Family, fatherhood, freedom, and finding focus as a solopreneur

Speaker A: Foreign m.

Speaker B: What's up everybody? This is Will Stevens and you're listening

Speaker C: to Solopreneur Stories, the podcast that examines the best insights other solopreneurs have already

Speaker B: figured out so you can use them in your life. On this show I speak with guests

Speaker C: ranging from brand new consultants to seasoned solopreneurs and passive side giggers to hardcore hustlers. We'll ah, discuss the ideas, the opportunities and the strategies that they're taking advantage of so all of you listening can do the same.

Speaker B: In this episode, I speak with Gregory Ferran. Gregory is the founder of a solo marketing agency called Breakaway Marketing. After working in marketing leadership positions for over a decade, helping to turn poor performers into market leaders and generating over 129 million in incremental revenue, Gregory jumped into entrepreneurship. He and I have some very similar stories which we talk about, including topics such as scaling a business, experiences with subcontractors, family, fatherhood, and taking time off to focus on those things, building a niche while being, um, adaptive to market signals and other topics. This was a great one and pretty meaningful for me personally. I mentioned pretty early in this episode that I felt like I was talking to my own conscience at a few points. His story and the way he shares it hit me in the chest and I felt like some of our similar experiences make for some good lessons to anyone listening. Gregory is a great guy and I'm rooting for him and what he's building. As always, it was a great conversation and I learned a lot and I

Speaker C: think you will too.

Speaker B: Here is Gregory Ferran. I like to start at the beginning, so I know you and I covered this when like we first spoke, but I would love to just hear it again because it resonated a ton. What brought you into the world of solopreneurship?

Speaker A: Yeah, so for me I was a marketing leader for 10 plus years. I worked at a company called Bell that you probably know and I worked for seven years and then I moved over to B2B SaaS and tech always was considered, I guess a high performer and ah, on paper things always looked really good, I guess I'd say. And things were moving in the direction that I guess I would have wanted. But I had a number of things happen in March 2023 that really changed my perspective and the course of my life which ended up leading to me starting my business in January. And it was a combination of a few things. The one big one was I was laid off unexpectedly with my VP and my cmo. So on the cusp of a promotion Which I thought I wanted to, but in retrospect I think I was very unhappy for a long period of time. But I was always trying to gun for that next position and I was on the cusp of a promotion and then I got laid off, which is really a punch in the gut, which I'm sure you or anyone who's listening to this thing would understand when you really care about your career and that becomes a part of your identity. When I was laid off, that was really something that impacted me in a way that I don't think I'd want to admit this publicly, but it did. So I was laid off. I had a baby daughter at home, so. And I was a new dad, so I had a six month old baby daughter at home with a very limited, small window of severance to work with. So I wanted to bring home money and take care of her and be a good dad. But there's also stress. As anyone knows as a parent, being a new parent is a challenging thing. So laid off, parent to a dad, um, to a beautiful baby girl, which is amazing, but comes with the stresses. And then my dad was very sick. So my dad was in the midst of fighting something called acute myeloid leukemia, which is a form of leukemia and blood cancer. And it wasn't looking good and he ended up beating it, which was unbelievable. But at the time he was very, very sick and we didn't know how it was going to turn out. He was a patient at Princess ah, Margaret Hospital, and I was splitting my time, which is kind of a blessing, I guess, of being laid off. But between being a dad at home trying to find a new job and applying for jobs, which is as stressful as anyone knows, and being with my dad at Princess Margaret and not knowing how that would turn out. So that was really the turning point in my life, which pushed me along this path. And there's a number of different things that happened since that point, but that was the real pivotal change in my life which pushed me in this direction.

Speaker B: Wow, that is a storm of, uh, of a lot of big life events all converging and. Yeah, I mean, it's sort of inevitable life stuff, but I guess if you're lucky, it can get stretched across you know, the, uh, different weekends instead of just like this collision of all these things just being like, wow, okay. That was the fast track to the family stuff, the professional stuff, the you stuff. So, yeah, I hear all of that really, really deeply. The layoff itself. So I've been laid off twice, actually. It can Be traumatizing. Like you. I think, like, in the moment, I'm a business person. I get it. Like, I can, you know, clinically and very detached understand those things. But I have been someone who gets, like, very. My identity gets wrapped up in the thing I'm doing. You mentioned when you were on that track towards, like, a promotion before you got laid off. In hindsight, maybe have different sentiments to it. Can you unpack that a little bit

Speaker A: more for me in terms of how I. How was that a goal that I should have been striving for? Or I think for me, living in. Being in corporate for so long and being in borderline toxic environments for a long period of time, which is where I really grew up in my career, starting from, you know, at the corporation that I worked in before and then moving to another place where things were great, and then things turned a little bit at the end. I think I was unhappy for a long period of time, and I didn't recognize why. And if I'm really going deep on this is. I started even before I got into tech. I started experiencing panic attacks and anxiety attacks. I didn't know why, but it was because of the certain situations I was put in and because of a, uh, really, I don't know another word to use, but toxic work environments that ended up forcing me to a point where I was getting panic attacks. I would be presenting in a meeting and I'd have this overwhelming feeling of anxiety. Even though I practice and work so hard, I knew my stuff and I knew I was really good at what I had to do and I had a team and we were doing a good job. But I got to a point where I'd be in these moments where I'd have to present in an executive boardroom and I'd get these anxiety attacks and panic attacks. And, yeah, those were the types of things I was experiencing. So even though I was able to fight through those things, even though I was able to move forward in my career and accomplish goals and drive revenue and all that, I was also saddled with these. These other issues that I was dragging along. And it was almost like m. With just through sheer resilience and grit, fighting through that bullshit, uh, to hit a goal that I thought I wanted, that I thought was right for me, but I had the blinders on, and it took something big like I was talking about before for me to realize, hey, that was fucking wrong, that was not actually the goal, and there's another path to take, and maybe you should go down this path instead.

