Embark on a journey to decode the enigma of marketing with Steve Merrill from Wrkng Digital, as we uncover the true essence of this misunderstood craft. It's not just about pushing products or services; it's about effectively communicating the value we bring to the table. Our lively dialogue tackles the dread of wasted advertising dollars, with Steve offering a watershed moment from his career that emphasizes the indispensable role of marketing in keeping a business afloat. We confront the resistance many entrepreneurs hold towards marketing, persuading you to embrace it not as a necessary evil but as a catalyst for growth.
Shifting gears, we dissect the ongoing debate about the real-world value of formal education versus hands-on skills. I share a revealing discussion with a young employee that illuminates the chasm between academic theory and practical, marketable abilities that truly matter in today's workforce. We champion the application of learned principles and recognize the power of individual talents in propelling one's career trajectory. Touching on the search for purpose, we highlight the profound impact that comes from aligning personal passion with professional goals to carve out a fulfilling career path.
As we wrap up, we navigate the intricacies of pivoting to a digital-first business and the personal evolution that accompanies this change. Steve recounts his own tale of moving from a brick-and-mortar women's clothing store to launching a digital marketing powerhouse, emphasizing the tenacity required to conquer unfamiliar territory. We round off the conversation with strategic insights into mastering one marketing channel before venturing into others, presenting this focused approach as the key to creating powerful momentum and broad business success. Tune in to gain a treasure trove of knowledge that will inspire you to refine your marketing strategy and discover satisfaction in your entrepreneurial journey.
How to Reach Steve:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevemerrill8/
Wrkng Digital Website: https://wrkngdigital.com/
To Reach Jordan:
Email: Jordan@Edwards.Consulting
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ejFXH1_BjdnxG4J8u93Zw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jordan.edwards.7503
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanfedwards/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanedwards5/
Hope you find value in this. If so please provide a 5-star and drop a review.
Complimentary Edwards Consulting Session: https://calendly.com/jordan-555/intro-call
Embark on a journey to decode the enigma of marketing with Steve Merrill from Wrkng Digital, as we uncover the true essence of this misunderstood craft. It's not just about pushing products or services; it's about effectively communicating the value we bring to the table. Our lively dialogue tackles the dread of wasted advertising dollars, with Steve offering a watershed moment from his career that emphasizes the indispensable role of marketing in keeping a business afloat. We confront the resistance many entrepreneurs hold towards marketing, persuading you to embrace it not as a necessary evil but as a catalyst for growth.
Shifting gears, we dissect the ongoing debate about the real-world value of formal education versus hands-on skills. I share a revealing discussion with a young employee that illuminates the chasm between academic theory and practical, marketable abilities that truly matter in today's workforce. We champion the application of learned principles and recognize the power of individual talents in propelling one's career trajectory. Touching on the search for purpose, we highlight the profound impact that comes from aligning personal passion with professional goals to carve out a fulfilling career path.
As we wrap up, we navigate the intricacies of pivoting to a digital-first business and the personal evolution that accompanies this change. Steve recounts his own tale of moving from a brick-and-mortar women's clothing store to launching a digital marketing powerhouse, emphasizing the tenacity required to conquer unfamiliar territory. We round off the conversation with strategic insights into mastering one marketing channel before venturing into others, presenting this focused approach as the key to creating powerful momentum and broad business success. Tune in to gain a treasure trove of knowledge that will inspire you to refine your marketing strategy and discover satisfaction in your entrepreneurial journey.
How to Reach Steve:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevemerrill8/
Wrkng Digital Website: https://wrkngdigital.com/
To Reach Jordan:
Email: Jordan@Edwards.Consulting
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ejFXH1_BjdnxG4J8u93Zw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jordan.edwards.7503
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanfedwards/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanedwards5/
Hope you find value in this. If so please provide a 5-star and drop a review.
Complimentary Edwards Consulting Session: https://calendly.com/jordan-555/intro-call
Hey, what's going on, guys? I got a special guest here today. We have Steve Merrill. He's the founder of Working Digital, steve. Why do people need marketing? And then, even more important, why are so many business owners scared to market, like I know? I was scared for a little bit and I know a lot of business owners are. There's a big resistance to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I think there's a couple points to that. Number one is that I don't know that most people really know what marketing is. I think most business owners they get into business and they have this idea of I'm gonna start this business doing this thing that's going to create money for me and I'm gonna actually make more money doing this than I thought I would be doing, working for somebody else, or the entrepreneurial dream, right, people get into that and they have this thing that they wanna do and that's where most people start as a thing. But most businesses, or every business, needs two pieces in order to continue to run and grow. Right, you have to have something that you're gonna sell. You have to have some ability to be able to transact of something of value that you're doing for people. But, on the other hand, you have to be able to tell people about it. And that's as simple as it gets.
