How I Built My Small Business
Welcome to 'How I Built My Small Business,' where we dive deep into conversations with guests who've carved out their own path to success. But, we're not only about the creation of businesses. Alongside entrepreneurs, I also chat with experts offering perspectives that'll benefit anyone striving to lead, learn, or improve.
This podcast is both a creative outlet and a platform to share knowledge from incredible people. My guests open up about the raw, heartwarming details of their journeys, offering expertise, simplifying business know-how, sharing money-making ideas, and imparting life wisdom—all through the power of storytelling.
By listening to these interviews and stories, my hope is that you find even one little takeaway that sparks or inspires your path.
While most of my guests make $1 million to $20 million net profit a year, some make more and some make less, but there is a lesson worth learning in each one. I also bring in special guests from brokering and mergers, mindset and meditation, entertainment and marketing, among others. So, the line-up is diverse in niche, experience and perspective - and so, so fun.
Special episodes include:
No College, No Problem
Big business founders with a focus on helpful small business topics
Expertise in hyper-niche fields
The connecting piece is that every one of my guests has started their own business at some point in their journey.
Thank you for listening.
Season 2 drops January 21, 2025. Follow the show so you don't miss out!
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How I Built My Small Business
Alexa D'Agostino - Secrets to go from $0 to 7-8-9 FIGURES from a Serial 6x Exit Entrepreneur
Today, Dr. Alexa D’Agostino is coming on the show to share insights on how to build a company from six to seven figures or seven to eight.
Alexa founded her first official company at 18 and went on to build and then exit multiple businesses achieving over nine figures in exits by the age of 30.
As a part of her journey, she has raised over $100m for charities worldwide.
As the CEO of Thynk Consulting Group, Alexa specializes in scaling businesses through strategic marketing, sales, and leadership development. Her expertise has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal.
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Website: https://www.annemcginty.com/
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Welcome to how I Built my Small Business. I'm Anne McGinty, your host, and today Dr Alexa D'Agostino is coming on the show to share insights on how to build a company from six to seven figures, or seven to eight. Alexa founded her first official company at 18 and went on to build and then exit multiple businesses, achieving over nine figures in exits by the age of 30. As a part of her journey, she has raised over $100 million for charities worldwide. As the CEO of Think Consulting Group, alexa specializes in scaling businesses through strategic marketing, sales and leadership development. Her expertise has been featured in Forbes, entrepreneur, usa Today and the Wall Street Journal. You can find a link through to her business in the episode's description Journal. You can find a link through to her business in the episode's description.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited to be here and have a great conversation.
Speaker 1:So starting your first company at 18 is pretty impressive, and I was wondering if you could share a little bit of your backstory. What shaped you into being an entrepreneur at such a young age?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my family's from Cuba. So when they came to America they had no choice but really to be entrepreneurs, because they didn't come from a family that allowed them the opportunity in their country to, you know, build a life for themselves. So when they came to America they couldn't speak English, they didn't know anybody, they couldn't get a job and they had no choice really but to become entrepreneurs. And so I grew up. Everybody in my household, from my mother, my father, my sisters, my cousins, my aunts, my grandparents, everybody was entrepreneurs. So I kind of automatically knew I was going to be an entrepreneur and I loved it.
Speaker 2:At a young age I was starting businesses at five and seven and I have a lot of content on this where I tell stories of these businesses I started and how much trouble I used to get into because I used to sell like things to like second graders and when I was in second grade and my teachers would get mad at me, like, what are you doing, like, but everything to me was a business and I just realized at a young age that if you have something people want, you could sell it and make money off it. And so I had a business. Well before that it's just. I didn't make it an official business until 18. But part of why I made an official business is because I kind of got off the ground.