Speaker B: I Feel like this is my own conscience talking back to me. This is, like, nearly identical to a lot of my own path. Yeah. I remember distinctly there was one presentation I was presenting to the board at the time, and I crushed it. I delivered. I did good. I was super prepared. I take my work super seriously. I'm competitive. And immediately after, my cfo, you know, jumped on a zoom with me just to huddle and was like, great job. Like, you delivered. You know, we were proud of you. You really did great. And I was like, dude, I thought I was dying. I was just, like, swallowing anxiety, you know, gulp after gulp and getting tunnel vision. And I was like. I was in the middle of, like, an anxiety tornado. And I realized it was something that was following me along, too. And I think just personally, I would always, like, avoid that stuff or dismiss it or just swallow it and, like, brute force, work through it instead of actually, like, examining it and being like, hold up, what's causing this? I thought I had, like, digestion issues or something that was, like, you know, wrong with my body. And I did, because, you know, mental health eventually makes contact with physical health and everything else. But, yeah, it's like, we tend to look ahead on the path we're on, or we think we're supposed to be on, but then if we, like, actually look around, it's like, hold up. Where am I? How did I get here? I don't. I don't actually. Don't want this. This isn't working for me. I don't know even. Who am I? This isn't even in line with my values and the things that I, you know, promised to myself and stuff. So, yeah, I think this is a very common thing that a lot of folks unfortunately go through. But it's great. It's great to hear that, like, you know, you've processed it, uh, in a healthy way and now are doing great professionally and with everything else you got going on. And your dad made it through, and he's good.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I could. I have the exact same story where I remember I started, I was in telecom for a long time, and then I got into B2B SaaS, and the first thing that they asked me to do was build the company's first ever growth plan. So I was in a new industry that I'd never been in before, and within a month and a half, I developed the entire growth plan for the company for their biggest market in the US And I was. It was intimidating, and I put my heart and soul into it because I really wanted this pivot in my career to work. And when I got to actually presenting, the exact same experience that you just walked through happened to me where went through the presentation and it was. I had a anxiety attack. This. It's difficult to think, it's difficult to articulate your thoughts. And I thought it was terrible, but I powered through it and I got a very similar call at the end. Wow, you crushed it. That was so amazing. So I think we get good at hiding these things, especially if you're a quote unquote, whatever this means, a high performer. You get really good at pushing that bullshit to the side and putting this face in front. And also being your harshest critic, because it's the type of thing where you finish that type of thing and you're kind of like sweating and you're beating yourself up, but maybe people didn't notice and it's just because you become an expert at hiding these things.

Speaker B: Being your own harshest critic. Do you find that if you even receive praise, is that something you diminish or dismiss because you are a high performer and it's like, well, yeah, of course I'm supposed to crush it. That's what you're supposed to do, right? So do you, do you like, dismiss praise but will like all too willingly, willingly accept, you know, the like, harsh even self talk of like, oh, uh, man, like, nah, they're just being nice. I didn't really do that good.

Speaker A: I don't know. I think I accept it. And I know, like, I know in the, in the moment where I'm like, okay, that went well. Like, we crushed it and it feels great. I'm like, fucking beautiful. My team did well or I did well, or that client meeting went great. It's almost like, uh, a quick fire. It goes away fast. It's like a quick burn. And like, yeah, we fucking did. It feel great, but then it's on to the next thing very quickly. I think the. On the flip side, it's thinking about when things don't go right too much and that's when it, it gets. Yeah, I think that. I think it's very quick of like, we did a nice win and then it burns away fast, but then almost over rotating. I did this in the past a lot and when things didn't go right and obsessing over it a little bit. And I don't do that as much anymore anyway. Good.

Speaker B: So the layoff, the family stuff, going through all of this, figuring out what your next move might be. What was that, you know, post layoff period like for you and, you know, when did you start to put together the idea of going out on your own and taking that option seriously?

Speaker A: Yeah, well, for me it was a process. And I started by doing what I thought I should do and being very confident in that, which was going to look for a new job. Like, okay, I got laid off, I got a baby at home. I can't stay home and do nothing. Even though that's what my family wanted me to do, is chill for the summer, I just don't have that in my DNA. I really wanted the next thing. So I started looking for a new job and I was either running into this scenario where the job market in marketing was terrible at the time. So it's either I didn't get in with the jobs that I wanted, but also going the doors that were opened for me. I don't think I did the best job in the interview process because I had so much going on in my mind. So the jobs that I wanted weren't working out, or, uh, the jobs that I wanted either I couldn't get an interview, I couldn't get it in, or, uh, when I did get it in, I either didn't want the job at all. And I was like, what the fuck am I doing here? I don't want this. I don't think I did so well in the interview process because I just wasn't ready with everything else that was going on in my life. So then I was like, what the fuck do I do? Like, it was kind of frustrating. I started just getting better at my craft, so I would look at watch YouTube videos and I read audiobooks. And I started to realize one of the blinders I had on my entire career was not working on my personal brand at all. And was so focused on doing the job that was in front of me for the company. I didn't understand the whole world that was out there of building my personal brand on a place like LinkedIn and creating content. So that's what I started doing. I started taking out all, everything that I've learned in my career and trying to publish really good content that I thought people might want to absorb. A lot of it sucked because you're just learning and figuring it out. And I started putting stuff out there on things like YouTube and primarily LinkedIn. And the result of me pumping out content was people started reaching out to me and like, oh, shit, Gregory, I know you could do xyz. Can you help me with this? Can you help me with that? Also I had other people saying, oh, I think you should meet this person. I think there's this other person that's doing this cool thing. Go talk to them. So I started to network with a bunch of people and I started to pick up my first contract gigs. And that was the real change for me because I picked up one job in particular where I was making just as much money as I was full time, 50 plus hours a week. But I was cut off at uh, 30 hours a week. And if I worked more and if they wanted me to do more, they, they have to fucking pay me. So that was a complete revolution for me where now I have real balance in my life. For the first time in a long time, I'm able to be there with my daughter who's growing and try to be as good of a dad as I can be, which is my top priority, and then also be there with my other family when my dad was recovering because he was getting better because he beat cancer, somehow beat the odds. So that was like the next step for me, started creating really good content, publishing it on LinkedIn, learning how to do that, getting better, listening to audiobooks and watching YouTube and everything in between, and then starting to pick up these little contract gigs and catching the bug of, oh, I could make just as much money and not be working 50 plus hours a week for some company that's going to lay me off, even though I fucking crush it.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. It's definitely a big aha, uh, moment. I've heard it from lots of folks, I've experienced it myself, where you get a project or a retainer or a contract gig or something like that and you scope, you know, however much time you think you can do that thing. And so like, maybe, maybe it's in like an hourly contract, maybe it's a retainer, but like, there's still time, you have to do the thing. And this was my own experience where I was like, wait a minute, I could probably do that in like 15 hours, you know, 12 on a good, if it's a smooth project, certainly no more than 20. But I'm um, making, you know, so if I'm working half the time of like a 40 hour work week, most of us work way more than that. I still currently do, but like the economics of it just jumped off the page where I was like, hang on a minute, this is, this makes a lot of sense and this is doable. It wasn't as scary to be like, you know, I'm not going to get rich if I only do this, but I'LL be able to cover my costs. I'll be able to feed my daughter and pay my mortgage and get the groceries and the diapers and, you know, that sort of stuff. It almost, um, did for you, did that moment, like, remove any intimidation that you might have had of going totally all in on this?

