Darlene Ziebell: You have to know who your ideal customer is, and you have to ask whoever your mentor or advisor is, where have they done it before? Make sure they're legitimate. And the easiest way you can do that for advisors is check them out on LinkedIn.

[0:00:20] Brett Johnson: We are Looking Forward Our Way. We're in Columbus, and our guest is in Phoenix. Carol and I have a special return guest with us today, Darlene Ziebell, an experienced strategist consultant specializing in supporting businesses through strategic growth planning. Darlene is coming to us, as I mentioned, from Arizona, where it's likely much warmer than it is in Ohio. Welcome to the program again, Darlene.

[0:00:45] Darlene Ziebell: Thank you. Thank you for having me back and looking forward to it.

[0:00:48] Carol Ventresca: Yes, during the summer, we talked about how hot it was, but during the winter, we're wondering why we're not down there visiting her in the Sunshine State of Arizona.

[0:01:01] Darlene Ziebell: Okay.

[0:01:02] Carol Ventresca: Darlene, it's incredible to spend time with you and listeners, in case you forgot, Darlene and I have known each other for literally decades, and this was my excuse to keep in contact with her and keep her coming back and talking, and we've been zooming and having a great time. But bottom line is we want to learn more on strategies of successfully owning a small business. So, Darlene, thank you for your time and your expertise in joining us.

[0:01:30] Darlene Ziebell: Thank you.

[0:01:31] Carol Ventresca: So, listeners, I emailed Darlene a while back, and I said, give me your top tips for 2023 success strategies and words of warning for small businesses. So today she is going to give us the information that so many businesses need in this crazy economy. She mentioned that there are 32 million small businesses in the United States, and an interesting factoid over 50% work from home. No office space, no facility, no staff, no inventory a true picture of creating a niche and selling it. So today we're going to focus on sort of three phases of developing and sustaining a business, tips that you can use in growing your business in the new year. So first, we're going to talk about how to get it started. Second, we're going to talk about how to make it a reality. And third okay, do we exit? Do we grow, or do we do both?

[0:02:30] Brett Johnson: All right. And before we jump into this, though, I do want to give you an opportunity to talk about your background, and you can go back to our previous episode with you, get a really good picture of it. But I want to at least synopsize and let you have the opportunity to synopsize about your unique methodology to your clients with proven business experience, talk about your background and what you provide your clients every day.

[0:02:54] Darlene Ziebell: Well, thank you, Brett. I have an interesting background in that not only have I launched, started, and owned four businesses of my own successfully, I've had three successful exits. People say, ask me why so many businesses it's because you have to recognize the opportunity when to sell or when to get out, because there might only be like one hot minute to do that. But I also am a management consultant to the Fortune $1,000. So I take what I learned not only from the challenges I overcame in my own businesses, but I take the lessons that I learned and recognized from major, major corporations and major companies around the world and what they do in business. And I blend them both. So small business owners can take the best of the best from what the big guys do. And actually, when I advise some of the big guys, I recommend they go back to thinking what it was like when they were small. And I'd love to give you some statistics. First of all, a small business in the United States is considered anybody that has less than 500 employees. A lot of people don't know that. And so over 32 million, they have less than 500 employees. Now, this is 2023. And so much has happened during the pandemic. Typically in the United States, each year there's about 600, 800,000 new businesses that start, but it was over a million in 2021.

[0:04:32] Darlene Ziebell: There's a huge increase in the number of businesses starting and a huge increase in how many are being started by women. 49% of them were started by women. Now, I know you're in Ohio, so there's 1 million small businesses in Ohio, and they employ 44% of all people who work in Ohio. So almost half of them work for small businesses, which is really important. And small business in Ohio is 99.6% of all businesses in Ohio are small. So you talk about they're the backbone of the economy. They are so important. And I know you want to target a certain audience. Well, the average age of someone who launches a business is now 50.3 years old. So more and more senior people are, are getting into, into new business. So it's just such interesting dynamics and what we can look forward to in 2023.

[0:05:33] Carol Ventresca: Now, don't you think it's interesting when you people normally hear small business and you're thinking the mom and pop shop, one or two people, maybe they hire a couple of college students and they run their ice cream store, but 500 people is a lot of folks to have when you're thinking of small business.

[0:05:57] Darlene Ziebell: Well, the largest company I owned typically had about 150 people employed at the time, at one time. So there are 150 people on the payroll. You are correct. Most are very small because less than 10% of all businesses in the United States ever reach seven figures per year. So so many small business owners are providing a level of income for themselves and their family by owning their own business. They may hire one or two people, but those that are aspiring, you know, things that they see on reality TV, things that they read about that are aspiring to get to the next level. They have to go through, they have to go through a scaling program. I mean, we wanted to talk about startups and what it takes to start up and it doesn't take much to start a business in this country anymore because of the technology that's available. It's actually the terms called, you know, it doesn't take much to launch really. And when you can get a free website, you can get free emails. I know so many small business owners that are doing about $100,000 a year in sales that come to me for help. And they're still using Gmail accounts. They're not paying for anything else. They're using a cell phone. There's a lot of different cell phone services where you can add more than one or two numbers to your cell phone.

[0:07:26] Darlene Ziebell: So you can have an office line and a cell phone line. So there it's very, very no barriers to entry anymore to start a new business. And you can even go online and self incorporate at your state or wherever you want to incorporate with. So it's very easy to launch. It's difficult to get it moving and to keep it going.

