Nov. 19, 2020

Building a Business Effectively and Helpful Tips to Drive Your Company Forward with Stephen Olmon

Show Notes
Transcript

In this episode, host Eric Dickmann interviews Stephen Olmon. Stephen is on a journey to build 50 companies by 2050. At the age of 30, he's currently about 20% of the way there. He often executes creative deal structures, is not control hungry, and pursues partners for each of his endeavors. His greatest skill is connecting the dots, whether that be people, companies, incentives, or partnerships.

Stephen also co-hosts the "Betafy Podcast" to help educate both current and future entrepreneurs and founded Internet Exits to help businesses find buyers.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-betafy-podcast/id1489730001

https://www.internetexits.com

Eric Dickmann can be found on Twitter @EDickmann and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/edickmann and my website https://ericdickmann.com

Stephen Olmon can be found online at https://www.stephenolmon.com/ on Twitter @Stephenolmon, and Instagram @Stephenolmon

Episode Summary: The episode summary can be found at https://fiveechelon.com/building-a-business-learning-from-others-s3e10

If you'd like to contact us with feedback or guest inquiries, please visit:
https://fiveechelon.com/podcast

For more information about Virtual CMO strategic marketing consulting services, visit The Five Echelon Group at https://fiveechelon.com

Episode #41

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WEBVTT

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The Virtual CMO podcast is sponsored by the strategic marketing consulting services of The Five Echelon Group.

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If you’d like to work directly with The Five Echelon Group and receive personal coaching and support to optimize your business, enhance your marketing effectiveness and grow your revenue, visit Five Echelon.com to learn more and schedule a free consultation.

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Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast.

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I'm your host, Eric Dickmann.

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In this podcast, we have conversations with marketing professionals who share the strategies, tactics, and mindset you can use to improve the effectiveness of your marketing activities and grow your business.

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this week, I'm delighted to welcome Steven omen to the show.

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Steven is out on a journey to build 50 companies by 2050.

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At the age of 30, he's currently about 20% of the way there.

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His greatest skill is connecting the dots, whether that be people, companies, incentives, or partnerships.

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Additionally, he co-hosts the beta five podcasts to help educate both current and future entrepreneurs.

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Prior to starting his own companies.

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He led sales for a SAS company that was acquired for an eight figure private deal and worked in the strategy consulting at KPMG.

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Please help me welcome Stephen to the podcast.

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Stephen welcome to the virtual CMO podcast.

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I'm so glad you could join us today.

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Thanks for having me.

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I appreciate it.

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You're 31 years old.

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it sounds like you got involved with a business that ended up being acquired.

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You probably made some nice coin off that particular acquisition.

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Tell me about that whole story and that whole experience.

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Yeah.

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So I had cut my teeth and my career at KPMG.

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That's where I got my start.

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And spent a couple years there and transitioned to lead business development at a small healthcare software company, and, really thrived in an environment where I had to wear multiple hats.

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There was no process figured out they just hired a new VP of marketing at the same time.

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And so we just kinda went like gangbusters and we're a team, small little, two person team, and just did what we wanted really.

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And, I think there were 12 people at the time.

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And, so that company had been around for 10 years.

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And it was serving the senior living market.

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And, in over the next two and a half to three years, we doubled revenue from what it had grown to over 10 years.

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And it was a blast and the company was acquired.

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And, I'll say my compensation was aligned with the owner's interests is, how I'll phrase that as it relates to the exit and everything like that.

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Yeah, just really, I call that my MBA.

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I didn't go get an MBA.

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That really was my MBA and got to participate in all sorts of different marketing campaigns, product development.

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We didn't really have a product manager, so I was baptized in software, product management, product development.

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And, and lead sales and was involved in marketing.

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Still it a lot.

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And it was incredible.

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We had a great run and I was there nearly five years.

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That is a great run especially if you were able to cash out at such an early age and gives you the ability to do things now.

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So I'm curious, I know it's probably a more involved story than just a quick answer, but if you think back to that time and you said it started to go like gangbusters, can you look back and say, there's one thing that we did that really turned the tide that really got the momentum going.

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There's two things so one was we decided to publish pricing on our website, which for that industry at that time, which was in 2013.

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Was unheard of people held pricing close to the chest.

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Lots of special deals with the big companies.

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We decided to control the pricing conversation, publish our pricing online and just shout from the rooftops.

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We don't do special deals.

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We don't care how big you are.