Speaker A: It didn't at the time. It was, it was a process for me where I picked up this gig and I still, even at that time when I started getting the one big contract gig and then a few other small ones, at the time it was just a band aid and I'm like, okay, like, I'll do this for a bit. But it started getting me hooked on it. The next step for me is when people somehow out of, like, I don't know, I'm not a religious man, but people started introducing me to other service based business owners because I didn't understand this world that existed. And I started getting introduced to communities and I started getting introduced to a number of people that were very influential to me. And there's meetups with these different groups and I'd meet them and I'd hear their stories and I told them mine. And there's one in particular. And we're sitting down, we had a couple drinks. He's like, dude, you gotta do this. He's like, I know people that are a lot dumber than you that are making a boatload of money and enjoying what they're doing. So he's like, do it. And it was, it was at that moment where I was like, okay, I. I really should do this. And if I'm going to do it and if I'm going to have the balls to do it, let's do it properly. And that was about November of last year, I'd say. So it was a bit of a process from March to picking up contractor gigs and struggling and family shit all the way to November where I was like, okay, maybe I should actually make this my thing instead of looking for a job at all.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. There's this really poignant tweet that has probably become a meme where it's somebody saying, like, you know, there's someone out there who is half as smart as you, working half as hard as you, making twice as much as you. And it's like. And like, you know, with respect to the peers that are out there, like, I think a lot of us might see the work of others or just like even worked with some of these folks who might go out on their own and at least look like they're crushing it. And like, that gets me a bit more competitive where I'm like, hang on a minute, like if this guy is doing so great, like, I know, I think, look, all humility aside for a minute, like, I can at least be as good as this person, but I'm sure I can be a lot better. So let me use that to, yeah. Put some fuel to my fire and go out there and get it.

Speaker A: Yeah. And then it's just the opening of, of my eyes to this world actually exists. I didn't even know, I had no idea until I met these people. Some really talented ones that were, that, that walked me through their business model. I didn't even understand. It wasn't a, uh, thing that even popped in my brain. Well, once it did and once it clicked and once I kind of got that itch that couldn't go away, I was like, let's do it. Let's go all in.

Speaker B: Yeah. Was one of these conversations at Fuck, uh Up Nights?

Speaker A: No, it wasn't. It was at a different one. Well, what ended up happening is I started getting introduced to these various communities and from there I'm like, oh, there's so much value in these, this networking thing. I have to keep doing it. And one of the events I go to regularly because of that is Fuck Up Nights. So great, great event for sure.

Speaker B: Yeah. For those who don't know, can you give like a really quick, just like trailer to the movie of what is Fuck Up Nights?

Speaker A: Yeah, Fuck Up Nights is, is really unique where it's uh, I think it's a monthly event and it's a global organization, but there's, there's one, I don't call it Cohort in Toronto. And what makes it different is every event you have three specific people that come and they don't talk about all the things that you see on LinkedIn, which is all the success, all the promotions, all the businesses that have scaled to 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 figures. They actually focus on the times where they've screwed up in their lives and they tell that story and they walk through it in detail and are open and honest about it and then talk about how that what they call a fuck up allowed them to learn and get better in the future. So it ends up being like this really open, transparent environment where the bullshit that you see online all the time, that you're almost forced to play that game yourself, it's kind of put to the side and everyone's really honest and you could hear from people that are, have been Very successful. Talk about the times where they. They really learn from mistakes, which is where we all learn the most, right?

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. A nice change in tone from the hustle, bro culture on some of these things where it's like, look, I get it. I'm all for the highlight reel, too, but, like, there's another side of that coin. Let's talk about it, right? What's going on when things don't go so hot. What is it? You know? Yeah. You're a solopreneur who makes like 50k a month. That's awesome. Good for you. Can you talk about when you were making $0 a month? What was that like? Like, we want to hear that story, too, to get the full picture.

Speaker A: Well, even me today, like, because if you think about it, started the business in January, and we haven't got to that yet. We've. The. The business gross revenue has scaled to. To over $35,000 a month, which is good, you know, so I'm happy with that. But it's fucking hard. To say it's easy is insane. I've learned more in the past however many months. I can't even count now. Eight. I don't know, it's August than I have in the last five. It is not easy to run, manage, and grow and maintain a business and to deliver at a high level while you scale, which is my biggest pain point. A lot of that honesty that I think needs to be told to everyone, because it's not all, you know, sunshines and rainbows where you start a business that's hard enough as it is to get off the ground, but to actually grow it and to figure out what the fuck you're doing is not easy. It's not easy.

Speaker B: Yeah. Every day is a new challenge of infinite unknowns that are just out there waiting for you.

Speaker A: And on paper, it looks great. I could very easily go to LinkedIn right now and say, yep, money is. I mean, I am making more money than I ever did in my career. That's a fact. There's also a lot of bullshit that I got to deal with to make sure that keeps going. There's also times where I'm super optimistic. I'm like, this is going to scale to $500,000 a year next year. And there's times where I'm like, oh, well, this could all fall between my fingers if I don't do xyz. So it's. It's a lot of. A lot of that. It's. You have to be very resilient.

Speaker B: Yeah. A bit precarious. Always the, you know, abundance mindset and the scarcity mindset are just battling. And every day of like, yeah, this is great. And then, oh, I might lose this all and being comfortable somewhere in the middle there.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's like that. You know that one meme picture of the dog and the fires around him. You know, some days it's like that. Even this morning, like dealing with clients and even though we're delivering, it's a challenge for sure. And you uh, have especially I, I think in the first year at least that's what everyone tells me. That's kind of like the world you're in while you figure out how to do this stuff on the go, on the fly.

