Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track

Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track with Cristal Balk

There is a plan for everything and that includes marketing. Think about how your strategies will lead you to your goals. Set measurable metrics to stay on track. We can't fix what we don't measure. Reevaluate strategies.

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About Cristal

Cristal is an Entrepreneur, Marketing Consultant, International Speaker, Podcaster, Magazine Publisher, and San Diego Leader for World Women Conference and Awards.

Cristal Balk is the Founder of Unstoppable Marketing Solutions where she consults her clients on reaching their marketing goals.

Her passion is to leave a legacy behind where more women will step out of their comfort zone and do what they are meant to do in this world! Cristal is the San Diego Leader for the World Women Conference and Awards where she helps women be innovative, educators, and to be change-makers for the San Diego Community.

Cristal has been featured in San Diego Voyager, USA Today, KCBQ The Answer, Telemundo, CNN, and many more. She is an Amazon #1 Best Seller for an international book called De Cero Al Exito which means from Zero to Success.

Website: unstoppablemarketingsolutions.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/Cristal-balk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/cristal.balk.3

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strate...

59:51

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, business, marketing, talking, book, plan, absolutely, day, important, world, clientele, success, women, bit, year, crystal, podcast, san diego, clients, literally

SPEAKERS

Cristal, Roy Barker – The Business of Business Podcast

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 00:03

Hello and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. This is Roy. Of course, our show is designed to bring a wide variety of guests on a set of diverse topics to you know, try to help small medium entrepreneurs solopreneurs any business that can really our business or manager or somebody that can take away something from this conversation and help them through their daily activities. So, without further ado, today, we will just jump right in. We're fortunate enough to have Cristal Balk is an opera entrepreneur, marketing consultant, international speaker podcaster magazine publisher and San Diego leader for World women conference and awards. Cristal is the founder of unstoppable marketing solutions, where she consults her clients on reaching their marketing goals. Her passion is to leave a legacy behind were more women will step out of their comfort zone and do what they are meant to do in this world. Cristal is the San Diego leader of the world women conference and awards where she helps women be innovative educators and to be change makers for the San Diego Community. Cristal has been featured in San Diego Voyer, USA Today, k CB, Q, the answer, Telemundo CNN and many more. She is also Amazon an Amazon number one bestseller with for an international book. And I'm gonna let her say the name it's a little bit a little bit complex for me. And basically, I think it's a Spanish, the title is in Spanish, and it means from zero to success. So without further ado, Cristal, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be here. I think that you know we we were all looking to go from that zero to success. So looking forward to talking to you to see what tips that you can give us today.

Cristal 02:09

Well, first of all, thank you, Roy, for having me today. It's been a pleasure to get to know you a little bit more and privileged to be on the podcast today. More importantly, being able to just, you know, give knowledge and information to people out there that want to learn and want to adjust and grow. You know, especially for 2021,

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 02:29

right? Yeah. And before we get too far down the line, could you pronounce if you could pronounce the name of your book, that way people can go out there on Amazon and look that up? That'd be great.

Cristal 02:40

Yeah, absolutely. It's called Del Cero Al Exito, which does mean from zero to success. We wrote it in Spanish birth, which we there are 16 others. So I'm one of them. I'm co author in that book, in which you have the book tours coming out soon to get them very excited for that. And then the English version is coming out this year. So we're very excited about that. That's great. I'll aim to give you one ROI. So you can get a signed version, that you can have it with you.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 03:12

Yeah, I would certainly appreciate. Thanks. That's Thank you so much. And, you know, it's, it's been interesting, I think the last six months, you know, I have interviewed a lot more young women. So, I mean, I think it's awesome. I think that it's great that you're, you know, involved with this world women conference. Because, yeah, we need to encourage, you know, young women coming out of college, to jump in, follow their passion, and do you know what they feel? Not, you know, I'm not that I'm kind of in that age group that, you know, when, when women came out of high school, it was more, you know, having family staying home, and there weren't a lot of options. But even more important, I don't think there were a lot of role models and a lot of paths for success. So first off, just congratulations on you know, all the things that you've got going on, I can see you're very busy and in demand. So even you know more appreciative of you taking time to stop by and talk with me today. So So what is I guess what sparked you want what you know, got you into, you know, the unstoppable marketing but wanting to be this, the, you know, be a leader in the San Diego area for the world women's conference, kind of what sparked that in you?