Speaker 2:When you describe marketing, it's just telling people about the thing that you do. So most business owners, they do marketing to some degree, right, whether it's just opening a location that has a lot of traffic. That's a way that you can tell people about what you do. Or it's going to family and friends or posting content on social media, whatever it is. If you're telling people about what you do, hoping that you get some business as a result of it, you're doing marketing.
Speaker 2:And I think marketing number two gets a bad rap because there's a lot of people which get into marketing for marketing in and of itself, marketing, advertising, facebook ads, all of that kind of stuff which seems gray area, it seems forced, like a lot of people have been to a used car lot or some kind of car sales or sales environment where it's high pressure, and then they in their mind, translate that to like I don't want to be that guy, right?
Speaker 2:And the secret is that, yeah, nobody wants to be that guy, but most of the time, the person which is loudest about whatever it is that they do is probably the person that's going to make the most money. And if I were to lean one or the other towards having something that's super amazing that people can buy and having the other skill of just being able to tell people about that thing really, really good, all day long, I would just be extremely good at telling people about that thing. And that's where influencers come in, right, they have, most of the time, no product in and of themselves, but they build these massive audiences just on the fact that they know how to create awareness about themselves and what they do without having the thing that they sell. And then people. Then overnight, kylie Jenner becomes a billionaire, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's bizarre. It's really interesting how that happens and a lot of us do have resistance to ads and it's our inability to really come forward. Like I was at a podcasting conference last week and I'm talking to all these business owners and I know they want more business and I'm like guys, are you running Facebook ads? I felt like the one marketing guy and I've only ran one Facebook ad for eight months and they're all like no, I think I want to get into that. I don't know how to get into that. I don't want to throw away money and I'm like we have different associations to different things and I think sometimes we just miss the ball on it and we need someone to really reevaluate what that means to us.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and I get it, and I've had that experience early on the pain point for me in my career. That really started making me need to figure out a way to sell the thing that I was selling. And at the time, honestly, I was selling women's clothing, right, and so I had to figure out. At a certain point in our business, when the world around us was changing, we had nine retail locations. At that time, our overhead as a business was just massive and our initial goal was we're going to take this chain across the country and we're going to have four or 500 stores and thank God we didn't, because the environment changed. People started buying clothes much differently, and this was around 2015, 2016. And there was a certain point where we had an online business but we weren't selling a ton online.
Speaker 2:And I remember the morning I was working out and downstairs in my gym at my house, and it was January, february, and this is very typically the time in retail where things just come to a screeching halt, like right after the holidays. People aren't in the mall. If you go there right now, it's probably a ghost town. A lot of places around the country it's really cold, so people are like I'm just going to stay inside and not do a thing. And it was around that time where I was like I need to figure this out, otherwise we may lose it all. And it wasn't just like you know what, like we're going to close the business and we'll figure something else out. It was like, as an entrepreneur, your life is very connected to the thing that makes you money, and if you lose that, then your house, your life, all of that stuff goes down the drain. So I was in this very poignant place of pain where I needed to figure this out, and I had heard other people talk about using ads as a way to try to get sales, but, just like you described, I didn't know anything about it and it seemed like this gray area thing to me.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to just waste money, but there was one conversation I had with somebody that was a friend of mine who worked for a company that did a ton of sales online. At the time they were doing something like $500 million a year online, and so I was meeting with him. I had lunch with him, he invited a co-worker, which happened to be the head of marketing for the company, and we had this conversation and he told me that they were spending about $5,000 a day on Facebook ads and obviously very profitable. And I didn't ask him the details. I didn't say how are you doing it? I didn't say what was it that you guys do in your Facebook ads that make you money?
Speaker 2:All I needed to believe was that there's a way for somebody else to do it that's making that kind of money and spending that kind of money. At the time it was this like it blew my mind that somebody could be spending that kind of money on Facebook ads. I didn't even know that there were companies out there doing that, but not just doing that, but then spending $5,000, but then making maybe $50,000 a day off of that. And so it was a belief-breaking thing for me, where I just had to know that there's somebody else out there that's doing it and doing it successfully. Then I just knew for me, I knew I could do it myself because of that, and so for a lot of people it's that belief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that is so relevant, not just to marketing, but to anybody listening in. Anything they want to do where they sit there and go, that's not possible. But wait, somebody else did it and a lot of other people are doing it. You're just not exposed to them. So I really appreciate you bringing up that story, because breaking beliefs is everything. It's rewiring our brain, it's making us realize what is possible and, like Steve was saying, sit there and think about it. He had nine stores like storefronts. Who in their right mind, is thinking about oh, let's check out online, let's explore, let's see what else is going on? It's crazy.
