With Estie Starr, an internationally acclaimed, award-winning business consultant and speaker. After a decade-long career in the nonprofit sector, she left her CIO job in 2011 to fulfil her business dream, serving small business owners who wanted to live theirs. The founder and owner of both Strand Consulting and the Better Business School, Estie helps small business owners earn their first million in new business.

Join us for this conversation where Estie demystifies what it takes to build a successful small business, what every successful small business has, and where solopreneurs and small business owners often go wrong.

Estie has logged over 12,000 hours of one-on-one business coaching in the past 14 years, guiding thousands of micro business owners to transform their business ideas and dreams to fully scaled businesses, with an average 300% profitability increase.

Estie has been recognized as the winner of Best in LA Business Consultancy 2018. In 2019, her podcast, “Business Breakthrough,” was featured on NASDAQ as a top podcast to listen to. She is a featured contributor to Entrepreneur, and the co-founder and co-host of the Annual LinkedIn Influencer Summit.

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Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• Why Estie continues to focus on business fundamentals in supporting her small business clients.
• Estie’s “map” to business, and what every successful small business has in place.
• Where entrepreneurs and small businesses owners often take a wrong turn.
• “I’ve always known how to turn an idea into money.”
• Marketing fundamentals are something you can learn.
• Foundational stuff works everywhere every time.

“I’ve always had a coach. I’ve always had a guide. Get a guide. Get the best one you can afford.”

-Estie Starr

Check out these highlights:

• 06:25 “I just had this crazy dream.” Hear what lead Estie to take a leap in her own career.
• 21:06 Once you get the foundation right, the other pieces fall into place much easier. (Like what is a REAL unique value proposition?)
• 36:41 Many entrepreneurs just think they need a “rebrand” – but so often, they have a strategy problem, not a branding problem.
• 49:54 Listen to Estie share on the “experts of industry” and why listening to these folks is not always a great choice – even if they are in your industry!
• 51:55 On strategy – you don’t have to know how to do it, but you do have to know it. Once you know it, you can hire to your heart’s content.

How to get in touch with Estie:

On Social Media:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/estiestarr
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/estiestarr/

You can also learn more about Estie, by visiting her website here.

Join Estie on her Business Breakthrough Podcast.

Get access to Estie’s Free Gift for listeners here: estiestarr.com/freegift (Currently, this provides access to her 3-day challenge for FREE).

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below:

GGGB Intro  00:00

Here’s what to expect today…

Estie Starr  00:02

To follow the foundational principles that make all businesses work, which is have something unique and different to offer to a group of people who wants it and is willing to pay for it, present the right thing in the right way to them and then know how to explain to them and close the deal and deliver the end. That’s inside every business. Everything else decoration.

GGGB Intro  00:23

The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  00:50

Alrighty, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I am an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington, serving online information entrepreneurs throughout the US and the world. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®. I am so excited to welcome Estie Starr today. Welcome Estie.

Estie Starr  01:19

I’m so excited to be here.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:22

So much fun and remind me where you’re coming in from

Estie Starr  01:25

Los Angeles, California,

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:27

Los Angeles, right? You mentioned Mexico and now my brains in Mexico like…

Estie Starr  01:31

My soul is in Mexico.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:34

And you will be there very soon

Estie Starr  01:36

I’ll be there very soon again. Yes.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:38

So happy for you. So for those of you that don’t know Estie. Estie Starr is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning business consultant and speaker. After a decade-long career in the nonprofit sector, she left her CIO job in 2011 to fulfil her business dream, serving small business owners who wanted to live theirs. The founder and owner of both Strand Consulting and the Better Business School, Estie helps small business owners earn their first million in new business. Estie has logged over 12,000 hours of one-on-one business coaching in the past 14 years, guiding 1000s of micro business owners to transform their business ideas and dreams to fully scaled businesses with an average 300% profitability increase. Estie has been recognized as the winner of Best in LA Business Consultancy 2018. In 2019, her podcast Business Breakthrough was featured on NASDAQ as a top podcast to listen to. She is a featured contributor to entrepreneur and the co-founder and co-host of the annual LinkedIn influencer Summit. Welcome, Estie. So happy to have you here today.

Estie Starr  02:57

I am so excited to be here and to have this conversation with you.

Heather Pearce Campbell  03:00

Yes, we’re gonna have a fun conversation. I know, there’s you know, so many folks in the small business building support space, tell me what it is about the work that you do that you love.

Estie Starr  03:16

I love the transformation from confusion to clarity. And that brings with it profits, it also saves a lot of wasted spends and time and energy. I’m a big efficiency person, as a CIO for six and a half year, so Information Systems processes. For me, the way I work with my clients, when we do the consulting, it’s the whole picture. But I became best known for our marketing work, because it is foundational marketing principles, you know, the more the world changes, and everyone’s just running on this hamster wheel to keep up with the latest social media platform, SEO hat, like, the principles are the things that don’t change. They don’t change and you reapply them in every new thing. And so I love giving that gift to my clients and students. It’s a piece of wisdom that they can apply everywhere. And it changes the game because their lack of success was always due to a hole in their knowledge that led them to do things wrong. And so when we fix that, then they get to do things right. It’s always easier and less expensive than they were doing it before. And it works. That’s what I love.

Heather Pearce Campbell  04:28

Awesome. Rare. Where did the focus come from? Talk to me about your roots and like why the focus on small business.