Speaker B: So speaking of figuring it out on the go and on the fly, you're doing this, you land your first client. What was like that first phase of the first client like for you? Like now it's like legit paying customer, you're doing this. What was that first like 30 days like for you?

Speaker A: So I launched in January of this year and as I mentioned before, I was doing contractor, almost like as an employee work for business. Uh, and I was able to after I incorporated business, bank account, lawyer, business credit card, registering the business, like all of that getting accountant, all of that shit, I was ready to launch in January and I was able to convince the person I was working for because we were doing really good work, to be my first client and to convert to like a monthly retainer. So that was the start and that was a really good start because, uh, I was starting with an actual client, uh, on a six month retainer. So I had a little bit of Runway to figure my shit out. It was, I don't want to say it was relatively easy at that point in time, you know, but it was a lot easier because I worked with this specific person before. So I knew the client, I knew they were going to pay me. I had to figure out the logistics of it, of invoicing and getting paid, but the actual work and delivering for them. I already worked with them in the past. So that I think that's a tip for anyone. If you're going to start in this game, if you could work with someone and tap your existing network and work with a, uh, company that you already worked with before where you know that they're not an, you know they're gonna pay you, you know, you could work through problems with them and you could deliver. That's probably the one of the best ways to start. So that and that's how I started. I feel like that that's how I was able to get off on a, on a strong foot.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I feel like you almost have to be intentional about like starting that way. I don't know anyone who has just like hung their shingle and then done, you know, like cold outbound, just being like, hey, you don't know me, we've never worked before but like here's the thing I'm going to do. Maybe you might get lucky but like the people who you've actually been in the trenches with, who have seen your work, who you have rapport with, even if it's a project off the side of their desk, like that's a good place to start too, for sure.

Speaker A: So like I was able to start with them and the responsibility with working with one client at the time from an hour hours perspective wasn't huge. So uh, it's not like I was working with this one person 40 hours a week. I was working with them for 10 to 30 tops. So I had the bandwidth to actually go out and publish content regularly on LinkedIn and build my pipeline for the future, which is what I did. I was able to get content out the door and by the time I got to Q2 I was able to scale to three plus clients. So that was like the next phase. So it was like launch for me in January, which is great. Have some sort of shitty strategy for my business because it wasn't baked at the time. I really didn't know what I was doing but kind of jumped in, got the one client, started pumping out more and more content and in Q2 I was able to scale to three plus clients on longer term retainers where I was able to bring in more money than I ever had before. But I transitioned to a new problem of growing, growing really quickly. And how do I maintain that standard, which I want it, I want to maintain and really establishing my brand as someone who delivers.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, let's jump to that. So I mean this is all good things, but even good things like there's growing pains and it's called that way for a reason. Because like growing is nice when you might only look at the dollar signs that come with like, you know, increased revenue and like great. But there's context there and that context is scaling, wearing different hats, doing things you might have not have done before, delegating, subcontracting. So what's on your desk right now that is like a big challenge for you as you grow.

Speaker A: The big challenge for me is we've grown faster. Do people say we? Because I say we as a company even though it's like me and contractors.

Speaker B: But yeah, isn't that a weird thing? It's like yeah, we when I'm speaking in the single. The first person.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So like we've, we've grown and it's it. To me the biggest challenge is I want to deliver for my clients at the highest level because I know how important it is for me to build my brand and to establish a reputation for someone who delivers. That's my top priority. And everything else falls behind that other than being a good dad, uh, and trying to be a good husband, you know, so that's top. And then followed quickly by how do I deliver at a high level for my clients and transitioning from one to three plus clients. I didn't realize how challenging that would be at the time, but it became very challenging and context switching of working with one client at uh, one hour in the morning and then switching to another one and learning how to manage your schedule and then uh, at a certain point realizing you can't do it yourself. So how do you bring in high level contractors? Which is the point where I'm at today, where I have three contractors on my team working with three plus clients at a time and how do I manage them and get them to deliver the way I would deliver. And that's the biggest challenge right now is really maintaining that level that I had before as one person working with one client. But how do I scale my team and keep up that quality of work?

Speaker B: Mhm. What are some of the systems or if it's even just like operational documentation? Like how are you able to do that so far?

Speaker A: Right now it's, I'm going to be honest, it's very ad hoc, which is something that is one of my biggest things that I know I need to fix because right now it's just in Slack. I have my team in Slack, they're there and I'm able to communicate with them. I have a one on one every Monday morning where we talk about our plans for the week and then we go and execute. But there's things that I know I need for my business. Project manager is probably my next big hire. Like someone that can manage all the different client work for me and help me keep organized. Establishing a process for managing projects which I don't have today because everything is really ad hoc. So it's something I know I need to, to address for sure.

Speaker B: Yeah. How do you go about finding good subcontractors Great question.

Speaker A: What I've done, because there's two, there's from, from me chatting with other business owners. There's a couple paths you can go. A lot of people are going in the international route, so getting contractors at the cheap who could deliver and trying to work with agencies that could find good quality contractors for a, uh, low cost, which allows you obviously as the business owner to have higher margin on the money you bring in. So that's one path. I haven't gone down that path yet. What I've done is I've leveraged my existing network. So the one benefit to the layoffs that we've seen in the past year that I was a part of is I know a lot of other people that have been laid off who are killers, who are really good at what they do. And the way I look at it is I'd rather pay more and lose margin and bring them in and have them make bank with me than me do it on my own. So that's the way I'm kind of going about it. Either trying to find people in my existing network that are looking for this kind of thing because they've probably been laid off, or someone who wants to do this on the side. So I have the person that does a lot of my digital right now, they have a full time job, but they want to build out a side business. So really looking in my internal network who's really good at their fucking job and seeing if they're interested in them, working with them.

