Starting a Business out of Necessity | Angela Frank

PROFITABLE TALKS...

Angela Frank of The Growth Directive shares her journey of starting her business and the importance of strategy in marketing for small businesses. She emphasizes the need for a clear goal and a marketing ecosystem that ties all channels together. Angela also discusses the challenges she has overcome, including moving frequently due to her husband's military service, which taught her perseverance and adaptability. Angela's ideal client is small to medium-sized businesses in the health and wellness industry. She plans to move to Northwest Arkansas in the next five years and build a business that allows her to step back and have more time freedom in the next 10 years. Angela emphasizes the importance of setting clear goals for both business and marketing strategies. She also discusses the power of manifestation and surrounding yourself with other entrepreneurs. Angela offers a free digital copy of her book, 'Your Marketing Ecosystem,' to listeners.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Starting a business out of necessity can lead to unexpected opportunities and growth.
• Having a clear goal and a marketing ecosystem can help small businesses achieve better results with less spending.
• Understanding your own numbers and being able to communicate with professionals in your business is crucial.
• Overcoming challenges, such as frequent moves or uncertain circumstances, can build resilience and adaptability.
• Strategy in marketing involves aligning all channels and messaging with the business's goals. Angela's ideal client is small to medium-sized businesses in the health and wellness industry.
• Setting clear goals for both business and marketing strategies is crucial.
• Manifestation and surrounding yourself with other entrepreneurs can lead to success.
• Angela offers a free digital copy of her book, 'Your Marketing Ecosystem,' to listeners. yourbrandevolved.com/freebook

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:00.285)
I hit record but I forgot to ask you, your business name.

Angela (00:06.364)
the growth directive.

Christian Brim (00:07.519)
Growth directive. knew that. I knew that because I'd literally just looked it up. Okay. So we'll start here. Welcome to the profitable creative. The only place on the internet that you're going to hear stories about how to turn your passion into profit. I'm your host, Christian Brim. With me today is Angela Frank of the growth directive. Welcome Angela.

Angela (00:11.699)
It's all good.

Angela (00:30.754)
Hi Christian, I'm so glad to be here today.

Christian Brim (00:33.173)
Well, it's good to see you again. I was on your podcast. I don't know if that episode's released, but it's good to see you again.

Angela (00:39.642)
Yep, it just came out this week.

Christian Brim (00:41.651)
Thanks. So I'm going to start with the first question I gave you. Why did you start your business?

Angela (00:50.504)
Yeah, so this is actually my second business. My first business I started, it was a little Etsy business actually. And I started that out of necessity when my husband was in the military. He had a really unusual enlistment and we ended up living in 10 different cities across four years. And so starting a business was something that I did just to be able to make money while we were moving every couple of months to different, you know, that was across different states and everything. So I started it really out of

Christian Brim (01:14.484)
Yeah.

Angela (01:19.858)
practicality. The business that I'm running now, I started because I was getting burned out in corporate. And what I was finding is that a lot of small businesses don't need full -time in -house marketing support at the strategy level. And so they'd hire me in a marketing director role and I'd come in and I would be really busy the first couple of months and then there would really be not a lot for me to do. And so it was a really natural transition to start offering

Christian Brim (01:21.109)
Okay.

Christian Brim (01:34.751)
Yes.

Christian Brim (01:44.021)
Mm -hmm.

Angela (01:48.104)
fractional support to those companies and having a greater impact not only on their bottom line, but also on the ability for them to staff more, know, positions that make sense in a full -time role.

Christian Brim (02:02.421)
So were you working for another agency in that role?

Angela (02:06.148)
No, I was working in -house at a couple of different brands over the course of a few years as a marketing director.

Christian Brim (02:09.545)
Okay.

Christian Brim (02:13.109)
Okay. And so I'm curious at what age did you make that leap to do it yourself?

Angela (02:23.144)
Well, it was two years ago, so I'm going to be 29 this weekend, so 27.

Christian Brim (02:29.237)
Well, that's the exact same age I was when I started my business. So congratulations. You know, I think a lot of times, people start it younger. I, I find it hard to think about what my mindset was at 27, with two young children and, borrowing money to buy a franchise and, like what, what in the hell was going on in my head?

Angela (02:34.382)
Thank you.

Angela (02:59.26)
Yeah

Christian Brim (03:01.329)
so did you come from an entrepreneurial family?