Cristal 04:36

Yeah, so the the reason why I started marketing was I actually started in colleagues. So I was one of those people that started their marketing business a while they were in college. And so what happened was that I was you know, I was trying to finish college it took me a little bit longer than most people would take just because I was independent now my own and I had to pay for my own bills. And we all know California is not All right. So I just did my own thing and figure out, Okay, what am I meant to do in this world, right. And so I have a lot of family members in marketing. And so I started imagining working with them, just because the regular jobs wouldn't give me the opportunity to change my schedule every semester. And so, instead of relaxing, and so noticing a lot of different areas, in the working world, there's a lot of different when you say marketing, that's very, actually very general. You know, most people say, Well, you know, I do website development, or I do social media management, or, like what I focus on as far as a consultation, I create marketing plans, social media plans, content plans, the overall strategy for your, you know, business, marketing, right. And the reason why I wouldn't do the planning was because people come to me, and even in the freelancing companies, and they didn't really know the overall strategy. So we all know that if you don't have your overall strategies, it's really hard to move forward in your business and in the marketing world, and you just kind of like, most people just do the tactics. So like, for example, just creating podcasts and creating social media links and stuff, but there's no anything going back to the main goal, the main mission, right, the main vision of why you're doing what you're doing, what is the overall goal for that particular year. And so that is where I decided to focus on because I realized, even in some of these larger companies, a lot of them do do a great job of creating the marketing plan. But when you are a small business owner, you don't know what a marketing plan is, right? You don't know what that requires what you need to add in. So that was is where my main focus is, and small business owners medium size as well, like yourself, that creates that initial plan for then you can execute into, you know, a good job above the execution. And also, I teach, I teach the importance of some of the areas in marketing that they use specifically for their business, like, let's be realistic, each business is different. Yes, they're gonna have their own clientele. And different platforms, not every platform is going to bring you the sales, not a platform, it's going to bring you the right clientele. Technically, bogus, depending on how your packages are, or your product is selling to the right people, you should be able to be making your six figure goal, if that is your goal, within half a year, because if you're just working your time and energy on the right people, in the focus of that thing, you will definitely meet those numbers. And that's kind of where I focus more realistically. I was focusing a little bit last year, but more To be honest, I'm going to talk more in it because our market has shifted completely. So what is happening, that a lot of people are going to meet marketing plans, it's much more than strategy, because our whole world has returning from an online world where a lot of these people that used to be in business for 30 plus years and and just basically, were on a referral basis. And were supporting their their business and they were doing fantastic. And those are the ones that are struggling the most because they're like, well, I don't know anything about this technology. And I don't even know where to start windows super open. They're already pretty discouraged by the whole situation that's happening as as it is, right. So I like to come in and bring in some peace. And so that's something that would definitely work specifically for that client. I don't, I don't believe in templates. That's just me when it comes to marketing plans, because every business and every person is completely different. You know, they personalize the way that it's going to be effective for them. And that will work for them right now. So a lot of times a lot of people are like, well, Facebook is big, but I just like Instagram, I just can't. Okay, start with something that you can manage first, and then work your way up. Right. And these are some of the tips and ideas that I give to my clients, because there's a lot of information out there in the can be overwhelmed. So I just basically say, all right, I just basically all I do is like grab their ideas, and I put it together and I put it together in a tech tactical form that will work for them. And it's workable for them and it's not going to overwhelm them to into their pace.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 09:35

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, ya know, and that's it's an important part that, you know, we've talked about before that if if you have a marketing person that comes to you and doesn't ask you any questions and just says, hey, I've got this great plan. That's usually a red flag to run because unless they are very into that space, and even if it's the same industry, your same type of business, each business has a little bit different of a value add for their clients most of the time. So, you know, I think that's great that you don't use a cookie cutter template that you want to sit down, get to know their business, their audience and then design an individual unique plan that's going to help them very important.

Cristal 10:24

Oh, absolutely. And here's the thing, even if one person is doing, let's say, they're in the same industry, and they're doing fantastic with, it doesn't necessarily mean that the next person can do great with it, because each individual person has their own skills, or event that they do very well. So that doesn't necessarily mean just because you have a template that you're going to work exactly the same person, there's, there's no way right. And so a lot of people use templates, and it works for them. But personally, we're a marketing plan and an overall strategy. I don't believe the templates.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 10:56