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and we did that with the most competitive pricing in the market for what we were doing, which was real time analytics on clinical data for these companies.

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And what that did is it really disrupted the market.

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We were efficient.

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I think that, from a technology perspective, we were the most advanced, especially at that time.

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So we were able to undercut some of our competition and still maintain great margins.

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And publish our pricing.

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So we said, this is the price.

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We can operate at a great, kind of margin and still grow effectively.

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So we did that.

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So that was one kind of controlling that pricing conversation and disrupting from that perspective.

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The other was, I just liked the general thought of arbitrage and technology arbitrage and design arbitrage.

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So when you take functionality and design, that's familiar and consumer web.

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Like Twitter and Facebook, Instagram.

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And you bring that to nurses.

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They feel special.

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And no one else had really done that in the industry at that time to make, the user interface is beautiful and, really high quality design and, caring about UI UX and all these things.

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All the competitors were just functional.

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So those two things really, it was what sent us on that meteoric growth.

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So interesting to me, because I think that whole consumerization of software has done a lot for many companies, especially a lot of these softwares and service companies or these app developers.

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When you can make something that's easy to use friendly and familiar people will gravitate toward it.

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I was talking on an episode or two ago, we were talking about the Robin hood trading platform and how that is just taken off.

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And one of the reasons is because it feels very Fun and familiar to a lot of younger users who are getting involved in buying and selling stocks for the first time.

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No doubt.

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Yep.

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I totally agree.

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That was like perfect example.

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Hmm.

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So now you've got you're on this mission.

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You want to start 50 companies by 2050, where did this come from?

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Now, so originally, kinda my father, I grew up in a household where he had a full time job.

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He also had a for profit company and a nonprofit organization.

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All at the same time.

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So I grew up in this reality of that being normal and he was busy, but he spent a lot of time with their family.

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So I just thought that everyone did that.

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Or I thought it was unusual if you didn't do that.

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So even when I was in college and going to KPMG, I just had this expectation that I would end up being involved in several businesses and different ventures.

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And I always had that vision for myself.

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It just took time to learn what I needed to learn, go through that quote unquote MBA process for five years at that software company come out on the other end, feeling really comfortable doing that and operating.

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50 by 2050 part of it is to be self motivating for myself and to also let other people connect with me and I get a lot of inbound interest on that.

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It feels like this, people say Beehag big, hairy, audacious goal.

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Something that you can attach to sink your teeth into and say, what's that all about?

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So it's a great conversation starter.

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and ultimately I like bringing other people along with me for the ride.

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I look for operators for businesses.

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So that I don't have to try to run everything myself and keep all the equity for myself.

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I like, bringing others along with me for the ride and helping other people start their entrepreneurial journey.

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So how far along are you in the 50?

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Yeah.

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Point of clarification.

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Some of the deals that I do are more closely knit revenue share deals versus true equity.

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I count those because I'm really involved in that business and care deeply about it.

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And those are longterm arrangements.

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so I count those.

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So if you include that, Six, and, six and counting.

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we may talk about a new business I'm involved in later.

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That would be seven.

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So just having a blast and that's going and longterm hope to continue to build more service companies that service the rest of the portfolio.

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Started with a marketing agency that made sense to me, I'm looking at a bookkeeping company.

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So you get the idea of these service companies that can serve generally, most companies.

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So continuing to explore that model.

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Okay.

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Generally, when there's a conversation about startups, they're two schools of thought.

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One is let's build it as fast as we can so we can exit and make some money.

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And the other is we're going to build something for a longterm sustainable growth.

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where are you in that spectrum?

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Is there a place for both in your portfolio or are you focused more on one than the other.

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Very focused on build and hold.

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Very focused on that would sell very open to selling, but not focused on that.

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I never hoped to IPO a company.

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I don't want.

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a ton of stakeholders.

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I like keeping things simple.

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I think there's a healthy version of wanting control, right?

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So control can be this negative thing that, we want to control the scenario and situations around us.

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But there's a healthy version of that where what you want and you want to try to maintain that.

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And so that's where I'm at.

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And I want to maintain my lifestyle, limiting my travel and things like that.

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And just all the reporting.

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I have no desire to take a company public.

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Definitely focused on the build and hold.

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I think that people who have a mindset to build a business or to grow a business, oftentimes they have a nose for business.

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They can snip out good ideas.

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They can sniff out products or services that have a place in the market where they can grow, where they've got runway to develop and capture some market share.