Angela (03:07.368)
Sort of. Growing up, my dad was a, not a contractor, but he did construction and over time he was working to get his general contracting license. Unfortunately, he has a crippling drug addiction, which ended up rooting his prospects for entrepreneurial endeavors. so there was this thread of entrepreneurialism and like owning your own destiny, but I never got to see it play out.

in real time.

Christian Brim (03:38.569)
Yeah. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I really am. think that addiction and entrepreneurism have a lot of crossover, if you will. There's a lot of entrepreneurs that do struggle with addiction and it sounds like your father was one of them. What did you learn about money growing up?

Angela (04:04.944)
Yeah, so unfortunately because of the fact that my dad was the drug, the primary breadwinner, and of course things got bad when I was about in middle school. I grew up primarily on welfare. My mom supported on her own three girls and she had, you know, been a state hold mom for a long time and so she got whatever work was available for her in our small town, which didn't pay much. And so

Christian Brim (04:19.679)
Mm -hmm.

Angela (04:33.574)
What I learned growing up was how to get by when you don't have a lot. But as far as, know, in my adult life now, I've had to teach myself a lot of things about what you do when you actually have excess. How can you take this and set yourself up for your future? So I've been very fortunate to sort of escape that cycle of welfare and need to learn these new things. But everything that I've learned has been really new because it just wasn't a reality growing up.

Christian Brim (04:38.911)
Right?

Christian Brim (05:02.997)
That's incredible. I hear a lot of stories about, I use the word trauma, in a clinical sense, but just generally traumatic. It could be anything. But how that motivates people in their entrepreneurial journey. I think back about my grandfather. He grew up,

very poor, two brothers, three, three boys in a small town. Father was the town alcoholic and, they were pretty much raising themselves, right? cause their mother had left and he made a lot of money and, he spent all of it. Right. And, and I contrast that with my father -in -law who very similar situation grew up very poor.

And he had the opposite reaction and he's been a miser his whole life. Like he won't, won't spend money. And so I think it's interesting how different people react to those situations and how it shows up in their money as adults. let's go back to, you know, the growth directive and your decision to provide fractional services. find this interesting as a business, not in the marketing space.

but I find that strategic component, it was missing in our business for sure. we, we spent a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of effort, a lot of frustration doing what I call random acts of marketing. which, is, you know, every new thing that I saw, be it a new tool or a new method, I was always.

you know, trying it out. And what I realized after doing it wrong for a long time was that what was missing was this underpinning strategy, right? So talk about what exactly strategy is in the context of marketing in small businesses.

Angela (07:25.552)
Yeah, absolutely. Christian, I feel like a lot of businesses are in that same state as what yours used to be where you hear you're supposed to be running emails. So you kind of stand that up and then you hear you're supposed to be running paid ads. So you run and set up some paid ads. And so you're kind of everywhere, but there's nothing tying everything that you're doing together. There's no strategy behind it. And so what we do is we implement a type of a strategy called a marketing ecosystem. And that is how

all of your channels now that you've kind of set up separately, they can come together and create something that's greater than the sum of its parts. And usually that creates something where the business is able to spend a lot less on their marketing and produce a lot more results. For example, there was a fitness company that I was working with. They were spending about $100 ,000 a month on paid ads. They had an agency running those ads.

As soon as I come in, I look at the data, I found that their agency was unfortunately lying to them about the impact that the ads were having in their business. They were taking all top line sales. There was an outbound sales team and people prospecting and getting business outside of the ads and the agency was putting those all next to each other and showing, look, the ads are profitable. They had not been for years and unfortunately were losing the business quite a lot of money.

Christian Brim (08:49.289)
Are you saying that there were unscrupulous marketers out there? I'm shocked. I'm shocked.

Angela (08:52.85)
Yes, unfortunately it happens. Yeah, and

Christian Brim (08:58.689)
Well, if I have I two thoughts the the first question I'd have for you is like What what are the the key components of strategy not not like give me your recipe? like in in layman's terms when you say strategy, what does that mean?