Speaker 2:But when I was starting to go to college, I was like I need to make some extra money and I said I'm just going to throw an ad on Craigslist and see what happens. This was before Craigslist was like creepy. I literally put an ad up and was like I'll build your website for 300 bucks, like I didn't care how much money I made. I believe you have to charge something. You don't want to do anything for free. But when you're first getting started, like you shouldn't worry so much about pricing. You've got to build your reputation, build your portfolio, and that's exactly what I did. I just threw in your bucks and that one client ended up becoming one of my biggest clients in my first company and helped me intro to so many other people to help me build my business.
Speaker 1:Amazing. It sounds serendipitous in some ways. So what exactly was that first business that you started?
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting because where it started and where it ended is actually a pretty cool story and this is a good lesson for everybody. That's starting a business to be open-minded to where you can go and it might not be where you envision and it might not be where you thought in the beginning. So I started as an app developer. I was nerdy, I love developing and I love building apps, and that was originally. My first business was websites and apps. It wasn't marketing at all, it was just straight web and app, and I was a computer science major and that was kind of where I thought I was heading. And what ended up happening is I started doing some projects for some pretty big names so CIO, Morgan Stanley, a CIO at a major college, a CEO at one of the leading tech companies in the world and while I was working on those projects building apps all three of them were like hey, I have this idea for a side project, I don't have time to do it, I'll go 50-50 with you, you build it, I'll fund it and you do everything else. And I was like huh. So the good thing was is I was open-minded about it and I was like huh, so the good thing was is I was open-minded about it and I was like, yeah, give me the challenge. So what ended up happening is I ended up building these apps and the CIO at Morgan Stanley was like, hey, now how do we market this? I go, I don't know.
Speaker 2:At that time I was like I have three technical degrees. I have two masters in cybersecurity and internet technology. I was like I have no idea how to market he goes. Well, we got to figure it out. And that's when I was like, okay, and I ended up learning marketing and realizing what a value there is to having somebody who's technical and on the data side as a CMO rather than the creative side, which is 80 to 90% of CMOs out there and I really became more of like a chief revenue officer, really driving through data and tech integration, and I had to learn the creative side. And now I have a creative perspective and now I do have an MBA in marketing and a PhD, but at that time I had no training in marketing at all and I pretty much had to teach myself. And that's how my company transitioned into a digital marketing agency that then was sold in 2014.
Speaker 1:You were absolutely putting yourself out there. I mean contacting people on Craigslist and taking any jobs that you could take.
Speaker 2:Well, what's interesting is Sarah Blakely, who came up with Spanx. Somebody asked her how the heck did you get into Neiman Marcus? And you want to know what her response was. I called them Marcus and you want to know what her response was. I called them and a lot of times we forget that it's as simple as just picking up the phone and calling somebody and saying, hey, here's what I do, how can I help you, and that's essentially what I've done.
Speaker 2:My whole career is I'm not afraid to speak up at networking events and saying, hey, here's how I think I can help you and it's how I've gotten into a lot of the circles that I am and I'm actually not a huge networker, I don't go to you know all these events and this and that what I do is I do a really good job for my partners and I have people that sell me because they believe in me. And that's the most important thing is you get your inner circle of people that are going to sell for you and you can't be afraid to ask people that are in your circle how can I help you or people in your network.
Speaker 1:And again, I feel like one of the lessons I'm hearing from what you're saying is that you're offering to help. Which is what is attracting people to come to you. Is that you're in it for them, not necessarily 100% for yourself. So that is attractive. I'm wondering, across all of the businesses that you have scaled and sold, what are the patterns that are part of your formula?
Speaker 2:At this point. I've had nine figures worth of exits and I've had a ton of failures. I've had companies that I thought were billing dollar companies. I've had companies that we did a hundred million in two years and we still failed and ended up bankrupting. And what's interesting is there's principles that I've seen of why things were successful and there's principles why I thought things weren't successful. And so principle number one that I found is when you go into business, you have to be all in. If you have a business yourself or if you have business with partners, every single person that's on that cap table has to be 100% invested. If they are in 10 other things, it doesn't matter how great the idea is, it will fail because everyone's not fully 100% invested in that business.