[0:07:51] Carol Ventresca: Right? Okay, so the first question a potential business owner should ask themselves include things like how do I get this entity started and off the ground? So let's really delve into this first phase and take an idea from paper to structure.

[0:08:11] Darlene Ziebell: I have a private pilot license and I equate trying to help a business owner keep their business started and going. As someone who's trying to fly a plane that's still under construction, there are so many moving parts and the pilot of this plane has to keep their eye on everything, just like a business owner has to keep their eye on everything. So to get started, the first thing they should think about is what are some of their long term goals? You wouldn't buy an airline ticket at an airport or online without knowing what the destination is, right? And yet so many businesses that come to me for help when they're launching or starting at the beginning and I asked them where do they want to go with this? They're hoping to see that it will get big. There's always this level of hope. Now I'm really a positive person, but I'm also one who wants to plan for part A, part B, part C, what do we do? What's plan B? What's plan C if this happens or this happens or this happens, just so we can be prepared. So the first thing someone needs who's launching needs to know where they want to go, what's the long term destination, and then they have to take the little bitty bitty baby steps to get started. What did they think they're going to reach the very first year? And just focus on that and then just take a small little chunk and work it until they can get to a level to determine whether or not they're reaching their goals. What's the performance? What else do they need to do?

[0:09:50] Brett Johnson: So once an individual has a good understanding of what path they're going to take, they need to create the company. Basically, they're creating the operational pieces. So that second phase is making the business a reality. Where do they start and how do they evaluate their progress? Because you mentioned that progress piece just a second ago.

[0:10:12] Darlene Ziebell: Small business owners need to understand how much they need to sell to reach the number they want to achieve. And I'm going to give you some basic math here, because when I'm providing my Live and my online workshops, this is a question I ask almost every business owner, some of whom been in business for five years. How many customers do you actually need to reach that goal? And they never set to figure this out. So if their average sale is $100 and they want to reach a million dollars a year, how many sales do they need? And then break that down by how many sales do they need each month? How many sales do they need each week? How many sales do they need each day? And then they can determine after a few, two, three, four months into the process whether or not those metrics are working. So if they're only making $100 a week, they're never going to reach that goal that they set for themselves. And then they have to go back and determine why aren't they reaching it? What needs to be corrected? Is it their marketing plan? Is it their strategy? Is it the differentiator that they created?

[0:11:27] Darlene Ziebell: Are they in such a saturated market that they need to find a way to position themselves against their competition? Do they know who their competitors are? Some predict that their competitors are selling the exact same thing there. But very basically, I could be selling ballpoint pens, you could be selling pencils. I may not consider you a direct competitor, but yet you are because your product performs the same function that a client could use a pencil or a pen. This is very basic analogies, but this is exactly how business works. So they just really have to look at all the pieces and they can't get so stuck in the trees that they don't see the forest. And if they get to that point, then they should ask for help.

[0:12:17] Carol Ventresca: So, Darlene, have you ever seen a client who is really kind of on top of that question? And what differentiates them from clients who have no clue?

[0:12:31] Darlene Ziebell: Typically, they've already worked with me when they get to that level of where they need to go. Majority of the people who come to me that I get through my webinars, they do a lot of webinars to score through the SBA libraries. Most of those people have not thought about the level of detail that they need to measure so that they know whether or not that they're achieving their goal. I really never sat down to think about it.

[0:13:03] Carol Ventresca: Yeah, so this information is not necessarily easy to research. There are a lot of how to start your own business, website kinds of things. But it sounds like that's not a question that people are really finding that they realize they need to answer.

[0:13:24] Darlene Ziebell: It's interesting because one of the reasons I even started helping small business, my niece came to me many years ago. She was a photographer, and this was in Illinois. And she came to me because she went to a community college that had a program for women business owners to teach them how to draft a business plan. And at the time, I was not coaching small business owners. I was still working with the Fortune 1000. And I had some really big clients. And she called me up, I said, Read some of the questions to me in the program. It was like a self directed course. She had to answer all these questions. And then at the end she had this business plan. And I didn't understand the questions over the phone. I said, well, just bring the book. I thought, well, maybe she's missing something in the book. And the guides and all the materials they gave her. And I sat down and some of the basic questions they asked her were, now she's selling, taking people's pictures.

[0:14:21] Darlene Ziebell: So they're asking her, how many sales are you going to have the first year? And she said, I don't know. And I said, I couldn't answer this question either. I said, So we have to back into this. I said, how long does it take you to take someone's photo and why are you taking their picture? Well, I take events and I do headshots for people who work. How long does that take? All right, three to five, 6 hours. So she said, I can maybe do one per day. I said, how many days a week are you going to work? We backed into it very basically by how long it takes for her to take a picture, get the prints ready, get the pictures ready, put them in a book, sell them, or whatever services she offered her customers. And from that we were able to back in the number how many sales she was going to have next year. But the guides never helped her figure this out.

[0:15:18] Carol Ventresca: Interesting.

[0:15:19] Darlene Ziebell: I said you're one person. So so many businesses that start today, this is why 50% of them work from home. They're single shingles, solo printers. That's a fancy new word where they're the only employee, they're the only owner of the company, and they're selling some type of service. And I just went through this with a young woman who owns a consulting business. She launched to do environmental studies, and she presented her plan to me. I will reach seven figures and do a million dollars a year by year, three. So I said, So that means and she told me how many customers she can handle, the week and how long it takes and so forth and so on. I said, So basically, when I add up the math, you are charging them $500 an hour for your services. And she said, Nobody is going to pay me for that. Not Matt at that level. I said, well, then you can't do a million dollars a year. So some of this is just very basic math. But all of the services that are available out there for people to learn from or study or read on how to launch a business, they never discuss that, right?