Angela (09:18.256)
Yep. So for me, strategy always starts with the goal for your business, which, for example, Christian, your goal could be helping creative entrepreneurs create profitable businesses, just a simple mission statement type of deal for your brand. And then where are you trying to go with your brand? You know, what kind of sales are you trying to generate? What kind of impact are you trying to have with your brand and how big are you trying to grow it? Those two things together inform the strategy.

for marketing and when I'm creating marketing ecosystems. And not only does this help with messaging and making sure that all of your messaging is consistent across channels, but it makes sure that what you're doing is laddering up to your goal. So if your goal is to maybe educate creatives, something like a podcast is great, a YouTube channel is great, something like direct mail probably doesn't work as good. And so it just helps you check.

is what I'm doing laddering up to my mission and to the goals that I have for my business.

Christian Brim (10:20.157)
love that definition. You embarrassed me because when you talk about messaging, when we hired our most recent agency, primarily to do fractional CMO, we'd never done that before, right? And they interviewed us at the outset and we had me, we had our marketing director, we had our salesperson, and we had our head of client service.

Okay. So there were four of us and they asked us to answer the question. What is it that core does? And as we started answering the question, I was like, shit, we've got a problem because I understood what they were saying. Right. Because I knew them. I knew what we did, but I'm like, I realized that

Angela (11:06.641)
you

Christian Brim (11:17.145)
We didn't have any continuity from marketing to delivering, you know, through the sales process of clearly saying what it is that we did. Right. So, you know, I think as an established business, was different than if I was starting out and I didn't know, hey, I don't know what my messaging is. Let's come up with it. But, you know,

I suppose you find that in existing organizations where not everybody's singing from the same sheet of music.

Angela (11:52.328)
Absolutely, and that's exactly why we start there. The little sentence that we create, my example for you was helping creative entrepreneurs build profitable businesses. That's not like a public statement. That's not something that's shared with people on your Instagram or anything like that, but it's shared internally. So everyone has a really clear understanding of what it is you do and the goal that you have when communicating about your business.

Christian Brim (12:06.601)
Right, right.

Angela (12:19.546)
It's also something that's good to share with contractors and things like that. And it's something that a lot of businesses don't have. And it's just because there's so many things going on in your business. You're being pulled in so many different directions. And it's probably been a while since you've sat down to think about, you know, is my messaging all lining up? Because it's kind of a niche thought to have in the beginning or to begin with. And so by just having that clarity, you're able to make sure that everything's working together in your marketing.

Christian Brim (12:49.909)
Yeah, I have told my marketing agency, basically what I'm paying you for is to tell me what not to do. Because I come up with these ideas and I'm like, okay, should we do this? And they're like, no, I don't know that that is consistent with what we're trying to do. I'm like, okay, well that saved me $10 ,000, right? Like, you know, I didn't do that. Do you find yourself in those situations?

Angela (13:12.639)
Yeah.

Angela (13:18.148)
Definitely. And for clients, when we finished a project and they really liked that advisory service and make myself available to them and they can call and run ideas by me, that's a totally separate thing where, you know, I'm always available to answer your call or your Slack message and you can run anything by me. I find that just having that check, that trusted advisor that you can call, like you said, saves you a lot of money in the long run because, well, there's a lot of validity in testing things in your own business to seeing what works.

they have this overarching perspective of, well, we've run this in a bunch of other businesses and it didn't really turn out. And so I don't think it's the best use of your funds at this time.

Christian Brim (13:57.865)
Do you find that clients sometimes don't make that call or ask the question and do something without consulting you?

Angela (14:09.384)
Yeah, so when we're brought on, when I work with a client, it's on a project basis. And so I've been really lucky in the way where if I'm brought in to assess the marketing strategy and set up three new channels, that's what I'm doing for them. And they're pretty hands off. Afterwards, there's a 30 day advisory period that's included in the package where they can call again at any time with any questions.

Christian Brim (14:16.042)
Mm -hmm.

Angela (14:36.358)
And then if they don't continue that advisory service afterwards, it's really on them what they're doing with the systems that I have set up. And so that's where I find then more hands are in the pot and maybe things are changing at that point. But it's usually pretty, I'm pretty fortunate where I get to get my work done and set something up that's working for the business and then they're able to take it and run with it.

Christian Brim (15:02.163)
Yeah, I always find it fascinating because I've experienced this as a professional how either they don't ask the question, like I have this resource, but I'm not going to ask their opinion or two worse, they ignore it. And I'm like,

I mean, I don't understand. Maybe that's that entrepreneurial, I can do it yourself mentality or maybe they're just that they're strong willed and they want to do what they want to do. And really the professional advice is not that valuable to them.