Estie Starr  04:37

So back in 2011, I was a CIO of a multinational nonprofit, and I would have stayed forever. I love my boss. I love my work. I had flex time, which was great. I had three little kids at the time. I now have five less little kids. And I just had this crazy dream. I wanted to do small business consulting you know part it definitely came from working at a company that had a very low glass ceiling. And so they, at some point hired a consultancy, who told them all the same stuff that I’ve been telling them for years. But this consultancy they hired got listened to and not paid more than me. I’m like, wait, but I’m in the wrong line of work. I know all these things. I understand. I told you all these things, but you didn’t take me seriously, and you paid me less. I should be doing something different. And I think that’s where the seed was planted. And then, you know, years past 2011 came along. And coming off the back of the 2008 recession. I could overhear all these conversations, I’d be sitting in a cafe and hear these women talking like, oh my god, you’re so talented, you should sell your cupcakes for $1. It’d be amazing student business, like Oh, my God, like I’ve been running businesses profitably, since I’m 10 years old. I went to business school, I always had side hustles like, I can turn anything into money always side hustles that I was always into like little things because not crazy. I’ve had a job, I was the sole supporter of my family. And in 2011, leadership at the company changed, they hired this toxic middle manager who took my team was like you’re my new secretary, the new leaving person. And I went looking for another job, I was terrified where money was going to come from my husband at the time was still studying. And I just had this crazy dream. I wanted to do small business consulting, I knew I could help these people. It hurt me personally, that I was struggling to find a job that would give me the money I wanted and the intellectual stimulation, and the flexibility to raise my children who were little at the time. I couldn’t find it. And I was seeing all these other women and men, young parents, who were having similar challenges, singles, who are like going into drudgery work just to keep a roof over their heads. People who are incredibly talented, who are brilliant, who have incredible gifts to give the world and just had no idea how to turn into money. Like I know how to turn it into money. I’m really good at this. I’ve always known. And that was my dream. And you know, it took several years, but built a multinational consulting firm, we had staff and clients on six continents 10 time zones from Los Angeles through Hong Kong, as three departments started with just the consultancy, full service, anything that a Deloitte McKinsey with you for a Fortune 500 company we did for a small business and nonprofit, typically solopreneurs up to 1020 employees, like really the little guys. And then as we grew, and more and more people wanted our services, and it wasn’t affordable to everyone, we launched online business school, so that people would have more affordable options to learn. And it’s hands holding, right. So all of our business school courses come with hands holding with coaching attached to it. And then we also had a full agency arm. That was insane. That one’s resting right now put that to rest for a little bit. Because my motto was more money, less headache. And that branch of the company was more money, more headache, it was more money. It was profitable. It was just more headache so much. I was like, there’s so many people who do this so well. I don’t need to I do my thing really well. And that strategy, never done the same one twice is no cookie cutter here. There’s no just do this magic. It’s like these are the foundational principles or frameworks now how do these apply to you, in your business, in your industry, with your unique selling proposition, your unique assets and abilities, who your audience is, what your personality is what you have in terms of staff and bandwidth and help you you are unique little snowflake. So as your business and so is your strategy. Take it out of a cannon pouring it out doesn’t work anymore. By the way, if anything, it’s always been a temporary plastic button. I won’t look for the low marketing button, they can just press and magic comes out. And sometimes they find it but it’s made of plastic, press it enough time to think cracks and it breaks and it cannot be replaced. And you go looking for another one. And those buttons are expensive. And they don’t last.

Heather Pearce Campbell  08:59

Right? Yeah, that marketing? I mean, we’ll get to that. I am curious when you spotted because at the beginning, you said you love taking people from confusion to clarity, right? What is it that you were spotting when you’re like, oh my gosh, there’s all these confused people running around. Share with me what your insights were at the time and what they’ve continued to be in regards to entrepreneurship and confusion. What are people getting wrong?

Estie Starr  09:31

So I would say even then, and it’s only gotten worse in the last 15 years, like I left my job in 2011. But I was doing this on the side a little before. So I’ve been doing this for almost 15 years now. What happened then, and now Baltimore is you get tons of conflicting advice and opinions. Because everyone’s convinced that their tool their method, their thing is the thing. And if you just do that right Shopify is like point click website. You don’t need anything else. Right? I don’t mean like, get a funnel, make a funnel, be an author, make an author funnel course, be an income millionaires, the cool girls and like it’s oh my gosh, like just sell Tupperware again, it’s fine, you know and everyone’s got the thing and they don’t match and they don’t think and then the financial coach tells you to do this with your budgeting but then the marketing person says, Well, you must have a much bigger budget. And then you hire the person who used to work for Coca Cola and Google them. They’re now a small business consultant because they can’t get coke and Google to hire them. But guess what, you don’t have the name recognition, or the budget of Coca Cola and Google so hiring their former marketing employee isn’t going to give you what you mean. And nobody has a clue what they’re doing. It made me so mad, and it made me mad I’ve already been. I’ve only made me madder as the years have gone by. And it’s gotten worse. Listen, I don’t know how to build a house. Right? If you put me somewhere in the middle of nowhere, at best, I could make some kind of temporary shelter. But I do know the difference between a plumber and an electrician and a contractor. I know difference between blueprints. I know the difference between an architect and an interior designer. I know that in business people don’t. My big vision. And the mission that I’m on is that that level of clarity is available to everyone who wants to start a business who wants to turn a talent hobby skill certification idea into money, that information is not available now. In the same way. Yeah, there’s different ways to build houses. But we understand these are just different material. It’s a level of clarity that even if I can’t build a house, I knew who I need to hire, I know what kind of people need to help me and I know the basic moving parts. And I’m never going to call a plumber and be like, okay, just put the lights in. Never gonna ask my web designer to just run my social media, but which they say sure, why not more money for me? Oh, no, they’re not even malicious. They don’t know. Nobody knows. And the stuff is so fast, that without the foundational principles guiding you, it’s almost impossible to keep up, you really do need entire teams. That’s what the big companies have. Little guys don’t have that kind of budget. They don’t have that kind of bandwidth. And so the only answer you really have is understanding how this stuff works. When you do that you know what to do and where to go and who to bring in and what to delegate to them and what not. Don’t tell the plumber to do your wiring. Don’t tell your social media person to build your website. And don’t tell the Instagram expert, your LinkedIn is gonna mess it up. Even if they’re not trying to because they don’t understand. They don’t even know what they don’t know. Like, oh, I know Instagram, LinkedIn. That’s also social media, right? Oh, Where’s the feed? What? Where’s the page? But there’s no.

Heather Pearce Campbell  12:35

Well, and I hear you loud and clear, right? People looking in the wrong places, hiring the wrong people. It seems obvious in certain circumstances, like I’ve talked to folks who, you know, like, ended up consulting with me. And they’ve got legal terms on their sites. And I asked them, Where did these come from? Like, where did you get these? Like, oh, hadn’t my web designer put them on there? Right. And I’m just like, you know, that seems so obvious. And yet the number of times I’ve heard that one example is does your web designer also practice law? Like, do they know the rules that you are supposed to be living by in your business? You know, it is fascinating. And I think people do it to various extents. So how do I mean on that point of like working with and hiring the right people for the right things? How do people do this better, right? And I’m hearing you say, like, obviously, a huge gap is business fundamentals.