[0:16:27] Carol Ventresca: That sounds like that's the first step towards the notion of most small businesses don't make it. They're starting without the information they really need to be successful. Okay, good.

[0:16:42] Darlene Ziebell: Even if you're in manufacturing. I have a client that's in manufacturing. She manufactures skincare lines. She's making this in her home. She's very excited because she's growing. And I said, well, how many sales can you handle this year? And she didn't know. I said, well, how many jars can you produce? You're making these all by hand. I never thought about that. I said, that's how many sales you can have. Because I said, you only have so many hours in a week. You need to sleep. Or now we have to talk about scaling. You have to hire people you're going to have to outsource.

[0:17:17] Darlene Ziebell: And does your budget, does your pricing, does your cost system, does it work with what you're charging? Because if you're charging $10 for a jar of skin cream, but it's going to cost you $20 to outsource it to everybody else so you can keep up the volume. Now you've lost money.

[0:17:36] Carol Ventresca: Right?

[0:17:36] Darlene Ziebell: Well, your customers pay the rate that they need for you to charge them in order just to even meet the budget.

[0:17:45] Carol Ventresca: This is really something that's so basic. And as you just showed, manufacturing, service, whatever it is, it's the same questions.

[0:17:53] Darlene Ziebell: It's the same questions. You're absolutely right. It is so basic. And I am so shocked at how many people come to me and they cannot answer these questions. And that's the first step. That's the first step in creating a flight plan to take off in a plane. How much fuel can I hold? How much weight am I tiering? Basic, basic numbers. And it's the same thing in business, right?

[0:18:21] Brett Johnson: Yeah.

[0:18:23] Carol Ventresca: So that's the first two questions. The third question, when you and I talked about this, I was shocked. I know that listeners are probably wondering, like, what are they saying? But you had mentioned that every business plan has to have an exit strategy. It seemed to me like you're closing it down before you actually get started. But what we're really looking at is, why is it needed so early in the planning? Why do we focus on that as well as focusing on growing the business.

[0:18:55] Darlene Ziebell: There's two parts to that question. So when the business is scaling up now you're going to need to hire, let's say you've overcome all those challenges. You've started hiring people where they're not just your friends that you're hiring, who can take advantage of you, but you're actually growing an established business that has some value to it. There is value to it and you have to look at it this way. If I start a business, even in my coaching business, now I'm creating several brands. I'm building these brands so that these brands can run without me. They don't need me, even though the brand may be my name, but I'm creating the business so that it can stand on its own. 2ft it's like raising from a baby to a child to a college graduate and you let them out the door and you say, now you're on your own, you should be able to do this. Your business should be at some point be able to stand on its own without you.

[0:19:57] Carol Ventresca: Right?

[0:19:57] Darlene Ziebell: And it's at that point you know whether or not it has any value. So this should be planned for early, early on, not to the level of detail that you need to know if you're going to sell the business at what price, or how much it's going to be valued or at what point you will sell. But at least keep in mind that someday that will come, especially if you have a business that's actually scaling and growing. This just happened to me. I did. And that's why I could say you really need some kind of an exit strategy, at least a process by which, you know, you can have your business valued, what's its worth if you do have to walk away. This happened with people during the Pandemic. I mean, they didn't know what their business was valued at, even if they could merge yourself. So many new businesses launched because there was no barrier to entry. But so many have failed because they didn't have the cash flow, they didn't have a backup plan, they didn't know what they were going to do. I do a workshop on exit strategies and that's probably, believe it or not, where I get a lot of clients from because they come to me and the first thing they say is, well gee, I wish I met you a long time ago. Number two, I'm getting older and I don't know how to get out of this. Their children don't want it. Some of their employees may not want the business. They have everything that they built their entire life around in this business and now they're deciding, I'm getting older.

[0:21:31] Darlene Ziebell: What do I do? How do I get out of this? Where do I go? And at some point there's only so many options. Then if nobody's buying a business in that industry, then you can liquidate you can try and sell off any assets you may have. You can even try and sell your client list if you have one. But there's only so much you can do at a certain point if you never thought about this happening in the future. This happened to me at the management consulting firm. I had I received a phone call one day from investment bankers that were investment bankers, and this is when the technology stocks were really hot. They were growing. They were way overvalued. And he called to tell me that a similar consulting firm to the one I had just sold for four times annual revenues. Now, we were doing $10 million a year in sales then. And I thought, he's crazy. This isn't real.

[0:22:28] Darlene Ziebell: This isn't going to happen. And he said, no, Darlene, they sold for cash. I go, well, what am I going to do? Where am I going to go? I mean, I did not have an exit plan. Yeah, and then it was at that point when the technology stocks tanked, then the mortgage industry tanked. I kept going back to the day thinking, man, if I had planned for that, that was that one hot minute I could have taken advantage of that opportunity. I had a second opportunity that I did take advantage of, but it was nowhere near worth what that first one was.

[0:23:03] Carol Ventresca: Right?

[0:23:03] Darlene Ziebell: And that's why I always said you got to be prepared because you don't know. It's like flying a plane, going to an alternate airport. You don't know when a storm is going to come. You don't know when an opportunity. You don't know when a guardian angel is going to come and hand you an opportunity. And so what are you going to say?