Angela (15:47.91)
Yeah, in my case, what I do is I just try to provide value where I am and then ask them questions, you know, like, I saw you did something new on your email. How's that working for you? And try to be a resource for my client. I'm really a partner with them. And if they're not comfortable, you know, talking about something that they're doing, because again, as entrepreneurs, we love to do things ourselves and that is totally fine. You know, but I'm trying to just make sure that

Christian Brim (16:12.5)
Right? Right?

Angela (16:17.092)
they have their goals in mind and that everything that they're doing is laddering up to those. And I'm always here if they need that support. Maybe six months down the road, they're like, Hey, remember that email thing you asked about? It really didn't work out. Can you help us with this? And so, you know, there's a lot to be said about testing and learning things in your own business. And that's really what I did in my first business. I did everything myself and like you, I

Christian Brim (16:29.353)
Yeah.

Angela (16:41.618)
tried all the new tools and it creates this web of knowledge that you can draw upon later. And so if somebody is trying to get that knowledge for themselves, I'm not going to get in their way.

Christian Brim (16:51.945)
Yeah. I mean, I, I speak about, knowing enough. and I picked up this phrase. I went on, I wandered in the desert a few years ago. I got tired of running my business and I turned it over to my brother who was a part of my partner at the time. And, I went and started a software company and I, you know, I hadn't coded since I was.

13 years old on a TRS -80. And I did have a color monitor, though. And what I quickly learned was I had to learn enough code and coding to be able to even talk to the developers that were actually doing it. And as a business owner, you wear a lot of hats.

And it's the right thing to do to engage professionals on those things in which you're not an expert for sure. But you have to know enough, going back to your example of that agency that was ripping them off, ripping your client off, you need to know enough to know whether that professional is doing their job, right? As well as being able to communicate what you need.

Angela (18:15.132)
Yeah. And I think in that situation, the person who owned the business had just kind of like some other projects going on. So I think his focus wasn't a hundred percent where it should have been, but that would have been a really easy thing to catch where you're just like, I know last month sales numbers are the numbers that they're presenting and that should raise a red flag. So I don't know if the agency teed that up as like, this is industry standard and like was manipulative in that way. But I do think that there's.

Christian Brim (18:32.66)
Yeah.

Angela (18:43.336)
incredible validity in making sure that you know your own numbers. And there's also an importance on making sure that the person that you're bringing on can speak to you in a way that you're understanding it and you have that know, like and trust factor with them. And so that's why everything we do starts with that data element, making sure that data dashboards are set up so leadership can always see what we're doing. Finance can check in and see what the numbers are doing on the marketing side.

Christian Brim (18:55.764)
Yes.

Angela (19:10.85)
and having those open and honest conversations with many different stakeholders to make sure that what's going on in marketing is laddering up to being able to create profitable marketing systems.

Christian Brim (19:23.017)
Yeah, you know, I find that professionals oftentimes in all aspects, all professionals tend to hide behind jargon and bullshit to make them sound smart or experienced, you know, and I think as a business owner, it's the exact opposite. Like if you can explain it to me in terms that I understand, then you really do know what you're talking about.

Angela (19:50.288)
Yeah, absolutely.

Christian Brim (19:52.681)
So what is the most significant challenge, business or personal, that you have overcome?

Angela (19:59.066)
Yeah, I will bring it back to what we were talking about earlier. Moving so many times with the military was one of the most transformational periods. was four years of just extreme uncertainty about where we were going in life. My husband would know he was going to be getting orders. We didn't know where. So you're starting to think of

Christian Brim (20:12.617)
Yes.

Angela (20:21.2)
Okay, I'm prepping for a move. I don't know where is it going to be an hour, know, in town an hour from here? Is it going to be a totally different state? And so then you get the orders and then you're like, great, we're in San Francisco. We're moving to Topeka, Kansas. And you just have to figure out how to pick up your life and move it to a completely new place. And you have to do it. There's no option to not do it. And so that taught me a lot of just like

you know, wake up in the morning and get it done. And a lot of the things, the perseverance, I don't know, grit is kind of a woo woo word, but that sort of thing is what I've been able to take from that period of my life. And it's something that's really set me up for success in business. There are so many things going on in business and things can go wrong and things can go great. you know, it's just,

Christian Brim (20:53.833)
Yes. Yes, no, I like it. I like it.