Speaker 2:Thing is persistence. You have to have money sometimes to persist, but you have to personally have the attitude to want to persist. Entrepreneurship is hard. It's like a wave that crashes down on you. Do you get up or do you leave the ocean? I never leave. I always get smacked with a wave and I get right back up, no matter how big it is. And that's entrepreneurship. If you can't persist, if you don't have that kind of personality to be able to just get up and go as hard as it is. That's something else that I've seen as well, when we either don't have the money to persist or we don't have the right team with the right attitude to persist.
Speaker 2:The third thing I would say is product market fit. Do you actually have a product that makes sense, that people want? You can have the best idea in the world, but if you don't have people that will actually buy it, it doesn't matter. So this is where I say to people don't go all the way to the end building something. Build an MVP, get something that people can test and feel, even if it's at 20%, where you can give them the vision and see if people are actually interested in it. I've seen people spend years building something that nobody wants rather than building an MVP or an idea of something to see if people even want it.
Speaker 2:I have seen great ideas that other people beat them to market because they took too long, and so it's kind of a dual lesson there. It's one, get something out quickly, make sure it's a product market fit, and then, two, don't try to make it perfect. Perfection is not going to win the game. Speed is gonna win the game. The last thing, which is very important, is building the right team. You can have a great, great product, but if you don't have the right tech team, you don't have the right marketing team. You don't have the right tech team, you don't have the right marketing team, you don't have the right people leading it. You're never going to get to the finish line. It's going to be very, very challenging.
Speaker 1:And that will circle back to someone that is in an episode a few before yours who is Jeff Smart. He's like the world's number one expert on hiring and he also says yeah, the team is really, it's everything, everything. So a lot of our listeners are either entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs. There are a lot of curious listeners who just love these stories, but anyone that is currently owner operating a business, what advice do you have for them to scale from, say, six figures to seven figures, or maybe seven figures to eight figures?
Speaker 2:say six figures to seven figures, or maybe seven figures to eight figures. Yeah, I actually think it's easier to scale from seven to eight than it is six to seven, because when you're scaling to six figures, it's mostly you and it's you yourself and you right when, when you start to hit seven figures, what matters is people marketing, which are the two hardest part of building a company. And a lot of people are scared to invest in marketing because unless they have a direct ROI, they can't see it. They're scared to put money into it. But marketing takes time. You have to test things out. You have to put things out. You have to see what's working. You have to be willing to put 10% minimum of your budget into marketing, knowing you might not get it back immediately because nobody knows. I don't care how good a marketer is, nobody really knows what's going to work until you actually try it.
Speaker 2:I've seen campaigns for the same exact type of company fail because just because company A did it successfully doesn't mean company B will, why they're different brands, different reputation, sometimes different offerings, right. And so you've got to start to build your marketing and what I call it's a trademark that we have called marketing by modification. You've got to start testing what is and isn't working. You could do $10 a day. You could do a couple hundred dollars a month, it doesn't matter but you've got to earmark a little bit for marketing and then people we just talked about. It's the most important piece and the hardest piece of building a business is making sure you have the right people in place, and I could even add processes in there making sure you put the time and energy and money aside to set the right processes. There's a lot of inefficient businesses out there because they're not taking the time to build the correct processes, and so my advice is focus on those things as you're growing. Don't be afraid to invest in yourself and in your business.
Speaker 1:When you start a new business and it's the very beginning. What are the strategies and tactics that you're looking at to gain traction quickly?
Speaker 2:You know, don't be afraid to leverage your personal social. You don't have to have 20,000 followers. I made my first million dollars having 5,000 followers, that's it. I would say half of them were like family and friends. You can't be afraid to put yourself out there. Sometimes people are like, oh, I don't want to put myself out there. You have to. You have to let people know what you're doing and not necessarily ask for help. But you never know who in your circle will refer you. So my first business I was putting myself out there to family, friends, anybody that would basically listen, and that's how I built my name, my portfolio, and it kind of weaved out from there.