[0:23:21] Carol Ventresca: Well, you just mentioned early on that a lot of older adults are creating their own businesses happen during the pandemic. And that's been something that has gone on in our country for a long time. A small business and sort of taking your hobby to making money on it has not been uncommon. But not only does somebody have to make sure they're not like losing their retirement on this chance they're taking creating a business, but if they're already doing it as a retirement scenario, they're not going to want to do it forever. And so they really have to know. And that particularly if it's based on something that they do really well, that could really happen. If it is a business they've created because their hobby was making something, there isn't going to be anybody to take their place. So they have to know what to do with it.

[0:24:23] Darlene Ziebell: Exactly. They have to get some backup. They have to get some kind of preservation plan. Who's going to take it over? And this happens in people who run nonprofits, too. And my brother runs an animal sanctuary, and I'm going, who's going to take this over? You have to have some kind of a preservation strategy if you want your business to keep going and if you just want to shut it down, which is why so many retail establishments closed during the pandemic, who is going to buy them at a point where everything is closed? Who's going to purchase the business? And how are you going to keep taking loans out to keep the rent going and to keep the doors open and keep the lights on? Right? These are decisions that need to be made early on in any kind of business plan. You have to think about it. And again, I can't reiterate this enough. If a business owner can separate themselves from the business and look at it as a separate entity, which is why I'm able to do that, because I was a management consultant going into major big companies, standing apart from what they were doing, I wasn't part of it. So I could see the forest and the big picture.

[0:25:49] Darlene Ziebell: So I try and do that even with myself as my own business, and I do that with every small business owner that comes to me. I try and take a step back, look at the big picture, look at what's going on in their personal life. Because if the business is part of their life, it can upset a lot of people. If it's just that door, if they're hiring their family and their friends and then they tell them, this is going to be it, so how are you going to handle that?

[0:26:19] Carol Ventresca: In my previous agency and we were dealing with employers, there was an insurance company, it was a mom and pop shop group and the couple had been running it for probably over 50 years. They had two children, one of which did not have the capability of doing the work. The other really didn't want it. She was only there because she was trying to help her parents. But with insurance, you make your money by the book, by what you have booked of business and they let go of it. The money was gone. So it was a terrible situation.

[0:27:07] Darlene Ziebell: I just am working with a small manufacturing business and they're seniors and they either have to grow in order to build value in the company now to sell it or shut the doors. And they're struggling with that because their adult children don't want the business.

[0:27:27] Carol Ventresca: Right?

[0:27:30] Brett Johnson: Well, money is the top issue for every business. We just kind of talked about it here too. But let's go to the other spectrum of what advice do you have for business owners looking for funding? Are there some funders open to small businesses or something to be avoided? How can you provide yourself with a level playing field in borrowing that money too? Is it harder or easier for small businesses?

[0:27:53] Darlene Ziebell: This is a question we had talked about last year and it still has not changed. It's extremely difficult for small business owners to borrow money. Number one because statistically they're going to fail quickly. And no banks, no agency will actually consider taking that risk if the business owner isn't taking part of that risk.

[0:28:23] Carol Ventresca: Right.

[0:28:24] Darlene Ziebell: Which is why they ask business owners all the time to personally guarantee any loans. And I'm not an attorney, but I'm going to tell you one story that came up at my last workshop. This young woman was starting a business and she created an LLC, a limited liability corporation, which is In Corporation, just like an Inc or an Ltd. I'm not here to talk about that. But there are several ways that you can create what's called a corporate veil. And she was under the impression whoever gave her this advice, that if her business failed, if she went out to get any loans, if her business failed, she was not going to have any liability. And I had to tell her that's not true. No one is going to give you money for your business unless you personally guarantee that loan outside of the business. They're just not going to take the risk. I have never seen that in my 40 years of doing this. One time, for about a period of five years, I had a line of credit at the management consulting firm that was only backed by the company. Rarely, very rarely am I able to get a loans where I don't have to put up real estate or I don't have to put up a stock fund or I have to put up something else that's of value to me that the bank will want.

[0:29:48] Carol Ventresca: Right.

[0:29:48] Darlene Ziebell: It's just not going to happen.

[0:29:50] Brett Johnson: Right.

[0:29:51] Carol Ventresca: So darling, you provided expertise to female owned businesses through your nonprofit, the center for Women Business Owners. It's extremely difficult to be a successful female owner. What are the top tips that you provide to them?

[0:30:07] Darlene Ziebell: Well, I actually have a whole workshop just for women business owners and I call it Learning How to Say no. Women business owners typically try to please everybody, and if your business is focused on trying to please everybody, it will fail. There is no way a business can survive by taking every customer, by taking limited skilled employees or even limited skilled partnerships where the synergy just isn't there or the skill sets are not there. Women will try and jump into things to please everybody. So I do have this workshop where I tell them, you have to learn to say no. Less than 5% of women business owners ever reach seven figures, even though 49% of them in 2021 were started by women of all the new businesses. They're just not going to make it. And it's really sad. That number just only creeped up less than 1% since 2008. I love to track these statistics from the Small Business Administration and the first thing I tell them is, say no to the fact that you're female. Why do you listen to people who say you can't do. Something because you're female. That's number one. So I don't consider myself female when I'm running a business. I just consider myself the best business owner there is.