Estie Starr  13:41

Yeah, marketing fundamentals. Yeah, this is not something you have to be born with. You can learn this. It’s a discipline. There are so many programs out there now not just online, offline anywhere, right? Training programs that give people a monetizable skill, right? You can learn to be a coach, you can learn to be a holistic practitioner, you can learn to be a chiropractor, you can go to school for tons of different things, right? Go to bookkeeping school, I don’t know if their skill for bookkeeping, but like all these different skills or tools, or sometimes you’re just born with it, right? Really talented organizers Baker’s right, you have something that can be monetized that other people would be happy to pay for. And then coming out of these programs that teach you this skill over a period of weeks to month, two years, like okay, now go make it a business. I’m sorry, making a business is its own skill. Marketing is its own skill, and you don’t have to do it yourself, but you have to understand it. All successful marketing is a stitching together of branding, marketing and sales. Your brand is the essence that guides your marketing that tells you what kind of marketing you’re gonna do. Your marketing includes your offer and the pricing what you’re selling and how you’re getting attention. And then if you just do marketing, which is getting the attention, you still need to sell you splendid close deals. All those three components stitch together. Your messaging for your sales comes from your branding. And the more you do your marketing and get out there more it infuses and reinforces your brand’s I’ve created a visual graphic organizer that we use in all of our classes and with our clients. And it’s a flower. I’ve had one of my guys who’s one of our certified consultants when the program he’s like, let’s do it something more visually for my client. They didn’t want to do the flower too girly, to try to make a baseball metaphor, but it didn’t work for that we’re just really works like, Thank you. You’re welcome. I didn’t make this by accident. And I’m one of the least girly girls. I know. Very strongly feminine, but like Holly feminine, not like flowers. But the flower just made sense. Because we’re talking organic. How do you grow something organically? How do you just make it so they just pour some water on it, get some sunlight and it works. And the flower was the best metaphor I could find. That makes the thing makes sense. The seat is your brand. That’s your core brand. It’s underground, nobody sees it, your brand is not your logo, your brand is not your name. Those are just graphic and linguistic representations. your brand’s is the essence of what’s unique about you that serves your audience, then you’ve got the center of the flower, that’s the people, the stem that connects you the problem you solve for them. Now, if you don’t have a solid unique value proposition, know who you’re trying to sell to, and something that connects you, that’s a problem you’re solving, you have no foundation, you got a dead flower, you can tape it and glue it and do all the things you want. But it will not grow. And you will have to put money on it and just take more things to it to make it bigger will not grow by itself. Then we have all the pedals or the what I call the six P’s of marketing, positioning product price. Presence, which we changed over the years used to be placed, we’ve switched it because again, the principles work but the world changes. And so place became presence now. And then we have promotion and process which is sales process. And so this is what we use to help explain to our clients, the seeds underground, you plant it, this is your Genesis, those roots, those are all your branding elements, your brand story, and it’s your vision and your mission, it’s all you will not find le any elements of marketing out there. And well it isn’t somewhere on this flower. So it gives a place for everything you know where it is. And then once you know even a little bit who you are, you figure out your people what you’re trying to do for them. Now you can build marketing. Now flowers on its face to the sunshine shine his face to the public, in that it absorbs the light gets the feedback builds the brand stronger, they reinforce each other, they’re not the same. And sales is that NPS that pulls it together, sometimes they’ll get brought in by bigger companies, because they become so diffused. They’ve hired some branding agency that knows nothing about them. They’ve got a marketing department sales department, they never talk to each other, they basically just got a ripped apart flowers just like flying everywhere. And they’re like, well, we spend a few million on marketing. And you know, it’s kind of working maybe, but we think we can do better yet, of course you can do it better. Of course you can do it better put back together. But back together, we need to talk to each other, you know, small business owners, I don’t need you to do it. I don’t need you to be salesy. I don’t need your marketing. I don’t need you to be on social media, not you don’t even have to hire somebody or I don’t need you to do any. There’s no requirements, except to follow the foundational principles that make all businesses work, which is have something unique and different to offer to a group of people who wants it and is willing to pay for it, present the right thing in the right way to them and then know how to explain to them and close the deal and deliver the end. That’s inside every business, everything else decoration, get the core thing solid. And then we can decorate your business, how do you like, and you can hire and delegate to your heart’s content. But if you don’t know the basics, you can only go wrong hiring it out. Because one of two things will happen. There are no other options. Either you will hire wrong, because the blind are leading the blind, you don’t know and they don’t know they’re gonna mess it up and you don’t even know they’re messing it up. You’re like, oh, well, you know, I’ve paid my few $1,000 And they told me I just, you know, probably 10,000 More, a couple more months, something’s gonna work. And then maybe you’re disappointed, maybe not. But nobody knows, you don’t know, they don’t, nobody knows. Okay, that’s one option. The other option is you got lucky, they’re really good. And they really know what they’re doing. And you cannot replace them because you have no idea how they do it, they own you. Now, you work for them. And whenever they ask you for more money, you got to pay it because you don’t know how to replace them. You don’t know how to find anybody liked them. There is no other option. You either get it wrong or you get it, right? You’re stuck either way. As soon as you understand it. A you’re much less likely to hire a moron who doesn’t know what they’re doing. And when you hire someone competent, you’re overseeing them properly. And then if the relationship doesn’t work, at some point, it doesn’t work and you hire somebody else to replace them. That little level of understanding how it works changes the game. I’m big on empowerment. It’s just part of who I am. Stand in your own shoes stands up straight. Alright, you provide value you will receive value in return. Usually often in the form of money, you will be able to hire the right people so you don’t have to do things you don’t want to do and the thing will just work. That is life saving when you get the right people to build a house. They will and it will stand and all the moving parts will be there. And you want to ask your interior designer to do your plumbing? Because that makes no sense. Oh, you can design websites. Could you also custom code this for me? Yeah. Oh, sure. Designer quickly hires team in India to build thing that never ever ever works from day one. But you keep funneling money into because someone keeps promising you it. Well, that’s you asking your interior designer to do your plumbing. That’s all.

Heather Pearce Campbell  20:28

Real? I mean, it still seems to me and I know you have this model, it feels simple to you. But I know people listening are still experiencing the like, oh, my gosh, it’s still a lot of moving parts to get right, right. Where is there a place aside from hiring the wrong people, where people are like, the entrepreneurs that you’re working with, are taking a misstep? I mean, I’m even wondering how many people are stuck in coming up with the right offer, right, something that has actual demand behind it? Where are you spending the most time working out kinks initially, as you walk people through this process.

