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In this episode of the Creative Collaboration Show, host Chuck Anderson interviews Estie Starr, a consultant and founder of Strand Consulting who helps small business owners scale their businesses to make big profits. Estie shares her insights on marketing strategies, mindset work, and the importance of a cohesive business plan.
Estie Starr is an award-winning consultant and founder of Strand Consulting, a full-service consultancy focused on helping small business owners scale their businesses to make big profits. She offers a guided business school to help business owners understand all the moving parts of their business. Estie is an expert at helping people strategize and come up with a plan to get to the next level in their business.
Key Points:
- [03:00] The importance of having a cohesive marketing strategy with aligned elements like branding and sales strategies.
- [10:15] The importance of vetting and testing individuals before bringing them on as part of a client project.
- [20:10] The dangers of a business becoming an expensive hobby if it doesn't ultimately earn money.
- [24:40] The importance of changing one's mindset in order to grow a successful business.
- [35:00] Celebrating every step when working towards financial goals.
Must-Read Book Recommendation:
Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Estie highlights the importance of pronouncing someone's name correctly, addressing them by their preferred name, and talking to people about what they will do for them, rather than only focusing on oneself.
Links:
Visit Estie Starr's website at EstieStarr.com for her free 3 day marketing success challenge.
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Until next time, keep moving forward!
Chuck Anderson,
There we go. Hello,
Speaker:everybody, and welcome back to the creative collaboration
Speaker:show. This is Chuck Anderson here. And we have another amazing
Speaker:episode here for you today. Now we know that you are most
Speaker:likely on a journey of building your business
Speaker:helping people making a big impact in the world. And
Speaker:in in that, there are certain levels that we are going to
Speaker:hit, and when we're at one level, we're always
Speaker:looking forward to the next level. And today
Speaker:and my guest here will be talking about that. In fact,
Speaker:my guest is an expert at helping people strategize
Speaker:and coming up with a plan to get to the next level. So if that
Speaker:sounds like you, if there's another level that you've been dreaming of,
Speaker:You are in the right place at the right time.
Speaker:Today, my guest is Esti Star. She is
Speaker:an award winning consultant exceptional marketing strategist,
Speaker:avid speaker and founder of Strand Consulting, a multinational
Speaker:consultancy that's focused on helping small business owners
Speaker:scale their businesses to make big profits. Anyone
Speaker:here wanna make big profits? I know I do. So, Esti,
Speaker:welcome. I'm so glad to have you here. Thank you. I am so excited to
Speaker:be here. Awesome. And, you know, so you and I have
Speaker:had a chance to to chat a couple of times, and I just I I
Speaker:can't wait to share you and what you
Speaker:offer to our audience today. And so
Speaker:now I did the very light introduction, and I'm sure that does
Speaker:not do it justice. So so you wanna tell everybody a little bit more
Speaker:about you and what you do.
Speaker:Sure. Essentially, I just turn ideas into money. whether it's
Speaker:your first idea or your 25th or your 87th or your 2
Speaker:60 seconds, but I have a full
Speaker:service consulting firm for small business owners, anything you'd imagine as
Speaker:Deloitte McKenzie does for a Fortune 500 company, we do for the little guy.
Speaker:Small business, solopreneurs, nonprofits, been doing it for 15
Speaker:years, locked over 12 a half 1000 hours of 1 on 1 business
Speaker:coaching. So, you know, it's been a minute. And in
Speaker:2019 when there were people that I really
Speaker:wanted to help that couldn't afford our private consulting services as we grew,
Speaker:I opened up an online business school and that
Speaker:allows us now to serve both business owners and business dreamers.
Speaker:wherever they are in their business to create business and marketing strategies that
Speaker:actually earn them money. A lot of business owners will do marketing
Speaker:but that marketing doesn't always turn into money in their pocket. It sometimes is
Speaker:only money out of their pocket and that hurts me. though
Speaker:we do profit based strategies primarily organic, not against
Speaker:paying for marketing, I'm against paying for marketing that won't pay back.
Speaker:Yeah. That's that's a really good philosophy to have. Right? And so we're not
Speaker:in the business of spending money just for the sake of spending money,
Speaker:we, at some point, wanna get that money back. Yeah. That would be the point.
Speaker:The idea of a marketing budget is that it should be an ATM machine. If
Speaker:I'm this magical ATM, which I absolutely am, and every dollar you
Speaker:hand me, I give you a 10. So you give me a 1. I give
Speaker:you a 10. You give me a 1. I give you a 10. Do you
Speaker:have a budget for dollars that you give me? like, a limited amount of dollars
Speaker:that you're gonna give me. If for every dollar you give me, I give you
Speaker:a 10. Do you have a budget? I probably would not
Speaker:put a limit on it if I'm able to get 10 for everyone I
Speaker:spend. Right. That's what your marketing's supposed to be. That's when they say a
Speaker:10% marketing budget, that's what that means.
Speaker:That's what it's supposed to do. It's supposed to hand you a 10 for every
Speaker:dollar you give it. Most business owners at best it's the opposite
Speaker:if they've never made strategy or here's what happens I see so
Speaker:often, a small business owner will
Speaker:go out there and sometimes they'll get lucky. they'll get a market who really
Speaker:knows their stuff, and then that person owns them. They can't replace them.
Speaker:Right? More often than not, when the business owner doesn't understand
Speaker:marketing, doesn't understand business, they're just looking for help because they're like, help. I don't
Speaker:know how to do this. They find someone who feels the same way. They're like,
Speaker:I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'll help you. And then the blind
Speaker:lead the blind into a dark alley. I know
Speaker:well. Exactly. I think I've been led down that
Speaker:dark alley a You know, honestly still have I, honestly still have
Speaker:I. I'm doing this 15 years. I have hired people and
Speaker:paid for things that didn't pan out. also, and my
Speaker:dedication has been to figure that out. It took a minute, took a
Speaker:minute to build my own company. When I started, I was just a solar printer
Speaker:myself, With a dream of building a full service consultancy, it took 7
Speaker:years almost several years. We hit 6 figures in profit in the
Speaker:1st 2 years. but it took several years until it
Speaker:became what I wanted it to be which is a full service consultancy, right? And
Speaker:we have clients and staff 10 time zones from LA to Hong Kong,
Speaker:LA's wrong base, serving people all over the world.
