Latest / Ready To Drink Podcast / Solo Founders Wear Every Hat: Burnout, Boundaries and Building Alone | Steph Vrona, HighDef Studio

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Solo Founders Wear Every Hat: Burnout, Boundaries and Building Alone | Steph Vrona, HighDef Studio · Ready To Drink Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I am Steph Rona.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I am the founder of Hydef Studio.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Give me a little snapshot about what Hydef Studio is and does.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, yeah, at the core, Hyde Def Studio builds retention-focused marketing systems for relationship-based businesses.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Really, my entire goal is to help local retailers move beyond discount dependency while also turning customers into like loyal brand advocates.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I know that sounded very corporate.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: That is literally what I do.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, I love the simplified part of it because I represent brands and we do market development.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: And if I sat down and explained for three hours what it is market development is, I'd rather just say, I take product from manufacturer via distributor and put it on a retail shelf.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, every day it gets a little bit more simple to explain.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then it changes a little bit all the time depending on who I'm talking to.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't until I started exploring outside of cannabis that I kind of tapped into, like, oh, there's like a lot more that we could be doing with all of this.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's no one worries about retention marketing, which is crazy to me.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it I kind of spite started the company, to be honest with you.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was let go from a previous role.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't do anything wrong.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: I just told the CEO that I didn't like his ideas, and he really didn't like that.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: So by the way, I've lost some projects over that.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: You're good.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and it doesn't stop like now, honestly, it's empowered me because you were literally paying me to tell you that your ideas are bad.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: We all have bad ideas.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have bad ideas all the time.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: You want to hear something?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: My bad ideas are bad.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay though.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we learn.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I kind of just sat there for a minute and I was like, you know, what is the thing that annoys me the most about this industry?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, it's that every CEO I've ever met only yells at me about acquisition.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: We need more customers.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've run the numbers.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm bringing a thousand new friggin' people, a thousand new people a week here.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it is fumble after fumble after fumble in retail, not my domain that I get to control.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Retail marketing, yes, but retail marketing can't do their job if they don't have the support from the retail team.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that is like 99% of what I did.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just let's get everybody rowing in the same direction in their own individual boats.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is crazy how many times I walk into a new retailer and marketing is pushing a set of deals and retail's talking about a different set of them because that's the one that makes their butt tenders the kickbacks and the money.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then both campaigns fall flat and everyone's like, why?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, did you talk to each other?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, we don't, they do what they want, we do what we want.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how this works.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's technically not two different departments.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Retail and marketing should be the same department, technically.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's something that every, I think everyone in CPG deals with.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like these silos between sales and marketing that just run rampant and never have a bridge.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I worked a lot in this many times over the past 20 years in this aspect, and it's always been the most frustrating for me.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I go back to the market development joke where it's like, oh, you're a sales agency.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, we're a market development agency.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: That means that we don't silo marketing, PR, and sales.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're all under one roof because they all should be under one roof, because they all are drivers for each other to the same end goal.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's goal is to sell more product to the right customer for return visits and rate of sale increases.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: The fact that they don't, the fact that anything hit the ground as a directive and wasn't communicated in a cross-departmental way is it doesn't matter if it's cannabis, if it's non-alcoholic, or if it's beer.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: It happens every day.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that inefficiency is why things fumble.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like you're, you literally can't even think about, you know, I mean, you're talking about friction.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you put two magnets together and they're on opposite ends, that's what you're doing.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, they're not going to connect.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the four consumer, the poor consumers like sees the email, comes in for that, and then all of a sudden gets convinced of a different product by the guy at the door.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's a confusing experience for the consumer, too, where it's like, I came in for the Bumblebee tuna and I'm coming out with the blueberry ratize, you know?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in a lot of cases, I don't mind that, but it's never in the way that makes sense for the end consumer.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's always at the detriment of the end consumer.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that also drives me insane.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's upselling is one thing.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then they talk a lot about compassionate upselling in cannabis, and that has just that term has been complicated.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I love that for retirement.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love the term.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's just data medical, you shouldn't be allowed to take that word over.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, exactly.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I get so much flack for it because I'm a firm believer that all cannabis use is medicinal use.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And people can fight with me all they want.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, what about the Graham dabs?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, why are you so worried about what somebody else is doing?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Worry about you.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is none of your business how anyone is consuming cannabis for what they're doing, and you don't know what people are coming in for.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Adult use did open up the access to cannabis, which is wonderful, but we stopped talking about the medicinal use of it.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's just, well, how high can can I get for the least amount of money?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is literally how they think the end consumer things.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I don't think people are really thinking like that.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you're going for cannabis, you enjoy the experience.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a lot of people that are going into a dispensary brands making new to cannabis.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I just, I we're trying to target the wine mom, y'all for what?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're they're gonna be more willing to talk to their partner or their son or their daughter or a friend, anyone else, before they're gonna come into a dispensary.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And look at the experiences that you put them in.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Nate, like you literally I hear it from so many people.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I walk in and try to ask a question and they point me to a screen with leave.