[0:31:45] Darlene Ziebell: So I don't want to point out to people any inadequacy or any limitations that I may mentally feel that I have. If I'm going to compete in a marketplace with a lot of men, I have to be able to stand up to them. And I believe that's how I've succeeded all these years. I had a salesperson at my consulting firm who wanted me to get certified as a woman owned business because she said, I can get you in all these doors. And it was a horrendous process at that time because basically they were certifying very small business owners. We were doing millions every year. So it cost me a lot of money to hire lawyers just to get certified. She got me a meeting. I'm only going to tell you it was with a Fortune 50 company. They had a procurement. I had to get on a plane. I had flight in this other city. I come in my fancy brochure, here's the meeting. Here I am representing my consulting firm. First words out of his mouth, I'll give you the meeting because you're certified as a woman business owner, but that doesn't mean I have to buy from you.

[0:32:58] Darlene Ziebell: So I went back, and the meeting went downhill from there. I said, well, how about if I show you what I did before I got certified? But he still had it in his head, well, you're here because you can't do it because you're female. That was in his head. So I went back and I told my head of sales, don't you ever bring this up again. And I'm not recertifying because I am not going to point out that we're inferior to someone else, which is why I need help from an agency to say, I'm female, so you should buy from me. I'm not going to do it.

[0:33:34] Carol Ventresca: Interesting, because that affects anyone who is starting a business and ends up getting classified into a niche.

[0:33:43] Darlene Ziebell: Exactly. There's only three ways to niche a business. I can talk about this for hours, and this is what the big companies do. It's either on price service or they have some product or service that they can say they're the only one who sells it. That way it could be a diamond ring, and Tiffany's has the Tiffany setting, so they'll say, we're the only one who has the setting. That's the only way anybody can ditch anything in business. Anyone who is successful does it with one of those three being female owned, disabled, minority, any of those other categories that agencies will try and petition to get companies to certify to say, okay, I'll commit so many funds or so many dollars to this category. That's just pointing out, first of all, that you're not good as a business. It's just pointing out that you're different. And two, it's not a differentiator. Ownership of a company is not a differentiator how is the company different compared to the competition of other companies?

[0:34:56] Carol Ventresca: That's a good point. So make sure I'm understanding this too. If we as individuals end up in a niche, then the assumption by others, outsiders, are that you're only in that niche because you can't make it anywhere with the big groups. So really you don't try to put yourself as an individual in the niche. You are creating a uniqueness about the company. Whole different ballgame.

[0:35:30] Brett Johnson: Okay?

[0:35:31] Darlene Ziebell: It's how you think. I actually work with a minority young man who is my head of marketing, and the first thing he asks is, I don't want anyone to point out that I'm African American. Why would I want to say that you're buying for me because of that? I want you to say you're buying for me because I know Mr. Algorithm what's going on in Facebook, right? He really does. He's an engineer who figured out a lot of algorithms for me. Very unique individual, but he does not want to be separated from the crowd. He said, I am a business owner. I am a business advisor.

[0:36:11] Carol Ventresca: What a shame that we're putting efforts into programs and services and support systems for individuals that could actually be working against them.

[0:36:27] Darlene Ziebell: Oh, I totally agree with you. It's unfortunate, but I don't want to say death threats, but I get a lot of emails and comments from people who say I've got it all wrong. And I think the money should be spent on teaching these people how to make their business a success.

[0:36:45] Carol Ventresca: Right?

[0:36:46] Brett Johnson: Yeah.

[0:36:48] Darlene Ziebell: They don't have the right advisors to help them. They need to follow someone who's been in their shoes before.

[0:36:54] Brett Johnson: Yeah. It seems like they're riding the wave of minority owned business shop minority in business or women owned business. And to me, if that's what you want to talk about on your website, about your business, that's fine. You don't necessarily be certified that you are just talk about that. This is the culture of your business. If that's what it is, then great, that will be an attraction.

[0:37:18] Darlene Ziebell: So what happened to me is I told my sales staff they could not use that as a door opener anywhere.

[0:37:25] Carol Ventresca: As a female loan business.

[0:37:26] Darlene Ziebell: Is that what you mean? Female loan business? But after, I got several clients who didn't realize the business was woman owned. And after they met me, they go, by the way, are you certified? And I'll say, yeah, we are perfect. Now I can give you more money.

[0:37:45] Brett Johnson: Right.

[0:37:47] Darlene Ziebell: That worked. But not to get in the door.

[0:37:50] Brett Johnson: Yeah, right. Now it makes sense because I had.

[0:37:53] Darlene Ziebell: Already proven that the company could stand on its own. They didn't even realize it was woman owned. They just thought I worked for the company. And when they found out I was the owner and the founder and they started thinking about this and they're like, this is a Fortune 500 company. They said, Boy, I've got this budget over here, I can move you into this budget here and I can give you more engagements. But it wasn't because I was female, it was because my company was giving them such great service and value. Then they jumped on it, right?

[0:38:31] Brett Johnson: Yeah. So we three and most of our listeners are networkers, but for many, that is a difficult step, especially for women. Can you talk about some tips that you give new business owners on networking? Steps you consider to be the most important to grow a business?

[0:38:48] Darlene Ziebell: First of all, you have to be able to identify your ideal customer if you can describe that customer. If your customer is 50 year old blonde female who writes with her left hand as much detail as you can get, then it's easier to network where that person hangs out. Most networking done by especially for women, but even some men who come to me, I have a lot of male clients, they're just what I call throwing spaghetti on the wall. I've just been invited to several groups. I'm invited all the time to these networking groups, and now they're all in line because of the pandemic. And some of these are from around the world. And so I attended several of them at two in the morning, six at night, all over the place. And I'll get 30 or 40 names of other women who I feel may be good clients of mine. And I connect with them and connect with them, and it takes a lot of time to do this. I mean, I have to send them emails, let's schedule a time to talk, let me find out about your business, so forth and so on. And I will say, 99% of the clients I get for the very first time cannot not only tell me who their ideal customer is, they can't even explain what they're selling. And I'll deliberately just let them continue to talk and I'll ask questions and then I'll finally say, can you tell me what it is you're really selling? So that I can understand this. And this is even for some people who are selling products that get down into how the ballpoint pen is manufactured versus what's the value of the ink staying on the paper for a long time. So whatever, it doesn't run, blah, blah, blah.