Speaker:Now is my dream. My dream was to have a place where business owners could
Speaker:come and get that high level advice at prices they could afford
Speaker:with real results and where all the pieces make sense because
Speaker:your average small business consultants help or only do one
Speaker:thing. Right? They're your sales coach or your mindset person or
Speaker:your marketing person who will build your website, but doesn't know anything about your message
Speaker:for that, you gotta hire a messaging person, and then a different person's your copywriter.
Speaker:If the messaging person's not gonna write your copy, the copywriter will. Someone else is
Speaker:doing your brand and your accountant and your financial advisor tell you something a little
Speaker:different that you can't spend on what your marketing person tells you, and you're like,
Speaker:no idea what to do. And so I wanted to give people
Speaker:the comprehensive umbrella where they could get all the different things in a way
Speaker:that they tie together and made sense. And then in the business school, we have
Speaker:more of a done with you guided option where the business owner themselves can say,
Speaker:oh, these are all the moving parts to the puzzle. So I can put this
Speaker:person here and this thing here and that thing there, and then it all makes
Speaker:sense. When it all makes sense, it earns money.
Speaker:Yes. And that is the point. Right? And so -- I mean, I think so.
Speaker:Otherwise, your business is an expensive hobby, which is cute, and you can do it.
Speaker:I have expensive hobbies. I do ballroom dancing. It doesn't pay me.
Speaker:I pay it. I love it. You could have a business that's an expensive
Speaker:hobby also. enjoy. It's not business. It's an expensive
Speaker:hobby. Yeah. And I think, you know, this is something that I hear a lot
Speaker:because so many especially coaches They start
Speaker:their business as a labor of love because they wanna help people. They are helpful
Speaker:people. They themselves usually go through some sort of transformation
Speaker:or healing journey. Then and they go, oh, wow. What an you know, they
Speaker:were helped by a coach, and they're like, what an amazing thing. I wanna spend
Speaker:the rest of my life helping others. And so so
Speaker:there's the, you know, the the need to make money
Speaker:but then but then there's the deeper desire of, you know,
Speaker:facilitating the transformation in the clients. And there's kind
Speaker:of this I don't know about and I'd love to hear you weigh in on
Speaker:this because, I mean, you know, some of them struggle with this. It's like,
Speaker:well, I really want it to be about the transformation. I want it to be
Speaker:about the work. I want it to be about how many the the big
Speaker:impact that I can make in the world. And I don't wanna be all about
Speaker:profits, and I don't wanna be all about money. But I think there is a
Speaker:reality, isn't there, that, you know, if if you if you're not
Speaker:profitable at some point, you're not going to be making that a big
Speaker:impact. It's so much more than that. -- not very long. It's so much more
Speaker:than that. When people don't pay, they don't pay attention. Number 1. So if you
Speaker:really wanna help people, if the person's actually invested in working with you, they're gonna
Speaker:pay you. They're gonna pay you in cash, first barter, or other services.
Speaker:Everyone has something to give. So if the person's not paying at any level, they're
Speaker:probably not paying much attention. That's one. Number 2, there's a big
Speaker:difference between something being all about the money and being remunerated
Speaker:appropriately for the value of your services being offered. And
Speaker:there's that distinction I think a lot of people miss.
Speaker:Not all about the money or there's no money.
Speaker:It's I'm offering a service and it's appropriate for me to be compensated. You know,
Speaker:I hang out along in the conscious community. And there's always like, well, the
Speaker:energetic exchange for this event is
Speaker:But that's all that money is energy. That's all it is. Frequency, it's energy. Right?
Speaker:What's the exchange? You're giving over something. What is the other person giving?
Speaker:What are they putting in? And you want them to
Speaker:benefit and then take it to that next level of you want to have a
Speaker:really big impact in the world, either you have a trust fund or a really
Speaker:easy side job that's just paying you tons of money for you to dedicate your
Speaker:time to this, or you need to get paid with this. And I'll
Speaker:tell you when I started this, I spent the 1st decade of my professional
Speaker:career in nonprofit, an absolute gooder. Okay? I
Speaker:interviewed some big companies. I remember I got to, like, 3rd stage interviews at Bloomberg,
Speaker:and I was like, I I can't. I can't. I just wanna help the world.
Speaker:Yeah. Do it. And so I went to work at a nonprofit. And
Speaker:I did nonprofit work. For the 1st decade before I left to start my own
Speaker:business in 2011, And in the beginning, I was genuinely
Speaker:on the shelf should I make my business a nonprofit or not because all I
Speaker:wanted to do is help people. I'm that person too. I've been a certified professional
Speaker:coach for 15 years before that was even a thing. I was
Speaker:and you and I were talking about this right before. wanted to help people. I
Speaker:didn't want to be a therapist because I'm an empath and I absorb people's problems
Speaker:and so I want us become a coach because then I could help people but
Speaker:not have to dig into their trauma just acknowledge their trauma acknowledge where they've been
Speaker:acknowledge how that impacts them and take them forward into where they want to go,
Speaker:and that's how I see coaching. And when I began my
Speaker:business, I genuinely wasn't sure if it would be a nonprofit or not. All I
Speaker:needed it to do was support me in my life so I could dedicate my
Speaker:time to it. And then as it grew, I wanted to support me
Speaker:and my staff. And then as it grew, I wanted to support me and my
Speaker:staff, my family, the other non profit projects that I have Right?
Speaker:Building wealth for my children, for my lifestyle.
Speaker:So your aspirations grow with your success, and that's
Speaker:okay too. Money's not bad. It's just a thing.
Speaker:It's how you use it like anything else. I love how you
Speaker:described. Do you so naturally described the levels. And, you know, that's
Speaker:one one thing that we have conversations about all the time is leveling up.
Speaker:Like, I'm here, I wanna get to here. And like you said, it's like, I
Speaker:just wanna this to pay for my life. And then then you
Speaker:achieve that and it's like, what's the next level? It's not like, oh,
Speaker:I've arrived, and so I'm gonna, you know, sit back,
Speaker:but there's always another level. Yeah. You never really arrived. And that's you
Speaker:know, for me one of my challenges was as I would reach
Speaker:each next level of success, I was like, oh, well,
Speaker:I'm I'm here. This was the thing I was trying to do now. What do
Speaker:I do? You know, sometimes there's that moment you're like, well, no one. I did
Speaker:the thing. I was trying Usually, it's more organic. Usually, by the time you're there,
Speaker:you're like, well, I'm already trying to get here because you're already always ten steps
Speaker:ahead, which is why we wanna celebrate every day. We wanna celebrate the journey.