Speaker 2:So first is putting yourself out there. Second is seeking advice, getting a coach. It doesn't mean go spend a hundred thousand dollars on a coach. By the way, it could be a mentor, it could be somebody close to you. You want to have a sounding board of people, whether it's like a little advisory board that you put together of people that you can ask advice for and whatnot. You want to make sure that you're doing that.
Speaker 2:The third thing I would say with that piece is putting yourself in rooms with people that are doing what you're doing. There's very few of us that are creating companies that don't exist, right? So if you're a marketing agency owner, get in a room with people that have built agencies, and there's plenty of meetup groups and things like that of people that have done it. So don't recreate the wheel, and that might mean hiring a coach that has done it, but you want to make sure they've actually done it and they've done what you were looking to do, cause there's a lot of coaches out there or what I call coaches that coach coaches, and you want to just make sure you get the right mentor or coach. And again, it doesn't mean you have to go spending crazy amounts of money to hire somebody, and sometimes you don't have to hire anybody at all, and don't be afraid to pick up the phone. It's going to require you to roll up your sleeves to build this thing, and part of that is figuring out where are your people.
Speaker 2:Facebook groups is a fantastic place to start. For instance, if you're selling a pet product, how many pet lover Facebook groups are there, right? So figure out where your people hang out. Maybe they're sitting on Reddit, right? So I have a company that we have a $500 million sports venture fund. It's a private equity company that I'm part equity in and it's like where are the sports fans? They're on Reddit, they're on Twitter. So that's where I'm going to be right. So figure out where these people are and build relationships. Put yourself out there. Don't be afraid to share what you're working on. So there's so many free ways to build a company and then, with funding, you know, on that side, if you do have funding, start putting stuff out there. See what messaging's working, see what design's working. Don't be afraid to test things out. You can take a thousand bucks a month and that will tell you a lot about what is and isn't working, what people do and do not want.
Speaker 1:And let's say that there's a small business owner who's listening in. They've never really spent any money on marketing before and they are a little nervous. They don't really have a pre-assigned budget set aside for it and they've got, okay, a thousand bucks that they're saying, fine, I'll give it a try. Where are you going to recommend that they first try?
Speaker 2:So Facebook is still the number one app for marketing. It is more expensive than it was in the past, but it still is the number one advertising tool. Tiktok is good, but the problem with TikTok is that it's very content driven. If you don't have the right content, it's not going to work, it's going to bomb. Where Facebook, you don't necessarily have to have the exact right content to get leads. Where TikTok is very, very creative driven and you know, depending on what you're doing like if you have a fitness brand or a food brand, Pinterest is great and it's cheap, right. So I think it really depends what kind of business that you have. But there's a lot of platforms out there and you've got to kind of test, but Facebook is still the number one.
Speaker 2:Google's great but it's expensive and Google, to me, is great if you want the low hanging fruit, aka people that are searching. But once you start to go into, like video, and you need a lot of assets for that, and then you know you don't really use the display network. That's more of retargeting and whatnot. So to me that's not the top of the funnel, that's kind of more mid funnel, unless you're doing search. But again, that's not going to tell you much, because people are already searching for you. What you want to know in the beginning is people that are not searching for you. Can you capture their attention? And that's where you would use like Facebook ads.
Speaker 1:So have you ever taken a major risk in order to take a big leap for one of your companies and not have it pan out?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I've had more failures than successes. Now, in saying that I've had income rise and revenue wise, or wins in dollar amounts, is bigger than my losses, but the sheer number of losses are way more than my failures. And it's kind of like you invest in a hundred things and five pan out, but the five that pan out are more than the losses. Right, and I think that's really important. It's you.