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's the I mean, that's we were talking about this off camera, but I want this to be on the record.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you if you're doing that, like I was telling you a story before we hopped on that that happened in Maryland on Friday to me, to me.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I came in and like was asking questions from an inquisitive place, and I was directed to the screen.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, guess where else I get that experience?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: McDonald's.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like I get the same experience McDonald's, where you want me to drop a hundred bucks worth of stuff with you, but I can go to McDonald's and get the same experience with the screen.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: I see, so I I do see that.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's important to understand where a lot of the leadership and executive teams come from.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I used to work for a dispensary that was with Fox Restaurant Concepts.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody on the leadership team came from there.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember getting in a fight with my marketing director, because it was right around the time adult use went live in Arizona, and she's like, I need you to make a banner that says that we're out of flour and put it on the front of the building.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not doing that.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Got all the way up to the CEO, and they're like, She's being insubordinate.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, listen, that is news you break at the counter.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: If we put a sign up on the building that says we are out of flour, no one is going to park in our parking lot.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: You break that news at the counter, you ask them what they're consuming for, what they were looking for, you get them into a comparable product, which nothing's going to be comparable to flour, but like a vape, an edible, at least that customer then leaves feeling like they were taken care of.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's an opportunity to get them on your messaging list so that when you do get flour or a specific brand they're looking for, we set up automations that will automatically message them that it's in stock.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: That is how you do that.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't guacamole.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: People will not come in if you don't have flour.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's like little stuff like that.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's, oh God, I have so many stories of that.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just like guys, this is not everything else.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's cannabis.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk a little bit about specifically on the loyalty programs, because I want to say this not as a complaint, but it is a criticism of construction.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I deal with this in the same way with on all beverages, where it's like, we're not being, we're not drilling down enough.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I so this isn't picking on cannabis.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be all loyalty programs.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sick on them.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And this is not you because I know you're about to advocate for what I'm about to say, is use the data.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, stop sending every Thursday at 3 p.m.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: the general thing that you're sending to everyone.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Stop being lazy and start saying, okay, if I'm if I have somebody who's uh I have 75 people that are vodka drinkers and tequila drinkers, I'm gonna tell them about this new vodka that just came in, and they're getting a separate email from the mass email.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe it's they don't get the mass email because maybe this week, maybe this week is not mass email week.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: This week is custom week, which means there's five categories of our five biggest margin items, and then we're gonna take the macro list and we're gonna segment it across on those buyers, and then that's what we're gonna hit.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's the old 80-20 rule.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and and I don't understand why all CPGs seem to have this problem where my inbox as a consumer, as well as put somebody in the industry, I'm on all of them.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's like clockwork on Thursdays and Friday mornings that's just mass general.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's a triage as opposed to surgery.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I do, I do send messaging twice a week.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: There is something to be said about having a standard message that goes out, but I do, I do want to correct just one thing.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: It is at least I can speak in cannabis because that's the one that I have the most experience in.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not being lazy.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: It is usually one person that is managing both retail and brand marketing, and is then expected to do marketing for all the third-party brands on the shelf, and is expected to put together events and is expected to work those events, and then is expected to measure and then iterate.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the same as the alcohol industry, then in that sense, is I'll I'll retract that.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Not lazy, not lazy, but overworked and under undervalued in what they're supposed to do.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, there's only so many things you can do.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like I'm putting together this now for a client, and the the person that is doing marketing also has their time split with inventory.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if this is how they want to run their company, this is how they're gonna run their company, the only thing I can do is say, hey, in my experience, in 10 years of doing this, usually inventory is my check-in balance.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Inventory is a separate role, and they're the ones that that develop and determine what the promotions are going to be so that me in marketing can do the other double check on my side to make sure that we're talking about the same thing, we're going in the same direction, we don't have deals that conflict with one another.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's also the layer like butt tenders get kickbacks through a brand, a company called Sparkplug.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if they sell certain brands' products that have promoted it on there, they get like a buck a sale or something like that.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's different for everybody.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Butt tenders are going to sell what makes them money.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it is my job in marketing to make sure that what they are being incentivized on also aligns with what I need to do for our KPIs.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I run into this all the time because I do advocate for segmenting.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sending twice a week is easy, but it it it saves, it saves your end consumer from getting a daily text message and email of the same thing, which drives me insane.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Every time that happens, I ask them, hey, what brands do you like getting daily text messages from that you think this is okay?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Oh, no one ever texts me daily.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Yeah, because it's really annoying, isn't it?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it is.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then what are you gonna do when they opt out?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have an opt-out campaign, which I gotta give some kudos.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: AIQ just released an integration with one of the top uh point of sale systems in Canada, the top point of sale systems in cannabis, one of the most commonly used ones.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And now you can actually see if a customer is opted in or out of your messaging directly in the order.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: I have been asking for that for years because the butt tender is not gonna click out of that screen, go into another one, type in the name or the number, look it up, and then have the conversation.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's just there now.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's free.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, finally.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's I get flack for it all the time.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh Steph, you talk about segmenting, but that is a lot of work.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of work in the beginning, but that's what I do is I set all of this up, your entire customer journey, all of these different segments up to be somewhat automated in the beginning.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: That way your job isn't to go and make these every week, it's just to look at them.