Speaker:Because if you don't, you're never there, you're always here. You're never there, you're
Speaker:always here. And if you're always here and you're only gonna celebrate when you get
Speaker:there, you never get to celebrate and that is no fun. You know, we were
Speaker:just saying before, I help business owners get to their first 5, 6, 7
Speaker:figures profit. That's my zone. Some people come to me. They're just trying to get
Speaker:to their first five figures. Some people wanna go 0 to 6 figures. Some
Speaker:people that work with wanna go 0 to 7, new slash. You're always gonna hit
Speaker:6 figures before 7 because that's how numbers work. it's it's
Speaker:never going to be able, I just ran a 7 figure business. That's right. I
Speaker:had $0, and then I had a 1,000,000 if it was matching. You're
Speaker:always gonna have 6 figures first. because numbers count like
Speaker:that. And in creating businesses
Speaker:in different levels, it matches the person, matches their aspirations,
Speaker:are running a marketing program now with a group of students. And one
Speaker:of the students says, well, shouldn't I want a 1,000,000? Said you
Speaker:should want what you actually want. gonna be very hard to get you something that
Speaker:you don't actually want and that you don't believe you can do. If you don't
Speaker:believe it, I can't believe it enough for you. I can believe in you
Speaker:and I can show you how to reach any goal that you set for yourself.
Speaker:But you need to set the ones that actually resonate with you where you are.
Speaker:and not try to set a goal that someone else says you should
Speaker:have because it's not gonna be as much fun to get there. You don't
Speaker:really want it, feel it, it doesn't work.
Speaker:It doesn't work. You know, I I love
Speaker:so much about that. You know, I one of the follow ups that I wanna
Speaker:ask you about that is for me, my journey has
Speaker:been a lot a lot about getting to that next level. But in order for
Speaker:my business to get to the next level. I mean, there's tactics and there's
Speaker:strategies and all of that, but I myself had to get to the next
Speaker:level. I myself I had to grow myself to be the person who
Speaker:could run a business or own a business that at that
Speaker:level. And so what's what's your take on that? You know?
Speaker:And because I know you work with a lot of business on how much are
Speaker:you working on the business and how much are you working on them?
Speaker:in terms of -- Business will never be bigger than you. Right? So if you
Speaker:want a bigger business, I have to change you. A lot of people say, as
Speaker:we come for the marketing, stay for everything else. And I'm best known for organic
Speaker:marketing strategy, but my students and my clients have such crazy successes
Speaker:that when they recommend people, they come, they're like, okay. you know, my friend, colleague,
Speaker:husband, wife, sister-in-law, neighbor, or whatever, you know, like,
Speaker:they're so different. Their life has changed. Their business is better. Yeah. Part of the
Speaker:work was explaining to them how business and marketing work, developing the actual
Speaker:strategies that would earn them money, cutting out the things that were unnecessary,
Speaker:and then changing, you know, what calls in a mindset. You need a mindset coach.
Speaker:You know, mindset work is embedded in everything I do or it wouldn't work.
Speaker:it wouldn't work. What got you here is your current level of thinking. As Einstein
Speaker:says, you cannot solve a problem at the same level of thinking that created it.
Speaker:So you want different results, have to do different actions, do different actions. You're
Speaker:gonna probably be thinking different thoughts that will bring different actions. Think different thoughts and
Speaker:new different beliefs. Police create thoughts, create actions, create results.
Speaker:And so we change things even at the fundamental belief level, what do
Speaker:you believe is possible? But I show it to you through explaining
Speaker:how business and marketing actually work. It's real
Speaker:it's the real world. Right? Like, you shows what the same way I just explained
Speaker:to you that you will have a 6 figure business or you have a 7
Speaker:figure business. People don't realize that all the time. Right? Or they don't
Speaker:realize I'm testing out a bunch of new marketing AI tools now.
Speaker:just, you know, for funsies in my spare time. And, you know, I
Speaker:was like, oh, yeah. Like, woah. We don't need this anymore. We have AI, and
Speaker:I will do everything. Oh, that's adorable. Have you tried the new AI tool? because
Speaker:I have. One of them is a tool that's really just made
Speaker:for web designers already. Right? It's so complex on its back end
Speaker:that You click a button and it makes you a dog
Speaker:poo website, which is adorable, not to sell dog poo, it just looks like dog
Speaker:poo. It's written you can't use it. the way it is. You could. Right? You
Speaker:could, but it won't do anything in business. And then to edit it,
Speaker:you need a certification in web design to do any changes
Speaker:to it. that was one. Another one I tested out, I I tried to start,
Speaker:and it's like, we're sorry. This tool is shutting down as of the
Speaker:end of this month. For all of our subscribers paid and
Speaker:free, we will no longer be hosting your websites at the end of
Speaker:the month. Sorry. We hope you have enough time to migrate them before they
Speaker:disappear. That was another one. Wonderful. Another
Speaker:another one I tested for clients of mine. he's an army
Speaker:veteran, and he serves veterans in the most incredible
Speaker:way. He's one of the most high level breath work. I've first ever met in
Speaker:my life, in adult PhDs. I put in, you know, yoga and breathwork just to
Speaker:see what it would do, and it's put me at this, like, very cute, like,
Speaker:yoga site as if it was a local studio in LA because it found my
Speaker:locations, but I know you. You're in LA. I'm gonna
Speaker:guess you're female. I'm gonna make a pink yoga studio web time for
Speaker:it. Yeah. You could use AI tools.
Speaker:I put in one of the AI tools. It's like, we'll generate your marketing strategy
Speaker:for you. I'm like, yeah. Let me see what you got. and it gave me
Speaker:something that's like 35 pages long that I understand that would be useless
Speaker:to anybody who didn't understand, and by the way, not
Speaker:likely to work incredibly complex. If you could implement
Speaker:what that being generated, then you should be charging as a
Speaker:marketing consultant and not following their plan.
Speaker:And so the whole idea of, like, you know, point click,
Speaker:website business is not real. It's not real and most
Speaker:people get stuck in their business because they are looking at something the wrong
Speaker:way, they're missing information, they're missing perspective, they don't understand what they are
Speaker:capable of, either too high or too low. Either they think
Speaker:they should be able to do something that actually isn't how it works,
Speaker:or they don't believe they can do something they can actually do.