Yeah, and I think it's important we have, sometimes it's very repetitive, because I use it over and over with, with strategy, marketing, finance, with basically any topic is, you know, we've got to have a roadmap of where we want to go or where we're going. And the most important part of that is to be very honest, and thoughtful about where we are starting. Because, as I use examples before, if, if you want to go to Chicago, and you just say, I'm going to jump on the highway and go east, but you're in New York, and you really needed to go west, then your your plans not going to work out very well. So we need to know, excuse me, you know where we are, and then start from there. And like you said, we shouldn't be embarrassed or not our feel, I guess, under knowledge about where we are, because everybody has to start from zero. And I like that about the title of the book as well, you know, zero to success, because at some point, and in a lot of different areas, you know, we're starting at zero. And so, you know, just like us, we, if we don't write down our plan for the week, things can slip. And we forget about what we wanted to put out on Thursday. So I think that's another thing is, you know, having that roadmap, because the small businesses, entrepreneurs, even, you know, some midsize businesses, everybody's so focused on the serving the customer, you know, the sales part, bringing in the money doing that, that sometimes that setting down and thinking about what are we going to do for, you know, a social media post or blog post this week? Really, we should be weeks out, but you know, what are we going to do three weeks from today? It's like, well, we don't have time for that right this moment. Let's just get through today. And we'll worry about that tomorrow. Then tomorrow comes, and then all of a sudden, you know, you're trying to sit down at a computer and right up 1200 word blog, you know, overnight, and like myself get frustrated, because like, it doesn't flow or I got all these changes where, you know, for me to work, right, I need to do something, let it kind of set and cook for a little while and then you know, be able to change it and altered over time. So I think that clans are so important in this area.

Cristal 13:26

Oh, absolutely. And there's a plan for everything right. And, you know, honestly, the overall strategy really makes, I've been noticing business owners really think of all their actual business goals, they're their client to be, what are we going to do? What are we going to really focus on. Because when you're in the business, when you are working in the business, you're not always thinking about the outside stuff, and the overall stuff. Because we don't have time yet because we literally matter with them too. And so being able to just be an outsider coming in, and just basically put it together because at the end of the day, it's your plant. It's your business, all I do is just put it in together and put it like in the nice bow. And I work with you throughout the process. I don't just like here's your plant. That's right, I do. But I do like to keep put it into agreement in there that I'm going to keep helping and adjusting and showing you every everything you need to know in order to be successful. Because we all know that a plan is great. But it's not going to work if it's not being executed.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 14:37

Exactly. Yeah. And as a consultant, you know, I've been to some of my repeat clients with awesome plans that I've given them for something and you know, you walk into the office and it's got dust on it sitting on somebody's shelf. So, you know, it's important to you know, the plans are only as good as the execution and so we need to, you know, not only have the plan, we need to execute But, you know, this year has taught us a lot too, is that we always need to be re evaluating things change, things change market changes. But the other thing I kind of wanted to touch on for a minute that you said is to, you know, you get the business owners or business men to think about things, maybe outside of marketing. And a great example is I was at a roundtable one day with a couple of, you know, there was like, three or four owners and I was meeting with a couple and one was like, well, we need to emphasize price. We're, we're price conscious. And the other one was like, Well, no, this is our value add. And so sometimes there's not even a cohesive message within the company that you know, even though that's not the actual focus, it can be a awesome byproduct, is you can get everybody on the same page to say, you know, what are we doing here? Are we trying to be the price leader? Are we trying to add, you know, this value and command whatever price that we need to?

Cristal 16:04

Yeah, absolutely. Any, you have a partner of people, they all have to be on the same page. And that's why given knowing that, okay, what is what is going to be a plan for this year. And it's right every year, to be honest, where you should be readjusting your plan. And even if, like, for example, I'm one of them's like, last year, I reached, I reached my goal, my overall goal in the middle of the year right now. It was crazy.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 16:29

That's awesome.

Cristal 16:31

And yeah, thank you. And there's just so much out there, right. So I had to readjust my plan in the middle of the year. Just because your goal and your plan doesn't need to necessarily say, Okay, I'm done. No, it's all we want to do better and shoot for the stars now. A lot of times, the ownership comfortable all work out exactly where we want in the meeting comfortable with the moment we get comfortable with the moment we start losing because our competition is not comfortable. Yep. Right. Yeah, they're not.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 17:06