[0:40:44] Darlene Ziebell: They're forgetting what the value, they're forgetting to talk about the value to the customer. So if you don't know that your networking is a waste of time, you may get lucky, you may hit in some people who like you, so they'll purchase from you. But I try and not waste my time in networking groups where I know my ideal customer won't even be there or somehow connected by three degrees of separation from that group.

[0:41:15] Carol Ventresca: A lot of times networking is based on niche groups. It could be by industry, it could be women, it could be by territory. So what you're saying is that just because that networking group is getting together is not necessarily going to be the best thing for you to do. You really need to do some research and get a better feel for who you're looking for before you just pop into networking groups. We used to do a lot of networking workshops for clients who are looking for jobs and they could waste a lot of time networking. I used to say I could network because I was nosy. I just liked hearing what people did. But in my business that was okay. Anybody could potentially be a client if they were job searching, but that's not necessarily the best use of time. And networking takes a lot of time.

[0:42:17] Darlene Ziebell: A lot of time. And that's why I recommend if you can identify who your ideal customer is, even if you're selling to another business, let's say I'm just selling to major law firms or something, where are these people hanging out? I always call it where's the watering hole? 04:00 at Sundown. All the animals show up on the savannah somewhere. I'm like, where's the watering hole all my potential clients hang out at? Is it associations? Is it trade shows? Is it charities? Do they volunteer their time for something else? How can I connect with them where I'm standing out and that they'll connect with each other? But I know small business owners who will just constantly they'll join four or five networking things. I've been invited to serve as a guest and I'm like, do these same people show up every week? I said, because I only need to be here one time to know whether or not these people are going to be my client. I'm not going to come back every week in the hopes that they'll bring a guest.

[0:43:19] Carol Ventresca: Okay, great.

[0:43:20] Darlene Ziebell: That will become one of my clients. Now I need the big bang for my buck, so I need to know where hundreds of them are hanging out.

[0:43:29] Brett Johnson: Yeah, I think there's also this attraction to be part of a networking group that actually has at least with referrals and I've looked at those again as well too, and I did the same thing. Go to a couple of meetings and going, I can't do this. I don't see anybody around the room. God bless them all. They're doing great in their businesses. But I can't refer that person that cleans chimneys. I can't do that.

[0:43:59] Darlene Ziebell: How many times can you bring in referrals for somebody to clean their chimney? Right? The summer. Yeah, it's really sad. I equate that. I'm not a psychologist. I love to read and I'm going to recommend this book to you as well and your listeners. Dr. Robert Celdini. It's spelled C-I-A-L-I-D-I-N-I chaldini. He's a psychologist who became a marketing professor. Just brilliant books and he talks about the psychology of what makes people buy and how they connect. And I equate some of these networking groups as giving you this false sense of hope. Every time you go, you have this sense of, I'm working. I got up today, I got in the car, I got dressed.

[0:44:46] Darlene Ziebell: I am going to meet people. This will help me get clients. So you've got this false sense of I'm doing something, and then you have this false sense, oh, well, they'll give me leads, and they're probably just giving you names of people because they are required to be.

[0:45:02] Brett Johnson: They're required to, right?

[0:45:04] Darlene Ziebell: And then now you're all chasing all of these leads and you go, well, I didn't get any this time, but maybe next time. So it's that false sense of security where you keep going back, keep going back. I belong to a now I'm calling it speed networking, and it's like speed dating. This just drives me up the wall. I belong to this one group that was actually local, but it became international. And every Tuesday morning it was two minutes. You had two minutes, and there are 50 people on you, and you have two minutes, two minutes, two minutes. And I got so tired of people calling me for free advice, free information, free this, free that. I said, I don't have time to waste on this in the hope that I'm going to get one client out of this, right? And I'm paying them a lot of money to do this. And now it's all speed dating online. And they just cut you off on zoom when your two minutes is up. No way.

[0:46:07] Carol Ventresca: And to listeners, regardless of the reason for the networking, I used to talk to job seekers who were doing all of this networking, and I kept saying, who's attending? Because if everybody who is attending is also seeking a job but no employers are there, you're wasting your time. Especially when we were going through the recession in the early two thousands, that's exactly what was happening, is all those networking groups, a recruiter is not going to go and spend time there if they don't have any jobs to post. So it's so important.

[0:46:44] Darlene Ziebell: One networking group in Illinois that got together for out of work senior executive people, and they did it right. They didn't require you to bring leads. You didn't even have to pay to be in the group. They met every once a month for breakfast, and people connected online. Anyone who heard about a job opening referred it back to all other 50, 60 people, right? So they kept posting all the job openings that they heard about, because I could hear about a job opening for an engineer, and I'm not an engineer, but there could be somebody in the group. So they did it right. They just kept their eye open. And a lot of people did get new jobs because of that. But it was because they got so tired of being in these other networking groups. That didn't work like you said. Exactly. He got a job, but the person who ran this group said, we need some kind of bulletin boards. You guys can post any job that you hear about and then it works.

