to help us do that, I've
invited digital marketer andtrend analyst, adriana Tikka
onto the show, and I want you tostay tuned because she's going
to walk us through how you canbuild a solid foundation for
(02:24):
long term sustainable growth andfuture proof your business.
So with that let's start theshow.
All right, adriana, welcome tothe show.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Hey, Brad, happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
All right, well, to start us off, I got a lot of the
idea for this particularepisode by looking at your blog
and reading one blog post inparticular where you were
sharing a story about how youhad your business and it was
getting 70% growth year afteryear and that almost killed it,
(03:01):
which is kind ofcounterintuitive, and most
people might say 70th, thatsounds great.
You know what happened, so tellus that story, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So what happened was that I opened up an agency back
in 2015.
And, just like everyone elsehoping it's a new business, I
was very, very focused on growth.
I wanted more clients.
I wanted to charge them more,so eventually I needed to hire
more people.
And you know how this circlegoes it can be a virtuous circle
(03:30):
or it can be a vicious circle.
For me it was a vicious circlebecause I did not discriminate.
If anyone wanted to be a clientof ours, I was yeah, sure, come
on on, come on on board To dothat.
I hired more people.
And guess what?
None of these people neitherthe clients nor the new writers
(03:53):
I had hired none of them were agood fit.
We ended up onboarding thewrong type of clients.
We were doing a lot of contentmarketing and copywriting back
then and we were very, veryclose to turning the agency into
a content mail.
And at some point I figured outthat I was way far from my
(04:13):
initial tagline that was aboutique approach, grant results
.
We no longer had boutiqueapproach.
We were just onboarding peoplewith a couple of emails.
We barely offered anypersonalized onboarding.
So I figured that out.
I fired nearly half my team.
I also fired a lot of clients.
We took a massive revenue hitin our second quarter, I guess,
(04:37):
but then we were back on trackby the end of the year and we
managed to stay true to ourvalue proposal again.
So for me, fast, rapid growthnearly meant the death of my
business, and it was all becauseI wasn't careful enough to
build a solid foundation beforeI started promoting my business
(04:58):
and before I started taking onclients.
And I see this type of thinghappen regularly with all types
of businesses and, more recently, with creators.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, well, the thing that stuck out to me in what
you were just talking aboutthere is all around working with
the right people, and thisworks both for the clientele
that you are saying yes to, aswell as the team that you bring
on and sort of who they are.
So can you unpack that a littlebit?
You can start on either side ofthose fences, whether it's with
(05:34):
your clients or with your ownpeople.
But how did you and how do younow approach that recruitment in
terms of whether you know, howdo you decide who you're going
to work with in terms ofclientele, and also who you're
going to work with in terms ofthe people who are on your team?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think there's a choosing howto work with either clients or
people who work for you.
There's something.
There's something both of thesethings have in common you have
to make sure they're the rightfit, because if they are not,
they're going to make youmiserable.
I know very few people talkabout this, about whether you're
happy in your business or youjust go through the motions
(06:10):
because you need to pay thebills and keep the lights on,
and that's a perfectly validreason to have a business.
But if you're only goingthrough the motions and if
financial gains are your onlymotivation, you're going to end
up being miserable very, verysoon.
It happened to me and it showedin my business too.
So this is not a recipe forlong-term success.
(06:30):
What I did after my initialmistake was that I paid more
attention, first and foremost,to the clients I was working on.
I started sending them detailedbrief.
I started asking what theyneeded out of us.
I never, ever signed, neveragain.
I mean, I never signedyear-long contracts before
(06:51):
asking them to do a test run.
This works well in more waysthan one.
First of all, it helps thembuild trust because they don't
have to lay down a huge sum ofmoney in the beginning and they
get to test our services, but atthe other end, we also get to
test how we get along with themand whether we have good
(07:12):
communication and whether theirvalues are aligned to ours.
So this new approach allowed meto stop working with clients
that were a bad fit andconsequently I could also stop
hiring people who are a bad fitfor my company culture.
Don't get me wrong, it's a verysmall business.
It was a small business backthen, so I was never working
(07:36):
with hundreds of clients orhundreds of writers, but even so
, even one bad apple can spoilall of them, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I've got one comment fromNatalie.
She says I love your candidness.
We can all get sidetracked andforget why we're in business
sometimes, Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, I was very rich back then.
You know I mean very rich formy standards and for my
expectations.
