Candice Smith - Visibility Is The Real Growth Engine

Shark Tank might call side hustles “risky,” but for most founders, going all in too early is the bigger risk. Nick Ford sits down with visibility strategist Candice Smith, founder of French Press Communications, to unpack what actually separates a smart test from a costly leap and how to set goalposts that tell you when it’s time to commit.

If you want a clearer path to traction, stronger messaging, and visibility that drives real sales, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a founder friend, and leave a review with your biggest visibility challenge.

Learn more about how Candice helps brands drive revenue through visibility and public relations at her website, http://www.frenchpresspr.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, my name is Nick Ford, and I am the host of the Transparent Podcast, where I believe in bringing transparency to the world of small business. And this week I'm joined by a guest, Candace. Candace, I'll let you introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Hi, everyone. My name

Welcome And Why Transparency Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:17

is Candace Smith. I'm the founder of French Press Communications. We are a visibility strategy agency working with mission-driven founders to help them stop being the best kept secrets in their industry. And happy to be here today.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Yeah, thanks so much for being on the podcast. Excited to dive more into what you do and how you help founders. So, you know, the idea behind the podcast, we were just talking about this a little bit, but one is to give an opportunity for people to hear from founders. And the fact that you work with, you know, different founders of different sizes is great because you can offer a unique perspective. But I think if people can hear how people got started, how they got into their business, that it'll inspire people to maybe dip their toe in the water and look into entrepreneurship a little bit more and get off the fence of, you know, do I want to go in or stay with what I'm doing? And so uh bringing transparency to the world of small business also ties into my theme behind my business, the vision behind transparent staffing, which is bringing transparency to the world of staffing, to the staffing industry. Yeah. And so um yeah, excited to dive into it some more with you. You know, one of the shows that I've always loved watching over the years has been Shark Tank. And I love hearing these different businesses and uh hearing the shark's perspective. But you know, the there's this idea I think that came

Side Hustle Versus Going All In

SPEAKER_00 1:42

really got expedited during COVID of the side hustle, you know, get a side hustle going because you know a lot of people got laid off and things were so up in the air. So the idea of having like a second stream of income got to be really popular. But you know, when people go on Shark Tank, if you go in and say, you know, this is a side hustle and you they find out they sniff out you have a full-time job, they don't like that.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

There's blood in the water, it's risky. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

So what do you what do you think with with you know founders you work with or just in general, uh, the idea of a side hustle versus you know, no, you need to be all in, you gotta jump with both feet in.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yeah, I I think that's a great question because when we're looking at it from the sharks perspective, they think it's risky because they want you to be able to commit as much of your time, energy, money, budget, what have you, um, because they want a return on their investment. But for you, you also need to think from a founder's perspective what is your risk? I see a lot of folks, and I've made this mistake myself. I am a serial social entrepreneur, uh, and I was one well before I became an agency owner, um, working with other founders and uh startups and scale-ups. It's easy to start with a passion and to believe, oh, this is this is gonna go gangbusters, right? And it's a very hard lesson to learn that just because you build it, it doesn't mean that they will come. And so a lot of folks as well, especially when you're starting from a passion perspective, um, you're not necessarily starting from an MBA or an acquisition, or you know, I want to uh just be one of those people to come up with a business idea, build it really quickly, and I'm building to sell, right? That's a very different place to start a business from than I have this passion, I have this ideal, and I want to see this live in the world because this matters a lot to me, right? So when you're starting with a passion, uh, I see this all the time. Folks are thinking about how they're going to build the business, what the the um service or product or app book, whatever is going to be, and they're not thinking about sales, they're not thinking about revenue, they're not thinking about how I can make this stable for myself as quickly as possible. Right. You always see, um, and I always see over and over entrepreneurs and founders, myself included, um, going bust, going to broke because they don't realize that a startup, a fledgling business will take and take and take. Um and you need you need to learn how to get it to give, because if it's not being designed to give back, it will never just give to you. So I think a side hustle is very smart, especially when you're getting started, or especially when you're still trying to validate one aspect of the business, whether it's uh product market fit, audience fit, uh timing, messaging, team, budget. If you don't have those aspects in place and you are over-leveraged, um and you don't necessarily have the pieces that you need in order to establish yourself and scale up, you're going to be in a very tough position. So side hustle, absolutely. I think it's a great thing. Um, the question then becomes if you've established yourself, when do you start to make that transition? But that's another question altogether.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's, you know, people who watch Shark Tank, yeah. If you're into entrepreneurship or thinking about it, I'm sure you've watched Shark Tank. So the thing to think about too is when you're taking on capital, that's a totally different equation. Oh, yes. You know, when they're giving you money, they their view of how you're treating the business and you wanting you to be all in is completely different than investing. You yeah, you on your own. If you're starting a service-based business where there's not a ton of capital involved, you're not having to get a big loan from the bank, um, then that those are two different things. And I think I love the side hustle. I I think it's I think it's great. I think that it's important though to know at the start what you want it to be. So like I think for me, when I started transparent staffing, it was a side business to start out with, but I kind of had a business plan for how to get it to be my full-time job and be a full-time thing for me. And um, that involved you know, saving money into the business, seeding the you know, keep not taking everything out. Like the business can bleed be bled dry if you let it, and uh that kill will kill the business. And so the fact that I had a salary and didn't have to just draw out of the business the first six months, that helped a lot because then that gave me some security, that gave me some room to invest in some tools and things that helped the business grow when I went full-time into it. So I think having an idea of what you want it to be um toward the beginning, you know, in the early stages of the side hustle, uh I think is important and helpful.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