[0:47:45] Carol Ventresca: Right.

[0:47:47] Darlene Ziebell: Okay.

[0:47:48] Carol Ventresca: So the bane of my existence is social media. And it doesn't matter how many times my friend Sharon tells me about LinkedIn and Facebook, I'm never on friendly terms with any of them. So how do you decide which platforms to use in your new business? How do you evaluate if it's working? It's no use putting all the time into it if it's not working. And how can a business owner become an influencer? Brett and I want to become influencers. Yeah, there we go.

[0:48:26] Darlene Ziebell: Three parts to this question. I know social media stuff, but it goes back to who's your customer? Right. You're not going to go on any social media groups where your customers are not. So that's part of the problem when people don't know who their customers are and then TikTok is out. Well, you may be surprised. It may not be because it's one of the fastest growing social media platforms. If you position your TikTok account saying, I'm targeting 50 year olds in Ohio, blah, blah, blah, and for this reason, you put your little two minute trailer out there, you may get a lot of hits, but again, you got to let the person know who you're looking for. So if I'm the listener or the reader in social media, I can say, oh, this is for me, or, this is not for me, or I have no idea. It's just a joke or it's a comment or a quote. So first of all, it's knowing who that is. If you want to become an influencer, you have to attach your account to other influencers. It's really posting and sharing on other influencer accounts and trying to become an influencer yourself. But you have to be able to identify about ten to 15 influencers in the space that you're targeting. Again, knowing who your ideal customer is.

[0:49:55] Darlene Ziebell: So if you're selling ballpoint pens, your influencers are going to have something to do with calligraphy, art, writing, handwriting, something to do with that. They may not be selling pens, but the people who are watching their social media sites may need a pen. So that's how you have to start thinking about connecting the dots, and you have to start commenting, and you have to start posting things that you can talk about yourself that separate your business from everyone else. Why should people start listening to you? It's a very long process, but it does work. But again, it goes back to knowing the value of what you're selling, what it is you're really selling, and who your customer really is. And then you can tie those three together and start focusing on those influencer accounts. So if you're selling bathroom tile for the wall, you're going to look for sites that talk about home remodeling, redecorating. You're going to look for sites where those influencers are and have the biggest number of followers, and then you can jump on there. But again, you have to know who your customer is, where does your customer go to look for advice? And then you have to connect with those. But social media has also been the bane of my existence. I told you that fake reviews, phony reviews, fake news we talked about this last year still exists. But I'm in Arizona, and I want your listeners to know and watch for this. If you're in a small business and you're struggling with people who are posting phony reviews against you, there's now a law in Arizona that went into effect the end of 2022.

[0:51:45] Darlene Ziebell: It's a class four felony if you try and post a phony review in the hopes of getting some free products or services. And I've had small business owners come to me with that problem, and now the government is finally taking action on that. So you really have to know your local laws. You have to know what state your business is incorporated in. And not only that, what state is doing the laws under for commerce and then know where you can get attorneys and advice on how to handle that. So social media, they're starting to crack down so that the reviews will be honest reviews from real people who are real customers. But to get to that point where you're an influencer and have everybody follow you, you have to have a plan. You have to have those three pieces. Who's a customer? Why are they buying? What's the value? And where do they hang out?

[0:52:42] Brett Johnson: A sensitive topic for small businesses is the notion of succession or preservation planning. Can you talk about some advice in how to meet such challenges in that succession, in that preservation planning?

[0:52:54] Darlene Ziebell: Well, when I talk about preservation, I really am thinking like the pandemic, what will happen if something shuts my door? I call it like insurance for business continuity and business continuation. Years ago, in brick and mortar, everyone could buy insurance continuation insurance. If somebody was putting in a new street or a sidewalk and they couldn't get into your building, you can get some compensation based on what your average sales are. So when I'm talking about preservation, I'm talking about what are all the pieces you need to keep your business going? What are the challenges that can shut you down? Can a lawsuit shut you down? Can somebody sue you for tripping in your building? Can someone sue you for the advice that you gave them? What happens if your key employee, something happens to them physically? How are you going to replace them in the business? Nobody wants to talk about these things. It's ear based. But you have to think about how many pieces, as I said, flying a plane while it's still under construction, how many pieces are there that need to keep moving like a well oiled machine? If one of those pieces break, can.

[0:54:24] Brett Johnson: That be a little bit under? Understanding what an LLC is versus the different levels of incorporating yourself as well too?

[0:54:31] Darlene Ziebell: That is also part of it. That is also part of it. But it's insurance. It's having knowing them. Now, the legal laws that you don't have to be a lawyer. I'm not an attorney, but this is where networking outside of the ideal customer is beautiful. Network at places that help small businesses, where you can learn from operating your business, preserving your business. What's the succession plan? What are some of the things that can go wrong? This is where some general networking really works well. But I've had so many challenges. My last business was sued by the state of Arizona and I was absolutely in shock. I thought they made a mistake. I got the letter in the mail and I thought, no, they got me mixed up with my competition. Then I had to scramble and look for attorneys.

[0:55:29] Darlene Ziebell: So now I needed attorneys that defended me with what was considered white collar crime. And I'm like, well, I'm incorporated. Doesn't the corporation, the corporate veil, protect me from this, this and this? Well, in the United States, anyone can sue anybody for any reason. Now we have to fight each one of these battles. And the answer came back. I said, why me? The answer came back, well, you're small, you're a target. Looks good on their record that they shut down a few businesses. And so you're just sitting here going, you can have so many things thrown at you that you don't even think about. I had people in the state of California steal my company's identity, created a phony address and a presence in California in order to sue my business in small claims court and win. Because we weren't there. We didn't show up. So yes, there are a lot of people who will do a lot of underhanded things once you start growing. This is what happens when you reach seven and eight figures.