Speaker:and mindset is critical. You can't do anything without
Speaker:it. Yeah.
Speaker:I just love everything you just said, especially the oh, I
Speaker:I I just wanna point click, and I'm in business.
Speaker:and you and you see that kind of they all say it, like,
Speaker:so many of them. Oh, tools that I was checking out today. It's like, do,
Speaker:oh my gosh, this makes me wanna vomit. Okay. Now mind you, I'm doing this
Speaker:15 years. Okay. When I started my consultancy, it's because I saw that small
Speaker:business owners got the short end of the stick, 15 different people were helping them
Speaker:and half of them didn't even know what they didn't know. And I just
Speaker:wanted my business owners to be educated. I don't need you to do your own
Speaker:marketing. need you to understand it enough to hire the right people and direct them
Speaker:to make sure they're doing the right work for you so that you earn more
Speaker:than they cost you. That's all. That's all I need from you. And so I
Speaker:go on these sites, and it's like, do you want the personal subscription, or do
Speaker:you want the agency subscription and start your own hide side has
Speaker:making websites for other people in business. I'm like,
Speaker:but now someone else is gonna get the yoga studio website.
Speaker:with no no and and no skills on building websites at all.
Speaker:because you don't need any skills. It's a great side hustling. You can make websites
Speaker:for people. They'll never get any business from it, but, yeah, well. Yeah.
Speaker:And I'm just wondering how many people listening right now have bought into those
Speaker:things. I mean, I get it. I get the
Speaker:the desire to wave the magic
Speaker:wand and have a result. And, you know, we do use that in our
Speaker:business, but it's gotta be real. The whatever output
Speaker:comes from your so called magic wand or your process or whatever,
Speaker:it has to be a real result. And then it has to be something you
Speaker:can actually work with and do something with at the end.
Speaker:To put money in your pocket, it's that simple. If it doesn't, all the
Speaker:promises in the world, you know, I had a guy come into my marketing program.
Speaker:He was losing $5000 a month on marketing when he came into my
Speaker:program. and earning nothing. And
Speaker:within three months of graduating, he was already earning 5 figures instead
Speaker:of spending it. And within a year and a bit,
Speaker:he'd hit 6 figures. Mhmm. And the big change
Speaker:was, a, we had him cut out. all of the stuff he was doing that
Speaker:was a waste of money. Right? All the Google AdWords and all of the
Speaker:you know, he was paying a website company like, you know, maintain and update his
Speaker:website and write blogs for him that no one ever read in social
Speaker:media manager that were posting things that no one ever clicked on or liked. And,
Speaker:like, he was doing all the things that
Speaker:didn't earn him any money. He had print ads going out. He
Speaker:had oh my gosh, all the things. He had all the things. And so we
Speaker:stopped all the things that we could. Some of it was, like, you know, longer
Speaker:term contracts. We had to wait until they petered out. We did everything to stop
Speaker:the thing that weren't working. And then we just did one clear path
Speaker:to money. That's it. Just, you know, turning the marketing into money
Speaker:is is the way we play. and
Speaker:very many people who offer marketing services, they're not
Speaker:malicious. They don't even know. they don't know what they
Speaker:don't know. They don't know what you don't know. So they're not promising you that
Speaker:your website's gonna earn you money. They're just promising they'll make you a website. It's
Speaker:not up to them to earn you money. It's up to you. You don't know
Speaker:that. They don't tell you that because it's not their job. You
Speaker:know, I have people that I work with who are in media, we
Speaker:have this conversation, they would say, yeah, of course. Yeah, I can get the media
Speaker:attention, but that won't necessarily earn the money. I'm like, yeah, but you're not gonna
Speaker:tell them that. I will. You're not because then they won't pay you, and that's
Speaker:not fair. I don't like that. And it bothers me, but that's
Speaker:the truth. Right? You need much more than just something that gets
Speaker:people's attention and websites don't do that. It's not 1994. You're not the only blog
Speaker:in town. And if you make a website and you don't have a
Speaker:plan to drive traffic to it. That will
Speaker:work. There's nothing that website's gonna do. It's just gonna sit there. You need a
Speaker:whole strategy that surrounds it, unless that needs to say the right things in the
Speaker:right way, and have a conversion path to actually turn into money. I
Speaker:once got a call from someone. I can't make these things up. Again, I'm 12
Speaker:a half 1000 hours of coaching ad. More stories than I can even remember at
Speaker:this point. Women called me up, hey, Estee. I heard you're marketing genius. Aw. Thanks.
Speaker:Yeah. So I did this coaching program. And this story, by the way, I could
Speaker:tell it in 60 different versions. and I've heard it in 60 different
Speaker:versions. I did this coaching program, and in the program, they taught us how to
Speaker:be coaches. Yay. And then they had a marketing course for us. And
Speaker:in the marketing course, they said run Google Ads to get clients, the end.
Speaker:Like, at least you spent 3 months 6 months learning how to be a coach,
Speaker:and then half an hour learning how to market yourself because that's not a zone
Speaker:discipline. No. Of course, that should be noted why don't you spend half an hour
Speaker:learning how to be a coach 6 months learning how to market your coaching services,
Speaker:they'll probably earn you more. Anyways, especially our brand Google Ads. In the
Speaker:1st month, I spent $400 and I got a client, $1200
Speaker:clients. Isn't that great? Is that great? She said so then 2nd month, I
Speaker:ran the same $400 in Google Ads, Nothing. Month 3, say $400
Speaker:and Google Ads, nothing. Estee, how long should I keep running my ads for to
Speaker:get them to work again? Like, you're just playing marketing slot machines. You're
Speaker:just putting money in. Pulling lever. You got a quick win. Google did
Speaker:that for you. no idea why it worked and you have no idea how to
Speaker:replicate it. You should stop now unless you like gambling because
Speaker:that's exactly you can play slot machines to see if some That's not strategy.
Speaker:That's marketing slot machines. That's gambling. The strengths we get at the wall and hoping
Speaker:something sticks. Yeah. I love how you described
Speaker:that the marketing slot machine. I never heard of it said that before, but
Speaker:it's so true. And and and what you're describing so many times
Speaker:where I used to run an ads agency, and, you know, we we would run
Speaker:ads. And you'd get that quick win in the 1st month, and you go like,
Speaker:oh my god. It works. Let's go. And then That's the
Speaker:only sale you get. The only sale you got. And why does it always
Speaker:happen in the 1st week? And then -- There's a real thing to
Speaker:beginner's luck, by the way. Like, there is a real thing to that.