So yeah, and setting setting goalposts for yourself as well. Understanding, okay, if I'm able to make this amount um by this this time, or we or we get you know this number of beta testers or you know, uh uh pilot programs out there, um, people on the wait list, whatever that metric is for yourself, if you can start to meet those things, you see that you have traction, and then you can say, okay, I can start to invest this amount of money or this amount of time, um, and and more consciously and intentionally make that decision for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I I think I'm I'm a fan of the side hustle, just uh, you know, the the opportunity to be able to test the market before you dive all in is so valuable. Yeah. And I I encourage people to do that actually. Don't just quit your job and go in with the you know, you're talking about people being kind of altruistic about the the business without really having an idea of how to make you know make money, which you know that was that was me.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

That was absolutely me. Definitely been there.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah. So what inspired you to get into your business? And I guess you can you can start that journey wherever you want, but as far as how you got into your industry and you know your business.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Yeah, so I've always had a love for storytelling,

Candace’s Path From Teaching To PR

SPEAKER_01 8:33

even as a child. I had um both my parents were entrepreneurs, they built their own businesses up from the ground. Um, and I think for myself, even though I didn't know where I wanted to go with my life, um, funny enough, I had a college advisor tell me um, you know, graduate school is where you go to figure out who you want to become. Undergrad is where you go to figure out who you are. And I liked that. Listen, graduate school, college even now today is not for everybody, but that resonated with me as a as a confused uh 17-year-old, not really knowing what I wanted to do with my life and thinking, my God, if I don't have it all figured out, I'm I'm a failure. Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

So, you know, my my family, um, I'm the first in my family to go to and through uh college. I was very fortunate to get a full ride scholarship through the Gates Foundation. Um, I was able to get into Harvard University, um, which was an incredible opportunity, incredible experience, opened up so many doors for me that I didn't know were possible. Um, but in my love for storytelling and figuring out how to tell my own story, I became interested in education. And so after I graduated, um, I thought a lot about where I was going to go, how was I going to use my own passion for storytelling and helping others share their stories translate. And so I ended up going into Teach for America. That's where I actually started my first uh business from that experience because I was a ninth grade English teacher, um, being expected, I was in Arizona, um, being expected to teach uh Shakespeare, old English, a different dialect of English to students who needed to know modern English. Um, and many of them were actually at a third or even fourth grade uh reading level. And I realized that with one of me to 30 students three times a day, it was going to be nearly impossible for me to actually make as much of an impact as I would have liked to. And so that's where I started my first business, Scholar Advance. Um, the idea was distance learning. It was 2013, uh, well before the world shut down in 2020, and everybody had to switch to distance learning. Um but the idea was to bring teachers, certified teachers virtually into classrooms um to close the learning gap and the student-teacher ratio from one to eight or one to six. So um with that experience, and as I was learning how to grow a business, because remember, I was passion first. I was not business savvy by any means. I started from a passion and I was able to use my networks um and tell my story in order to get my foot in the door. But uh, it's a very different, uh difficult business model to be successful in, especially with how fractured our education system is, both at a federal and state and local level.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Yeah, it is it made it tough.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