Estie Starr  21:11

I’d say I spent the most time on the foundation with people because once we get the foundation, right, the core brand, the problem we solve in the audience, the other pieces fall into place much easier, I find that people get very stuck in a few places. Firstly, in finding what is a real unique value proposition, especially when you get into some of the more flooded spaces. So you’ve got a fitness trainer who lives in a neighborhood where they’re 30 other fitness trainers and they don’t have any idea how to stand out. You have a coach who’s working online in it. They’re a bereavement coach, their life coach, their divorce coach, their business coach them, right? There’s something coach in a planet where there are millions of coaches pitching the same people, what is the unique thing about you? How do you understand that? And then how you communicate that what’s your messaging, but so many people try to make their quote unquote, messaging without ever understanding what they’re trying to message? What’s the thing you’re trying to say, that is unique about you? And why should someone else care? Now, who are the people, and I find that that then the second piece into me at all stitches together, right, because if the thing that’s unique about you doesn’t solve a problem for someone who wants to pay for it, and there aren’t at least a couple of those someone’s enough want to pay or willing or able to pay enough to keep you floating, you don’t have a business, you have a very expensive hobby, which is often disappointing and frustrating, which is a shame, because the reality is there’s more than enough business to go around more than enough money for everybody. And you have something very valuable to contribute. And there’s someone next door on the other side of town on the other side of the planet just waiting for you and looking for you. If you could only communicate this properly and know how to find them. And I find every time we unlock that it works, that that is the first unlock because then I can just show you, how do you do promotion? How do you do it low cost or no cost? or minimally? And then how you scale it up? How do you close deals? How do you sell without being salesy, like, oh, that’s when I unlock this piece. So many be like, well, I can do it for anybody. That’s nice. But when you’re everything for everyone, you’re nothing for no one, I need you to picture a real person in your mind. If you can’t, that’s part of why this isn’t working. If you can’t design, when we call an avatar or to target avatar, our target avatar is a design of a real human. If this isn’t you yourself a couple years ago, or last week, or still today that you’re because we’re always good at solving problems for others, we can solve for ourselves, right? If this isn’t someone that you can really relate to, it’s your friend, your neighbor, your sibling, your uncle, I don’t care. Someone in the community, a group of if you have never identified the basic person that this is for, and then we stereotype because that’s what marketers do. Racial profiling was a marketing discipline long before it was security. I made that up might not be but in marketing, it’s still what everyone does every day. And it’s not about just what you find in a sentence. Yes, you are looking at age and education and demographics and income status and race, ethnicity, religion, not to the point of exclusion to the point of understanding people come from different places, they live different lives. They have different internal programs and and wiring and an internal dialogue. You know, you need to speak to your people in language, they can understand that you can speak it they can understand you. So you’re looking for the kind of person you can connect to first, what are their externals? And then what are their internals what’s their psychographic? How do they think? How do they feel? What’s their challenge? You know, in an our three day challenge, which I’ll share with everyone at the end, free access to we talked about the 2am problem. It’s one of the most revolutionary concepts I’ve gotten so much feedback on because the 2am Pro One is what your ideal ideal target avatar, right? So we have the ideal and the less ideal. Your ideal avatar is laying awake in bed at night at two in the morning going, I don’t know how to solve this, I don’t know how to solve this, I haven’t figured it out, I can’t figure it out and making them crazy. So like, my avatars 2am. Problem is, they keep wasting money on marketing, and they can’t figure it out. They know they’re wasting it. They don’t know how to do it better to in the morning line are going I have a dream. I have a dream for my life for my family, or what I want to do I have a dream for something I want to contribute to the world. And I cannot figure this out. I’m like, I got you. I got you that. And it took me years to figure out the 2am Prom that I can solve other people’s, you know, a couple of weeks. But it took me years to figure out mine. And then to figure out how to do that. For others. It’s a whole I’ve done 12 and a half 1000 hours of one on one business coaching in the last decade and a half. So I meet a lot of people like oh, oh, your business coach, I don’t need to I think they’re good doing it two years. How about you? I’m like 15? Yeah, it’s cool, right? Yeah, no, I love it in a minute. But figuring out who your person is, so that you can communicate with us, you know where they are? Because otherwise you’re just spraying and praying and it doesn’t work? No, no, it never really did. But if you have a big enough budget, and you spray it enough, and enough places something would come through. And when there was less competition, and you were the only show in town, you know, I get some clients, I would say most people come to me within their first five years in business, that’s probably the majority, right? Because they haven’t cracked the code they’re trying to try and it’s not working. I do get a significant percentage 10 to 20%, depending on the year, who’ve been in business 10-20 years. And they used to have a thing that worked. Now it doesn’t the competitive market change. You know, some of them are brick and mortars, I work primarily with service businesses, but it’s all good a brick and mortar, they were literally the only show in town. There was no other store. And with building, you know, competition with online, it was getting a little harder, but still, and then the second another store opens nearby, they’re done. They had no competitive advantage other than I’m the only store here, and suddenly they need something more. And the same goes for some of my service professionals. They weren’t verse show intent, and someone came and showed them up. And now they’re like, I don’t, I don’t have my thing. And they don’t even realize what it is they lost what they lost was their unique value proposition. That unique value proposition was only show in town. That’s what it was. If you don’t have anything more than that, then as soon as you’re not the only show in town, you lost it. Some people’s thing is I’m the cheapest show in town. Or I’m the most expensive. And then as soon as something cheaper or someone more pricey and gets away with it comes in, you lost it. And you need to know how to find that thing and then communicate it to the right people. There’s always a way to come out of it

Heather Pearce Campbell  27:55

Always. Yeah, well. And I imagine that it’s a bit of a journey, especially for those starting out trying to figure out what is it that makes me unique? Because to some extent, you just have to do the work to sort that out. Right?