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just make sure they're running.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you're seeing significant opt-outs, turn that shit off.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: We can try something different.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Not everything I do works exactly the way that I want it to in every single state.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: It but that's the beauty of marketing.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it took me years to get comfortable with that that I'm gonna fail.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna fail a lot, and it's gonna be a learning opportunity every time, though.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like failing.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like being bad at my job, but being bad at marketing is part of marketing, unfortunately.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Marketing, marketing is a is a science more than it ever was.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like I went to college 20 years ago for corporate communications and public relations.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's some things that are relevant and some are just trial by fire like lessons that are ingrained off of the foundational principles learned 20 years ago, but it's not the same.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's a science and everybody knows that.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm surprised that in the cannabis, or I'm sorry, in the alcohol industry, that you don't have the tech.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I I would I would assume that you are not as restricted in the information that you can collect on adults in the alcohol industry and then be able to use that for retargeting.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: But also, we have dispensaries in cannabis, and that's what most people base like their experience off of, or at least that's what retailers try to think that the experience is based off of.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I ask them all the time, hey, what's the name of your liquor store?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is it liquor?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because you're going for the brands on the shelf.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's the future of cannabis, whether we like it or not.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that's it.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's Jim's liquors, it's gym's this, it's it's gonna be that, and that's where we're going with the cannabis space.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And alcohol, it's you don't, it's far and few between that those that have e-commerce.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it was, there was a bunch that that were doing it really well during COVID because they had to.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: So they were doing like curbside pickups and all this stuff.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a couple brands, I don't want to give them any credit on here because they've either they fizzled out, you know what I mean?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and you know, I I worked with some of them and and they just fizzled out.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it was really because nobody from the industry was doing it as well.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the biggest thing, the biggest hurdle that some of them were seeing is they connected well with corporate, that you know, they were able to do that, but they didn't spend the time, and this was, I'm gonna say this was laziness on their part.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: I can say for that part, they didn't spend the time on the independent operators because they took the easy route, which was let's just pitch for a year on corporates and grocery stores and convenience and then figure it out later instead of going door to door to door to door to door to 3,000, 4,000, however many independent operators.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: The independent operators are the most undervalued piece of the entire ecosystem of every consumer beverage consumer package goods and beverage, especially.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And they're also the underserved, most underserved from a technology standpoint.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And for somebody to call in, I'll probably get a DM of somebody being like, well, this is what I do for a living with independent operators, great.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're out there.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're out there, but you're not yet to where I am, at least.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: And let's let's, if you're listening and I'm and this conversation's gonna offend you, let's bridge that gap.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like, let's give me a call, send me a DM, because the independent operator retailers that I work with, they're not being presented the opportunity for these tech.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the ones that are getting through and presenting to them are just presenting to them things as if they were a corporate multi-location thing with pricing, and it's not what a owner operator who's working the register, clogging, like unclogging the toilets and doing inventory at night.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's a different pricing structure, you know?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we're in that same boat.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh more, the more and more I see retailers moving to putting their menus on like a leafly or a weed maps because they just can't afford the other point of sale systems and then to manage that all on their own.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: That really hurts me because it's you are robbing yourself not only of the traffic, but your competitors are shown right alongside all of your products.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't think it makes a whole lot of sense.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: But then they explain to me what it costs to do leafly in weed maps versus, which is still ridiculously expensive versus like a duchy or a meadow or something.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a leap, it's just it's a crazy amount of money.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's a crazy amount of money.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I we we always like to joke, like, oh, we could just do this so much better.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to run a dispensary.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm on my side of things.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know how to do some of the things really well, but I also like don't really love managing people on that front.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And managing people in a retail environment sounds like a fucking nightmare.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even like working retail, let alone managing a retail team.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I like marketing.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: When you, when you guys are your services and stuff like that, are you do you do the strategy part or are you actually executing on behalf of those brands for the communications and their loyalty programs?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that is the big difference with high Def Studio versus like a tact firm or Sandra Bergman with SB Marketing, um, who is phenomenal, by the way.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you want execution, go with Sandra.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: So my process is typically deep strategy.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: I do it's it can take me two months sometimes to dig into everything, depending on how many tech stacks you have or like what you have in your tech stack and how messy your data is.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: I do a huge deep dive.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I like to think of it is my audit as like building the book.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I go and build your retention program, that's like the open book test.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't do that without all of this other context, but you get to keep the book.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's the important part.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: So deep audit, customer journey gets built out, customer review or client reviews it, everything gets approved, whatever they want to.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then we start training.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And my big thing is I don't, I'm not looking for a long-term contract with my clients.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I am looking six months max.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: I want to teach your team how to do it on your own and get the hell out.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And reason being is it's okay to outsource your marketing execution.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's perfectly okay.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: What drives me insane in this space is I see people outsourcing their strategy with it.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: They build momentum, budget cuts come around.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: The agency is the first thing that gets trapped, and they're like, oh, we can do this.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: They've been doing it, you know, just fine.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: We have momentum, we can just come in and do what they were doing.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is not that agency's job to teach you what their strategy was and what they were doing on a day-to-day.