Speaker 2:Right, and that belief that believe path, right when it's. If I don't believe it, then I'm not gonna take any action that leads me to a result that I might want, right? So there's no world where, if I don't believe it, that I'm going to do anything about actually making progress towards that thing, right? So in my mind I didn't believe that Facebook ads was the thing that was going to help me to be able to actually sell and make money, so I didn't take any action to try to figure it out. But once I broke that belief, all of a sudden I knew that that was a pathway for me to be able to achieve the thing that I wanted. And then, all of a sudden, the floodgates opened. Right, and so, yeah, you can apply that and extrapolate that out through everything, right, whether it's like losing weight or selling or opening a business, doing something else. Like, it's so easy to extrapolate that out that if you see somebody else doing it, you should believe for yourself that you're the person that can also do that thing. And most of the time, man, that's the secret, right? It's like when you meet people that are doing these big, amazing things. How many times and I've had this experience, most of the time that I've met people that I look up to and respect in public that I've not met. But then I meet them personally and they're nothing amazing, they're nothing special. It's like they've accomplished some great things.
Speaker 2:So what's the difference? It's in my mind. I think it's that number one. They don't limit themselves on the beliefs that they hold about themselves and keep them from trying the things that would make them have that kind of success and achievement. So that's number one. But number two is because they don't let themselves maintain those limiting beliefs. Their actions are just completely unrestrained. Right, they're gonna try everything. They don't care if they screw up. They don't care if they make a mistake. They don't care if they fail. Right, because they're gonna just keep going and getting the reps in and eventually they're gonna figure it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's so important that once you find something that you're slightly interested in or you think it's possible to actually give it a try, because there's so many people right now that are sitting there doing they're just kind of relaxing, like they're taking in the information but they're not applying any of it. And so how do you think about that between action and growth of knowledge and networks? Because I know you're, you were a part of different masterminds and you're doing a lot of different stuff. Where it was, it's a ton of money and it's not an easy commitment traveling around and just juggling these, cause some people are like I don't have the information, and then some people are like I'm just not doing the work and no one ever, no one's ever gonna tell you Steve, do the work or Jordan, do the work. No one ever says that.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah, and doing the work. It sounds like a very obvious thing, but most people don't really understand what that means. And the situation you kind of just described is like why do people not take action? And I believe that if you don't take action, you haven't really learned whatever. It is that you need to learn in order to get to the point of actually moving and taking action. And I can describe this in a couple of different ways.
Speaker 2:I was literally just in a meeting with some employees of mine and we were talking about one of my younger employees. She's just going back to school. She's in her young twenties, she works for me part-time to some social media stuff, and she was having this conversation about her belief about, or value in, her college education and over the first few weeks now we're just like through January, so she's three, four weeks in the semester and now she's at this point where she's like I go to class and I'm just not as excited as I used to be and I was having a conversation with somebody else and they were telling me, like what is the real value of going to school now? And I started going back to when I was in school and it's been about 18 years since I graduated from college and what is the real value of school? And when you go through the process of learning and getting an education and then you graduate from school, the value of whatever it is that you just paid for in school should translate itself not into just getting a job making money, but what skills did I actually learn while I was there that helped me to be able to then monetize and create something post graduation? And so there's a lot of degrees that you get that do have that very clear path, like doctors, like dentists, lawyers, technicians, engineers, like there's a lot of them Outside of that. Even in today's world, most in today's world are a lot like just going through the process of reading books and then you get out into the real world and you have to apply it, and most of the time it's debilitating more than and it's enabling right.
Speaker 2:And I told this story about how, when I had that experience, I graduated from college, I went to a great school, got a degree in corporate finance, business. I thought I knew all the things and I got hired at this job, probably getting paid less than I thought that I was worth. And then I started doing the work and I believed I knew all the things that I needed in order to like build a business, be a CEO and like grow to the massive, like levels that I thought that I could and maybe be a part of a you know, ceo of a public company someday. And I just didn't know what I didn't know. But I also didn't acquire the skills, meaning the actions. I didn't know the actions to perform in order to actually create money and drive revenue for whoever I was working for. So over the first couple of years I started getting really beat down because I didn't understand that process of me doing actions that would create revenue for somebody else, that meant I was valuable to that company, right. And so I tell that story because when you ask that question about like what do you actually learn?