Estie Starr  28:11

And it’s the work, listen, sometimes you can figure it out yourself. Sometimes you need a guide. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t be in business this long. All right. I’m not the only person who does this. I’m one of the very few who does it in the small business space. In a way that’s affordable. There are very few of us, most people. And the people have said to me so many times over the years, they’re like, well, you’re really good. Why are you still working with small businesses? Like I said that line a lot, because I love them. And this is where our lives change, right? Putting me out a multinational corporation. I haven’t done that. Like that doesn’t. That doesn’t get me excited in the morning to wake up. But when I get a testimonial from someone who’s like, I just bought a house for the first time. And we have a stable home for our family. Now, when I get a message from someone who’s like, I’ve just taken off to go traveling for the next six months, because now I can have the budget and I can work remotely thanks to you. And I’m in love with life. Now I wake up in the morning. Yeah, they did. That just feels like purpose to me. So there are people who can help. But part of it is yes, you sit down and you think, what could it be? And then you test. You know, at one point for me I was having a bit of an identity crisis, because I started my business in a very small community where I was, and then I kind of maxed it out. I became very well known and I was like, Okay, now like okay, and saturated it but I was like more, I’m ready for more. And so I went from being a big fish in a little pond to being a medium ish smallest fish and a giant ocean and I was like, who am I? What do I stand for? I don’t know. Do all these new people care about what I is what I offer anything unique to them? Because I didn’t know my people. And I wasn’t clear on my value where I was coming from I was clear I had to get to know new people. I’d get to know new problems. That’s good to see. So at one point, my essence is I can turn anything into money, and I help you earn more. By doing less, you will earn more, you will spend less, our tagline has always been more money, less headache. This is my essence more for less. It’s what I believe in. It’s, I’m an efficiency person, this is what I love. And listen, if you’ve got a million dollars to burn, I know so many people are happy to burn it for you. I not that person. You know, I’m like you call me when you got $100,000 You need to stretch it like a million or you’ve got 10 $15,000 You need it to work like 50 or 100. And then I’m the person you call me, you’ve got a million and you can just burn it. I got lots of calls for you. Like there’s so many people who are good at that. They’ll burn it and they’ll make you feel good in the process. You’ll be on a billboard somewhere locomotive built, you’ll do nothing. Okay, if your bottom line, but you’ll feel great. They’ll burn it for you. You’ll feel fantastic. That’s their specialty, not mine. And so where was I going with this? There was a phrase I forgot. Oh, yeah, I remember. So I was having an identity crisis. And so instead of using my regular tagline, right, I help business owners earn more money with less headache, because I’m like, What if people in the big ocean don’t care about this? FYI, I figured out they do. What do I stand for? What am I about this is probably going back like like six, seven years now. As we were starting to scale up and need to have this instead of like, oh my gosh, working with me is like a major paradigm shift. Right? You think business is one thing and you think marketing is one thing and I had a guy call me yesterday. He’s like, so what like you helped me find cheap advertising outlets. I’m like, No, occurred that so far. But like just completely different perspective, right? Just because they have no knowledge of what the expansiveness of this is, and how simple it is, and how much more there is to that advertising. That is 1% of one of 10% is 10% of 10. So it’s 1% of the whole are there 10 moving parts in a marketing strategy. 1/10 of that is advertising and promotion. And 1/10 of advertising and promotion is some kind of print ad or advertising outlets. So I could help you do that. But I might not need to because your business might be full without it before we even touch that it’s completely different way of operating. Anyways. So like paradigm shift, a change the way people see and understand themselves and their value and their business and their people and how they serve and how to communicate. And I was like, Oh my gosh, it’s like putting on different glasses. And I was like, I’m brilliant. This is the smartest metaphor ever. And so I start getting on calls. I’m always on calls. When I start getting on calls with people, lead calls and networking calls. And we’re like, oh, yeah, so what do you do? And I’m like, Well, I’m like wearing a new pair of glasses. You don’t like testing out my metaphor. People like you sell glasses. I thought you’d do business and marketing consulting. And like five people in a row were just so completely confused. I was like, Oh, this doesn’t work at all. And by the way, I do this all day. I was wrong. It lasted. It lasted me a few days, because I was so attached to my brilliant metaphor that it was so cute. So it took me a couple of days and probably about a dozen phone calls for me to be like, Oh, this doesn’t work at all. So yeah, think sit, iterate, get excited about something tested, it flops trust, because it has the land yet to get out there and it has the land, and it can’t land just where someone’s like, Oh, that’s nice. Um, so what are you doing for dinner? Like, that’s the land where it opens a conversation gets someone actually interested in your services, for money for money. You know, I’ve gotten calls from people all the time, they can get people to take their services for free. Hey, like, yes. So once again, expensive hobby, not a business. Business has a value exchange, where either cash for measured services are being offered, or goods private, this is the kind of exchange of goods and or services and their cash value is being exchanged. So whatever you’re selling isn’t landing on people as valuable enough to give in exchange for other than some of their time. And that’s not enough for you to build a business. And so yes, we go out there, we figure it out. We test it, we refine it until it makes sense. And it lands and it is a process does not happen immediately for anybody.

Heather Pearce Campbell  34:04

Well and I’m so glad because I do think some people are surprised even by the challenge of that. They think like, Oh, I’ve got an idea that I’d love or people will love this. And there’s a disconnect, and they have to go sort through that. I love that you mentioned I think 10 to 20% of your clients are more established, right? So those are folks that have been around a while there’s either a shift in the marketplace, a shift in the demand new competition until something happens and what was working is no longer working. Or maybe what was working was never working quite as well as they wanted it to work. Like maybe there was that too.

Estie Starr  34:43

But it didn’t matter. Right. So again, sometimes I’m going to thinking through if I have like a mental Rolodex of my clients, sometimes it’s because of their own growth. Like I’m thinking of one of my clients was a SAS right? A software service. And they had one core product and it was going so well they added on another one and another one and another one and then it was so confusing. They would get potential clients or customers for their software. And they didn’t know how to pitch them or what to pitch them in their sales, people were confused. Their branding became messy. So was good. And it was their growth. That messed them up in a way, right? So we refined the brand, refine the sales pitch or find a path that made it makes sense. So anyway, sometimes the changes are internal. They’re not even external, nothing happened to them in the marketplace. It was their own business growth and expansion and adding on all these extra pieces that confused what they were. They didn’t know who they were. Yeah, and what they stood for. But yeah, sometimes expectations changing needs change, also, right? So what you’re earning, sometimes, listen, I was living abroad, for the first four or five years of my business, and then moved to Los Angeles, where everything was four times as much money, everything. And that was a huge change. Because what I was earning abroad, would maybe pay my rent for a few months, like it was not all different. I had to I had to learn a whole new game, I had to learn a new country. And I had to get a completely different income level than I ever expected to have to earn in my life.

Heather Pearce Campbell  36:14

Well, and it’s such an important I mean, I love that you point out like sometimes it’s the external factors. Sometimes it’s the internal ones and internal growth or internal changes. When that let’s pretend that we’re talking to some folks who are more established who are thinking like, gosh, maybe I need to revisit this. What is the point that they reach out to you like, what is the conversation that they’re having with themselves, where they realize like, something really needs to change.

Estie Starr  36:41

They’ll tell you what’s interesting, most of the time, those people will reach out to a branding agency, they think they just need to rebrand. And I work closely with a lot of graphic design and branding agencies and marketing agencies who get clients who come to them for a strategy problem, not an execution problem. These are implementation agencies, they will make you the pretty thing. But you need an underlying strategy for that thing to work. And so very often, those clientele will come to me through another branding or marketing agency. Strategy. They think they just need a rebrand. We’ve grown it’s time for us to update. Our previous marketing campaign isn’t working, let’s get a new agency, the new agency is like us, because nothing you’re doing makes any sense. Yeah. And we’re not here to make sense of it. We’re here to make pretty things in campaigns, call Estie. She’ll make sense of it, then come back to us. We’ll make it pretty, thanks.