Speaker 2:You want to diversify in what you're doing and try different things, and that's what I've done in my career and it's why I've been successful is because I'm willing to try anything I believe in. I won't waste my time on something I don't believe in and that I don't believe will work or I'm not passionate about. That's part of my criteria to take on projects. But I've had companies I mentioned this earlier that I've built up to nine figures and then they went bankrupt. And I've had companies that built to nine figures and we sold successfully went bankrupt. And I've had companies that built to nine figures and we sold successfully. You have failures that you learn from and you have wins that you learn from. But the most important thing as an entrepreneur and a human is to make sure you learn from everything the good, the bad, the ugly, and learn how you could be better.
Speaker 1:I think if we could figure out how to teach people to be okay with that piece, then that would be phenomenal. It's a repeated advice that we hear, but some people are so scared of what others might think of them, so if you have anything that you'd like to offer on that, please, yeah, I mean, I guess it's start by not thinking of it as a failure.
Speaker 2:Think of it as a stepping stone. I've had failures in hiring. I've had failures in companies. One of my biggest failures in the last five years was a company. It was a new industry I've never been in. It was a CPG brand and we had very quick traction. We were getting into major box stores very quickly. People loved the brand, what we were building, and we failed because of the operational side of the house.
Speaker 2:It's a very complicated story but it kind of is a bunch of lessons in one. And one was what I was telling you about is if you don't have all partners involved and all partners concentrating on this. That was part of it. And two, we almost had so much success in the want for this very quickly. We weren't set up to do it properly and we had major issues with our factory and manufacturing the product and then we pissed people off and then you're sending out product that wasn't good, and so we almost did too good of a job on marketing in the beginning because we tried to scale too quickly, because everybody was impatient, right, and so it was I thought was going to be my billion dollar exit.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was in the first 12 months. I was like holy crap, like we have everybody interested from Target and Costco and everyone wanted us. And I literally saw my tens of millions of dollars in my head already before we even had it and it is still to date like my biggest failure, because there were so many things that were missed on the way. And so you know, for me it was looking back and saying, okay, now when I evaluate opportunities, it's not just the marketing of it, but it's also the partners, it's the plan to market. There's so many other things besides marketing that I need to look at when I'm evaluating these opportunities.
Speaker 2:So the good thing is is I walked away with a whole new industry. I knew nothing about CBG, I knew nothing about going to trade shows and this, and there's so many things that I learned from the failure. But also there were so many things that I learned from doing the project and now I can say I know how to onboard a target. I know how to get products into Costco and what they're looking for. I know exactly the criteria. Whole Foods is looking versus Costco, who cares more about the design than the ingredients, and Sprouts is very crazy about ingredients. I wouldn't have known all of this if I didn't do the project Right. So as much as it was a failure and we ended up bankrupting that company, I walked away with so much knowledge. That's something you can't buy.
Speaker 1:It costs money to get an education, and learning by doing is worth the money, even if you lose it, because there's your education right there. So how?
Speaker 2:do you determine when it is the right time to exit a business? Actually, one of my failures was exiting a business too early. That's a hard question, because one of my exits I exited a company I was 20 and it's now a multi-billion dollar company and I sold it for a sheer couple million, but I was 20. And back then that was a lot of money, but I sold it to one of the largest financial companies in the world and they obviously saw where it was heading. And now the patent that I had is now the patent at every casino. Now, granted, I wouldn't have had that connection to even get this in casinos to begin with, but they are large investors in some of the largest casinos in the world. But what I should have done is negotiated to keep one to 2% of that company, to keep 1% to 2% of that company. So I think it's a couple of things. It's one do you have the current team? Because sometimes the team to get it to seven figures isn't the same team to get it to eight or nine or 10. So do you have the right team in place currently, or the right advisory board to get you in front of the right people? So the answer. I'll use that company as an example. I did not. I had the right product, I didn't have the right connections, I didn't have the right team to take this to a billion, so it would have never happened.