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And those agencies have whole ass teams that was executing on your marketing strategy.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: They got two or three people that are doing your messaging.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: They got a couple people doing graphic design, they got someone doing social.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're fully built.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: You bring that in-house and everything tanks, and no one really has the gumption right to go back to the same company and say, hey, I messed up.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Can we restart that?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: They just go to a different company and end up spending more money and then re-outsourcing their strategy.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not their job to teach you strategy, so I make it my job.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't technically offer execution unless you go through my program for it being built.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I then partner with Canna Content, who is run by Stella Morrison, who is very intimately familiar with what my strategies are, easy for them to execute on.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you get way better pricing through them as well.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mark any of it up unless you want me on like monthly calls, but then it's not really marking it up.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're paying me for my time to be on those calls.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I try to operate with integrity and full transparency on that.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't take kickbacks in the space, I don't do referral fees.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I will pay them out, but I don't take them.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I never want to be in a situation where I'm making a referral just for the money.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: The economy really sucks right now.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't trust myself with that.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Money.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: I need money.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's, I don't want to be in that situation.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I just don't put myself in those situations.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's important that my reputation stay intact.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm recommending something to you, it's because I genuinely believe it is the best option for you.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have experience with the company.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: I have experience with the people.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna help you set it up.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I guess that I don't even, I don't, I don't know what I do.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: What do I do, Nate?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: What do I even do?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really I really like what you just said because it's something that, you know, I've been a solopreneur for the past 18 years now.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of that is Yeah, yeah, that's one of that's one of the hardest parts of what you just said is trying to make the revenue necessary when you don't have 50 people in a team in an agency, but also holding your integrity to what you put out to the retailer, consumer, customer, and end goal.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's a tough one.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I I actually get a lot a weekly on a weekly basis.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: I get people that want to do referrals because of the show and everything like that.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, we'd love to set this up for this and affiliate links and all that.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And like, I don't even at this moment, like, I have some stuff that's getting ready to be released that's sponsored stuff and where somebody has, you know, done this.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the only reason I was willing to do it was because it remained unscripted.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: It remained exactly like this.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: There was nothing they were allowed to influence.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Final cut, they weren't allowed to do anything.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that had that criteria and that rigidness that I've done to keep my integrity and keep my format has cut me off of a lot of other opportunities.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you're right.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad you brought it up and said it because it's hard as a solopreneur to turn down any work, let alone the ones you want.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's not you're when we go, how many people do you have on?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Are you solo as well?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm solo.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's just you know exactly what I mean.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is like, and you also go and you just shared exactly your ecosystem.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't sit here and say to me, all the things that all those other agencies do and pretend like it was white labeled and it was yours.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: You gave the full ecosystem referral names and everything like that.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: The integrity and what you the way you just presented your ecosystem is where I see the future of solopreneurs like myself and you.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: We are the beginning of that journey into the ecosystem, but we're not the full ecosystem.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where what we but the value in which we hold, here's the piece you have to protect.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I I do this because I get screwed over a lot.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're the front of it and we bring the people into the ecosystem doesn't undervalue our role in that positioning.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you made a point to say, like, about the upcharge and like your time.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's true.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: We have to protect our value and our revenue while also holding integrity in its heart.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's been a really interesting journey.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm about to hit year three of solopreneurship.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: And quite transparently, this has been the hardest year yet.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I doubled down.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to do retention this year, and I I just shut off all of the consulting opportunities that I had at the beginning.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: That was a mistake.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna go back to that because I have bills and I have to like do stuff.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's also like understand I've been a corporate employee my entire life.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is my first freelance business.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I had someone who's like, you're not an agency.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, excuse me, sir, I wear all the same hats that you do, all of them.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Every single fucking hat I wear as well.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm technically an agency, but it's it's it's difficult because it's like, oh, well, stuff, we want you to come in and we want you to run our marketing.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know myself well enough that I know that would be a part, like it'd be a full time job.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: They say it's part time, I know it would be full time because they I can't just come in and run your texting and email.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: One, I'm not a strong graphic designer or copywriter.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Can I do it and have I done it?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely for my own brands.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was my entire focus.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: I made it my entire life.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the context switching between brands and retail was hard enough.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that would be easy to do here.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Compartmentalizing when you have like four different jobs as a solopreneur, don't do that.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all, that's a really bad idea.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're not hard.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: That was really hard.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I had a very hard first year.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: That year was it was lucrative, but it's really difficult.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: You're running four jobs.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't even know what I do half the time.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still trying to define exactly what high Def Studio does.