Heather Pearce Campbell  37:36

Oh, man, I think you’ve just described I mean, in your business and perspective of problem that I think so many service providers fit face, which is people going up, like a potential client thinking like, Oh, I just have this, this problem. And it looks like this right? Or they have a dentist identified something as a problem. That’s not really a problem.

Estie Starr  37:58

Every industry, I remember interviewing a podiatrist on my podcast, and I think I was explaining one of these principles in marketing. And he’s like Estie, this exact people come to us. And they’ll first go to a shoulder doctor if they think it’s a shoulder but it’s a foot issue. And so I forgot what they’re called the shoulder doctors will refer them to the podiatrist or the comfortable attaches for something that’s really a back issue or a hip issue, and if not on the foot, but their foots hurting because their hips out, you know, so business is not different marketing, but none of these disciplines are different. The pieces all work together. If your marketing is not working, it’s either incomplete or misaligned. There are no other options. You’re either missing a piece that you just don’t have, or you’ve somehow gotten misaligned over the years where the branding, marketing sales are not lining up. Your offer is not the right amount for your people. The messaging isn’t matching, the closing something is Miss Mac, you have all the parts, but something’s mismatch. Those are the only two things that could be wrong with it. We do a lot of audits. We show you the missing need. And it’s like, oh, I didn’t realize any of that. He said, Oh, I used to have that piece and I got rid of it. Or Oh, you mean we can’t try to have a really high end brand but then do a low ticket offer because someone said we should do a low ticket funnel right? No, don’t do that. Makes no sense. You mess anything up? No, because then you just listen. The spoon is not the recipe. Yeah, the backup is really good news phone and I used it to mix my soup and it was delicious. That’s adorable. It was Estie.

Heather Pearce Campbell  39:22

Yes. I was talking with a friend in business who is like her clients are million plus in revenue a year like a little bit more established for the small business like solo shops, right? But she was looking to target them through like a free challenge. Right? And we were talking about is this what they’re spending their time doing? No, it’s not gonna do that. But it was like so just so many people in her circles were like challengers, challengers, challengers, and this is where I think it’s so important for people to like sit back and take a breath big because so often they are choosing these little isolated tactics or strategies and, you know, looking at parts and pieces and they really don’t have the whole…

Estie Starr  40:11

Totally misaligned work and then you sit and you’re like, but I did it just like the other person. I met a guy at a networking event over the weekend. And he’s trying to launch a a production. It was like a Hollywood he kind of people in the industry, as they say, and is launching like a small thing, film thing that he made. And he’s like, looking for guerilla marketing strategies. And he’s like, well, this person did pop up shops. I think I’m gonna do that. I’m like, Why? Why did they do pop? What about their pop ups? Work? I don’t know. They just did pop ups. I’m gonna do pop ups. That’s probably not gonna work. Why did they do what about their pop ups? Or where did they do? When did they do it? What are they? Yes, details. You’re just he’s just gonna go hire a company. They’re gonna run these little pop up things for him. He’s gonna spend 2030 $50,000 is gonna do fall. Listen, you might get lucky. Most likely, it’ll do nothing. And the company, they don’t care. They’re experts in running popups. He has hired them. It is not their job to figure out if it’s going to earn him anything. They make no promises. He’s convinced because the competitor did it. This to me is the biggest problem in small business marketing. It’s the copycat monkey see monkey do. This is not how it works. Right? I have this metaphor that I made up. I feel like explains it’s imagine it’s this hot summer day, or I live in LA. Yes. hot summer day, you open the street and you see this little snow cone stand on the corner. And it’s a line like around the block to buy the snow cones. You’re like, Alright, there’s more than enough business to go around. I’m gonna open another one right across the street. So you’re gonna open you’re almost no Constanze block away. Crickets. Nobody’s coming to you. They’re all by another guy. Why you thought he was selling snow cones. Those are icebergs. You saw the tippity top thing, you have no idea what people are standing there, all you saw was the snow cone. You know nothing about what’s actually making that thing work. And this has been true for marketing for the 15 years I’m doing it used to be that logos were the big deal or print ads. Now it’s the digital stuff, right? So everyone needs a sales funnel, they need to get on all the social platform that’s been growing for a while. They you know, again, so if we go in decades, right? When I started this probably decade and a half ago, it was the logo and the branding. That was the thing. And when you the right logo was such a big deal. And a lot of people were doing print ads or flyering. Like that, because digital was being born stalled, right, Facebook was still baby to like rocket in a cradle. And then it became socials and web. And they kind of like kept teetering. Like, it was social. It was web, it’s so it was where it was like I need I need socials. And so like, you know, every six months or so, like push ahead, analysis, the whole world of digital plus sales funnels plus online programs. And all we do is layer these tactics. monkey see monkey do. And if you have the foundational strategy, you can add on whatever you want. We have a strategy for social media, we launched a tick tock just for fun, I did it for a month, a couple years ago, our first post 1000 views 500 likes 100 followers in the first few hours. Now, the study ticked off because I know social media because I understand algorithms. I don’t need to hire a tick tock team. And I did bring in people who understood tiff but also I brought in a 19 and a 21 year old I was like show me the things that I don’t know yet that are specific to tick tock now let me layer what you know about tick tock with what I know about social media marketing. Now we have magic. So in all I need to learn is the details. This is not an intro, this is not a new thing. Social media or social mediums of communication, Deborah in the same principles. So when you understand the foundational principles of marketing, all you need to learn is like it’s the cake decoration. It’s the little icing on top. So yeah, you need to learn this slightly new flavor. That’s not a lot. The foundational stuff works ever every time.

Heather Pearce Campbell  44:01

Well, there’s so much that I love about your description of first of all, what the marketplace does to people, right? It feels a little like schizophrenia, like over here over here, do this up, down sideways. And to me what it sounds like is much more of like less of the outside in strategy and more of the inside out right knowing who you’re for, what you’re about what you’re doing, where you’re headed, and really designing it not based on what you’re hearing from the marketplace, but like you said, understanding fundamentals and making a strategy that is a fit for you for your business. And you know what everybody else is doing over there over there is not necessarily.