Yeah. So that that kind of leads us to the next point about measurement. And, you know, I'm a more analytical, I've been very fortunate in my life to, to work in, you know, sales, marketing, and the more analytical side of things that the other it's, it's, we have to set out metrics, you know, not only to see if we're having a success, but I think, also, when we do those plan reviews, we can look at our metrics to see, you know, did we get a lot of, you know, maybe Facebook wasn't our main focus, maybe we were YouTubing, or whatever. But all of a sudden, it's like, something blew up on Facebook, and we had good luck with it. So we need to, I think, you know, we need to be diligent about measurements, we can go back and look and say, Well, what caused this to either blow up, or what caused us to take a nosedive. And I'll just put one of my situations out there is that I do some Google some YouTube ads that they're the the skip, I don't even know all the technical names, but it's like a skip ad you put in and all of a sudden, last week, I noticed that, you know, my account isn't going long, you know, climb and climb, and then all of a sudden, the bottom just fell out of it and went to zero. And, you know, I thought, well, what happened and add quit, you know, did you know this is message stale? You know, there's a lot of things that could be fortunately, it was just Google doing an audit of the account, you know, for a few days that kind of knocked the traffic down is what they told me. So, you know, we're back up and running, and it's good. But the reality is, you know, if that would have been something with messaging, then it's good to catch that. Because if it happened today, and I didn't do my review, or didn't look at that till June, and it was something that needed fixing, then I'd be sitting here without, you know, very much marketing on that platform for 364 or five months, you know, whatever.

Cristal 19:12

Right. And it is important to measure a lot of times people are just throwing things at platforms and websites and etc. and are wondering why the results are not happening right. Now, everything is a test run in marketing world, we are testing all the time, right. 500 posts, let's say, but two of them really, really blew up. Then those two were worth it. Yeah. You know, you think from the numbers perspective of it, you are measuring your platforms, the following. You know, and I gotta be clear about this. your followers. The number of following does not give us sales. Yeah. Okay. And if you're just getting whatever followers but they're not your ideal client. followers think you're literally wasting your time. And also that needs to be measured. Right? Like you have followers? Yes. But from those followers, how much do you really build relationships? what sells? building those relationships? Right? Connect? Yeah,

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 20:19

I usually talk about those as vanity likes, and you know, because I'll be honest, I got into a situation years ago, where, you know, a guy reached out to me and said, Man, I can get you, you know, a lot of followers on this, I think it was Facebook. And so what I started watching was, he did, he generated a lot of traffic, but it was all overseas, you know, and what I call them is kind of like, you know, like, boiler rooms that, you know, there's guys sitting around that they get paid, you know, a few dollars a day just to like, like, like, and so, you know, my analogy is always that. So after that little experiment, took 3000 likes over to the bank and tried to deposit it. And, you know, they didn't take it, the electric company doesn't take likes. And so, you know, we think that's such an important part that the managing expectations and talking to clients about likes, need to, at some point, equal business. And if you're, you know, again, that's why we, when somebody calls in, it's always good, where did you hear about us that, you know, trying to find out what is, you know, where these leads are generating? Because if you find out, they're all coming from one platform or another, you can shift your resources or, you know, tweak your messaging on the other one, but I think that's a valid point that have to be so careful about.

Cristal 21:45

Absolutely. And it's crazy, because now a lot of bigger companies are like, Well, no, the only way we're going to work with you is how many likes you have, and I'm willing to Okay, well, I have 2000 genuine people that genuinely Follow me. And they're not just a random person. And there's a lot of people that are doing overseas, know, what kind of value and benefits that bring you into your business? Because other than you, you're just wasting money thrown out the window, right? And where you're going your awareness, but where is that taking you?

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 22:19

Exactly?

Cristal 22:21

I think one of the things that, that I just, I can just touch real quick, Lauren. Sure

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 22:25

is,

Cristal 22:26

a lot of people right now are hidden ways. They're generating all this, like likes and friendship, and so forth. And they're like, Well, why I'm not selling? What is happening? Like, why? Why can I convert it into a sale? Okay, so the first thing I'm gonna say, is, you know, it all comes back to pre COVID. What were you doing pre COVID? Right? What kind of work were you already doing? Like you were already not in like doing something relatable to what you're doing now. It's gonna take you a little bit longer to be able to bring that awareness, that branding, and then you can eventually put it in sell. So your credibility and your transparency have to be clear, right? Even you know, you've been in the business for 20 plus years, but now you are a business owner. Okay, well, that's still part of credibility, because you've been in industry for 20 plus years, but you just turned into your, and you're just learning about the intrapreneurship world. But as far as the actual you are, you know it right. And so don't knock yourself down. Because, you know, overall, I've been in corporate for 20 plus years, but you know, I'm just starting, don't do that. Because at the end of the day, you had 20 plus years in corporate, but you know exactly what you're talking about. And it comes down to self, if you're not comfortable and aligned with yourself, what makes you think that you were going to buy from you