Angela (21:15.312)
It's kind of very uncertain at the beginning and you have to just get up and get through it. Otherwise your business isn't going to make it.

Christian Brim (21:22.901)
So if my math's right, that's like every four months on average. Okay, okay, so give me the list of the 11 places you were.

Angela (21:26.672)
Yeah, yeah, was a lot.

Angela (21:34.29)
So we started out in Minnesota, then we went to Honolulu, Hawaii, Alameda, California, Travis Air Force Base, California. We were staying in the fam camp there. My husband's Coast Guard, but we were staying there. Then Petaluma, California. And then we moved to Topeka, Kansas, and then Colorado Springs, and then Topeka, Kansas. And then after he got out, we moved to Sarasota, Florida.

Christian Brim (21:47.263)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (22:01.619)
Nice. So, okay, he's in the Coast Guard, but you were in Topeka?

Angela (22:06.894)
Yep, there is a government building there that they run all of the payroll for the Coast Guard out of. So lucky us. were at like, I don't know if it's the only one that's in the inland United States, but yep. Yeah. Left the beautiful San Francisco Bay area and.

Christian Brim (22:14.335)
course.

Christian Brim (22:20.063)
All right. Yeah.

Christian Brim (22:26.303)
Well, not to say anything. mean, Topeka is just up the road for me and I've been there. I'm not bagging on Topeka, but it's kind of like I found out we here in Oklahoma City have a very large Air Force base, Tinker Air Force base. And I found out many years ago that there's actually a naval wing stationed there. And I'm like, how much sense does that make in Oklahoma to have naval aviators? don't, I don't. Hey, whatever. I'm not in charge.

Angela (22:47.519)
really?

Angela (22:53.04)
Yeah, it doesn't. They have a plan that we're not privy to.

Christian Brim (22:57.525)
I guess. I guess. So describe your ideal client.

Angela (23:06.032)
Yeah, so my ideal client is really one where I can have the greatest impact on their marketing. Those are usually small to medium sized businesses. They've got marketing systems kind of set up, but they're not really sure what connects them all or you know, they've tried a lot of things, nothing really seems like it's working. I work a lot with health and wellness brands. And generally, they're making a couple million dollars a year in revenue. That's really when it makes sense to bring me on from a strategy perspective.

Christian Brim (23:26.696)
Mm -hmm.

Christian Brim (23:35.797)
Okay, yeah, that tracks. That makes sense. Where will you be in five years? I mean, geographically, I don't know. That's a hit or miss, but yeah, of course.

Angela (23:43.29)
Yeah, so we're actually planning. Yeah, I was gonna say we're planning another move actually. We're in Colorado Springs right now and we're just looking for a spot that will support us. And so right now we're looking at Northwest Arkansas and we're planning a home build. And so with that, the business needs to grow to be able to support that move and being able to, you

build our dream life. We're ready to settle down and start really putting roots down and things like that. So that's the five -year plan. Grow the business to a place where we're really confident in making this commitment. In 10 years, I'd like to have a business that's built out in a way where I can start stepping back and commit a lot less time to the business. That's honestly more like the seven -year plan. So by

10 years, guess, is pretty generous. Should be there by that point. Essentially having a couple of other fractional CMOs who are able to work in our consultancy producing the same type of results that I'm able to produce and create those systematized, scalable systems for our brand.

Christian Brim (24:57.117)
Yeah, I think a lot of entrepreneurs, especially me when I was young, I either didn't care or didn't consider it. I don't remember, but there's this idea of building a business and growing the business. at least my motivation was financially motivated. I wanted to provide for my family.

the idea of financial wealth, there's also time wealth, right? And, and what I see a lot of business owners do is they get on that growth wheel and 10 years later, they're like miserable. That's, that's where I was. And I've seen a lot of other entrepreneurs like, and, and usually, it's, it's because

They are the linchpin of the business, right? And the business doesn't exist without their input. And what they realize is that what they started out to do is not what they're doing, right? They're managing people. They're not doing the work that they loved. there's something to what you said about like, if you can have financial wealth,

and then not have time wealth and then what are you going to spend your money on? Right.