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: I want it to be valuable.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: I want it to apply to multiple industries.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm only as good as what I'm exposed to, though.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just trying to get the exposure to it.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's I don't know.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Let me let me under your hood and let me see what I can find.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: I found a woman kind enough running a med spa who let me under her hood.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I never in my life thought I would enter something that had less resources than the cannabis space.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Holy shit.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: They have nothing.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it it depends on what retail it is.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And especially when you get into the on-premise restaurants and bars and everything like that, like their margins are so thin.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like you walk in to ask them anything over$100 a month as a subscription or a retainer, and you're you're offending them.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean that negatively.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that's their perception of where things are.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think that's what And they're running it all themselves too.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: I tap rooms was on my list as an industry to target.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I learned very quickly talking to those owners, like, oh babe, we don't have the margin for that.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And one of them was nice enough to tell me, like, if the tap room has food, don't even bother.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have the margins for it.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: The food takes up everything.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's waste, and I I just I'm good.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I understand.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry about you.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the world I'm in, and it's tough.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's tough out there.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't say it's tough like in a in a complaining way.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I have to get creative with people.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, sometimes, and the funny thing is, like working in the alcohol industry, there was a day where creativity I quit drinking three and a half years ago, but there was a time where creativity would be like, hey, throw me a couple extra cases a week and we'll call it.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And now they don't have anything of value in a tangible way to hand me.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like it's cash or nothing at this point.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have so many ideas too for the alcohol space.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I also don't drink.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's I got to this guy.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: I got I got to a point where I'm thir I just turned 35 and I think it was like sometime 29, 30, I would have like a drink with my husband or whatever.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I can't afford a four-day hangover.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we tried like the undo's and the liquid IVs, and it's just like not an enjoyable experience anymore to have a headache for two days afterward.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've never had that issue with cannabis.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: I can just get baked as a cake whenever I want, and I'm good.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I would have quit whenever you have that realization at that age.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like the same thing with like psychedelics.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to get more into psychedelics, but I don't remember until after I'm already high and I don't mix.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: So those have been sitting in my cabinet, my my gummies for over a year.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: My bad.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's ADHD out of sight, out of mind.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not good.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's I accidentally mixed a couple times with alcohol, forgetting.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I I'm not I'm not good at that.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just I'm okay.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Keeping keeping the intoxicants in their lanes is always a good thing.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh I've I've never had uh my best in uh psychedelic experience ever was when there was nothing else in my system.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: And in that moment, I realized I was like, oh, this is what it's all about, but I can't continue to stack it with all these other things.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like it really does affect me.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, and I'm already a potato of a human being.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't, I it's it's it's bad.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I I got I went to a dinner last night with some friends, and they're like, oh, you know, like we're talking about hiking and exercising.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm at the point where I just like a couple times a day will come sit on my floor and just try to get up without my arms.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know how friggin' hard that is?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you can do it.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: I can't yet.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's where we are as remote workers talking on screens all day long.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's we are we're edging to the place of uh I feel like it right now, actually, with the tripod I have, it's uh it's on the steering wheel right now, and it's one of the octopus blendy ones or bendy ones.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it reminds me of in Wally when when the humans are in the recliner chair and they have the screen in front of their face, like that's what it feels like.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm approaching that moment of that image right now, you know.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I uh, you know, clients ask you, like, oh Steph, what do you like to do for fun?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, I wake up, I go to work, I maybe play some video games and dissociate for a few hours, I go to bed, and then I do it all over again.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, oh, like what about coffee shops or like co-working?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, I don't really like doing that.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's my fault because I have four screens in front of me.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I have a vertical, I have you on a big one, and I got two 24 stacked on my left.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Why on earth would I go work anywhere else?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is my happy place.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny because like I even am in the car sometimes.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like this time I'm out legit on the road, but I'll let us a little secret to everybody else.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I go and shoot these in the car just because it's a quiet place.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, because I don't like always to be in the middle of Starbucks.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like I go to Starbucks.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was just telling my girlfriend the other day, she's like, why don't you just set up at Starbucks sometimes?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, because you know, for whatever, I want to get out of the house.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like from the hospitality industry where like if I sit at a table, after 45 minutes, I need to leave because I feel the eyes of are on me.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And like I don't want to go in and set up shop with like, you know, and then be like just that guy stealing Wi-Fi.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, granted, I'll sit in a McDonald's parking lot and steal their Wi-Fi from 15 yards away, you know what I mean, in my car, but I I have bought many$12 coffees.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a I forget what oh my god, I'm so embarrassed.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: I forget what it's called.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: We have a great coffee place next to us, and it is such a vibe inside.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is impossible for me to take calls though.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even though it's loud, it's just impossible to not have all the background noise.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I transcribe a lot of my calls.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need all of that in the background.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like this lady on the side of me having a conversation about her kids, and it's like picking it up.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't want to like look at her and be like, Can you move?