It made it really difficult. And I was, you know, 20, 23 trying to figure out what I was doing with my life living in New York on a you know shoestring budget. Um but all that to say is I started I start it started opening my eyes when I joined a number of accelerator incubator programs and started meeting other mission-driven founders that were doing incredible uh world-changing projects uh from uh climate, climate tech uh and sustainability to uh working on fast fashion and how to fix some of those issues with textiles, um financial literacy, healthcare, um, food systems, and fixing those things, right? So as I was getting more exposure, I was loving some of the other stories that I was hearing and learning myself as I moved from one business to another after that first one how to tell my own story in a way that would attract media. And I was very successful, especially with my second business. I was able to, in under a year, get into Oprah, uh, Forbes, Business Insider, um a number of podcasts, and I started getting questions from the people around me, the entrepreneurs that I would network with. How did you do this? And I started mentoring, educating, as I love to do, I was teaching workshops. And from there I started getting requests. Well, would you sit down and work with me? How much would it cost? Right. And before I knew it, uh fast forward um say six months, I had 12 clients and I was drowning. And I thought, oh my God, I I think I just started another business. And uh and I I had a I had a difficult decision to make. So um that was where I ended up. This was actually uh March 2020. It was right before March 15th. I was supposed to go, uh, I was uh moved down to Raleigh with my now husband, but uh was supposed to go back up to New York and have some meetings with investors about a safe round for my second business. And uh, you know, I was weighing the pros and cons. And I thought, nah, you know what? I think I've got something else here. I think I've got something bigger than than taking on that uh taking on that risk. So uh and then March 15th happened, and and that that made my decision for me.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

That was yeah, that was a rough time for everybody. Yeah, yeah. Um, but I it's interesting because like I think COVID uh a lot of businesses came out of COVID, I feel like. Oh yes, um, you know, because I remember for a long time I've wanted to start a business since I was in high school and wanted to work

COVID Lessons And The AI Shockwave

SPEAKER_00 14:57

for myself and be an entrepreneur. And I had I didn't have my parents in entrepreneurship, but my grandfather owned a probably 300 employee life insurance company. And so he inspired me. I saw him do it and thought, okay, like I that just gave me the entrepreneurial itch. And I think, you know, when COVID happened, so many people saw that a job was not as stable as they thought it was. It was not was not as safe as they thought it was. And my wife, you know, all those years that I had wanted to start a business, we've been together since her freshman year of college, my sophomore year of college. She was very hesitant about getting into the entrepreneurship and just thought it was risky. And I was like, you know, March 15th happened. I was in sales, I was doing pretty well. Then two months later, the world had shut down. I was trying to sell payroll to restaurants who had just fired all of their employees. And so the company I was working for terminated me and said it was because of performance when I had been above budget before COVID hit, and then of course fell below budget when you know two months later. And so, like, I remember talking to my wife, like, how safe was a job? Like, how safe was having a job? Like, there I was completely expendable to them. Um, and so then you know, I was able to start the business as a side business, which was much more comfortable for both of us with having kids and a house and a mortgage and all those things. So I think a lot of people have a similar story where they're like, you know, they got laid off, they'd been in a job for like 10 years, and they realized, wow, this company didn't really have any loyalty loyalty to me. Let's go do something else and put our put our fate in our own hands a little bit. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

And COVID, COVID was actually a very, oh, I I I was going to say exciting, but at the same time, that's that sounds a little callous. That's not what, that's not the word that I'm looking for. But it was a it was a very intellectually stimulating time for someone who was in PR, myself, um, because so many companies were coming to me saying everything's shifting, everything's changing. How do we pivot? How do we tell our story in a different way that still resonates? Because what we've done before is no longer working. The old playbooks are not playing. Uh how do how do we figure out how to be visible in this new way and still attract our ideal client avatars?