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So I'm sure you're pitched a lot of ideas to say, Hey, this would make a great company.

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This would make a great product or service.

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What excites you about an idea of a product or a service?

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I would say where I'm at now.

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I really want to see that there's a proven market for something already, for the most part.

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So if I start a bookkeeping company, I know that's a proven market and we can niche down on that.

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We can do something better than the next guy or gal.

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So that's part of the equation for me.

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I'm not necessarily looking for, at, Artificial intelligence.

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Robotics.

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Yeah.

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That's all great.

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It's sexy, but I really get excited about proven markets and doing something with focus and niching down.

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I like that route more.

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and then on top of that, I would say when someone brings me an idea, I'm very interested in being profitable quickly.

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So if someone says, Hey, I'm going to have to raise money from day one, or, I need, 18 months of runway.

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I just don't like to start there And say, Hey, how is this company going to be profitable?

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90 days in.

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that I like to take that approach.

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and that's that doesn't work for everybody.

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It doesn't work for every business.

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Also some businesses are inherently just way more capital intense, right?

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And that's another point is things that get me excited are things that can remain fairly lean.

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sorry.

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I like that.

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I lean towards that.

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When I talked to a lot of startup founders.

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One thing that I tend to see in them is that they feel that their idea is so unique.

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So special that there is obviously a market for it because they have come up with some kind of unique secret sauce.

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But when I look at a lot of these ideas, I say, no, they're just a.

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Variation of something that already exists It seems like there are very few, truly new and revolutionary products or services out there in the market.

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And obviously some of those.

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Do gangbusters, if they're under the right management, But do you sort of agree with that?

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That most things are just a variation of something that's already there.

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I do.

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there's a few different buckets.

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You've correctly identified one of them where they have this false sense of individuality and kind of uniqueness.

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Then it's not true.

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also if it actually is what they think it is, and it is extremely unique, I'm not necessarily excited.

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So cause there's an unproven market.

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And it could be incredible.

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if it's Elon Musk 20 years ago, And I'd love to bet on that.

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I wish I could rewind history and go bet on Elon.

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But, for the most part, those fail.

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there's a place for them.

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And there are people with capital that are willing to take those big gambles on things like that.

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which is exciting.

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It's just, it's not for me necessarily.

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but I it's fun to watch from the sidelines at times,

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Absolutely.

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eat Elon is a great example.

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But even that he wasn't the first person with an electric car.

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Right.

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I think general motors was the first one to release an electric car in the States.

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So it's just a variation up a better good one.

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And he certainly seen some payback for that.

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So when you look at other startups and businesses that are out there, Is there something that as a common trait as to why they fail?

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You talked about profitability in the first 90 days.

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Profitability is obviously a reason that a lot of them fail, but do you see some things when you evaluate businesses?

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Yeah, just the.

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Common themes of failure.

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I would say that a lot of times when you have co-founders, that started off and they never really were aligned.

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That's a very common point of failure.

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There's a guy that I really like in the marketing space and Ryan Stewart.

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He was talking about an agency that had failed of his.

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And he tough his just his first failure was having to do with a company where his cofounder and he didn't actually ever see eye to eye and they got sideways eight months in and all fell apart.

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Super common, very common.

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Another is just a lack of financial oversight.

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In general.

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So financial management, just like in your own personal life, a lot of people get on hard times because you.

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They might be making a quarter million dollars a year, but they never actually looked at their own finances and they were just spending, Same thing in business.

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People get in trouble when they don't really have solid financial oversight.

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And then another thing that comes to mind really quickly.

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Is that there was.

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Poor validation on the front end.

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there was a lot of assumptions made very little, if any validation or testing, and just decide to jump in full throttle, spending money.

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We've got a website, we've got our Instagram handle where we're doing all these things, but you never actually validated that the dog wanted the food and that's a big problem.

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That's super common.

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You talked about liking to get into established businesses where you don't really have to prove that there is a market for a product or service.

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One of the things that I've seen with a lot of clients that I work with is that they get into a market where there's very strong competition.

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And instead of picking something off to the left or right.

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Or figuring out a specific niche to go after, within that broader market, they go head to head against a strong competitor and that is really hard to do and be successful at it.

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What's your advice when you're talking to a small business or you're working with a small business and how they deal with their competitors.

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How do they find their space?

00:14:43.313 --> 00:14:43.583
Yeah.