Estie Starr  44:52

Suggestions. I had a woman on the phone the other day. So when people are getting started they get stuck on the marketing usually. Right? You can’t break $100,000, marketing is the thing that’s breaking you. Alright, so we fix that once people start getting into like the upper five figures, and even the low six figures, if they’re a one person show or they’ve got one assistant, the system start getting to them. And they start really being successful in their breaking six figures or multiple, six figures, and they never cracked the system’s code. I was a systems and operations manager, I’ve come in as a fractional CFO will do systems first for them. And so that’s when she’s already like, you know, nearing the six figures, and she needs her systems down, because now she wants to scale up. And so get on a boat. She’s like, I’m being courted by three different, you know, funnel companies, like, first of all, all three of those former companies are white labeling the exact same foundational software. I know it because it’s what everyone’s white labeling right now. So I don’t even have to hear their names. I was like, they’re all white labeling high level done. Finish next. And you might not need any of them. She’s like, what? I’m just trying to pick out which ones to go with. I’m like, you might need none. Why do you need that? Well, because I think, and what’s the plan for that, and we’re just missing all the pieces. None of those people are wrong. And all the people who are building businesses on the back of high level power to him, I’m so happy, amazing. Go for it. There’s so many people you can help. And for those of you thinking to purchase any of these services, really clear on your goals and your needs. Don’t just be like, Well, I’m drowning here. This isn’t working. This person looks like a little lifesaver. Oh, hold on. See if I get to Sure. That’s not how it works. Yeah. So it’s an everything is not just marketing. Understand your needs, understand the marketplace, understand the tools that are available. If you don’t get it, hire someone, and I’m not the only person like this, hire someone who can help guide you to make the right decisions. Who isn’t attached to any one tool or service getting objective voice? Yeah, well, the subject of voices are just going to sell you their shiny object, you need an objective voice to help you choose which shiny or less shiny object is going to serve you the best.

Heather Pearce Campbell  47:02

It’s exactly what I walk clients through when I talk about their business from the standpoint of a legal map, like nobody’s ever just given you the legal map to your business here. Let me give it to you, right, and I’ve got free resources that do that, blah, blah, blah. Like from that point, you will make better decisions, when you understand whether you work with me whether you go somewhere else in the marketplace, and I’m happy and very willing to talk with people about other options in the marketplace and where certain things might make sense. And where budgetarily if they are working within a limit, like what what could they do right for their business within that. So I think that, you know, the Educate first approach, which it sounds like you probably do a fair amount of right, so that people are understanding where their decision making is really breaking down. Because so often I see people, not even necessarily a wrong strategy, but it’s an out of order strategy.

Estie Starr  48:03

Non-strategy. People call tactics, strategies, like I have a marketing strategy. It’s called postings on Instagram, that that’s tactic. That’s not strategy.

Heather Pearce Campbell  48:13

That’s right.

Estie Starr  48:14

You’re gonna make a right turn, only you’re trying to get from here to there all you want to kind of make a right turn, you’re like, why am I going in circles? I have no idea. Maybe because you only learned how to make a right turn. One tool is not the answer.

Heather Pearce Campbell  48:28

Right? Well, and this is it at one tool, even one expert, one whatever. Like, I think so many people are, like you said, looking for that solution trying to hook on to it. And it’s like, no, you have to back up, you have to get the other stuff, right, that stuff is not going to matter. If your messaging is wrong, your offer is wrong, the language that you’re using to talk to.

Estie Starr  48:52

People, they have amazing testimonials, right? So I say there are four different kinds of marketers, and this is you’ll you’ll probably relate to this in the legal space as well, because it’s really in all kinds of expert help. But in marketing, it’s easy for me to demonstrate it. So you have a call in the mix. And just know which one of the legs you’re dealing with is already a good beginning. So M stands for morons. They’re not malicious. They’re just clueless right? They saw some tick tock somewhere or some girl is like, oh my god laundering 10k A month being a social media manager just go on Upwork charge $1,000 A person and social media manager get 10 clients. And so they do that and you hire them and nobody has a clue. Okay, those are morons. They took a one week course on Google Maps. Now they’re a Google Maps marketing experts. You know, they just don’t even have a clue. They mean, well, they’re just trying to build their own business and help you clueless completely morons. Amazing. We can hire them when you’re really competent. They’re cheap. You can hire them. They’re inexpensive. You can boss them around, direct them, well, they can work. None of these people are people not to hire. It’s just knowing who to hire when and how to delegate. So those are morons. Then you have experts of industry. These are people do marketing for chiropractors, marketing for authors, marketing for coaches and consultants. Marketing for pianists, I don’t care. Okay. They typically are a former chiropractor, author pianists themselves, who has cracked the marketing code and will show you exactly what worked for them because it’ll work for you. If you’re just like them with the same problem and the same audience and the same solution is similar issues and same assets and abilities. I once had a chiropractor who was doing one of these marketing for chiropractor things. He was in LA, the service he was getting was in like nowhere Ville, Nebraska. And it was such a mismatch because it was marketing for a completely different kind of audience was one of these like marketing experts for chiropractors that chiropractors in the Midwest is completely different. So much money down the drain. Those are experts of industry if you are really an exact match to them, they’re fabulous follow their path they don’t know all of marketing they cracked one path that one path works for you. Great that’s where their testimonials come from everybody else was falls off the rails and then wonder why because well this guy was successful must be neat. No must be you are not just like the expert. That’s the genius genius tacticians. I love the GS. They’re amazing partner with them all the time. Because they know one thing really well. They will show you Instagram, they will show you influencer marketing. I’ll show you Facebook groups or Facebook ad direct ROI sales, sales closing LinkedIn management, they will show you a really good tactic. They have the best spoon, or the really good magic spice that makes most recipes taste great. But they have this like magic ingredient where if your other stuff is set up. If you pour on the magic spice, you never turn the fire on work. Okay, so they have this thing that when you add it to something that’s already working well, it’s amazing. They’re not strategist, the SEO strategist, strategist, there are others. If you are not a strategist, and you’ve never made a proper strategy, which is the whole picture, you’re gonna want to have that before you get anybody else in and then hire to your heart’s content. I don’t need you to do it. I just need to understand how it works. I get so much resistance from business owners like I just want to hire it out. No problem. But you have to know it or you can lose one of two ways. But yeah, no way would you like to lose today?

Heather Pearce Campbell  52:14

No, this is it. And it’s exactly the reason from my perspective, I give away the map, I tell people their options, because they’re afraid of being bamboozled. They’re afraid like they’re afraid of hiring and working with the wrong people. But you have a means you have to be willing to learn enough about the topic that you know how to lead on that topic. You know how to hire you know how to make decisions. So, I hear you loud and clear, out of respect for your time, I feel like there’s obviously a lot in this bucket that we could be talking about on the business building path. I would love to know a couple things. One, what’s coming next for you. Talk to us a little bit what’s coming down the pipeline.