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yeah. And I think we're going through a similar thing right now with AI. I think a lot of companies are like, what do we do with this AI stuff? And you're seeing layoffs. I just was with friends last night that their companies just laid off like five or ten percent of the workforce for no reason. It it was not performance, it wasn't you know, company performance or individual performance. It just we're just laying off an you know X amount of people. And it companies don't know what to do, and employees don't know what to do. And and I and from an education background, it's interesting because I had a friend that just went and spoke at my um alma mater Harding, and he was speaking to the business department students about what AI is gonna mean for their jobs because they're sitting in business school. Like, am I gonna have a job? Like accounting, accounting and computer science would be like two of the job, like majors that the you know, you have a secure job. Like you're gonna be an accountant, you will have a job. If you're you know computer science, you know, software engineering, you'll have a job. Now, accounting and computer science and engineering, those jobs are like under fire now because of AI. And what do you tell those kids? You know, what do they do?

SPEAKER_01 18:40

So it's it's it's uh yeah, we're we're facing a global shift again. And uh yeah, if I could if I could be so bold to be poetic, I mean it does seem a little bit like a pandemic of AI. Uh when we think about it in terms of how much of a uh a global shift, a global paradigm shift we're seeing um in the ways that we're uh we're trying to keep up. And there's new iterations, and it's it's like viral, right? It's like the the viral load goes over, and then uh you have another another iteration, and another iteration comes out, and people are scrambling. How do we react to this? How do we handle this, right? Um yeah, it's uh it's it's a very, very interesting time.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Yes. I our lifetime has been seen more technological change than any other. It's you think about like a hundred years ago, they didn't have I mean, things were just so much slower now with AI, especially, it's just like things changing like every day. And the different versions of the AI coming out, and then there's different companies coming out with different software using it in different ways. And uh it's interesting, it's very interesting. Um but as far as you know b starting a business, you know, I've looked into franchising quite a bit, and I've thought about I got very close to purchasing a coffee shop franchise that had been like a passion of mine for a while. I really want to just

Franchises Versus Starting From Scratch

SPEAKER_00 20:12

do a coffee franchise. And the further down the rabbit hole I went into the franchising model, and you know, I got to the point where I was doing having to sign like non-disclosure stuff and really getting into the you know finances and the numbers and um what it would mean to be a franchisee. And the more I got into that, the more I felt like I'm gonna be working for the franchise. Like I'm gonna be working for the comp. Like, I'm gonna have a job again, kind of, because I've got a kind of you know, the pro is you have the playbook, like you you know you have a successful model, you probably have access to their marketing, you probably have access to a lot of their tools, and they give you the playbook and it's you know, go play the playbook. But on the flip side, you're also with you're in that garden, you're in their you're in their you know, rules, rules and system, um, and have to kind of follow that. And so the more I got into it, the more I felt like I'd rather just if I'm gonna start a coffee shop, rather start it on my own and figure it out and be able to build it how I want to. Um but I think it's similar, you know, if you acquire a business that's not a franchise, you might have more flexibility to kind of make it your own. But um, there's still systems and processes in place that you're gonna probably have to continue. So what do you what do you kind of see? Like you've started your own business, it sounds like from scratch, similar to how I did with transparent staffing. So how do you see those things and the pros and cons, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Yeah, uh well, I'll I'll share my perspective from a visibility lens. Um in terms of starting a business, you're wearing all of the hats. Um and very often it can feel like you are recreating the wheel in many ways. Um when you are Getting started with your own business, you have a lot of flexibility, which can be a pro or a con, right? It really depends on how clear you are on your direction. If you don't feel like you have direction, um the starting of the business itself is actually going to be one of the most difficult pieces for you because you have to find clarity amongst the fog. And you're going to be starting um everything from scratch. And so I would say when you are, especially when you are starting a business, um, you're going to want to make sure that you even if you have the core passion to begin with, um, don't let that be your only guide. Make sure that you are getting started in a way that allows you to be visible to the people who will invest in you first, right? How will you make revenue? Um, I know that I'm in visibility, PR in communications, marketing, that sort of thing. The bells and the whistles, I hear a lot of people, they come to me, they say, Oh, well, we need our website first, we need this first, we need that first. I'm like, you need customers first. You need to validate your hypothesis. And if you don't, if you're not ready for customers, fine, sell a wait list, right? Make sure that you are able to identify and understand who you are going to be speaking to because that is actually going to be the most crucial, critical part of ensuring that your business stays stable as you are able to grow, right? That's something where you really are building from the foundation up versus acquiring a business that already exists, uh be it a franchise or something else, you are inheriting somebody else's story, right? You're inheriting somebody else's um, as you said, rules, playbook, value systems, um, hopefully a good marketing list, and you and they've established some sort of prior, um prior traction. Otherwise, why would you purchase in the first place and invest in it? Um, even if you are going to turn it around, there needs to be some sort of uh a traction there that demonstrates to you that that there is viability for this idea. Um so even if you are going to acquire a business or acquire a franchise and you're planning on, well, franchise is gonna be much more rigid, right? Because you really do need to play, play under uh more of their rules, especially when it comes to branding, marketing, maintaining the image that they've already set that makes it the franchise what it is. But if you are acquiring a business, even if you're gonna completely pivot and say, I'm gonna tear everything down to its foundations, I'm gonna rebuild, right? You are still in a position of scale, right? And when you're scaling something, um, that is a different visibility question in terms of how are you nurturing the funnels that are already there? How are you rebuilding relationships? How are you telling the next chapter of the story? Because it the story already existed. So how are you evolving? Um, so making sure that you're you're coming in ready to connect with the ideal audience in a different way. So to me, I'd say starting the business versus acquiring a business, you're really in a question of I'm launching and I'm starting from scratch, or I'm scaling and I'm evolving something that exists.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Yeah. I think another thing too is I've talked to some other people about this, but buying into a franchise or probably even more so acquiring a business, you're missing out on a lot of learning opportunity because you know, you I think you learn a lot by having to do a lot of those little things, like set it, setting up, setting up software, setting up um, you know, the LLC even or like the website and building that out. And like I just think there you learn so much going through the process of creating a business that you would miss out on in a franchise. And you know, some people look at that as, well, that's a good thing. Like I get to skip to the fun part of running the business and don't have to go through that. But to me, I think that it helps so much that I did do those things because I think it helps me run my business better and interact with customers better because I have ownership over it and um kind of know why I made decisions and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