Speaker:It's the excitement. It's the energy from I study quantum physics. Also, in
Speaker:my spare time. On your spare time. Yeah. Yeah. Plaza. I have 5
Speaker:children, also, we need to talk about that. But, yeah, spare time. So you really
Speaker:do have a lot of spare time. funds. Funs. I just sit at
Speaker:hand all the time and read quantum physics books while
Speaker:I test out AI marketing tools. And But from a
Speaker:quantum physics perspective, you attract the energy that you
Speaker:vibrate at its frequency. And so one of the reasons for beginner's
Speaker:luck at a quantum level. Right? We go energy and frequency and things like that
Speaker:is that when you start something, you're really excited. You're like, wow. This is oh,
Speaker:this is so exciting. I wonder if it'll work. And then it does. You're like,
Speaker:oh, that's great. Okay. Now I need it to work. And then all of a
Speaker:sudden, you're, like, waiting for it and expecting it and hoping and nervous, and will
Speaker:it work? And I don't know. And you just just run the whole thing, and
Speaker:you have no strategy. 3 d strategy, and
Speaker:you completely destroyed your 5 d strategy. Yeah. For
Speaker:sure. And I have met countless coaches
Speaker:that have done the exact same thing. They'll they'll spend a year getting certified
Speaker:and 5 minutes learning how to market themselves. And -- That's so
Speaker:disciplined. Beth, you can't learn it. You just have to learn it. You know, we
Speaker:take our marketing program. We partner with other coaching certifications,
Speaker:financials, like, all different types of programs
Speaker:and educational opportunities that teach people a business opportunity or
Speaker:skill and then don't teach them marketing, and so our marketing program becomes
Speaker:an add on for them where they can actually learn how to turn that new
Speaker:skill into money and market themselves a way that's affordable for them
Speaker:on their budget to get the results they want because there's no one path, and
Speaker:there's no one answer, and cookie cutter doesn't work.
Speaker:You know, and I've you mentioned partnerships, and I wanna
Speaker:use that to you because our theme of our show is obviously partnerships
Speaker:and collaborations, and I mean, one of the reasons I invited
Speaker:you here is I see you as a great person to partner
Speaker:with and collaborate with. especially if you're at that
Speaker:point of the business business where, you know, everything that ST just
Speaker:said that that that resonates with you, it's like, oh, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. I am playing marketing slot machine right now, and I need
Speaker:a better strategy. Then then that's the point
Speaker:where it's like, okay. Well, you either make the investment to figure it all out
Speaker:yourself, and that can be a very long road for some.
Speaker:or you partner with someone who already knows and
Speaker:can guide you. They can get rid of the 80% of the
Speaker:nonsense that you're doing that that's wasting your time,
Speaker:wasting your money, and get on to the stuff that's already productive. And,
Speaker:Nasty, that's what you do. And so two things I wanna
Speaker:ask you. 1 is, you know,
Speaker:how have partnership well, I'll ask one at a time. How
Speaker:that. So I don't not overwhelming. How have partnerships and collaborations
Speaker:played a role in the growth of your business? So -- I mean, I would
Speaker:say critical. Okay? When I started,
Speaker:my dream was creative full service consulting firm for small business owners, but I
Speaker:believe in, you know what I call a shoelace model, right, that old
Speaker:urban fairy tale of the guy who, you know, bought a shoelace for half
Speaker:a penny and then sold it for a penny and then he bought 2 and
Speaker:sold them for 2 pennies and like built up from there. I believe in starting
Speaker:where you are, I'm building from there. So when I started, I was freelancer myself.
Speaker:I was a certified coach who understood business, so I've been running
Speaker:businesses possibly since I'm ten years a degree in marketing from a business school in
Speaker:New York. I've had side hustles my whole life and every single one has been
Speaker:profitable. So it's I know what I'm doing, but I have no idea how to
Speaker:run a consulting firm. And in my early days, it was just
Speaker:me and partners. Right? I would find a graphic designer to partner with. I would
Speaker:find a copywriter to partner with, and I all of my
Speaker:staff in the beginning were just other freelancers
Speaker:who had their own little freelance business and they
Speaker:would come in on my client contracts. And I still do that a lot. I'll
Speaker:find other competent professionals, bring them in where they slot in where a
Speaker:client needs after I vet them and have worked with them.
Speaker:And And so for me, my entire business before
Speaker:I was big enough to bring in my own people and have my own
Speaker:dedicated staff was all partnerships. every part of
Speaker:it. But I would say beware. You know, one of one of my
Speaker:early partnerships was probably I don't know if this is your next question, but what
Speaker:is my biggest lessons? was really vet your partners
Speaker:more than just three seconds of like, oh, you seem cool. Oh, yeah. I like
Speaker:what you did. Like, a little little more investigation, and
Speaker:then whenever you're working with a partner with a client that
Speaker:you don't have vetted, I always make it clients choice. So if I Let's say
Speaker:I have a client that needs something, and I don't have a trusted vetted partner
Speaker:yet. Right? I have people that I'm aware of, who I've heard good things about.
Speaker:in my early days, I was like, oh, this guy's perfect. We'll bring him in.
Speaker:You'll love him. It's great. Right? I'm like, I'm talking it up. My twenties. What
Speaker:do I know? Yeah. And now, I always say, listen, I don't
Speaker:have someone that I worked with on this yet. This person comes highly
Speaker:recommended. This is what I know about them. This is my opinion, but I need
Speaker:you to check them out and if you approve, then we'll bring them in. Right?
Speaker:So always make it the client's vetting if I can't vouch for
Speaker:them because one of my early design partners, I
Speaker:met at a trade show that I had beautiful work
Speaker:like absolutely gorgeous. And I was like, wow. You know, I really
Speaker:again, I have a very strong aesthetic. We ran a full agency arm for over
Speaker:a decade, so we did logos and branding and websites, social
Speaker:media campaigns, print media, full launches, built apps, but forget it. I did the
Speaker:whole thing in my spare time. In my spare time. In my spare
Speaker:time. I did all the things. And so in the beginning, I was just finding
Speaker:other freelancers, other designers. This guy metatrade show loves his
Speaker:work, really high quality, really beautifully done. Like, great. Let's partner. So got a client
Speaker:soon after that, who needed logo and branding. Now again, I have a minor in
Speaker:advertising and graphic communications. I know how to do it, I don't want to. It's
Speaker:not my my super skill set is the strategy, the oversight is the guidance. I've
Speaker:been a fractional CMO multiple times. That's where my superpower is, not
Speaker:in sitting and moving the lines on your thing, but telling someone else where
Speaker:to move the lines and what color shades to to, you know, shift to.