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm in a public place.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: There was a time where I transcribed, it's funny you just said that because I transcribed something, and I'm very meticulous with notes going to the grocery store.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody was having going through their like objective of walking into the grocery store.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: In the transcription, I pulled out and thought it was me talking to my girlfriend or my kids.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: And like I wrote it down and went to the store and picked it up and came to the house, and and then and she's like, Well, why'd you get this?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, because we were talking about at some point.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's the solopreneur ADHD brain, let's say, or whatever it is that we all have, that just remains in the fact that sometimes there's hours of the day where we can't differentiate the information overload that occurs.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no, sourcing the messaging is not always key.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's sometimes it's a little bit embarrassing, but like I don't even try anymore.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't, I don't try to remember things.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't see me write it down, it's not happening.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that is like in my my onboarding with clients.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if we are in a meeting and you need me to do something and you explicitly do not see me write that down, it's you need to tell me, like, Steph, we need you to do this.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: I run second brain.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Everything gets put through Notion, and it takes me forever sometimes to reconcile, but it's the only way I can keep my life together.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's and it's also self-inflicted on ourselves because of where we are as solopreneurs.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something I don't talk about enough on here is we have to switch psychologically all the time.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's times where we are accounts receivable, there's times where accounts payable, there's times where the sales, and there's times we're marketing, there's times we're strategy, and there's times where the CF, we're the CFO, and we have to have an internal fight between inner departmental fights that are into inside of our own brains.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it makes you, it legit does make you crazy some days because without that sounding board, and it's really crucial to have that sounding board to realize you're not crazy and then be able to separate those things because you can't be, I call it the diminishing returns.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: And there's an hour, certain point of the day, where I have to close up the computer and everything like that.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it's sometimes it's honestly, sometimes it's every couple times it's three o'clock in the afternoon.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's nine p.m.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't, it doesn't have a day as much as it is where I have a trigger in my head where I'm like, nope, I gotta stop right now because I that's where miss that's where I make a lot of mistakes.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: So if I don't go past that point, it's kind of like when I used to drink, it was like nothing good happens after 2 a.m.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's kind of the same, you know what I mean?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like Yeah, and I usually work six days a week.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm pumping 12 hour days, you know, at least Monday through Wednesday, Thursday, two o'clock, I'm done.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And Fridays are my long days.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's I I and I that's in my onboarding call too.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, I if I'm messaging you super late at night, it might have been scheduled and I just did 10 p.m.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: instead of 10 a.m.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: That happens.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or if it's Friday, I am at my desk.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Please don't answer my emails right away.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Those are there because I am playing catch up.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if you answer me back right away and you don't get an answer back right away after that, no, because no, I'll answer it on Monday or Sunday, whichever day I'm working.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: If the burnout's really hard, I I you know, I working in startup environments too.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's been really interesting.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Had a conversation last week where someone had dropped the comment, like, oh, you know, he's great.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: He picks up the phone on his days off, and I'm like, oh, don't do these.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no, I need him to do that because it's a startup environment.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's really important that we have people on base.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And in the back of my head, I'm just thinking, like, you know what, yeah, that's wonderful.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna do when they burn out?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: You burnout is not fixable overnight.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I have been flirting this year with burnout so bad.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: It really feels like I'm kind of just standing on like the edge of an ocean, right?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: And like the waves are kind of laughing at your feet, and you can you can see it.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can just float out.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna drown, and I don't know what that line is anymore.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: I wanna keep grinding.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: But like you said, there's a diminishing returns at a certain point.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: I have a proposal due tomorrow.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've thought a lot about it, but I don't have any of it done, and I've already pushed it out a week.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's what I'm gonna be doing after 4 p.m.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: today until like that shit is done.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's there's uh what you're doing right now and being setting boundaries is I've only started doing in the past three, mostly I'd say I I don't want to give credit to three years, I would say a year to two years is being is being very boundary driven.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason is burnout is real.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh about eight year night eight into this of solopreneurship, I burned out.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was puttering, puttering, puttering, a lot of public issues and stuff like that, and drinking like intensified and all that.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was a complete multi-month, I I don't even remember to be honest with you, if it was three or six months, bedridden depression.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: So the burnout built, and then all of a sudden I was I was incapable of functioning, like not hygienically showering on the daily or every other day, and all this stuff.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, what I'm trying to say to you is not to scare you as much as continue to keep those boundaries because I didn't have those boundaries.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was the guy at midnight.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you wanted to have a conversation, I hopped out of bed and I went downstairs and I was there.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: I was emailing you at 2 a.m.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: and I was running on like an hour and a half, two hours, three hours of sleep every night.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where it can go.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: So keep the boundaries, is what I'm trying to say.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: You'll find the right clients that can respect it.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: And the rest is back to what we're talking about with furls and integrity.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's back to where it is at that point.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is it's tough loss if you can't work with them, you know?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's I don't, I I'm I'm at that point.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm at that point where it's like the depression creeps in and it's it's I can't use cannabis to to satiate and to help with it.