[0:56:40] Darlene Ziebell: Now everyone thinks you're big, just like the top ten are probably sued every day. I can't imagine these big box stores don't have lawsuits coming in every day. I just can't imagine because I know how many lawsuits were coming at me and I'm little, but everyone thought I was big because it looks big. And so if you're a small business owner, that's the scaling part we talked about. You're launching the business, now you're growing it. You got to scale it. We can't just jump to the part of the preservation is how are you going to overcome all these challenges? One of the exits, that's kind of like you're landing the plane, but how are you going to keep it in the air when there's a thunderstorm that hits you every day, right?

[0:57:28] Carol Ventresca: One of the things that we talked about when you were podcasting with us last year, and listeners will make sure you have the link for that podcast too. But you had mentioned an individual who is growing a business needs to know ahead of time the people they can trust. An accountant, a lawyer, all the specialized services. This sounds like you can't keep from being sued. Somebody wants to sue you, they'll sue you. The response you need to have is to already have your resources in place.

[0:58:09] Darlene Ziebell: You have to be aware that you're going to need these resources because it will come right when you're doing this network. Now you're gathering your contact list of people that you may need their services. Last year we talked about private investigators. I tell everybody to know who wanted the best business. Private investigators are in your area because that's what I needed in order to help defend me in this lawsuit.

[0:58:40] Carol Ventresca: Right?

[0:58:41] Brett Johnson: It's almost like, yeah, it turned out.

[0:58:43] Darlene Ziebell: All this other stuff was going on behind the scenes I didn't even know existed.

[0:58:46] Brett Johnson: It's almost like carrying insurance on your home or your car. You may never need that auto or home insurance, but it's there when you need it.

[0:58:55] Darlene Ziebell: It's there when you need it. So you don't need to contract all these people right away, right? You don't need to be scrambling at the last minute going and start dialing any name you can find online and go, well, maybe this guy is good, or maybe this guy is good. Maybe this CPA is good if I'm going into an audit or what is this? You should start lining these people up so that you know who to call if you ever do need them, right?

[0:59:23] Carol Ventresca: Well, as always, our time flies quickly through our questions to Darlene. It seems like our time just is speeding by. We always ask guests after this discussion, what are the top things that you want to make sure that the listeners hear? What are your top words of wisdom for them?

[0:59:52] Darlene Ziebell: You have to know who your ideal customer is. And you have to ask whoever your mentor or advisor is, where have they done it before? Make sure they're legitimate. And the easiest way you can do that for advisors is check them out on LinkedIn. There's so many people now selling services. How to scale your business, how to do this, how to do that, how to grow excuse me. How to bring in new customers, how to do marketing. Buy this software, buy this. Just check them out on LinkedIn and you'll see if they've ever done it before or not.

[1:00:29] Carol Ventresca: Right? It's way too easy. Talk about social media issues. It's way too easy to somebody contact you and convince you that you need their service. You really do need to know who it is that you're talking to.

[1:00:46] Darlene Ziebell: Okay, exactly. You really have to check them out. Just don't fall for the quick sell or they feel good. So I'm going to sign up. I'm going to hire, you know, I'm going to get them for six sessions or whatever the best way. Like, for me, when people work for me, it's typically between six and 12 hours of my time. Over about six months, I can get them with a foundation and a plan. Who's your customer? What's the value now? These are the things you're going to encounter when you're starting to scale up and when you're growing. So then I pass them off to who they need next. If they need a marketing expert, if they need a sales plan, if they need insurance, brokering, what is it do they need? And then they're done with me. And then I just pass them off. That's what a good advisor should do, set you up so that you know where you need to go next and not just launder.

[1:01:44] Darlene Ziebell: Because I'm sure that's why so many small businesses fail. And it's really sad. My mission is to try and get as many small businesses as I can to seven figures, because I'm appalled that I beat those odds four times. And I'm like, I did this with no money. All these problems I had lawsuits getting sued, bank loans being shut down. So other people have to be experiencing the same thing I am. And they probably just don't know where to go for help, or they don't know where to go for someone to say, this is coming up, so be ready for it.

[1:02:16] Carol Ventresca: Right?

[1:02:17] Brett Johnson: Yeah. Well, we could go on for this for a long time. We'll do this again. I know we will. But thanks, Darlene, for joining us today and your willingness to share your expertise and insights. I know both Carol and I have learned from this already. I know the listeners have to. The listeners have to.

[1:02:38] Darlene Ziebell: I do have a special office offer for your listeners. If they're listening to this podcast, I might go to my website and in the contact me, they can contact me and put in the message. In the message put in that they listen to this podcast, and then I'll give them a free complimentary session to help get them started.

[1:02:57] Carol Ventresca: Wonderful.

[1:02:58] Brett Johnson: Thank you.

[1:02:59] Carol Ventresca: Wonderful. Thank you.

[1:03:00] Brett Johnson: Great. Yeah, we'll have that link and all that information in her show notes, Darlene's contact information, as well as resources that we talked about on this website, on this podcast. Excuse me. It's going to be on our website lookingforward our way. So we're looking forward to hearing your feedback on this and any of our other Pod cast episodes.