Angela (26:27.912)
Right, absolutely. And so that's why the move actually plays really heavily into that five and 10 year plan because we are trying to set our life up in a way where we've created the financial wealth to be able to create a home space that we love and be able to.

maybe adopt some children. And then beyond that, now we're being able to create that time wealth, like you said. So we could spend time with our children and we can spend time on our hobbies. I'm a big gardener and I have this huge garden planted on my head for when we moved to Arkansas.

Christian Brim (27:02.005)
Do you have a, do you, do you, do you have a, what do you, they don't call them hot houses. What do they call them? greenhouse. That's the word. Do you have a greenhouse?

Angela (27:13.057)
In my dream garden plan I do right now. I'm renting a community garden plot in Colorado Springs So I have like three little garden beds, which is good. I'm very grateful for it But in my head big greenhouse big garden, it's gonna be great

Christian Brim (27:18.495)
Okay.

Christian Brim (27:27.347)
Yeah.

Well, Northwest Arkansas, not, I'm not from the chamber of commerce there, but it is beautiful. visited there a couple of times, and it's popping. mean, man, there's, there's a lot going on there for sure. So what are you currently struggling with in your business? What's your, what's, what keeps you up at night or you wake up thinking about.

Angela (27:38.13)
Yeah. Yeah.

Angela (27:48.73)
Yeah, so something that I'm currently focusing on is creating an ecosystem for my own business. We have a great website, we have a great podcast, and now I'm just trying to increase our presence online. I'm really active on LinkedIn, but I'm trying to grow some other social channels and all of these things because we're only two years into business.

Christian Brim (27:57.94)
Mm -hmm.

Angela (28:13.646)
our new channels for us and so they've got to be plugged into our own ecosystem and start generating those that flywheel of results.

Christian Brim (28:23.197)
Yeah, I'm not going to name names, but I've worked with a lot of marketing agencies over the years and it's kind of like the shoemaker's kids don't have any shoes. And it's like, they don't, they don't, it's not that they don't want to take their own medicine, but they don't take the time to do, take their own medicine. And so I don't, I don't think you're alone in that struggle.

Angela (28:49.836)
definitely not. But for me, it's really important that we start to build that flywheel now and spend as much effort now upfront as possible to create that flywheel because something that I teach about is creating this almost psychological safety when people are interacting with your brand right now because we haven't spent a lot of time growing our business and my personal brand Instagram. It doesn't create this

Christian Brim (28:55.828)
Yes.

Christian Brim (29:07.487)
Mm -hmm.

Angela (29:16.034)
reinforced image of, yeah, Angela knows what she's doing. Most people don't need to grow their Instagram to have that credibility, but because we're marketing and we talk about it all the time, and it's something that I say that people need to do, I also need to make sure that we have this flywheel in our brand and my personal brand.

Christian Brim (29:20.726)
Right.

Christian Brim (29:36.261)
I interviewed a gentleman earlier where he actually is in the residential real estate business in South Florida, but he has built a YouTube channel that he actually has monetized. And, I, I was, actually told my marketing agency and my marketing director just yesterday. I'm like, that's the standard, right?

Like he's not in the business of content creator, but he's got a marketing channel that actually makes him money. And I'm like that that's brilliant.

Angela (30:17.274)
Yeah, there's this great book that I read many years ago called Killing Marketing that talks about this concept of, know, you have your business, but your marketing can also generate income for you. He was talking about SC Johnson has a baby blog that runs ads and is able to generate revenue as an additional income stream for SC Johnson and all these other things like you were saying with the YouTube channel. And so I think that's really smart that you're like, this is the standard.

Christian Brim (30:30.366)
Right.

Christian Brim (30:46.749)
Yeah, like, I mean, it's not like his business is content creation, right? That'd be a different thing. It's this is his marketing, whereas every other business in the world is saying, well, it's an out. I got to spend money for my marketing, right?

Angela (31:00.165)
Absolutely.

Christian Brim (31:01.781)
What are you the most proud of accomplishing so far in your 27 years? 29 years, sorry.

Angela (31:07.688)
Yeah, so 29. I'm really proud of the business right now. feel like when I originally started my Etsy business, this was the security and the lifestyle that I wanted to be living. was, if I look back in my journal, when I was doing my manifesting journaling, I'm living now the life that I was envisioning for myself then. And so I'm incredibly proud of that accomplishment.

Christian Brim (31:28.095)
Right?

Christian Brim (31:32.5)
Yes.