Speaker:So I bring him in, and he makes a logo, and it's awful.
Speaker:Like, even I think it's awful. It's awful. I'm like, what happened? I'm like, I
Speaker:didn't even show it to my client. Go back. Fix it. Do this. Do this.
Speaker:Right? and he was just really bad and I couldn't,
Speaker:I was personally genuinely confused. So I met this person at a trade show. I
Speaker:saw their work, I saw their portfolio and they
Speaker:were not producing at the quality of the portfolio
Speaker:that they showed me. Took me
Speaker:3 months, 6 months. I don't remember. This is so long. We're going back over
Speaker:12 years. Right? We're going back, like, really early days. I don't remember how
Speaker:long it was. It was at least 3 months, maybe even 6. So I figured
Speaker:out this. That person had a partner.
Speaker:and the person that I met at the trade show was the
Speaker:admin side. He could do a little graphics. but
Speaker:he was the main admin guy. His partner was the
Speaker:creative, and they worked together, and then they had a falling out around
Speaker:the time that I called him, right around the time that I met him, where
Speaker:the guy I met was like, he doesn't do that much of my partner. I
Speaker:could do what does. I do most of the work. Oh, he thought he could
Speaker:just be a designer. Yep. Yep. I mean, he could
Speaker:do some basic design and editing, but he didn't have the create activity.
Speaker:Mhmm. And so what he was able to produce on his own was completely different
Speaker:than the portfolio of his company from what his partner was with him, I had
Speaker:no idea. I never tested this. I never worked with another designer again based
Speaker:on portfolio work. Every designer I ever hired, I had to do something
Speaker:custom that I had them do. I paid them but I saw the quality of
Speaker:their work how long it took them and what they could do within a certain
Speaker:frame of time so that I could judge for myself not historically a lot of
Speaker:designers will show you portfolios that they did in training programs, right, where they had
Speaker:guidance of experts and their educators. So, yeah, that was a fun
Speaker:lesson. Yeah. I've made that mistake too.
Speaker:Right? It's like you meet someone at a seminar or an event or a conference
Speaker:and, like, wow. You're amazing. I've been looking for someone just like
Speaker:you, and as a believer in synchronicity and all of that kind of stuff. I'm
Speaker:like, wow. This is perfect. The universe sent me this person so that I don't
Speaker:have to work that hard. But, yeah, you still have to Still have to
Speaker:do your homework. You fail to do your homework. You have to vet them. You
Speaker:have to test them. Right? And then if you're gonna bring them in on a
Speaker:client project, you have to be straight with your clients and what you do and
Speaker:don't know about them. That that's my biggest you know, I'm not saying don't work
Speaker:with someone, and sometimes you can't test somebody before you actually bring them on a
Speaker:project because it's the project work that is the thing for them to do. And
Speaker:so you can only test so much, but being clear with
Speaker:the client that you bring them in on so that it's not your reputation on
Speaker:the line if you've misjudged someone is a big way to protect
Speaker:yourself and as often as possible vetting people. Right?
Speaker:Actually getting to know them speaking to them, seeing what they can do
Speaker:when I've hired marketers. I remember in my early days also we're going back probably
Speaker:about 10 years. Yeah, because now LinkedIn is my baby, right? I co host
Speaker:LinkedIn influencers summit every year, 5 years running, I spoke at
Speaker:LinkedIn Global, and my LinkedIn training program, LinkedIn is my
Speaker:thing. But before LinkedIn was my thing, it was not my thing. And
Speaker:so about a decade ago, I've hired somebody help me with my
Speaker:LinkedIn. And that was
Speaker:just I I spent a bunch of money and got no
Speaker:results. because I didn't know what I didn't know. And on this person was
Speaker:malicious. Right? They did the things they told me they were gonna
Speaker:do. They did posts. And they did the DMs, and they did
Speaker:all that they, but they didn't know strategy. Mhmm. To what outcome?
Speaker:Exactly. They're just pulling levers. -- media into money. I spoke to
Speaker:someone a few weeks ago. They found me based on my LinkedIn expertise, and they're
Speaker:like, oh, yeah. You know, we do LinkedIn, but their specialty
Speaker:is LinkedIn for c level executives who just want
Speaker:to upgrade their brands and their thought leadership reputation
Speaker:using LinkedIn for leverage. Mhmm. It'll be business. So, like, yeah, we're thinking of going
Speaker:to servicing entrepreneurs, and like that's adorable. You know, it's a completely different thing.
Speaker:Right? Like, it's a completely different skill set and
Speaker:strategy to leverage LinkedIn for gravitas
Speaker:and credibility than it is to actually generate business. not the same thing. They're like,
Speaker:really? I'm like, yeah. Really?
Speaker:They don't know what they don't know. Mhmm. Oh, that's so
Speaker:interesting. Yeah. Like, you maybe you wanna take my LinkedIn program before
Speaker:you start selling services, doing a thing that you don't know how to do. Yeah.
Speaker:So well, that and that's and that really speaks to if you've got a service
Speaker:that works for one target market, and we're thinking, oh, how can we expand? Oh,
Speaker:that's go and offer the same thing to another target market. Maybe
Speaker:that's appropriate, but we really under need to
Speaker:understand that audience. and their outcomes and then
Speaker:does your thing. Do they do
Speaker:what they need? Right? Maybe take your first few people on a
Speaker:contingency. Can you figure this out?
Speaker:Riot. Now I was in a mastermind. This is a pretty cool story actually. I
Speaker:was in a high end mastermind, like one of those like, you know, multiple
Speaker:5 figure entrance fee ones. And it's a small group
Speaker:mastermind. One of the guys wanted was starting up a like
Speaker:an agency arm from his company and he knew
Speaker:that I'd run an agency and so he was kind of brainstorming with the group.