Speaker 2:The second question is would you rather be a hundred percent of a million dollar company or 2% of a billion dollar company? And that's what you have to ask yourself. And is that even something that you want to do? And so if I own 2%, I could walk away with, you know, $20 million it's going to take me. If you even have a 20%, you know return on your million dollar company, that's going to take you 40 years to get that 20 million.
Speaker 2:So is it better to sell it to have the chance at 20 million than taking the risk of waiting 40 years? Yeah, it is Right. So I think I'm at the point where I most likely will never a hundred percent sell a company outright Cause if you're selling it, you're selling it either because you want the money upfront, um, or because you're selling it to a team that can take it to the next level and that determines whether or not you would a hundred percent sell or not. And uh, so it's kind of a complicated answer but I hope that kind of gives some framework of kind of the thinking. You've got to think about what you want, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And thinking about what you want, what drives you to keep on creating and scaling and exiting businesses, especially since it sounds like you likely don't need the money anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a really great question. So my wife and I, I mean I wear like, look what I'm wearing. Like I wear like Amazon basics. Like I'm not, we're not very showy people. I believe that real wealth people don't show. I think people that show it are not wealthy. People that brag about donating aren't really wealthy or they have something to hide or they are insecure. They have something to hide or they are insecure. So for us, like I walk around in, you know, a t-shirt and shorts all day, we drive a Ford. Like I live in a humble house. Like we're not we're not crazy people.
Speaker 2:For me, it's more about the financial freedom, right. So if I don't work for the next 20 years, it doesn't matter. I could still live the same life that I live right now. So that was the most important thing for me to get to where we are now. Now, the next phase of that is impact, and everything I'm involved in is something that can make major impact and that's the most important thing for me.
Speaker 2:So if you look at my portfolio, I'm part of really amazing projects that I love to do. One I don't think I can ever not work. That would be really boring. Two, I think it's important for my kids to see us working hard. I work just as hard now as I did when I was broke, and it's important for them to see that right. And we live a great life, we take great vacations and we do things, but I'm constantly talking to my kids about how important it is to work hard, how important it is to be your own boss. I think it's important to show them that they will be working as soon as they can. They're not going to be trust fund babies. So to me now, this next part is impact. My wife, you know, loves donating and being a part of something, but not just donating with money, but donating with time and really investing in organizations that we care about. So first it was financial freedom, now it's impact.
Speaker 1:And is there a specific legacy that you're hoping to leave behind? Is there a certain industry or cause that, to you, is just the most meaningful?
Speaker 2:What I think everybody should do is think about when and this is morbid but when you die, what do you want on your tombstone? Do you want on your tombstone Alexa made a lot of money? Or do you want on your tombstone Alexa impacted a lot of lives? And that's what I think about every day. I don't want on my tombstone she made millions. What I want to be on, that is, she helped millions. So for me, my legacy is more about how can we make an impact in this world and how can we change lives. And that might be for my employees, it might be for our customers, it might be in the sake of a nonprofit. It could mean many different things, and that's the legacy that I want to leave. Honestly, I would say the biggest part of my legacy will be my kids. I want to raise good humans. That is my number one priority and I want them to change the world. I don't want to change the world, I want them to change the world.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. That's an amazing way to live. So if you could give one lesson you wish someone had taught you earlier in your entrepreneurial journey, what would that lesson be?
Speaker 2:What I would say is there was a point in my career where I did get burnt out, and a part of it was that I thought I had to be everything to everyone and everywhere, and you can't. You have to have help. You have to not be afraid to hire people. As good as you are better. That should be your aim as a leader, and sometimes, when you're building something, you think you have to be in every part of your business and you don't, and that's how I burnt out. I mean, it's why I sold my first agency in 2014, because I was burnt out. And writing those big paychecks every single month for salaries, you know, was scary.
Speaker 2:The truth is, I was young. I had no idea what I was doing. I had an ego. I thought I knew everything. I didn't seek help, I just did it. I figured it out, which is pretty cool I did.