So I'm of a couple of minds there though, because if you'll allow me to give a little pushback, oh yeah, go for it. I've I've worked with founders that are at a position where they have built everything from scratch and

Scaling Breaks Old Systems

SPEAKER_01 26:58

they come to that first scaling point and they have trouble letting go of the way that things were. And that becomes very difficult when essentially, and you know, I'll I'll I'll blanket statement here a little bit. Most entrepreneurs that are building from scratch, they have their ego built up into it, right? They have their personality, their identity a little bit built up into what that business has become and how it runs. Um, they end up very frequently becoming bottlenecks for the growth of the business and the next stages, unless they are able to divorce themselves a little bit and say, okay, this is what we need to really grow across all of these different segments of the business. Um I have folks that I've worked with where they're like, oh yeah, well, I got to this point right now, and everything was was based on me showing up as myself. And so now I can't post anything or I can't hire anybody to post anything without me uh dotting every I and crossing every T and really making sure they start micromanaging because they can't let go. Um and uh you know, or or systems have not been designed to be scalable within the business itself. And so things start to fall apart. It's actually one of the biggest points of vulnerability where startup founders can fail is at the scaling point when they're doing really well, because they don't know it's they don't realize that it's another major learning point uh for them. So there are there are pluses and downsides, I would say, to being able to step into something that already exists.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Is that do you think that's one of the like big challenges that founders have is realizing that the systems and processes that got them where they are aren't going to get them to the scale that they want to get to?

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Absolutely. Absolutely, internally and externally, right? Especially when you're when you're scaling up and you know that there's uh maybe somebody else is going to be handling the the visibility side of things. Maybe they're handling the posts, they're um they're booking the uh the conferences and they're managing certain parts of the business that you previously were doing everything, right? Right. Or perhaps they're um they're now taking over sales. And so you're not the first point of contact anymore, uh, which is a very, a very difficult thing to let go of when you're like, well, no, no, no. Normally I would say this to this person, and you have to make sure that you have the training, you have the reporting in place, you have the the proper structures to make sure that the narrative is the same throughout the entire business. Perhaps you're expanding to work with partners uh or influencers, let's say you have to make sure that uh they are going to be representing your business properly, right? There are so many different ways to uh uh that that you have to scale that you're not necessarily thinking of when you're like, oh geez, I can't do this all by myself. It's like, wait a minute. Do I have my internal and external narratives and systems set up in a way that other people can take them over and I can trust that it will be consistent?