Speaker B: Yeah, great takes. I think I've heard good, bad, ugly from both of those, both the like international market and even within there, like there's plenty of people doing this where I've, you know, given some work to referrals who are over in the Middle east because I have other people who I trust who I've worked with, who have vouched for them. They took all the boxes with what I need. You give them a small project to, to work with and see how it goes. And if it goes great, it's like, look, everybody's winning here, this is great. But then even people who are not like, you know, even necessarily, hey, I'm open for work, hey, I'm taking on projects like who have you worked with that if you were gonna have do this, that wasn't you? Like, who that person who's, what's your list of people and previous teammates that might do this? Just ask them. This is another thing where I have people who have been like, you know what? I've never Even thought of it, I'm like, I'm happily employed. And it's like, well, here's, you know, what I, you might be able to earn off of it. And I might take it like, you know, six or 10 hours or whatever it is if you're okay with like, you know, working at a coffee shop a couple Saturdays. And even that for them is like one, flattering. And two, it's like just opens a door that they weren't even looking for. But yeah, leverage your network for all that. Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, back when I had a full time job and I was working in corporate, if someone asked me at that time to do work on this, I would have jumped at it, you know, so. But you could always tell when you reach out to someone if they're interested or not, if they're down or they get it. Because sometimes, uh, you think of someone, you're like, oh, you know, Bobby, he's fucking great at this type of thing. And you reach out to them, but you could tell they're not really interested in that type of thing. I don't want to say stuck in the matrix, but like they're there and you could tell like they're in that corporate world and they're not willing to go out of it. So it's really interesting to see once you start to reach out to people and their willingness to take this sort of stuff on. Yeah.

Speaker B: I want to say switch gears a little bit because you recently took some time off. Oh yeah, yeah, tell me about it.

Speaker A: Uh, that's talk about, which I think is like my theme right now, which is the, the beauty of, of entrepreneurship, but also the challenges that come with it, that was the biggest challenge I think I've had to face in my business so far, even though the business is relatively new. Was going on vacation. So I went to Portugal with my family, which was amazing because it was my mother in law's 60th birthday and she's from the island in Portugal called Madeira. And it was her dream to go to Madeira with her family. Me, my wife and now my daughter, so her granddaughter to go to Portugal for her 60th. So back in June, we went to Portugal. It was beautiful. It was fantastic. I would highly recommend it. An amazing little island, a fantastic time. But at the same time, when you're running a business and you have clients that you're working with, and even though I had in my contracts built in that I was going to be gone for this point in time, that little high achiever in the back of Your brain is like, don't. You're making your. Have momentum going right now. Are you going to take your foot off the gas? Is something going to go wrong while you're gone? So a part of my planning before this vacation was hiring contractors to manage the work while I was out. And at a certain point, I had to take my hands off the wheel and say, hey, contractors, this is your show. Which is a very challenging thing for me to do. And in some cases, it went really well with one client. In another instance, I'm still recovering from it. I'm still trying to fix the errors that were made that I would have caught back at that point in time. So I was able to go away, I was able to unplug. I was still able to bring money into the business, which is fantastic. With one client. Crushed it like I wasn't even gone, which I've now double invested in that person that was able to do that work for me, which is fantastic. But in another instance, still recovering. Still recovering. So it's the, the two coins that come with from entrepreneurship that a lot of people don't talk about.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Lessons from both of those worlds of some things going well and things going not so well. So when you were in Portugal, you know, delegating to these subcontractors, like, how was your mind really? Like, were you, you know, feeling the torment of the voice being like, do, dude, what are you doing on vacation? You need to get back here and run the business? Or were you able to just like, really feel yourself let go and just be in Portugal?

Speaker A: I think it depended on the day. If I was being perfectly honest, it depended on what was happening because I have. I would get updates in Slack that were good and I'd get an update like, oh, shit, this is great. And at that point in time, you're able to be at ease. And it's like, okay, I'm going to go to the pool. I'm going to spend the day at the beach. I'm going to get a drink. I'm going to be with my daughter and play with her in the ocean. It's going to be beautiful. But there were some days where you got a bad update. You're like, this is not good. And at that point in time, you have to figure, okay, do I actually go upstairs and go to the pool bar or do I sit on my balcony and fix this and I have to fix it and that's okay. But that's, that's. That was, it was. At times it was tough to Unplug for sure.

Speaker B: Yeah, I, uh, realized this recently. I feel like I've realized it previously too, but it really sunk in in a different way for me recently where it's like there's this really shitty paradox where when you're with your family, you're supposed to be present and if you're thinking about work, you're not being present. So uh, it's like you're just failing at both things simultaneously. Like you're not being there with them fully, but you're also not getting any work done. So for me at least it's just, I'm just like stewing and spiraling and then it's like, oh, wait a minute, I might. As if I'm here, I might as well just be here. Or I just decide like, look, I gotta go and crack the laptop open for like the next two hours and I go and be there. But like, if you feel your mind doing that, pick one. Because otherwise you're just, you're not doing anything for anyone, especially yourself.

Speaker A: I completely agree. And it's like that's. I have a, uh, little mastermind with other service based business owners and we meet every other week and we shoot the shit and we talk about what's working and what's not. And it's very honest environment, it's very helpful. I love that crew. And I told them the hardest thing about being a business owner is being a dad. It's actually the hardest thing because I know what I have to do. If I was able to work 15 hours, I'd be able to do it. You know, the challenge when you're a dad is you have. At least for me anyway, the morning I'm with my daughter, which I love, we have breakfast every morning. Something that I couldn't experience if I was in corporate. I make her breakfast, I make her yogurt, she's throwing her peanut butter toast and whatever. But it's uh, awesome. She's laughing, I'm laughing, I'm kissing her. Help her get dressed and she's out the door and my wife takes her. But that's the morning. That morning for me back in my former life was my thinking time. So amazing because I'm with my daughter. But now I start my day around, let's it call it, eight o'. Clock. You then have eight to about 4:30 when I then go pick her up. Right. Uh, fantastic. I go pick her up, she's singing Creed or Metallica in the back seat. You know, she's loving life. It's great. But Then we're back at dinner and then you have your time window in the evening from 5 to 8 o' clock when she goes down. So you really have a small window of time unless you work throughout the night, which I'm not willing to do because I want to unplug and be with my wife. And I need my wind down time as well, where you're really able to focus. So I think you nailed it. Where you have to shut off. But making that middle of the day so productive while still taking care of yourself and saying, oh, I'm going to work out on my lunch, I'm going to do what I got to do to make sure that I'm taking care of my body or whatever. Listen to a podcast can be a challenge for sure.