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, and then rest feels like very unproductive.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: I got therapy later today.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'll unpack that a little bit.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: But she she told me my homework the last couple of weeks was just finding a place in my house that was quiet and just sitting for five minutes with my thoughts.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know how fucking hard that is.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: So what I so that was I I went through a couple of therapists, and the one successful one was the ground.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Here's mine, and feel free to share it or whatever that I use.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because I, if you're think like I do, that's the word, it's torture.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: To sit in a room for five minutes with silence is torture, and it is for me.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: So what I did was I ended up my fourth or fifth therapist was like a recovering alcoholic that like thought like me and stuff like that.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, okay, this is what you do.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: When you're having those moments, you take a pen and a piece of paper and you start asset inventory of what's controllable in your life right now.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I start writing is I make a list of like what is controllable right now.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean literally like my lights are on, this project is pending, and if I did this and this, I could control this process a little bit smoother.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is going on, my electricity bills do, but I have this money coming in to pay that.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: So let's scratch that as a stress off my mind.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I just keep going until I'm calm and I literally still do it.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: I did it yesterday.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: I do it all the time.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's my grounding because I went through the toys and I went through the grounding and I went through the fidget spinners and all this stuff.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, none of this is working.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because what it is is certain brains have to be productive even in relaxation.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that was what trick like changed the perception and the flip the script for me.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because the whole time you're in quiet, you're gonna be feeling guilt and shame about not being quiet.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I just feel it's worse at the end of that five minutes, because it's five minutes that I could have been focusing on like how to fix the things.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: I it's I write love hate with video games.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Video games, I have so much fun playing them.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're a great way to disassociate.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can detach, you can listen to an audiobook while you play them, et cetera, et cetera.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is the one thing that I do as a hobby that it literally gets me nothing by the end of it.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Drop 19 hours into a video game over the weekend, would you get out of that stuff?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: As opposed to like half the artwork sitting in my room that is unfinished.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: I avoid that because then it feels like work, but that would be the most productive and like brain healing thing that I could do.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard of morning pages?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: So morning, it's really an artist tool, but I mean, great for everything else.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: But morning pages is meant to be three pages of conscious thought stream writing that you do very first thing in the morning before you even get your coffee.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: You sit down and you write those three pages out.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: It takes me forever to actually physically write things out, so I type them now, or I'll do like a voice to text going for a walk when it's not like the surface of the sun here in Arizona.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's so hot right now.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: But morning pages have been a godsend for me.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Just get it all out of your brain.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then it like because I type it in Notion, I have like the little like AI summarizer thing for it, and I can do keyword searches or like highlight something.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: But then I built in a gratitude journal on the same page.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: I built in like what did you love about yesterday?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: What did you hate about yesterday?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: What are your priorities today?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: What do you need to do both personally and professionally?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it just kind of resets a little bit.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: That has been super helpful.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: The key is being consistent with the morning pages, especially with ADHD brain and like your solution for pen and paper and doing asset inventory, what's controllable?
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I do that shit all the time.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know how many lists I have that I'm never gonna look at again?
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: I left my book at home and I was freaking out.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like using back of flyers now to like keep my list going because I was like, I can't stop.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: I got it out of the book, but I'm not gonna let that OCD part fight me.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, iPad is really great for that if you like to do the writing thing.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: I use Notion, so everything gets typed out and then I have a log of it.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: I love writing and I know it's really good for your brain.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: I can't find anything in the notebook though, so it kind of defeats the purpose of writing down.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Whoops, that is crazy though.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: You've been a solopreneur for 18 years.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: This has been my hardest year so far, and I'm like, a job sounds so much easier, but the thought of working for somebody else actually makes me want to throw up.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's times I'd be lying if I didn't say there's times this year I was I was looking at jobs on LinkedIn.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I doesn't that part doesn't stop.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna sugarcoat anyone.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: My recruiter friend, and he's like, Steph, if you're just gonna take this job to quit in three years and go back to Hyde Def Studio, don't do it.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna regret not building your business.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what business?
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: What am I doing?
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's moments, there's moments where you'll get there.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's it's I here's the here's my biggest advice, and I'll I'll close out, and I don't want to take up I want to I I want to say we'll close out for this episode in a second, but I want to have a lot more conversations with you.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: I I enjoy talking to you, and I I want to dive a little deeper into your services and how I think uh they might be able to work in some certain ways in what I do every day too.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: But what I can say is like it never gets easier, but it gets more understood.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is you get to a place where, like, yeah, you'll you'll have a negative bank account and you'll have bills coming at the end of the month, but you'll eventually, and this only this only comes from the endurance and resilience of it, where like most people would be like, How can you like function and move in society when you have this weighing over you?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's a delusion.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's a delusion that you try to understand and question and be like, is this delusion crazy or is this delusion logic?