Speaker:He's So I'm gonna get all these top experts, you know, and I think it
Speaker:was gonna do, like, marketing for SAS or something. Then we get all these top
Speaker:experts in SAS, and bring them together and then offer, you know, marketing
Speaker:agency services for SaaS with all these great experts. I'm like, okay. So here here's
Speaker:a thing. you're probably gonna wanna
Speaker:test that before you sell it because in my
Speaker:experience bringing in disparate experts from different places
Speaker:is not gonna yield results for your clients. And he was really mad. He's like,
Speaker:but I didn't ask for your opinion on if it was gonna work. I asked
Speaker:for your opinion on how to get a lot of clients. And I'm like, I
Speaker:don't think you should get any until you figure out that you can actually offer
Speaker:them services that generate income for them. And they threw him out
Speaker:of the mastermind for being a dishonest scammer.
Speaker:That was lovely. Well, you did everybody a big
Speaker:service. See, you -- Yeah. And and we talked about helping humans before this
Speaker:episode, and there you go. You just helped a lot of humans who paid a
Speaker:lot of money to be in a mass your mind, avoid getting scammed.
Speaker:So -- Yeah. Mhmm. Hey. So, ASTi, we've
Speaker:covered a lot of ground today. and I really love everything that you've said
Speaker:today. And so two things that I I wanna do to
Speaker:as we bring this episode to a close. One is I wanna connect
Speaker:people with you. And so if to our
Speaker:audience is if you are are resonating with this, and
Speaker:chances are if you're listening to my voice right now, You're still listening to this.
Speaker:That means you loved what we're talking about. You'll find SD's
Speaker:contact information right beneath this video. So click the link
Speaker:there. And if you're listening to this on podcast, just click into the
Speaker:player that you are on, and all of her information is right
Speaker:there. and a link to a free gift. And
Speaker:so so, Asdi, you wanna tell us a little bit about your
Speaker:free gift? I think we have the 3 day marketing success challenge.
Speaker:Yes. We do. So at the moment, if you go to ststar.com/free gift,
Speaker:estierr.com/free
Speaker:gift. you'll see free access, like our 3 day marketing success
Speaker:challenge. It is a paid program that we have opened free temporarily.
Speaker:There is a chance that at the time that you hear this podcast, it will
Speaker:have disappeared. There will be something else there, but there's always something cool there. So
Speaker:atststar.com/free gift, At the moment, you have a 3 day marketing
Speaker:success challenge that gives you the clarity and confidence to market yourself
Speaker:successfully, and we go through The core moving parts of brand
Speaker:new marketing sales, which are the essential elements of what most people call
Speaker:marketing. Right? because your marketing needs your message, your message comes from your brand. for
Speaker:your marketing to actually earn your money, you need a sales strategy on the back
Speaker:ends of it, where corporate can silo these things and they have, you know, a
Speaker:branding agent that they hire in a marketing department and a sales department if you're
Speaker:a small business owner, especially if you're on your own, maybe you've got one assistant
Speaker:or, you know, a marketing person and a VA somewhere, and that's kind of your
Speaker:average you know, micro business owner today, you need to make sure that all
Speaker:these bases are covered. And if your marketing is not succeeding, it's because you're either
Speaker:missing an element or your elements are not aligned. know, maybe you're doing a low
Speaker:end strategy on brand and a high end sales strategy or a high end branding
Speaker:strategy and a low end sales strategy. You forget the marketing in the middle. Right?
Speaker:That's your muggy. is trying to catch the ball and it can't get it. So
Speaker:you have to get all your pieces. And if you have all your pieces and
Speaker:they match, that's organic marketing, then it just works and it grows.
Speaker:Amazing. Well, I highly recommend that you do go and take SD up
Speaker:on this gift, and today, it is that
Speaker:3 day marketing success challenge. You click at it. It might be another
Speaker:amazing free gift, but I'm confident that
Speaker:whatever you click will be amazing. And if you do that, if
Speaker:you take her up on her free gift, email me and
Speaker:let me know, and I will send you a free gift as well. and
Speaker:so or my team will. And and so that's
Speaker:our, you know, way of incentivizing
Speaker:the in, but also saying thank you for being here as well.
Speaker:And so and so ST didn't know I was gonna do that,
Speaker:but That's what I'm gonna do. No. That was just as I like it. It's
Speaker:very -- Yeah. We like surprises. So so do
Speaker:connect with SD. And, you know, ST has as we bring this episode to
Speaker:a close, I just wanted to ask you, you know, a couple last
Speaker:questions and what we touched on it earlier, but, I mean, a big belief
Speaker:of mine is You know, our businesses can only grow to the extent that
Speaker:we ourselves grow our you know, that that we grow ourselves.
Speaker:And so a big part of that has been books. And I
Speaker:ask all of my guests what their go to
Speaker:must read book is. So I'm gonna ask you the same question.
Speaker:What is your go to must read a book that that, you know, our
Speaker:listeners must go check out and read. I have someone. I have a whole library
Speaker:right here that you can't see. I have so many. I'm
Speaker:gonna give you one of my foundation books that have what I call
Speaker:foundation books. And these are the books that are the foundation
Speaker:of who I am, their concepts and principles that have become
Speaker:part of who I am that I believe contribute to my success every
Speaker:day And one of these foundation books, there are there are, you know, a number
Speaker:of them. One of them is how to win friends and influence people by Dale
Speaker:Carnegie. And What I love about that book is its
Speaker:title is such a misdirect. You're like, oh, yeah. It's all about
Speaker:manipulation. That's not. It's about genuine connection with humans
Speaker:and psychology. And one of my favorite chapters in that book is
Speaker:that a person's name is the sweetest sound to them in any language.
Speaker:and I made a commitment then I read this book over 20 years
Speaker:ago. And from then, it's really important to me to learn
Speaker:someone's name to pronounce it correctly
Speaker:and to remember and address them by it, but to use the pronunciation
Speaker:that they want. other things people will say, I'll just call me whenever you want.
Speaker:I'm like, no. I'm gonna call you what you want. What is your preference
Speaker:for especially because I work multinational. I say a lot of from different countries,
Speaker:and they're used to you know, I'm American. I didn't tell. And
Speaker:they're used to people, let's say, from another country mispronouncing their name or so they
Speaker:just have, like, a nickname that they use Like, you just tell me what you
Speaker:want me to call you. Me, with my accent over here, this time and
Speaker:place, what would you like me to call you? And I find that it
Speaker:makes such a difference. You're showing a person value, dignity and respect. That's what
Speaker:it's about. You know, another one of the most amazing chapters in that book is
Speaker:No one really cares about you and what you want. Right? So all of
Speaker:these copywriting courses and sales copy and PAS
Speaker:system and funnel copy blah blah blah blah. The core
Speaker:principle is, talk to the person about what you're
Speaker:gonna do for them, foundation, They don't care about you. Hi.