Speaker B: Yeah, I feel it. Yeah. Okay. I want to segue to some of the work you're doing. Breakaway marketing. You help business leaders and companies doing over 10 million. ARR. What made your focus there?

Speaker A: Great question. Like when I think, you know, when I started the business, I really didn't have. I knew what I needed to do. And everyone tells every solopreneur fucking guru will tell you the same thing. You need to know your M niche and your target audience. I knew, I knew needed to understand it, but because I had such broad experience, I didn't know who my niche was in particular because I've worked in so many different industries. So going into and starting this business back in January, I really didn't know. So I really just marketed myself as a fractional marketing leader, which most people don't even know what the fuck that means, you know. But now that I've gotten a few clients, I went through an exercise of, uh, doing a bit of an inventory building, uh, a Persona for each one and figuring out, oh, what are the commonalities between each of my clients? What are the pain points that they're experiencing, the real pain points that I know I could address in a really good way, and what's the commonalities? And to your question, I landed on 10 million because I've worked with a few clients that make less than 10 million and I don't have. I have success with them, but it's much easier for me to work with a larger business and have a big impact right away with a company that brings over $10 million in annual revenue.

Speaker B: Nice. Did you run into any challenges when you're going through like that Persona exercise or even just like at the level of positioning yourself or like deciding and committing to that niche? I know a Lot of folks, it's like the FOMO of once they say, okay, I'm the guy who works with companies above 10 million, then they think about, oh, but what about all those bootstrapped, you know, pre seed companies that are under 10 million? It's a whole universe of people I can help there. What was that like for you?

Speaker A: Well, I, I, one of the first things I did was I got a coach, I paid for a coach. And it was like, it was really, it was quite expensive. It was like a few thousand dollars for like a day, you know. And I met with them and they were really pushing me down the path of being, building a niche around even like an industry. So one of my clients is a regulating body. Super boring, you know what I mean? But I'm able to work with them and have had a big impact. She was pushing me to go down that path of being, uh, a solopreneur business owner for a specific industry. I thought that was too tight. I tried it, but it didn't really work for me. I think there's always that feeling of, what are you missing out when you pick a target audience. I feel that for sure. But now that I've taken a step back, when you really look at your business and you know what you could do and once you're confident that you could deliver for that, that target audience, to me, that, that fear kind of goes away. And I know for a fact once I start marketing myself again, which I haven't done the past couple months, the other clients, the leads that make less than 10 million are also going to come through. So I'm not necessarily concerned about it.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's like you're gonna feel it. You're gonna feel that fomo. So like, okay, feel it. You gotta pick something, right? Like, we, we all kind of know it and, and it's hard. Also, this is another thing I ran into, like, because you also just brought up a good point. Those sub 10 million companies will probably come to you. So work with them. Like, you don't have to change anything about your positioning. Like, if it's a great client and you can genuinely help them and they could pay their bills, then, like, if they're doing eight and a half million, it doesn't just instantly mean like, oh, I, I absolutely say no to that. Like, you know, I'm. Now I'm lying with how I position myself. It's like, look, who cares? Like, if it's good? People like it. You, you can't be so, like schizophrenic with like, oh, wow, I work with, you know, mom and pop florists and then I work with Microsoft. And I was like, okay, you need to kind of have your parameters be set correctly. But yeah, this is another thing where it's like, look, don't split hairs with your own m customer base. Like, it's okay to say yes to some other stuff. And it doesn't, you know, make everything how you positioned yourself. This, this lie that you'll be found out with. It's like, just do the good work.

Speaker A: And like, I think, you know, I wouldn't tell someone to fuck off to your point, if they came in and they're making $9 million. We're going to have a conversation, you know, it's going to be. I'm going to assess the opportunity and it's either something where I'm going to put together a proposal for them and we're going to work together, or I now I know these other killers that might be better suited for it. So I'll refer them to someone who I know who could take care of them. But I think the other thing is, I know that I'm just figuring this shit out on the fly, you know, this my business strategy. I'm figuring it out as I go and I'll keep adapting it so I'm not stuck at 10 million. It might change. Maybe I do focus on a specific industry. My strategy is to let the market dictate to me, my business and my product, which is really my. If I was going to pick one goal for me this year is to let the market tell me how do I want to build my business, and then I'm going to triple down on that idea and maybe my business model completely changes. So that's, that's how I'm going about it. It might not be the right way per se, but that's the way I'm doing it.

Speaker B: It's brilliant. And again, that's. That's actually exactly what I finally woke up to is, is, you know, you see these like, paint by number personal positioning statements, and they're helpful. Like, you got to run through these exercises. You got to put the thinking into it. When I started just like listening to the signals that the market was giving back to me and then just like, was saying yes to a lot more of them, which I know is like, also, that's its own podcast episode of like, you have to say no to everything. And it's like, well, yeah, but you have to say yes to some stuff in order to understand what you should or can say no to in the first place. So, like, through the layers of experimentation, figure out what the market needs, wants, positions, you as values, you, and then have that shape your business with, like, this adaptive strategy. Instead of just being like, no, I have to only carry this one flag. This is who I have to be. It's like, just adapt. Adapt to whatever's coming back your way.

Speaker A: I'll tell you, like, this past week, I, I went and updated my entire LinkedIn did in January. It's actually very different than what I'm positioning myself now. So I'm going to continue, uh, to adapt, listen to the market and pivot. The other thing that's actually really important that is similar but slightly different is who you want to work with. This is a big one that I'm realizing is you want to. You don't want to work with a dick, even if you can crush it for them. Sussing out and getting that experience of working with really cool people that you could jive with and do excellent work for, and people where even though you could do good work for them and accomplish the business objective, it might not be something that you enjoy is another thing that, that I'm observing in my first year as a business owner. And I'm going to keep in mind going forward.