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 23:51

exactly,

Cristal 23:52

you gotta be what you do. and deliver, most importantly, deliver every single time. Even if it takes you a little bit longer than what you originally said, then you'll notice, okay, well, this is what we're capable of. This is not what you know, we're just gonna have to take a little bit longer. Yeah, the worst thing that I've seen with people, because, you know, remember, we're in such a digital form, and it's so easy to do a click a form and contact other people and get their feedback, right. And the worst thing that someone can do is not deliver, right? And then somebody else new communicating, getting in touch with them, what was your experience with this particular person or servers product, etc. And they talk negative about it because you were not able to deliver what you said you were gonna deliver. So it's always sometimes good to talk it down a little little and over deliver, rather than under deliver, right and that goes with your reputation. So if you have somebody that is already, unfortunately, now let's say you've been happening for like that, Since a 1000s of people in you have one bad apple, right? They just didn't like something about it, then that's different. But when you're starting off, you cannot afford a bad apples.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 25:10

Right? Exactly.

Cristal 25:13

You don't have that much of measurement, right, go back to the measurement. We're not just measuring the social media platform, we're measuring the clientele as well.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 25:23

Yeah. And I think a couple things I picked up on that you were talking about is, of course, this is another extension of managing expectations that if you are changing your direction a little bit, or even if you're maybe getting into a new platform, let's just say you haven't done YouTube, and now you're getting into YouTube, it's that things take time, we are in an instantaneous world where people click and they want immediate results. But you know, if we're talking about a 345 $10 item, you know, I'm not saying crystal that money, just on the fact that, you know, if I lost $10 on her product, if she didn't deliver, it's not a big deal. But if you're asking me to send you 25, or $30,000, for you know, some kind of a consulting arrangement, I need to feel very comfortable with you, and you have to take time to build that relationship. So it's important to manage that expectation. But I think it leads into this, why are we not translating into sales is that because we are in this instant gratification where we have, you know, zero patience anymore, it seems, I'm one of those people, I'm the same way, if I click on something I want, you know, in, I want it to come up instantly, no delay, but there is, you know, I use the agric agrarian example is that, you know, when you want to grow a plant, you have to put the seed in, and then you cultivate it, you water it, you weed it, you do all the taking care of it, loving it, nurturing it, and then you harvest it at some other point. And I feel that in the digital age over the last five to 10 years, it's been a growing expectation that if I throw the seed out there, I'm going to get an immediate harvest.

Cristal 27:19

Right. And that's the problem. And that's why a lot of people sometimes spill energy in the street, and they get frustrated media into like, someone's son did it in less than a year, when you don't know what other health disorders don't get. Right? If you're starting from scratch by yourself, it's gonna take a little longer, but if someone has had some of our already Mani pockets into it, to throw into market you to throw into all the different platforms, and absolutely, then they're gonna be able to do it within the year. But you know, a lot of times we just narrow it down, but you got to see all these different factors around it that come into it. So that's why I always question Okay, well, what do you do exactly? How do you do it? Believe me read six questions. By the time we do the sixth question, you will find out how that person did absolutely everything, right. And how they did it. So it's surface doesn't necessarily mean that is everything. Again, this was only one thing.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 28:15

Yeah, and this has come up in the last three or four conversations. So again, sometimes I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. But on the other hand, I want to get this out there for listeners to think about is that social media is awesome for keeping up for new ideas. It's great, and I love it. The drawback that I will say for is that a lot of people aren't as vulnerable and transparent as you think. And so we post or we tend to see the very best thing that happened to that person this day, or the very best thing in their business life. Or maybe we haven't seen this business before. And we see it in their successful but we don't think about for a minute that this guy has been working for 10 years to get to this point, just because we found him today doesn't mean that he started yesterday, and now he's a success. And so, you know, we can't really set our expectations on what we see through social media because, you know, people don't post the the bad and the ugly. And, you know, I always say business's growth is not typically just a straight line up. I mean, it's usually up and down and crazy and all over the place. And it just takes in this gets back to the marketing aspect to is that it takes consistency. You got to get up every day, you got to continue with the plan. You can't get discouraged if you've got a good plan. It's thoughtful, you got to carry it out. And because what you'll see in a lot of things is zero to three months. Not much traffic, not much traction, and then, you know, four or five, that six months, all of a sudden things just take off. But if we you know if we'd given up at three We would have never found that success.