Angela (31:36.922)
And so my goal now is to create a new big vision for my life. And in five years, hopefully, I will be living that vision.

Christian Brim (31:45.524)
I love it. I probably would put myself in the camp, but there's a lot of people that think that, you called it manifestation, didn't you? Okay. That's kind of woo woo. But the more I have experienced and learned, there is a tremendous...

Angela (32:01.863)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (32:14.19)
power to being concrete about your vision and that becoming your reality. Do you want to opine on that a little further?

Angela (32:27.204)
Yeah, first of all, definitely woo woo. And it was something that I just did on a whim. But now looking back, it was one of the greatest things that I ever did. Because when you're focusing on your goals every day over and over and over again, and even now I have like my little vision board on my ultra wide monitor. So every time that I don't have anything open on my computer, I'm seeing it and it's refreshing itself in my mind. There's a lot of power to that.

Christian Brim (32:46.634)
Mm -hmm.

Christian Brim (32:55.444)
Yes.

Angela (32:56.102)
Something that I look for is a universal truth. And I think that the difference between people who are able to go and start their own business and live a successful life as an entrepreneur and people who want to make big changes in their life but never end up doing it, maybe they work a job that they're unsatisfied with, I really just think the difference is goal setting and having that persistence to then go after it. Anybody can say, yeah, I want to have more money and

Christian Brim (33:17.791)
Mm -hmm.

Angela (33:26.447)
it must be nice, but you actually have to set the goal and then get up every day and work towards it.

Christian Brim (33:28.062)
Right.

Christian Brim (33:32.147)
Yeah, and it's work. mean, you know, I do think that a lot of people that are not entrepreneurs or considering entrepreneurship have freedom is usually a word attached to it, But it's there is, I mean, it is there's a lot of freedom in being an entrepreneur, but it is a lot of work. I think, you know, the power of the mind to

So, so my experience is that I need to be around other entrepreneurs to show me what's possible, right? Because, you know, if you're, if you are in a situation in your business, it's easy to get trapped into that mindset of, this is just the way it has to be, right? But

If you think about being an entrepreneur, that's actually counter to our character, right? We're about creating that reality that we envision. But you can kind of get ground down by it. You, being two years in the business, haven't experienced that. I definitely experienced that. And that's why I left my business for a couple of years, was because I had lost the vision.

And I stopped believing that the vision was possible. And when you do that, then your passion dies. It just can't survive.

Angela (35:12.112)
Yeah, I love what you're saying about surrounding yourself with other entrepreneurs. think now it doesn't relate to me as much. But when I first started my Etsy business, if you're the only person in your family, or maybe there's like one other person, but people don't really think that they have their

marbles all in their head. If you're the only person to be an entrepreneur, people don't understand it. And so you almost have to build up this little wall of like, no, I know I'm right. I have to do this. I'm going to do it. it can be really isolating because it seems like everyone around you is, not against you. They're just in their way looking out for your best interests, even though it might be misguided. And so

Christian Brim (35:31.903)
Right.

Christian Brim (35:37.17)
Mm -mm.

Christian Brim (35:45.129)
Yes.

Christian Brim (35:53.179)
Yes. Yeah, no, they just, they don't understand. and, it, that can be lonely because you, know, you work with your spouse, but like a lot of times you can't have those conversations with your spouse. you know, your friends are not entrepreneurs necessarily. So, you know, they don't really understand what you're talking about and they, they do look at you cross -eyed like you're nuts. I don't need, you know, like that's crazy.

Angela (35:57.885)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (36:20.499)
And you certainly can't talk to your employees about it. So it can be isolating for sure. I wanted to ask you briefly about the experience of working with your husband. So I find that interesting. Talk about that decision to him come into the business.

Angela (36:45.894)
Yeah, so he's always been really integral in the business that I've been building. We've been really fortunate with in, I think it was March, he was able to come on full time. And he's really somebody who is able to take this zoomed out view. And he's always been someone that I've run ideas by. And so it made sense to bring him on. It's not all sunshine and roses all of the time, of course, because we're both

Christian Brim (37:05.267)
Mm -hmm.

Angela (37:12.306)
first born children and we have very strong wills. And so once in a while I'm like, no, I know best. And he's like, no, you're silly to have that idea. I know best. And so we do have those types of different disagreements, but what we've been able to do is create essentially just lanes for us to operate within. Right now he's taking and.