My business took off so fastthat it literally left me behind
, you know.
But I still realized that Icouldn't keep it up at that pace
.
I mean, money be damned, but no, it wasn't the kind of life I
(08:17):
wanted to build, nor the kind ofbusiness.
There were tons of thosealready and I didn't want to be
one of them.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, it reminds me there's awoman by the name of Pia Silva
who not only has an agency, butshe helps other small agencies
do their marketing.
One of her approaches issimilar to what you were talking
about in terms of like not thelong, year long contract but she
actually works.
When she brings on a client andthis is what she teaches she
(08:46):
does something that she calls alead product, which is this
initial very small engagement,and it's all about building
their relationship and buildingthe trust to go through this
first relatively small round andthen you both know whether or
not it's good to be workingtogether.
And, in the best case scenario,this new client that you're
(09:08):
bringing on now sees what it'slike to work with you and they
really like.
If they like you and they likehow you work, then they're
really ready to buy intowhatever the much higher ticket
and longer term contract mightbe, whereas if you do it the
other way around, where you'regoing, hey look, here's this
long thing and high price andwhatever that that potential
(09:32):
client is going to look at thatin a very different way and go.
Well, I don't know like.
I have to go talk to three orfour other people before.
I can say yes to this.
So it's a really interestingrelationship building method
which I think is much morelikely to build a successful
relationship in terms of how thetwo of you can function and
make whatever project you'reworking on be successful.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Absolutely.
It's a proof of concept ofsorts and it's the approach that
help us keep clients for sevenyears or more.
I mean, we still have clientsthat have been with me since I
was a freelancer and then theymoved on to my, to my agency
business and so on.
This is something that I'm thatI'm very proud of and I can't
believe I almost lost it.
(10:15):
You know One of the reasons whyI started my newsletter I
believe that if you lay down andsolid and a strong foundation
for your business in the veryearly days, you will set up
yourself for success in the longrun.
If you go on to chase growthhack after growth hack and
buying total systems andframeworks that are that are
(10:38):
mostly battled by the hustlegrows online, then you might see
some growth, but it won't.
It won't be for long.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, one of the guests I had on just a couple of
weeks ago is Michelle Warnerand she was talking about her
whole thing is relationshipmarketing, and so it's really
turning all your ideas about howdo you want to market yourself
into this intention of well, I'mreally just wanting to build a
good relationship with thepeople who I want to work with
(11:09):
and if you have that as yoursort of everything you do is
oriented around that.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah, it's exactly like that.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Let's move to the other side of the fence and talk
about team building, and so youwant to apply some of these
same principles to when you'rebringing people on to work with
you within your own organization, and so how have you improved
and maintain your approach there?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Right.
So in the beginning, when wewere growing so rapidly, I
simply had to hire people, and Ihad to do it fast.
I needed them to startyesterday, and so I couldn't get
them to go through all thetests and all the steps, so I
ended up, of course, onboardinga lot of the wrong people.
They ended up leaving me in themiddle of a project.
(11:54):
It was a hot mess.
Everything was a hot mess.
I spent many nights working onprojects that should have been
tackled by my writers.
So what I did when Irestructured everything was that
I created my own hiring processthat started with a couple of
small written tests a Zoom call,way before Zoom or Cool and
(12:16):
then, because I had the time todo that, I would get them
started by working on somethingfor our own brand.
They wouldn't start by workingdirectly for our customers, so
this gave me time to assesstheir abilities better and to
make sure they are able to meetdeadlines, because we had built
a reputation where we never,ever, missed a deadline, and so
(12:37):
for me, this was very, veryimportant, you know, to make
sure that my team delivered ontime and that we had enough time
to edit everything to gothrough all the rounds of
changes if needed, and so on andso forth.
So my hiring process becamelonger, but it also became more
future proof, which is what Iwas aiming for.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah, well, you know, a lot of the similar mentality
and idea applies equally wellwith team members.
One of the things that I feellike I've had success with in
terms of people that I'vemanaged is around creating
autonomy for them and also beinglike the vision, not just
(13:19):
creator but carrier.
You know, like there's, even ina very small group, like if
you're only working with threepeople and you can have a vision
and a culture around, well,what does it mean?
Like what are we really after?
Like what's the legendary questthat we're on?
And if you can get people tosee that and buy into it, and
(13:40):
not only that, but contribute toit, like actually expand upon
that particular dream, thenthey're feeling like, oh, I'm a
part of this really good workthat we all get to do.