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Yeah. And I I think that's a hard thing. I've gone through different areas of that within my business. And it's it's just hard to let go of both of the processes and of like doing these functions yourself. And I had um I had a conversation with another entrepreneur, and one of the questions he said he would ask himself is you know, he'd calculate out what he wanted to make in a year and then calculate what that would be hourly. So, like, what would he want to pay himself hourly? And then he would ask himself, okay, can I pay someone else less than I would pay myself to do this task for me? And it'd be done as well, you know, even 80% as well as I would do it. Then I if I if I can do that, then I need to let it go and get and and you know put that on someone else's plate so that I can focus on the core business.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Yeah. What are the what are the $10 tasks, $10 an hour tasks, the $50 an hour tasks, the $150 an hour tasks, the $500 an hour tasks? What am I spending most of my time on? And what can I outsource?

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Yeah. And where's your time most valuable in the business? Um yeah. So what do you think, you know, the people, the founders that you've worked with that have succeeded, whether it be scaling or just, you know, we know that everybody knows this, you know, such a small percent of businesses make it out of the first five years of their business. I think it's like four out of five fail in the first five years or something crazy. But um, what have you seen in people that have succeeded in that and uh the ones that have failed?

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Yeah, so they're they're doing uh from a visibility perspective again, obviously, you know, they they've managed to overcome the the scaling challenges, um, they've identified product market fit,

The Five Visibility Channels Framework

SPEAKER_01 32:16

they have consistent traction, um, you know, they're they're um able to figure out how to evolve uh in evolving uh industry patterns. Um but from a visibility perspective, I'd say the folks who are staying open and are able to continue thriving um despite the the changes that come, are really optimizing what I call their their five channels. Um these are uh I within my own vis dev framework. I haven't actually introduced it, but uh when you think about BizDev, um BizDev is business development, you think of it as the pipeline to revenue. Vizdev or visibility development is the pipeline to trust and authority. Um one of the things that these founders have done successfully is they have established a consistent system for visibility within their business where they have consistent messaging, they are showing up consistently, they have attracted their niche audience, they are not going too broad. Um, and they're showing up in one of five channels, which I call a more um how you build love for your brand. So uh A being authority, um, showing up on other platforms where you can share your expertise, M being uh marketing, paid marketing specifically, um, and uh being able to optimize for that if that is relevant. O, being owned media, they have consistent um messaging and narrative across all of their platforms, whether it's your website, your blog, your substack, your podcast, what have you, uh they are nurturing relationships and they're not just nurturing the relationships that they have, they are um they have perfected a system to turn new people, strangers to their brand, into advocates, right? So they are they are nurturing that funnel of of relationships as they build them. And then e-earned media, whether or not it ends up being relevant for them, that's the traditional PR as you think of it, getting those features and things like that. So founders that are able to show up in two or three of those channels consistently and optimize those channels, are the ones who are the most successful because they're able to connect with their ideal client avatar in a way that is proactive and it's consistent and repeatable. And when you're doing that, you're measuring the data, you're measuring your return on the investment, time, budget, energy. Um, and you can say, moving forward, I'm going to do 20 podcasts a year because I know that's I've got about a 10% return on that. Um, I'm it it brings me at least five discovery calls, and I'm able to book at least two high-ticket clients or what have you, whatever those metrics are that you're finding, right? You're creating a clear visibility system and you are measuring what brings you traction so that you can repeat it.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Yeah. No, that was great. Um yeah, I think you know, we were talking about, you know, uh founders, it's hard to break out of their, you know, old systems or processes and try new things. They want to they can't they can get bogged down into the the way they've done things and not want to change. And I think that the the willingness to change and the willingness to fail, I think is important. I think that's why athletes do really well in sales and as entrepreneurs is because they've learned how to deal with failure and they're not afraid to take risk because of that. Um, you know, I have this quote, I have this Michael Jordan quote on my desk, and um he says that he's failed over and over again in his life, and that's why he succeeded. And, you know, I I think that's so true. And like I think about I played baseball in college, and so you think about like a major league baseball player, a major league hitter, if they fail seven out of ten times, is doing really well. They're hitting 300. And so um I think being willing to take risks, being willing to deal with failure and move forward and learn from those things. Because I think that if you're not failing, then you're not really trying. And I think it's hard to to grow if you're if you're not giving yourself opportunities to fail and learn from it and move forward and try new things. Obviously, fail from a position of power and being able to where it won't cripple you, don't just like risk it all at the poker table. But um, taking small risks to test things and to try try new systems or try new processes, I think, is really important. And then I think the other thing I think that's gonna separate successful people is the and then this might be the biggest one to me is they have goals, they know where they're going and where they want to be. And you mentioned goalposts earlier on. Uh they have goalposts, like not just the you know, the big, hairy, audacious goal, but like what are the you know, I'll think of it as like a ladder. You know, the ladder, you know where you're going to the next floor, but where what's each wrong on the ladder? What are the what are the the goalposts that you need to get to to make it to the big goal? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