Speaker:My name is Espie, and I am super cool. And I've been doing this for
Speaker:a really long time, and I have all these degrees, and I have all these
Speaker:expertise. And look how amazing I am. Do you wanna buy stuff? No. I don't
Speaker:even care. But if it's like, hi, my name is Esti, and
Speaker:do you want this? Would you like to grow your idea to a 5,
Speaker:6, or 7 figure Did you get stuck on marketing and would you like to
Speaker:unlock that without spending $50,000 on advertising because I don't need
Speaker:you to? Would you like to make sure you never waste money on marketing again?
Speaker:Yes? great. I can help you. Let's go. I said almost
Speaker:nothing about me. I can add a little wine. By the way, I've been doing
Speaker:this for 15 years. I've got a few hundred thousand people that I've been exposed
Speaker:over the years, 100 of business owners that have helped thousands that have gone through
Speaker:my business school. And if you wanna join them and meet your success, happy to
Speaker:help. Done. I don't need to tell you for 10 hours about
Speaker:how amazing I am. You don't care. You care about what can I do for
Speaker:you, and I really believe how to win friends and influence people is the
Speaker:foundation of understanding, marketing,
Speaker:sales, how to explain
Speaker:to others the service you can offer them in a way that makes them
Speaker:actually wanna buy and buy in?
Speaker:That might be the best answer to that question I've ever I
Speaker:ever ask. I need to book that book up in at least 15 years, by
Speaker:the way. It's at least 15 years since I opened that book. It lives in
Speaker:me. It isn't -- Well, And you and I are
Speaker:on the same page there. It's one of my foundational books as well, and
Speaker:it's where I learned to ask good questions. Right? My
Speaker:takeaway from that book is be interested, not
Speaker:interesting. Dang. I like that. Right? And, you know, in
Speaker:my early twenties, when I started my first business, I didn't get it. I didn't
Speaker:get it. I was trying to sell by selling and You know, selling
Speaker:is telling and talking and talking and talking and the gift of Gab. My grandfather
Speaker:always said, oh, yeah. Good salespeople always have the gift of Gab. No. They don't.
Speaker:Good salespeople know when to ask a good question and then shut the hell up.
Speaker:Right? And just listen. Listen because everything you need
Speaker:to know is going to come from the answer to that
Speaker:question. Maybe it's like why I like podcasting so much because I really like
Speaker:getting to know the person on the other side. And I feel like
Speaker:I I've gotten to know you better and and to know your business better.
Speaker:And the more I hear you talk, the more I like yeah, I
Speaker:cannot wait to work with you on some projects, to send some
Speaker:people your way, and, you know, this is this is
Speaker:You know, the beginning of like, we'll see. We'll see. You know, the the
Speaker:collaborations I'm all about collaborations and partnership. How can we
Speaker:accomplish more together? And so for you, for our
Speaker:audience, always be looking for that opportunity. But like,
Speaker:as he said, be smart about it as well. You know? Do your homework.
Speaker:Your do your homework or let people know that you haven't done your homework. Right?
Speaker:When I do, I call them synergy calls because I'm always looking to see where
Speaker:can you and I be more than the sum of our parts. And so I
Speaker:always say, you know, my opening line is, you know, let's see how we can
Speaker:help each other help others. That's what I want. That's all I want. I wanna
Speaker:know how we can help each other help others. That's my goal. Brilliant.
Speaker:I love it. Esti, thank you so much. This has been amazing, and I can
Speaker:already tell. that we could go double of this length. We could probably do a
Speaker:full day workshop right now just by launching into it without an outline. I I
Speaker:I feel that vibe. We're not going to do that. Maybe we do that in
Speaker:the future. Maybe that is something that we do. But,
Speaker:again, I wanna thank you and to my audience, I wanna say thank you for
Speaker:being here as well. And I want you to take one thing one thing that
Speaker:you heard here today, and I want you to take action on that today.
Speaker:Maybe that's to go get SD's free gift. Maybe it's to go check out our
Speaker:website. Maybe it's something else on your list that You know, you know you should
Speaker:have already done, but you haven't done already. Go and do that today.
Speaker:And and so and then keep moving forward. keep
Speaker:moving forward in your business and your and the pursuit of your dream
Speaker:and all of that. So so thank you to you as the
Speaker:audience ST, thank you. And, ST, I'm gonna ask you one last question. That
Speaker:is if you were to leave our audience here today with what's just one
Speaker:final piece of advice or words of wisdom, What would you leave them with
Speaker:here today?
Speaker:I will say. that wherever you are in your
Speaker:business, I'm sure that there's a
Speaker:place you're trying to go because as an entrepreneur, we're always trying to go
Speaker:somewhere. It's just it's part of the wiring. And I will tell you that
Speaker:however long it's taken you, maybe it's only been a week since you've had your
Speaker:new vision, your next step that you wanna reach, maybe it's been months, maybe it's
Speaker:been years, I just had a woman who was in business 15 years
Speaker:before she joined the business school. During the business school 2 years ago, came into
Speaker:our marketing program. She was earning $4000 a month. She just signed on
Speaker:today as a private client because in the 2 years since she graduated business school,
Speaker:she went from $4000 a month to $15,000 a
Speaker:month. And she's like, I'm ready for what's next and I wanna work with you
Speaker:privately. 15 years, she's in business. She never broke
Speaker:4 k months. There's always an answer. There's
Speaker:always a next step. It is never too late, and there's always a way.
Speaker:Oh, Gives me chills. Thank you so much, Esti. That
Speaker:is amazing to our audience. Thank you. And,
Speaker:yeah, go up there. take some sort of action today and keep moving
Speaker:forward towards your big dream and making that big impact that
Speaker:you wanna make in the world. and do it profitably as well as you've
Speaker:heard us here talk about here today. So until next time,
Speaker:this has been the creative collaboration show with Chuck Anderson. My guest
Speaker:has been SD Star, and we'll see you on the next one. Thank you so