And when people are workingfrom that kind of inner
motivation, it makes all thedifference in terms of you know
(14:01):
how you work together and whatthey're willing to do, and you
know and how they're actuallywilling to show up for the
clients that are now have hiredyou.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Absolutely, and I love that you mentioned allowing
your team members to contributeto your vision.
It doesn't have to be set instone and I think it's
absolutely essential that it'svery fluid and flexible because,
you know, context change,economies change.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, absolutely, and that's, you know.
I feel it's inclusive aroundyour team.
It's also inclusive around yourclients and your audience.
You know, like, even people whoare reading your newsletter,
people are watching the livestream.
They can all be contributors towhere are we going?
Like, what's happening withthis thing that we're creating
together and what is the like?
(14:55):
In this case, we're having thisconversation about helping
businesses be more sustainableand be more resilient.
I think, you know, everybodyhas the post pandemic malaise of
oh my God, what just happenedto us?
Yeah, and we're, you know,we're still recovering, like
that, you know, mentally andphysically, and a whole bunch of
ways.
So there's all kinds of thingsthat we're still dealing with on
(15:18):
a regular basis, and the newnormal is so undefined that, you
know, this conversation, theconversation like, well, how can
a small business, people,figure out a path forward where
we will be resilient and we can,you know, be sustainable almost
no matter what comes our way?
(15:38):
These are the kinds ofconversations that I think are
terrific right now, thateveryone can contribute to.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, absolutely.
And the post pandemic economicuncertainty doesn't help either.
You know it's thrown a lot ofbusiness owners into anxiety.
Whatever they, whatever theydid during the pandemic, some
businesses thrived, othersstruggled, others shut down
completely.
But even those who thrivedduring the pandemic most of them
thrives because people wereglued to their screens for the
(16:09):
better part of the day thischanged right now.
I mean, the borders are open,the pubs are open and you really
can't compete with exotictravels and unlimited points at
your favorite pub.
So if you have an onlinebusiness that thrived during the
pandemic, you're going to haveto reinvent it right now to find
other things that people need.
People don't have the samebuying patterns they used to
(16:32):
back then, and oftentimes it's atough pivot.
I mean, the pivot during thepandemic was tough in itself,
but this one that got us into acomfy bubble that had us spend
most of our time online, Ianticipate this one is going to
be even tougher to break out of,you know.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, that's so interesting, I mean.
Yeah, I mean, we all wentthrough this transition where,
oh, we have to talk on Zoom, oh,like I can't go anywhere, so
the only way I can communicateis through this little tiny
square on my screen and a lot ofpeople, a lot of people,
adapted to that and some hadtrouble adapting.
(17:14):
But now it's like the opposite,you know.
Now it's like, oh, I'm reallyrusty about going out into the
real world and how.
You know what do I want?
You know, what am I going to donow in terms of this reverse,
pivot into, you know, somethingentirely new and again, as I say
, like the new normal has justnot been defined, it's something
(17:35):
new and different.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Absolutely.
And the fact that we struggleto call it normal doesn't make
it any more normal than it is inthe world.
Yeah Right, exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
All right.
Well, one of the things thatyou have foundationally and a
lot of people are aware withthis is creating systems in your
business so that you've gotthis almost kind of machine that
can work and be repeatable andit's you're not reinventing the
wheel every time you take on anew client and so forth.
So could you talk a little bitabout that process of
(18:10):
systematizing differentoperations and that, even like
the smallest operator reallyneeds to be thinking about this?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I think in the beginning, inthe very beginning, in the first
days of your business, youdon't even have to think systems
.
I mean, sure, keep themsomewhere in the back of your
mind, but in the beginning, tryto do the things that don't
scale.
Talk to each of your clients,talk to each of your subscribers
, to as many of your audiencemembers as possible.
(18:39):
Do this manually if you will.
You know, don't try to, don'ttry to automate anything, don't
try to systemize anything,because doing doing the things
that don't scale in the earlydays will give you a lot of
insight into what you can andcannot systemize, into what you
can and cannot automate.
So what I have still kept in myagency, for instance, I still
(19:03):
talk to all of our clientsmyself.
Yes, I have, I have briefs thatare that are temptedized and
that I can send to everyone.
But I wanted to retain thisperk of talking to each of our
clients myself.
I'm the interface of the agency, everything goes through me.