00:14:43.854 --> 00:14:47.933
E easy, quick answer is what's your competitive advantage.

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Because if you're going to go head to head in a highly competitive space, You have to have some sort of competitive advantage.

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There's a lot of different options, right?

00:14:57.693 --> 00:15:13.543
There's a lot of different possibilities for that competitive advantage or some, proprietary source of deal flow, or you flopped down some important partnership with someone or you're that much better at some sort of strategy than the next guy, right?

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but if you're going to go into a market that's deeply competitive, any just are planning on running a good business and that's it.

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And that's all you have probably going to fail or really struggle.

00:15:25.303 --> 00:15:29.203
If you don't have some sort of very specific competitive advantage early on.

00:15:29.604 --> 00:15:37.344
What's so interesting to me about the way you answered that question is you didn't say ours is priced better or we've got better features.

00:15:37.744 --> 00:15:38.703
Our product is better.

00:15:39.104 --> 00:15:41.443
Yours was all around a process.

00:15:41.844 --> 00:15:42.024
Yep.

00:15:42.423 --> 00:15:42.693
Yeah.

00:15:42.933 --> 00:15:44.224
Price moves around.

00:15:44.673 --> 00:15:48.903
there's so many external factors that can influence our pricing as business owners.

00:15:49.443 --> 00:15:56.974
So I think if you try to go in and compete on price that may work for a season, but it's really unlikely to work long term.

00:15:57.494 --> 00:15:59.203
features people can copy cats.

00:15:59.214 --> 00:16:03.744
that there is a place for people that can just outpace the competition.

00:16:04.134 --> 00:16:06.264
And so they get so far ahead that it's hard to catch up.

00:16:06.663 --> 00:16:15.183
I think you've seen that with Stripe as a business, over the long haul, lot of imitators, but they just always are two to three major steps ahead.

00:16:15.274 --> 00:16:17.583
And that the ecosystem they built incredible.

00:16:18.153 --> 00:16:24.543
And there's, there are some companies that try to take market share in certain pieces of their business, but no one has been able to really keep up.

00:16:24.964 --> 00:16:29.053
That's an example of the business that, they could lead with features, but just outpaced.

00:16:29.594 --> 00:16:31.063
yeah, I think that's correct.

00:16:31.094 --> 00:16:31.994
And the way you assess that,

00:16:32.394 --> 00:16:34.734
What do you think the secret is to working with partners?

00:16:34.734 --> 00:16:42.293
I completely agree that partnerships can help scale a business when you don't have the ability to add staff or salespeople.

00:16:42.384 --> 00:16:48.413
If you get partners selling on your behalf, that can be a huge advantage, but I've also seen that a lot of companies.

00:16:48.894 --> 00:16:55.390
They're sort of waiting for the first side to blink, or you'll give us a lead and we'll push you as a partner, this kind of thing.

00:16:55.390 --> 00:16:57.250
And neither one wants to take the first step.

00:16:57.280 --> 00:16:58.480
And so nothing ever happens.

00:16:58.880 --> 00:16:59.120
Yep.

00:16:59.181 --> 00:16:59.660
Classic.

00:16:59.961 --> 00:17:02.581
It's a different version of chicken or the egg, right?

00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:18.300
if that is a partnership, so company, a CS company be as super valuable as a partner, and they would love to partner with company B company age to be willing to take the first step, to create value for company B proactively.

00:17:18.391 --> 00:17:19.711
Even if there's no contract.

00:17:20.310 --> 00:17:22.411
Yeah, create sin, get that lead.

00:17:22.441 --> 00:17:23.941
do something of value.

00:17:24.300 --> 00:17:33.480
even see this on Twitter with people that are trying to grow their followings and audiences is that people will prop up other people that are a little larger than them, maybe in the same arena.

00:17:33.931 --> 00:17:36.510
To try to get notoriety and grow their own following.

00:17:36.510 --> 00:17:38.961
So that's a very informal sort of partnership, right?

00:17:39.230 --> 00:17:45.681
It's like a social contract, but, yeah, I would say that the company that is more reliant on the partnership.

00:17:46.131 --> 00:17:54.230
For growth should be the one that is maybe a little uncomfortable and create some value that they may return void, but it's a risk that they should take.

00:17:54.631 --> 00:18:00.901
It's not that different than a strategy that you would have around marketing or customer service, or just your company in general.

00:18:00.901 --> 00:18:10.631
You want to give value before there's any expectation of anything in return, it will come back to you, but you can't go in with the expectation that I'm going to do this in order to get that.