Speaker 2:But, at the same time, if I had somebody, a mentor, somebody that would just sit me down and say, hey, you're forgetting this piece or that piece, I think I wouldn't have been so stressed out being somebody that didn't know.
Speaker 2:So if you're somebody that's just starting a venture, seek somebody to mentor you. You should always have somebody in your corner, and the other thing that I would I would add to that is keep your circle tight. I have a lot of people in my network, but my circle, my inner circle, is very, very small, and you know, sometimes we have too many people giving us advice and we have people like family and people that really deep down family and friends. They don't always like to see you happy and successful, and I've had to cut people out in my inner circle that really deep down, wasn't happy for my success. You know making comments like oh well, you could afford it, but I can't Things like that Right, and so you want to pay attention to those things because you don't want people in your inner circle that are maybe not to your face, not voting for you or helping you, and so that's really important. Your inner circle needs to be tight and you want to make sure that you're very careful who you let in.
Speaker 1:That's so true. Make sure that you're very careful who you let in. That's so true. And I also know that the burnout that you're talking about I think I read the other day that something like 75% of business owners fear that they are on the brink of burnout. So it's hard to see the symptoms because they can really go unnoticed for quite a while. So just for a final question here if you could go back and speak with yourself when you were in your early twenties, what life wisdom would you give yourself? That has nothing to do with business.
Speaker 2:That's easy. Remember to appreciate the journey. Don't forget that you can have success, but if you don't actually live your life and enjoy the people around you family and friends then what's the purpose right? Tomorrow is not guaranteed, so make sure you live today while also building for tomorrow, and having that balance is is incredibly important.
Speaker 1:Alexa, thank you so much. You've really shared some incredible insights. Thank you. Today's key takeaways If you have something that people want, you can sell it.
Speaker 1:If you have a skill or ability and want to make extra money, focus less on pricing at first. Instead, build your reputation, expand your network and grow your portfolio. Stay open-minded. Where you start and where you end may look very different from what you initially imagined. To establish a connection and get your foot in the door, sometimes all it takes is picking up the phone and saying, hey, this is what I do. How can I help you get your foot in the door? Sometimes, all it takes is picking up the phone and saying, hey, this is what I do. How can I help you? One of the most effective forms of networking is simply doing excellent work. Your clients, collaborators and partners will become your best advocates.
Speaker 1:When you go into business, you have to be all in. Everyone involved must be 100% invested. You have to approach business with persistence. It's an essential ingredient for success. Build an MVP minimum viable product. Have speed to market and launch quickly to test for product market fit. Don't aim for perfection. Speed and adaptability. Win the game when scaling from seven to eight figures. Focus on, first, testing your marketing strategies and figure out what works. And second, build the right team. This is the most important piece. Build the right team. This is the most important piece. The team that gets your business to seven figures may not be the same team you need to get to eight figures and beyond. Take time to establish strong processes and address inefficiencies in your business.
Speaker 1:When starting a business, put yourself out there. Let everyone in your circle know what you're doing. You never know who might refer. You have a sounding board, a personal advisory board of mentors you can turn to for advice and perspective. Put yourself in the room, whether digital or in person, with others who are doing what you aspire to do. Every step, whether a win or a so-called failure, is a stepping stone. Treat it as such. Don't let one department outgrow or outpace the rest of your company.
Speaker 1:Evaluating whether to sell your business can be complicated. Ask yourself are you selling to cash out and pursue something else, or are you selling to bring in someone who can take it to the next level? When you die, what do you want on your tombstone? What will your obituary say? Don't be afraid to hire people who are as good as or better than you. That should be your goal as a leader. Keep your inner circle tight. You can have an expansive network, but be selective with the people you trust for advice and support and, lastly, appreciate the journey. Success means little if you don't enjoy life, family and friends along the way. That's it for today. I release episodes once a week, so come back and check it out. Have a great day.