This allows me to tailor myservices, to tailor my offers
(19:27):
according to what I learned fromeach client, and I've brought
this mentality into my into mysecond business.
I talk to as many of mysubscribers as possible.
I keep asking them how did youfeel about this issue?
Did you like it?
Do you like this approach?
Did you like the other one?
These are things that these arethings that I don't plan to
systemize anytime soon or toautomate, but of course, I
(19:50):
automate a lot of the otherthings.
I have tiny snippets that I canadd to each email I send.
I don't have to write them fromscratch every time I use the, I
use social media managing toolsso I can post across networks
at the same time.
I don't need to log in and outof every platform every time I
want to post something or everyany time I want to manage the
(20:12):
comments that appear on my post.
I think that after you've beenin business for three to six
months, yes, you can think aboutsystemizing things.
You can think about automatingsome of the things that you do
every day, perhaps evendelegating, but it's important
to do the things that don'tscale in the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Let's do a little planning for success.
I mean, you never know, successcould come any day.
Now, and I'll use myself as anexample Like this past year,
I've introduced a new service,which I call mic drop moments,
which is all about short formvideo, and basically what
happens is that a client willcome and work with me by.
(20:54):
We do interviews remotely and Iinterview them for just an hour
and in that hour I'll ask themquestions, they'll give me their
answers and I'll pull out someof their very best insights, and
I'll take that footage from therecording and I'll edit it down
into short, social mediafriendly videos that will then
get scheduled and posted allacross every social media
(21:15):
channel that they care to be on.
And so, for the time challengedentrepreneur, this works well
because they only have to spenda single hour of their time and
they get a month of social mediacontent basically done for them
, where they get to be the faceof their brand on a daily basis,
(21:38):
all over the place, whereverthey feel like their best
audience is.
And, of course, this kind ofmedium is working really well
right now, because all of theplatforms are feeling challenged
and threatened by TikTok, whichmeans that they're like well,
we need to do short form videotoo, and we need to make it even
better.
(21:58):
And if people are doing it, weneed to encourage them to come
onto our platform and do thiskind of video making, so that if
you do it on YouTube orInstagram or Facebook and even
on LinkedIn, the algorithm isgoing to say great, we want more
people to see this type ofcontent.
So it happens to perform verywell, and this is a long way of
saying that in the last littlewhile, my business has seen a
(22:21):
growth spurt and so it's like ohno, more people are coming to
me and we have a lot of work andI have to hire new people and I
need help and I need tosystematize stuff.
So what can you say to someonewho's in this position, where
they're going, wow, things aregrowing awesome.
And then like okay, but I needto be careful because too much
(22:43):
success might derail everything.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Well, first of all, I congratulate them.
You know because, because, when, when your business starts
growing, if you're notcompletely overwhelmed with the
work you have to do, you shouldalways and I mean always take a
bit of time to celebrate, togive yourself a hand.
You know you've made it, you'vegotten where you want it to be.
Second of all, I'd startthinking about how this growth
(23:08):
can be replicated in the future.
Hiring the right people andmaking sure that the right fit
for your organization is, ofcourse, the first step.
Like you mentioned that you'rehiring people right now, but he
also said that you're you'rewriting this trend where short
front video is the darling ofevery algorithm out there.
So what I would do if I were inyour shoes, I would think I
(23:30):
have.
I have all these happy clientsright now.
What else can I offer them inthe future, in the near future
or in the medium future?
What else can I offer them tohelp them systematize their work
even more or to help them growan even better presence on
social media or outside of it?
Is there any other service thatthey might need except for the
(23:53):
mic drop videos, while I'mcertain that this trend is going
to be with us for a while.
It's short form.
Videos aren't going anywhere.
Perhaps there's something elsethat they could use.
Since you're alreadyinterviewing them, I'm sure you
have some insights into theirbusiness and into into what they
do and into what they strugglewith, and perhaps you can
partner with someone else whodoes something other than video.
(24:16):
Perhaps they do written contentand you can offer them a while
during the package or somethinglike that.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, yeah, that's all really great advice and, in
fact, right to that point I am.
One of the things that I'mdoing right now is that I'm like
I know that this sweet spotwith the algorithm, like all
things, will only last so longand then it'll disappear and
it's like, okay, well, what else?
What else can we do with thiskind of content?