Christian Brim (37:13.959)
Mmm, yes.

Christian Brim (37:24.821)
Mm -hmm.

Angela (37:32.956)
he's going to create the social strategy and really own that level of the business where I'm going to work on client acquisition and obviously fulfilling contracts and things like that. And so by creating those separations and also from the viewpoint, he's more high level strategy and I'm more tactical strategy, if that makes sense, where he just checks to make sure that where I'm going is the right direction as somebody who's so.

Christian Brim (37:54.111)
Mm -hmm. No, it does.

Angela (38:00.708)
involved in the business it's nice to have a more zoomed out perspective. We're still pretty fresh but figuring it out.

Christian Brim (38:05.247)
So was that something?

Was that something that you were contemplating hiring or bringing on a partner for that position?

Angela (38:16.812)
No, because frankly he's always been that. Even when he's been in the military, I run ideas by him. And so he's always been that piece of the puzzle. And so when he was brought on full time, it was mostly to own the social and content production side of the business.

Christian Brim (38:19.88)
Okay.

Christian Brim (38:34.485)
And this may sound like a strange question, but did he want to, or did you have to do some convincing?

Angela (38:42.789)
Nope, he actually quit his job and said, work for you now. And I'm like, OK, I guess you do.

Christian Brim (38:46.035)
Okay. Okay. All right. That's good. My experience was not that I made the mistake of, I mean, I knew what my wife was good at, which I wasn't good at. And so I gave her those responsibilities, but she didn't want them. So she did them, but she didn't really want to. And I talk about how...

Angela (39:06.0)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (39:14.229)
With with employees not I'm not calling her employee. Please don't say that that that you know Because I ran into this with my brother as well as my partner You know, even though someone can do something, you know have the capacity to do something if they don't want to do it They're never going to be good at it. Right? I mean even if they have the natural talent I

Angela (39:19.707)
Hehehehe

Christian Brim (39:41.095)
I don't know why that is, like why you wouldn't like to do something that you're good at, but you know, it does happen.

Angela (39:47.548)
Yeah, definitely.

Christian Brim (39:50.101)
So let's leave the audience with one piece of business advice, well, or personal advice, whatever you want, for creative business owners.

Angela (40:04.496)
Yeah, so I think one of the themes we talked about today was have a clear goal for your business. And if what you're doing isn't laddering up to that, that's okay. You can take a step back. Like you said, Christian, you went for a walk in the desert and you can recess what you're doing and create a new plan. That's kind of the part of entrepreneurship that a lot of people don't talk about. It's messy. It's going to be that way. And, you know, it doesn't make it easier to accept it when something is not, you know, feeling right. But

Christian Brim (40:17.769)
You

Angela (40:34.246)
There's a lot of power in recognizing that and moving on instead of staying trapped in something. I'll also give a piece of marketing advice. Do the same thing for your marketing. Create an overarching goal and make sure that what you're doing is lottery up to that. And if it's not, that's fine. You can shift your priorities and create a system that actually generates profit for your business.

Christian Brim (40:55.807)
I love it. And I'll leave with this advice that, you know, it definitely depends on the size of your business. know, strategy for smaller businesses may not make sense, but that doesn't mean that you can't think or act strategically and save yourself a whole bunch of frustration and a whole bunch of money by getting Angela's book.

and reading it. I didn't ask you about that. Where do we find your book?

Angela (41:29.328)
Yeah, so actually listeners, if you don't mind, I have a free gift for your listeners. You can get a free digital copy of the book at yourbrandevolved .com backslash free book. Nope, not backslash forward slash free book. Let me say that again. Yourbrandevolved .com forward slash free book. One word, free book. And the book is Your Marketing Ecosystem. It talks all about how you can make sure that all of your marketing is slattering up to that goal.

Christian Brim (41:33.139)
I love it.

Christian Brim (41:43.357)
Yes, yes.

Angela (41:58.832)
There's also, I'll send you a free paper copy, paperback copy. You just need to pay some shipping and handling, but the digital copy is completely free.

Christian Brim (42:05.685)
Perfect. And we'll have those links in the show notes, so don't worry about it if you didn't get it written down. Angela, it has been my pleasure. Thank you for your time.

Angela (42:12.946)
All right.

Angela (42:17.0)
Christian, thank you so much for having me on. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Christian Brim (42:20.371)
You bet. Ta ta for now.