Speaker B: Huge, like, that's a hill to die on the, the asshole tax or whatever. Like, I had this happen literally this morning where someone just was over the line, way too rude, and I'm not working with them m anymore. Now, if I was, you know, starving and destitute and it was like, my only paying client, different circumstances, different story. I'm fortunate that that's not the case. But, like, I've also been burned out. I felt the anxiety. I've worked so much with, you know, enough shitty people that I become physically ill that, like, I have to keep that promise to myself. And you look, you know, like, trust your guts, just go off of your vibe and maybe just send them to someone else. Not to sandbag them and be like, hey, I just threw a grenade your way. But to be like, look, I'm not for you. Here's an option. Go find something else. But, like, protect that. Not working with shitty people. I say this all the time. It's like, not, uh, to diminish so much of what I do, but, like, I really only want to work with cool people doing interesting projects, compensated fairly. Like, I hope lots of other things go well, but it's a pretty low bar just to be like, look, be kind to People and work as part of a team where just like people act in good faith. Shouldn't be hard. But unfortunately the bad eggs are out there, so stay away from them and

Speaker A: I'll give you another one. There's ah, a, um, a type of, of client that wants to squeeze you for everything you got. That's another one. And I don't have a name for them, but they want to. It's almost like they're insecure about working with a contract and they want to take advantage of it as much as they can and squeeze as much out of you. And even though you're, you'll deliver 10 times your ROI of what they're paying, they always want more and more and more. And that's something to keep in mind and have restrictions in your contract and in your business relationship and know when to say no and put up that, that wall and say, you know what, I've delivered what I needed to deliver at this point in time. And if you want, we could explore something else at a different rate. But that's another thing to watch out for. But to what we were saying before, you learn this on the go, like, there's only one way to learn this kind of shit and that's by experiencing it. And especially in like your first year of running a business. Right.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, so what are you working on currently that has you especially excited?

Speaker A: Oh, man, I'm working with a number of clients right now. One of them is Bird Scooter, which I'm, I'm really enjoying. So for the background Bird Scooter, they, they were a former $3 billion unicorn. So I don't know if you've heard of them before, Will, but big new back. Yeah. Oh, there you go. You've been on a Bird Scooter. So it was a bit, it was like the new way to travel years ago, you know, and it was like the, the, it's almost not really tech, but it was almost like a tech, treated like a tech company. And they unfortunately went bankrupt last year for a number of different reasons. And they, they don't have a marketing team other than a couple people, but they're still bringing in significant revenue, but they don't have a marketing team. So I was brought in with my team and Breakaway Marketing to help build their marketing strategy from scratch and started building that macro marketing strategy yet because we've launched a couple really cool campaigns because they need the revenue in the summer. So we launched a big integrated campaign for them for Memorial Day and completely crushed it and beat our Targets, which was awesome. They saw their first increase in new riders in three over three years. Now that they've started working with us. So we're having a really big impact right away. The other thing I'm really excited about is we launched a fourth of July campaign with them with went, which went really well and we convinced them to invest in social. And you know, most corporations and businesses don't understand the impact that social can have on your brand, your brand affinity and your brand perception. But we brought the idea of investing in social, they bought in on into it. I brought in a killer social media contractor and we've completely revamped their Instagram. We worked with influencers and micro influencers to launch social campaigns. We've seen tens of thousands of positive impressions and really strong engagement. Just yesterday, kind of insane, we had a post with Celine Dion on a scooter from like a long time ago and it was reposted because we had this really good image which is on the scooter and she reshared it. Celine Dion actually reshared the, the post which was awesome. So we getting super uh, strong engagement. So like from a revenue perspective and brand awareness perspective and like full funnel growth for a company that was in a really rough situation not long ago, we're having a pretty big impact. And um, I'm having fun with them.

Speaker B: Yeah, nice. Super cool. I was actually just talking about this the other day. I lived in California for a while, so both San Francisco and San Diego. And for a while I didn't need a car. Like I was in a nicely walkable neighborhood. But even when some things were just like a bit too far, I would scooter for like three miles and it was awesome. So I'm in Rhode island now. Can't really do that, especially not in the winters. Unless they come out with like a bird snowmobile or something.

Speaker A: That's a good idea. I'll tell them.

Speaker B: But there's a campaign. Yeah, play with that one.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: I'll be there. I'll be their guinea pig. So I'll do their R D and I'll take it down my icy street and over, over New Year's or something.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's a good idea. But yeah, lots of work to, to do with them to keep things, things going and we got to build out that larger plan. But yeah, things are going well. I have another client who's in the telecom space which is really interesting because they're a dealer and they've been in business for 30 plus years but they had never had a marketing hire. So it's a very different challenge where they've been in business for a long time, they've grown, they have the money, but they've hit a wall and they need marketing to help them get to that next stage. But with them it's a very different challenge where we're building it from the bottom up. They don't have a marketing strategy, they don't have brand guidelines, they don't have an email strategy. They got nothing. So it's a completely different challenge that we have to overcome of building something from the bottom up which is very different from something that is big and is declining. And how do you turn around that performance? So it varies from client to client in terms of what uh, that, that challenges. But yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Speaker B: I love it. Super cool. So you're a dad, we've talked about this. You're a solopreneur. We all have those different roles we play with different people in our lives. You mentioned, you know, breakfasts with your, your daughter and then picking her up in the afternoons. What type of routines have worked for you to stay focused and stay productive?

Speaker A: Routines is a good question. Routines, routines, routines. Well, everything's routine. You know, it's. You have to have very good communication with your significant other which could sometimes be challenging because especially in our line of work, you're talking all day so the last thing you want to do is talk at night and you're like, my brain is just dead. But you have to communicate with your significant other and have a plan, you know, and the fact that in the morning I'm on daddy duty, I take care of xyz, then I pass her off to my wife who then takes care of. Care of, of, of the next stage. And then later on in the day I'm doing, we change baths every night. So I do bath one night and she does bath every night. But like long story short, the, the real key to it is have. And I guess it's a routine but being having a really good communication plan with your significant other and to your point, knowing when to shut it off and when you're on daddy duty and when you're actually in, in business and being fortunate enough to be able to switch it off, you know, and being able to drop my. I'm really in a lucky situation. Be able to drop my daughter off at my, at my wife's parents place and then I'm in business mode and now I could focus now I can get on my calls. Now I Could do my strategy, so I think clear communication. And then once you're. You're in one mode, be a dad or be a business owner.

Speaker B: Yeah, the team sport to bring it all together and make it work.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's challenging for sure, but it's a lot of fun.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Have you received any advice so far that's stood out to you that you may pass along to anyone else who

Speaker A: might be listening from a solopreneur perspective or. Or business perspective or.