(24:42):
And so one of the things thatI'm experimenting with is
something that I call the shortform sales letter, so that,
instead of landing on a landingpage and getting this long,
boring video that is just abunch of slides and doesn't even
show your face and goes on likehas no controls of whether you
can play it or stop it or speedit up or any of that stuff, like
(25:05):
, it's just like oh my gosh, howlong do I have to sit here?
Kind of experience.
That instead of that, you createa set, like a really small set,
of maybe four one minute videosthat each one brings in one
element and or handles oneobjection or does all the things
that you want to do in thesales journey, or at least one
has a cliffhanger, so thatthey're bingeable, and so the
(25:29):
person coming there will watchvideo number one and go oh well,
I have to go to the videonumber two.
That ended super quick, so it'ssort of interactive.
It's even choose your ownadventure, like they could start
with video number three if theywanted to, and so I'm just sort
of looking at this andexperimenting with it and it's a
really fun, creative project.
But it's answering the questionlike, well, what else can we do
creatively with short formvideo that's not just simply
(25:52):
posting on social media?
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Oh, I love this idea.
It's what video sales lettershould?
Letters should be in 2023.
Yeah, yeah, no one has the timeto listen to half an hour of
you pitching your own service.
Yeah, really, I mean, it'sexcruciating Right.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, it's painful, and it's.
It's painful especially becausemost of those sales letters or
webinars or whatever they allhave the same format where the
person gets on, they go.
Oh you know, I used to sleep onmy parents' couch and I had no
money and I didn't know what Iwas going to do.
And then all of a sudden, I hadthis thing and I made a million
dollars.
And now that I made a milliondollars, I'm going to show you
how to make a million dollars.
(26:28):
And only the trouble is thatthat doesn't take 30 seconds.
That story lasts like half thewebinar.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Absolutely.
It's actually what I, what Iwrote today in my, in my
newsletter, where I wassuggesting people could try
doing webinars or workshops forfree to help get more leads, you
know.
But I also warned them againstmaking half the webinar a pitch.
This is this is painful.
This is this is not a webinaranymore, you know, it's an
infomercial.
This is this is what they feellike.
(26:56):
So, yeah, please don't do that.
If you host your own webinar oryour own workshop, even if it's
free, even if it's paid, makesure that you you pitch your
higher ticket offer for no morethan 10 percent of the duration
of the webinar.
It's enough, they get it.
They'll get it in three minutesor less, trust me.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah right, exactly, ok.
Well, we're getting close tothe end of our time here today,
and so if there's one thing thatyou would like to bring on as a
way to close this up in termsof the world of future proofing,
what would that be?
Speaker 1 (27:30):
I would advise anyone who's starting their business
today to go back to the basicsof marketing before they move on
to the hacks.
Before they figure out how tobe the kings of LinkedIn or the
kings of Twitter, they shouldlay down their, their marketing
principles.
Their foundation even startedKotler, if you must, philip
Kotler, the the guy who spokeabout the four piece of
(27:51):
marketing a product price,promotion and placement.
These are still the basis of ofany healthy marketing strategy.
Get, get those done.
First, make sure you have asolid mission.
Make sure you understand whatpeople need.
Make sure you sell somethingpeople actually need.
Make sure you're not a solutionlooking for a problem, and then
(28:14):
you can move on to figuring outwhich hacks are going to spark
your growth and make you abillionaire within three months
or less.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Right, we could all become billionaires.
Who knows?
You know, it could happen.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Absolutely that framework, and I'll teach you
how.
Right, right All right?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Well, if somebody's going OK, well, I want to know
that.
What's the best way for them toget in touch with you?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
So they can find me on Adriana at the dot com.
My newsletter is called ideasto power your future.
Of course, I encourage you tosubscribe.
You'll find an email from meevery every Thursday, and I
promise there is no growth hacksinside, only solid, sustainable
marketing strategies.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Right, well, I'll echo that I'm going to say that
your email has got really greatstuff in it.
It's definitely worth it foranybody who wants to grab ahold
of that.
So, adriana, thank you so muchfor coming on to this.
It's just been great.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Thank you to Red.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
And for you guys who are listening at the end, I just
want to remind you that ifyou'd like to go get the entire
archive of the Standout BusinessShow, just go to
standoutbusinessshow and it'sall there.
You can binge to your heart'scontent, all the audio, all the
video, all the links to all thedifferent resources, and we go
(29:36):
live every Thursday, 11 amEastern time.
And until the next time, solong.
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