00:18:11.030 --> 00:18:11.240
Yep.

00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:12.260
That's exactly right.

00:18:12.891 --> 00:18:18.381
So partnerships have been key to the companies that you've built or work with in terms of its scale and growth.

00:18:18.780 --> 00:18:19.681
Yeah, I'm.

00:18:20.080 --> 00:18:21.971
Obsessed with strategic partnerships.

00:18:22.070 --> 00:18:23.810
there's all sorts of different types of partners.

00:18:23.810 --> 00:18:26.961
You can go down the path of talking about affiliates and things like that.

00:18:27.171 --> 00:18:28.221
That's a little different.

00:18:28.560 --> 00:18:31.020
but true strategic partnerships.

00:18:31.560 --> 00:18:33.631
are fascinating to me.

00:18:33.881 --> 00:18:40.901
I've been involved in once that never really created value and I've been involved in partnerships that are.

00:18:41.681 --> 00:18:44.201
Immensely impactful and really move the needle on a business.

00:18:44.770 --> 00:18:47.351
And I think what you're looking for.

00:18:47.750 --> 00:18:48.891
is two main things.

00:18:48.891 --> 00:18:52.461
One is the mutual willing to serve one another.

00:18:52.881 --> 00:18:56.090
And then two is the mutual gain, right?

00:18:56.090 --> 00:18:58.701
So you're both willing and you both gain.

00:18:59.101 --> 00:19:00.421
Close to the same amount.

00:19:00.550 --> 00:19:03.911
there's not this awkwardness to the relationship where, you know, that.

00:19:04.510 --> 00:19:08.421
The other company is really getting 80% of the benefit and you're getting kind of 20, right?

00:19:08.451 --> 00:19:10.851
When it comes down to it, you just think gross revenue or something like that.

00:19:11.391 --> 00:19:12.651
so that's tricky.

00:19:12.931 --> 00:19:18.060
when that's the case, but, If those two things aren't present the willingness and kind of the mutual gain.

00:19:18.300 --> 00:19:19.351
It's probably not going to go very well.

00:19:20.843 --> 00:19:23.692
Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to the podcast.

00:19:23.692 --> 00:19:28.553
But first, are you ready to grow, scale, and take your marketing to the next level?

00:19:28.762 --> 00:19:35.123
If so, The Five Echelon Group's Virtual CMO onsulting service may be a great fit for you.

00:19:35.393 --> 00:19:41.303
We can help build a strategic marketing plan for your business and manage its execution, step-by-step.

00:19:41.542 --> 00:19:44.093
We'll focus on areas like how to attract more leads.

00:19:44.363 --> 00:19:48.502
How to create compelling messaging that resonates with your ideal customers.

00:19:48.863 --> 00:19:52.432
How to strategically package and position your products and services.

00:19:52.762 --> 00:19:57.173
How to increase lead conversion, improve your margins, and scale your business.

00:19:57.502 --> 00:20:05.272
To find out more about our consulting offerings and schedule a consultation, go to fiveechelon.com and click on Services.

00:20:05.722 --> 00:20:06.982
Now back to the podcast.

00:20:09.204 --> 00:20:18.135
When you're building out a business, obviously you have to bring in people that, you know, and trust that you can help support the business, run the business.

00:20:18.556 --> 00:20:30.195
So when you're looking to hire people, do you think it's most important to hire people on a cultural fit, being in sync with your vision of the company or for their skills and experience?

00:20:30.596 --> 00:20:32.185
I think that depends on the company.

00:20:32.526 --> 00:20:34.145
and I won't just leave you with it depends.

00:20:35.105 --> 00:20:36.900
Um, but it depends on the company, right?

00:20:36.900 --> 00:20:44.910
So if the business and this person I'm hiring is going to operate the business and that business is very skill centric.

00:20:45.309 --> 00:20:54.369
Then it has to be more focused on their skills and abilities, I think, and less on culture, because it doesn't matter how great of a culture cultural fit they are.

00:20:54.369 --> 00:20:56.230
If they I execute the work.

00:20:57.019 --> 00:21:02.549
if it's not as much like that, then I would lean the opposite way and say, it's more about culture fit.

00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:08.009
If we're not as focused about skill and execution of some specific thing necessarily.

00:21:08.339 --> 00:21:09.599
That is requires.