Cristal 30:03

I mean, I've been asked you actually, I know you're asking the question, but I want to ask you a question about it. You've been in this long time. I mean, you've been pursuing yours. But how many times have you almost quit?

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 30:16

Oh, they're during the day? Yeah. Sometimes, sometimes, dear. Yeah. You know, sometimes during the day is like two or three times, like, I'm ready to hang, you know, is it really worth it? Am I gonna hang it up? No, not really, I've been fortunate enough to always do things that I like, but yeah, there's been, I will tell you, there's been a few times where, you know, the thought was really what else is out there. I'm not sure that I really want to do this. And, and, but it's seeking out good counsel people like yourself to say, you know, cuz sometimes, even though you think you know what you're doing, you can be so close to it that you really don't. And so seeking out Counsel of professionals, like yourself, to have that outside look to say, Man, if you would just tweak this thing, just a tiny bit, and you know, what they read, it works that we don't Oh, sometimes we're so close to everything. We don't see the bigger picture.

Cristal 31:14

Oh, absolutely. And you know, and you touch something, it's like, you're not alone, right? You're not alone. And in a lot of us in intrapreneurship, eds, it's, it's not meant for everybody. It's It's tough. You know, it's crazy accident, my husband, he's in finance. And so he was listening to obviously just finance related stuff. And he was listening to the diagnosis. The guy was basically I don't remember his name. But he was just basically it's like, right now you just see that I have a lot of money in I'm doing great. And doing that. But do you have any yummy, I had to start how many times I had to start from scratch. He started from scratch 10 times on different projects, until that one project was the one Yep. Yep. So if people are going to quit within the first year, you got to take a realization that people that you see that have been self made and been doing stuff for many, many years, they've been through their ups and downs, and it has taken them years, literally years, to get to where they are. And so I don't want anybody to feel discouraged, I just want you to know that you have a passion, and you know exactly what you do, you can continue it and we just there needs to be a plan, you know, you know, in order to, to grow in the right direction that you want it.

Roy Barker - The Business of Business Podcast - Want Great Focus In Your Marketing Efforts? Develop a Strategy to Keep You On Track 32:33

Yeah, and the other thing, I'm gonna say this, from an older point of view, is that at some point, you realize that money does not always dictate that you're successful, because I know a lot of people make a lot of money who are miserable. Health is bad, you know, fam, no family, and it's a lot, you know, there's a lot going not saying that everybody's like that. But I think what I would like to see people get more comfortable is that when you get out of bed in the morning, you're excited to do what you're going to do. Not that we're not going to have hiccups during the day or the week or the month, there's going to be times where like, I can't, why am I doing this, but for the most part, if we're passionate about it, we love what we do, then we get up every morning, excited to do it. And we're able to take on the challenges. And also there's a guy named Ryan Holiday, that he's got a great coin that I've gotten, I carry my pocket with me and it's like the obstacle is the way and basically, you know, we we can't find always find ways around obstacles, we have to hit them head on to solve them because that is what I think that's what separates the businesses that become successful with the ones that don't, they hit the obstacle head on, solve the problem and moved on. And then the the kind of the second part of that whole thing is that if you're familiar with sand dunes, it's like, you know, life business journey, it's like a sand dune, when you get to the top of the one Dune that you're climbing, that's not the end of it, we don't reach the peak and life is just at the top of the mountain from now on. It's, you know, in the sand dunes can be very deceiving if you've never been to one but you know, you climb up a peak and you think you're at the top and then you look over and there's 12 more in front of you. It's just a constant, you know, up and down. Now you keep you know, getting higher and higher. But, you know, I think the point is that life is gonna throw us struggles and you know, we have to adjust our mindset in order to take those obstacles on just personal observation.

Cristal 34:42

Whenever you talk about the mindset of it, because before you do any, your mind has shifted in a direction of intrapreneurship when I went from corporate intrapreneurship I was like, Oh Lord, Jesus Christ. Like I jumped into it. And I was like, I Everything I learned from school, everything that it was, like, in so many ways is out the window. And I had to relearn absolutely everything. And so I'm grateful that I did. But in our book, actually rooms are things like that we talk about, you start off, literally from the beginning to the end. So everything you need to do from the very beginning, so the mindset, right, the changing of the strategies, and then the marketing, the execution, and then the selves, literally, from beginning to end. And even in the book, it says, like, you