Speaker B: I mean, they're all combined, right? You know, fatherhood, being a good partner as a business person, as someone who's been laid off, as someone who might be on the fence with all this stuff. Just anything that jumps out to you, I got.

Speaker A: I guess I got a couple. One is being patient, especially as a business owner, where you don't need to have it all figured out right away. And I try to remind myself of this, but take your time. You know, I see other business owners and they're launching this and they're launching that and, like, fucking relax. You know what I mean? Like, deal with one thing at a time. Build your business. And I'm, uh, trying to have faith that if I get a little bit better every day, even though I know things aren't perfect, that eventually it's going to result in something good. So I think just having that patience and continuing to strive to get better, even if it's a little bit, Little bit, little bit every day, and having that faith that that's going to work

Speaker B: out, that's good advice for me. Presently, I was just kicking the shit out of myself. I've been with this client, they're extraordinary for like, three months. And yeah, just get in the mode where I was like, man, I just want this thing to, like, take off. We can do all this stuff. Stuff. I'm getting, like, really excited with it. But also it's kind of like, you know, keep me up at night and eat a little bit. And I was like, hang on a minute. And I had to go back and look at, like, when I signed the contract with them, and I was like, it's been 90 days. Like, I need to actually chill out and temper my expectations with some of this. Doesn't mean don't push and hit it hard and, you know, be ambitious, but just like, also kind of be real about it.

Speaker C: So.

Speaker B: Yeah, I needed to hear that too. So. Good. I'm glad you chose that one.

Speaker A: Yeah. I'm in the same situation where I have some clients or crush in a week. I Have an ROI because you hit the right channel, you just like, you, you have a, uh, a hunch, you have a plan and you launch something, you're like, oh, we just nailed it, and I paid for my entire contract and more. So things are gravy and we're just going to keep it going. And sometimes it takes time. Sometimes, especially if you're starting from scratch, we, which in a lot of cases we are because in a lot of instances, we're people's first marketing hire or they don't have a big marketing team. Sometimes that could take time. So not only us having patience with ourselves, also trying to communicate that and having a client that understands that that's really important. Like, this stuff is fucking hard. And sometimes it could take time to actually get things going. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah. Are you still doing mentorship calls?

Speaker A: I am open to him for sure. Anyone that I, uh, find. What happens if I have a post that I send out and I haven't. Here's my biggest challenge right now with my business is we're delivering for our clients. Right. I've been able to build up my team, which is awesome. The money's coming in, so a lot of those superficial things have been, have gone well, but I haven't had the time because of those other responsibilities to build up my business and to do things like publish out content regularly and market my myself. I'm going to start doing that again because I've been able to staff up. But when I publish content, I always have people reach out and I'm always willing to take those calls. So if there's a marketer or business person or whoever that's early on in their career and they see something of mine and they want to get my thoughts on it, or they want to get an understanding of, hey, what is this business life like? What's that transition from corporate to solopreneurship. And if I can guide them in any sort of way, I'm happy to do it.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's great. Yeah. Your posts always strike me as just like, very honest. They're coming from a place that's just like, very, very genuine. So I'm sure that resonates with a lot of folks and they're, they're comfortable to take you up on that, to be like, dude, I don't know what I'm doing. Can I just, like, talk with you? You seem like you have a thing or two that you've figured out for what's going on.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I try to be as, uh, authentic as possible with A place like, like LinkedIn. Because we were talking earlier about, you know, the bullshit that you see all the time and it's so easy just to blanket over the hard things and just celebrate the success. But I find if you are authentic people, definitely it resonates with people and they reach out while not, not, uh, overplaying that card either, because that, that could also get old fast, you know.

Speaker C: Sure.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: Cool.

Speaker B: As we wrap up, where did you see this space going overall? So you're doing great. You're in your first full year doing this. Just big picture for like other solopreneurs that are out there. Where do you, where do you see this going?

Speaker A: I think that I don't know if I'm gone into this game late or the right time. I don't know. I really don't because people have been doing this for, for a lot longer than me. But I think that this type of service of, uh, bringing in a team or bringing in a person to help, help and not hire someone full time is only going to get bigger. And I think that the people that are really good at their jobs don't love the political nonsense that goes along with their jobs, like me, which I can't stand that stuff. I just want to put wins on the board that are really good at what they do, are going to be successful in this space if they decide to be. So I think the market is going to continue to educate itself on this type of service that it is, that exists. And I think the smart people that are sick of corporate, that are done with the, you know, the, the, the lunches and the potlucks and the corporate political crap that comes along with trying to climb the corporate ladder. The people that are sick of that and are open to taking a little bit of quote unquote risk are going to thrive. That's the way I think. Now. It's not easy like we talked about, it comes with its challenges, but I don't think this is going anywhere anytime soon.

Speaker B: Nice. Awesome. Anything we didn't cover that you want to touch on before we wrap up?

Speaker A: I don't think so. I went into this conversation just trying to be open and honest and you were really good at, uh, you know, facilitating the conversation and making me feel comfortable. So I, again, I wasn't trying to get anything out of this per se, from a business perspective, other than just to chat with you and see where it goes and kind of have fun with it. So, yeah, I feel, I feel, I feel good. Yeah. Other than just wanted to, obviously thank you, Will, for your time and for starting this. Because it's really important that other people learn from, from other people playing this game and people that are somewhat interested in it to learn the real side. And I think you're done a really good job at number one launching this thing from nothing so awesome. But it's going to be really helpful for people. And you're really good, as I said before, of, uh, making people like me who aren't 100% comfortable with this kind of shit, feel comfortable and being honest. So, yeah, thank you.

Speaker B: Nice. Means a lot. I really appreciate that.

Speaker C: Thanks for listening to the podcast. I love hearing from any of you. So if there's comments, feedback requests, you. You name it. Please shoot me a dm. Um, if you found any of this interesting or useful, please let me know. If you're ever interested in working with any guests who come on the show and would like an introduction, please don't hesitate to reach out. And if you'd like to be featured on the podcast, I'm always looking to have more conversations with interesting people willing to share their stories. Don't be shy to shoot me a note and we can have a chemistry session to see if our dialogue would be a good fit to share with others. Stay tuned for more episodes and updates and take of care. Care.