00:21:10.289 --> 00:21:13.500
Requires a lot of up-skilling to be able to operate like an efficient.

00:21:14.009 --> 00:21:14.460
Level.

00:21:14.890 --> 00:21:15.519
does that make sense?

00:21:15.609 --> 00:21:16.599
It does make sense.

00:21:17.019 --> 00:21:28.259
So does culture come into consideration as you're building out these companies, as you're thinking about what these companies are going to be, where does culture fit in as you get these companies up and running.

00:21:28.660 --> 00:21:38.220
So a lot of what I do, is one or two other partners where we're starting a business there's other times where it's a revenue share deal with an existing company.

00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:43.890
They're doing seven figures of revenue already, and I'm coming in playing growth mechanism, that sort of thing.

00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:47.849
if I'm starting a business, I really want to be aligned.

00:21:47.890 --> 00:21:49.480
culture and mindset are two different things.

00:21:49.809 --> 00:21:53.500
I really mostly want to be aligned on mindset.

00:21:53.980 --> 00:21:55.869
That we are thinking about this business.

00:21:55.869 --> 00:21:58.450
We're thinking about the purpose of the business.

00:21:58.880 --> 00:22:05.420
we both understand, or the three of us understand the level of priority this business we'll take in our lives.

00:22:05.509 --> 00:22:06.470
That sort of thing.

00:22:06.539 --> 00:22:07.650
How do we think about the world?

00:22:07.650 --> 00:22:08.309
Do we all.

00:22:08.710 --> 00:22:14.019
Do we all hope to sell the company in four years or do we hope to hold it for quite some time?

00:22:14.500 --> 00:22:20.230
And if those are different, maybe one person wants to sell it as fast as possible and get some financial pop.

00:22:20.630 --> 00:22:23.609
with someone like me, that's a problem, it's really not my goal.

00:22:23.740 --> 00:22:27.819
it's more about mindset for me when I'm starting a new business, then culture.

00:22:28.150 --> 00:22:28.869
You think it's fair.

00:22:28.930 --> 00:22:30.460
Do you think it's fair to separate those two?

00:22:31.029 --> 00:22:31.630
I do.

00:22:32.319 --> 00:22:32.829
I do.

00:22:32.920 --> 00:22:37.680
I think their interwoven in some respects, but, culture takes time.

00:22:37.750 --> 00:22:49.480
to really establish, but part of culture is having people with the similar mindset, because if you have people who think drastically different than you do, that's a recipe for disaster right out the gate.

00:22:49.880 --> 00:22:50.150
And I'll.

00:22:50.779 --> 00:22:52.700
And there's, there's phases to that.

00:22:52.700 --> 00:22:54.799
So with the marketing agency that I have.

00:22:55.519 --> 00:22:59.210
My business partner and I were very aligned on mindset early on.

00:22:59.240 --> 00:22:59.990
Still are.

00:23:00.680 --> 00:23:01.400
He's great.

00:23:01.799 --> 00:23:08.880
as that business has grown, we have shifted as we onboard new team members to being more focused on culture fit.

00:23:09.400 --> 00:23:12.700
so that they don't cause disruption on the team, that sort of thing.

00:23:12.700 --> 00:23:15.970
So there's phases and like a life cycle of all that.

00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:16.539
And you're right.

00:23:16.539 --> 00:23:17.470
That it is intertwined.

00:23:17.703 --> 00:23:19.683
you know, you're here on this podcast today.

00:23:19.683 --> 00:23:26.554
Obviously you understand the power of a personal brand and being able to get your name and your face out there.

00:23:26.763 --> 00:23:39.453
How important do you think that is for executives in a company for a founder of a company to really have a personal presence, to have their personal brand so that they can also associate that with their company brand.

00:23:39.854 --> 00:23:42.044
I think it's crucial 10 out of 10.

00:23:42.344 --> 00:23:48.013
I would advise anyone to whatever they're doing today and Hance it.

00:23:48.044 --> 00:23:50.834
If they're doing nothing, just get off the bench, get in the game.

00:23:51.284 --> 00:23:54.493
I just had a conversation with the vice president of a regional bank.

00:23:54.983 --> 00:23:55.824
yesterday.

00:23:56.394 --> 00:24:02.104
And I said, How many people in your industry are doing really incredible personal branding.

00:24:02.153 --> 00:24:04.584
they're thought leaders, they're putting out thoughtful content.

00:24:05.124 --> 00:24:06.233
For their audience.