Estie Starr  52:58

So we have our consulting firm, we have our business school. And the next big thing is that we are now certifying other marketing consultants. So we’ve already done that. Under our own firm, I’ve taken people in certifying the methods and they’ve worked with our clients. We’ve already taught small business owners and other marketers in the business school. This is a way for me to help give other people a significant income boost, and serve so many more small businesses, that me and my team don’t have the bandwidth or even the expertise for you know what one of our CMCS is an expert in E commerce. I’m not an E commerce expert. I’m a strategy expert, but teaching an E commerce expert my marketing strategy next level Tim and jumped his income multiple six figures within six months. So that’s what’s next for me is that like Win Win exponentially, getting other coaches and consultants out there in their own space to raise their income and their influence in their impact.

Heather Pearce Campbell  53:59

Oh, amazing. I love it when experts get to the point of getting their work out there in bigger ways that again, serves more people. Right brings sounds like those fundamentals to specific subgroups, specific industries, you know, wherever it wants to go, where for people that are listening, and they’re like, oh my gosh, you know, maybe that sounds amazing. Maybe you’re like build, the better the Better Business School, right? They’re like, Oh, maybe I should be in that. Where can people learn more about you and about your services what you’re up to in the world.

Estie Starr  54:34

So I would always recommend getting a free gift because I like free gifts. I’m that person. I don’t mind free presents as long as they’re useful. This is useful. If you go to estiestarr.com/freegifts yes E-S-T-I-E S-T-A-R-R.com/freegift which I don’t need to spell for you. F-R-E-E G-I-F-T estiestarr.com/freegift, you will see a three-day marketing success challenge because what’s there right now temporarily, we took the paywall off it, so you can access it for free. Before that there was something else that now has a paywall, so we rotate, if you go to estiestarr.com/freegift, they’ll always be free gift for you. And at the moment, it’s a 3D marketing success challenge, just to give you the basics, the basic overview and give you clarity and confidence how to market yourself successfully just like a little more about what we’ve talked about little more expansion on sales pitch and core brands and how to get out there and what kind of low cost and free promotion you have access to as an individual anywhere on this planet. You know, just some of the more foundational concepts and how everything intertwines. So start there.

Heather Pearce Campbell  55:40

Love it. And is that something that people can do virtually is it through email do they need to be showing up.

Estie Starr  55:46

Also, there’s pre-recorded trainings which are meet and we deliver it via email. So you sign in, then you land on a little video of me talking think I had some braids in my hair at the time I was like heavy in my Mexico fate and a little lighter now that like my shell necklace, and like my braids.

Heather Pearce Campbell  56:07

You still…

Estie Starr  56:09

It’s still me. There’s many versions of Estie on the internet. It’s fun. There’s a straight haired one. The straight haired one is still wearing the same glasses. Like that’s not you is it I’m like seeing glasses look like this.

Heather Pearce Campbell  56:21

The straight haired.

Estie Starr  56:23

Prescription. But yeah, videos, and then we send you an email every day. It gives you access to the next day’s training. You’ll be all set. Doing it on time at your own pace.

Heather Pearce Campbell  56:34

Folks, if you’re listening, we are going to share Estie’s link, including to her links with an S to her three-day challenge or marketing success challenge to your upcoming program. If that’s the length that you want to share, Estie as well as your do show up on social media. Would you like us to?

Estie Starr  56:51

We’ve put social media on pause at the moment. But I am there, you can follow me on Instagram, on LinkedIn. I think last time I checked Facebook was two-three years ago, even checking for my birthday last two years. So you can follow me there. But I’ll never see you. Occasionally, and I will be coming back within the year. But we’re working on so many things internally, and with partners and with our clients and our students. So if you go to the marketing success challenge on my email list, I am in communication with my email list. And then I’ll show back up on social soon, like I have a plan. But we do things. I’m a strategist that do things in pieces. And I’m not going to because I went off social for personal reasons during my divorce a couple years ago. This is working for me being off of here.

Estie Starr  57:14

Rght? That’s like one of my main life goals. Yes, I know.

Estie Starr  57:48

By default, I didn’t mean to but once it was done, I was like, I’m happy here and I’m not going back to them good and ready.

Heather Pearce Campbell  57:54

Well, it’s good. It’s why I like to ask I asked a gentleman a couple of interviews ago. So you know, are you on social media? Do you like for people to connect there? And he was like, No, I do not like for people to connect with me there. I was like, great. This is why I asked, where would you like to send them? So that’s great. If you are listening, be sure to jump in get access to her three day marketing success challenge. You can watch maybe she’ll be back on social media, but…

Estie Starr  58:23

She will eventually, yeah, reboot the podcast and all the things right? So you can also check out the business few 100 episodes after years and a half years.

Heather Pearce Campbell  58:35

Totally. So we’ll share a link over to your podcast. It sounds like you are resource rich. And so I’m excited for people to go explore some of what you’ve put together and what’s kind of coming their way. Any final thoughts or tips or just like go do this one thing kind of advice that you want to leave people with?

Estie Starr  58:56

Yeah, here’s my final advice. I started my business with a dream that no one believed in but me. I was in my 20s as before every 20 year old was a business consultant. Okay. That’s 15 years ago. I’m a minute older than I look. And I was discouraged. But I had a dream. And when I started I had this dream of building a full service consulting firm. When I started, I was just a freelancing coach. That’s all I was, in essence. But I never lost sight of my dream. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they laid a brick every day. To just keep going, if you keep going, you will get there. There’ll be twists and turns that you never dreamed up. But if you don’t give up, you will get there. And when you shoot for the moon, you do reach the stars. Keep going. And I’ve seen this not just for myself, hundreds of clients 1000s of students. The only way you lose is if you give up. No one nothing can ever give up on you. You only lose your dream if you give it up. So if you want it just don’t give it up. Just keep going to rest verses will present themselves the path will present itself. Take advantage of whatever shows up that makes sense to you in terms of guidance, I’ve always had a coach, I’ve always had a guy, get a guide, get the best guide you can afford.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:00:13

Absolutely. I love that. I love that so much. I mean, obviously the podcast is called guts, grit and great business. And I launched it at a time where I just wanted people to keep going, I knew that small businesses were going to be impacted. So it was pre pandemic, like immediately pre pandemic. So, thank you so much Estie for joining us today. That was I will just call it a word packed hour. Folks, if you’re listening I hope you are really good at listening to fast talkers Estie packed it in and there’s a ton of value in there. Thank you, Estie. I really look forward to people popping over and connecting with you on your email list.

GGGB Outro  1:00:57

Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways, links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.