So and don't jump from ladder to ladder.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think that's those are both very important. Um we touched this on this a little bit earlier, but um how where's the most valuable place for a founder to be? Like what where should a founder be focused on? Where is their place most valuable in

Founder Focus Relationships And Delegation

SPEAKER_00 38:14

the business, do you think?

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Yeah. Um, when you're working on your business, I think a lot of founders fall into this trap, um, especially when they do have traction. They spend a lot of time working in their business instead of on their business. Um, it's something that has happened to me multiple times, especially when things are going well. I want to be as involved in my client success as possible. You know what I'm not doing? I'm not showing up. I'm not nurturing my client funnel. I'm not thinking about how to attract more folks. And that's for me, it's a little bit different than maybe some other um other business owners because I do work very uh with a very limited set of clients, right? So for me, it's easy to get lost in uh behind the screen, let's say, rather than going out and making sure that I'm I'm continuing to network and and promote myself. But I did the same thing with Scholar Advance. I focused so hard on making sure that every part of the technology was working, that the students were getting the outcomes that we needed. Um and really what I should have been focusing on uh more in retrospect is going out and and making more sales, traveling around to different school districts, trying to meet more folks. And so I do think that um for me, again, from a visibility perspective, uh relationships are some of the most important pieces. Uh, and they're they're one of the most underappreciated um uh parts of a visibility strategy. Um people are always chasing these big shiny winds. Um when in reality you need to be thinking about how to nurture the connections that you already have and how to continue growing your influence um and sharing your message so that more folks can find you. Um the time that I've wasted has almost always been time that I've spent on tactics that weren't related to that.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Um that's really good. Yeah. Um I liked what you said about you know founders that are working um in their business and not on their business. And I think that, you know, um being able to pull yourself out of the um some of the minute tasks that you know we talked, you to you mentioned like the $10 task, the $50 task, the $150 task, and um being able to, you know, work on the big picture of the business and you know, more direction and vision versus you know, in the weeds on things. And it's it is hard to to grow into the the leadership type role versus the you know consultant type role where you're you know so in the business that you can't move drive it forward, you know.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Um, so well, I've really enjoyed our conversation, and uh I really appreciate you being on the podcast. And um, speaking of visibility, tell us a little bit about where we can find you, how we can connect with you, and um

Where To Find Candace And The Quiz

SPEAKER_00 41:28

for people listening.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

Absolutely. Uh yeah, so if you want to check out French Press Communications, you can find us at www.frenchpresspr.com. Uh you can find me on LinkedIn, um, Candace Smith Med stands for masters in education. Um, uh connect with me on there. And if you're interested in learning more about your own visibility mode and where you could be best spending your time uh being more visible, uh, you can actually take the visdev quiz uh that we've created at www.bit.ly bit.ly forward slash visdev. That's vi-z d-e-v. Uh so that's how you can find it.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Okay. Well, I'll have to, I don't know if people will get that from the podcast, but I'll leave that in the show notes so they can have an easy link to hit on that. Um, well, very good. Well, thank you so much for your time and for being on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

Absolutely. Thank you again, Nick. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

Absolutely.