00:24:06.534 --> 00:24:11.213
He said, I'm I have over three or 400 contacts that are just in banking.

00:24:11.933 --> 00:24:13.374
I can't think of one person that does that.

00:24:13.773 --> 00:24:19.814
there's, there's a huge need for people to see the benefit, And there's a lot of people that just aren't in the game at all.

00:24:20.213 --> 00:24:25.834
whether you work at a bank or a software company, or you own, an eCommerce business, it doesn't matter to me.

00:24:25.834 --> 00:24:30.723
You could be, you could work at a random insurance company in Tulsa, Oklahoma for all I care.

00:24:31.263 --> 00:24:35.344
I think everyone should be building their own personal brand.

00:24:35.703 --> 00:24:37.334
And let's be honest.

00:24:38.114 --> 00:24:39.913
Most people don't stay at a company forever now.

00:24:40.203 --> 00:24:44.193
Kathy, if that works with the insurance company, who's an assistant VP of whatever.

00:24:44.594 --> 00:24:49.064
Maybe she gets, let go, or maybe she realizes she needs to move on and in her career.

00:24:49.634 --> 00:24:57.084
And if she would have been building that personal brand that could affect our future compensation at a new job, for a business owner, it could.

00:24:57.384 --> 00:24:59.513
Lead to new revenue, new partnerships.

00:24:59.564 --> 00:25:07.683
I think it's important for people to just get in the game and if they're already in the game, but just doing it, intermittently I'd say consistency then becomes.

00:25:08.374 --> 00:25:08.884
The game.

00:25:09.284 --> 00:25:15.733
It's definitely an important element in your overall marketing strategy as a way to build awareness.

00:25:16.134 --> 00:25:28.814
one of the things that I've seen too with younger companies with startups is that they can often fall into this trap where They want to focus on building out whatever they're trying to make or produce, or the company itself.

00:25:29.263 --> 00:25:34.663
And they postpone marketing because marketing is viewed as an expense until things get in place.

00:25:34.963 --> 00:25:41.503
And my guess is that you view that differently, especially if you're looking at being profitable within 90 days.

00:25:41.804 --> 00:25:43.094
You've got to do some marketing.

00:25:43.094 --> 00:25:44.713
You've got to do some lead generation.

00:25:44.713 --> 00:25:46.304
You've got to make some sales happen.

00:25:46.354 --> 00:25:48.844
So what's your view on marketing and startups?

00:25:49.243 --> 00:25:51.794
There's tears of that as it relates to the cost.

00:25:52.384 --> 00:25:58.743
and you also have to know what you're building, Is it does depend on whether it's an eCommerce business or a software business or.

00:25:59.144 --> 00:26:00.584
Some service related company.

00:26:01.003 --> 00:26:04.483
so I like to, I use the phrase a lap a lot.

00:26:04.513 --> 00:26:06.253
We're just as lean as possible.

00:26:06.584 --> 00:26:13.183
So I think early on in a business for many businesses, you can do very effective marketing for.

00:26:13.874 --> 00:26:21.443
for pretty cheap, I don't like to wear cheap and affordable marketing strategy and then grow, spend, as you're able to.

00:26:22.183 --> 00:26:26.453
but I do think it's important to have some marketing budget, early on.

00:26:26.913 --> 00:26:30.334
but again, there's so many ways to be very cost efficient.

00:26:30.784 --> 00:26:31.923
I'm in marketing.

00:26:32.324 --> 00:26:37.334
Today that I don't like the excuse that someone says why we don't have any budget.

00:26:37.663 --> 00:26:38.294
That's okay.

00:26:38.923 --> 00:26:44.173
I can give you the first 10 activities that are free to go do right now to market your business.

00:26:44.493 --> 00:26:49.773
I think some people hide behind excuses around, Capitol and budget as it relates to marketing for startups.

00:26:50.173 --> 00:26:52.453
So you started a marketing agency.

00:26:52.453 --> 00:26:59.324
Is that a route that you would recommend businesses take is, especially in the early stages, outsource their marketing too.

00:26:59.683 --> 00:27:03.554
An agency rather than hiring people until you get some scale.

00:27:03.953 --> 00:27:04.104
Yeah.

00:27:04.183 --> 00:27:05.983
it obviously decreases overhead.

00:27:06.314 --> 00:27:11.773

Building a Business Effectively and Helpful Tips to Drive Your Company Forward with Stephen Olmon

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