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because logical delusion is real as well as crazy delusion.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I've in the years have screwed that up and chosen the delusional logic that is crazy.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: But in the past couple of years, finding delusion that's logical, it's helpful.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's a that's uh fuck me up.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I struggle with that a lot.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like it, yeah, you do have to be a little bit delusional to be doing that, at least a little bit delusional.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's I'll sit there and it's like, okay, is this actually realistic?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like with marketing, you don't actually know it's gonna work until you try it.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's so that's the problem, isn't I try to tell everybody, but also when you realize like your head's beating against the brick, I don't I'm not some delusional person that's like, never quit.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: No, if your head's bleeding and you're hemorrhaging and you're on your knees, it might not be the right fit.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and also it might not be the right time.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's another thing.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, my my business has gone in like such roller coasters and has nothing to do with me sometimes.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: It just has to do with what I'm selling at that time and how I'm presenting it, and a lot of it's that too.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, it's all it's all lion's den.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's all lion's.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's how I'm feeling, especially with like our current political climate.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And just like I started a business and I have really no interest in scaling it as far as like onboarding more people for it, because I am I know that very well that that then is not the same job that I am doing now.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: I do genuinely like doing the auditing.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: I like doing the building, I like building it all out.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love the training.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: I love meeting all the people.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: If I were to bring people in, that would mean that I am just then doing sales and training for one person.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that is that's a lot.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lot more.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: Cause then you still have to also maintain the rest of the business.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Kudos to people hiring people because I'm I'm good.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm good on all that.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea how I'm gonna do that.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Nor do I want to rely on AI for it.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: AI, I have such a love hate.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's so helpful for an ADHD brain.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: The best thing I use it for is brain dumping into it.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, can you help me organize these thoughts?
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: Finding things in all of my multiple notes, wonderful.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really use it for writing though.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe if like I'm writing an article and I do the brain dump and it's like, hey, let's organize and get this into an outline.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else is like me pouring into it.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then the AI is like basically my editor.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's my grammar thing.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Help me make this not sound like a dipshit.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're if you are using it for grammar, if you're using it for grammar, the one thing I would help you with is I've been using it since the beginning for a million reasons.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: But with writing, I write everything out and then I use it the same with grammar and outlining.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: But the new thing I started doing, which has been helpful, is I have it analyze what are all the most trending search things in the categories and topics that I'm discussing, and is there relevant vocabulary in this article to then get their attention?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: And when I started doing that, it doesn't rewrite the article, but it'll swap out words for the words that they're actually because that's the thing is we all say, Oh, I'm talking about the topic everybody's talking about.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: No, but if you're actually talking about the words though, the SEO part of it.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: And people are like, oh, SEO's dead.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, it's not dead.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's there.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you that my viewership of articles went and skyrocketed as soon as I started doing that.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: I thank you.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do that.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've been using it for like optimization, but the thing I hate with AI is like everything sounds the exact same.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember reading an article where it's like, well, it showed the graphs of like this is how human writing looks and this is how like computer generated writing looks, and it's very, very different.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I just I just need to learn how to be a better public speaker.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the huge project I've been working on with AI is um perplexity will do like a teaching thing and they just build out an entire course for you essentially.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've been practicing with that.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I get tongue-tied when I get put on the spot.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like doing public speaking panels, probably not a great space for me.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of sound like a dipshit when I listen to it back because I just don't, the words do not come to me the way that they do when I have a second to sit there and think about it or like look it up.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, you're doing great.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you did great today.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like you a fantastic job today.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I I realized, oh, let's uh I'll reach out to you and we'll definitely set up another meeting to talk some shop and everything like that.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: But thank you for coming on for this conversation.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is exactly what I was looking for was a really get to know you, get to know what's going on in your life, life as a solopreneur, life as in these emerging brands and industries in certain categories.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a roller coaster.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't go back.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's as much as hard as all of this is, the thought of going back and working for somebody else is just like nah dog.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you as well to Tammy for introducing us.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is I know we had met prior and talked to them, but she picked up uh where we left off and kind of re-ran that one over the finish line.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for that one.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Steph, thanks for coming on with no script and no questions.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: I know you said about public speaking and things like that.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to remind everybody we've never met.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we've exchanged a few DMs on LinkedIn, and that's it.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and really I want people to know it is this easy to make friends, make connections.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: This world, like we both have talked about in 2026, is beautifully destructive and fucking crazy.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it is something that the human connection is something that we need to not forget.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: So while you're walking down the street, please put your phone in your pocket.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: Look at everybody while you're walking by, smile at a stranger at your gas station, coffee shop while you're fumbling with the creamer and sugar.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: Ask the person next to you how they're doing and shut your mouth and listen to their story.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: All right, five minutes a week is my challenge to everybody.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: 20 minutes a month, kindness to a stranger.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: Get out there and make an impact.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, you guys think if you think it's something minute and it's not a big deal, I do it every day.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm about to do it as I finish this call.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: You get a reaction from people.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: They're shocked, they're surprised.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know why?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because nobody else is doing it, guys.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: So be nice out there, don't be a piece of shit.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you so much, Steph, for everything today.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's the number one role.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: Just don't be a dick.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even be nice to people, just don't go out of your way to be mean.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: It goes all the way back to Greek mythology.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was the golden role of Zeus was do unto others as you'd have do unto you, you know?
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: People really do not like themselves.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that advice does ring true.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Steph, thank you so much.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be in touch with you later this week.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: All right, you'd have a good rest of your day.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: You too.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.