Speaker 2:Whether it's in school or whether it's a mastermind like five years ago I had no idea what a mastermind even was, right. Like I think about it now and it's like okay, people to get together and you talk about these real business things, you talk about real application of business and then you're supposed to go back and actually apply it in whatever you do, and there's a lot of people which get really fixated on going to masterminds and learning all the time, and that's fine If you want to be a lifelong educator and just go to school all the time great people love learning. But if the whole point is to invest, meaning that I'm going to take some of my resources, put it into this thing and get something more out, there has to be a point you just got to get doing right. And if you get to the point of learning and you haven't actually changed your behavior and not doing anything, you haven't learned anything at all.
Speaker 1:I love the fact how you distinguished the skill set versus the degree, because I was actually having this conversation today as well and it was the college degree worth it. And most of us think, oh, I graduated college, I'm entitled to a job. Not, I have the skill set of this and now I can go do these skills, because most of us aren't even programmed to think in skills. So if we're actually rewire how we feel and we start thinking about ourselves and we think what skills do I actually have? Am I a communicator? Am I a listener? Am I whatever? Am I good at sales? Am I good at relationships? Am I good at whatever? It's very easy Like a lot of people have businesses where there'll be a Muay Thai coach or a tennis coach because they have the skill of the sport, they understand how to do it, they can help you.
Speaker 1:And in business it's the same thing. We need certain skills to be successful. You obviously have your operational task, but the marketing is part of everybody's skill set that they need and there's a lot of resistance to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is. If I wanna get really good at building muscle and getting big biceps and I can't just read about it I have to get my ass in the gym every day and actually do reps, and it can't just be a couple of times Like I have to do it every day. Every few days I gotta be in the gym, I gotta be doing the work, and whatever skill it is that you want to achieve I like what you said. Most of us do have some type of skill, and I think that's one of the hardest things for people to really understand is that everybody has some skill. But what skill is that? And I would just say to people that are questioning I don't believe I have any kind of skills.
Speaker 2:What is it that people ask you to help them with the most? There's some common denominator there, right? If people in your life are consistently asking you to help them fix their computer, or to help them with their Instagram account or whatever it might be, help them fix their car, that thing is the thing that you have a skill in that most people recognize as the thing that you can do. That doesn't mean that that's the thing that maybe you wanna pour into, but if you've identified a skill that maybe you already have or that you want to achieve or grow or learn or figure it out, all you gotta do is start doing that thing and that's part of that conversation I had again today as well as you can. If you look at things in terms of skill acquisition, more so than like reading and learning, then you're going to get a lot farther faster than you would if you go through the typical process of just how do I go through the steps to get a degree and then take that typical route right.
Speaker 2:And if I were to rewind myself, I was 20 years old today and I knew the path that I was going to take was beyond topreneurship and marketing and the things that I'm doing today, there's no way in the world I would go to school right now. I would get a job, not worry about how much money I'm making. Try to find a role where I was doing marketing for somebody or with somebody. Find the smartest person you can work for them as cheap as possible or whatever. It is not worried about money and just learn and just do it every single day. Figure out what works. Do the reps.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, because a lot of people have so much resistance today because we know what the societal norms are, which is, oh, go to college. And then when you go to college, it's like yo, we kind of like screwed around for four years, Like we did learning and we got jobs and we did things, but like, let's be honest, we weren't really pushing the needle Like most people have a wake up a year or two out of college and they're like what am I doing?
Speaker 1:Like how am I going to create something I'm excited about? And that's kind of the next thing which is like how do we find that purpose? Because so many people are missing that purpose, and I know you have your UT company and then you also have the working digital. How did you find your purpose in these different areas?
Speaker 2:Man? That's a great question. I never was really passionate about selling women's clothing. It's not something. I woke up one day and was like, man, I love clothing, I love women's clothing.
Speaker 2:You know it was never a thing, but it was an avenue for me to learn the things that I loved in business, that I wanted to do for myself, that I could do all day long and not get tired of it, and so that was a key number.
Speaker 2:One is like what are the things in your life that you do that you actually enjoy doing, that you're like I could do this all the time and I'm not going to ever get tired of it. Like maybe lean into that a little bit. For me, the second part of it was understanding how I can find fulfillment in life attached to that thing that I'm good at or the thing that I enjoy, and fulfillment tends to get really like woo, woo really quick for a lot of people, where it's like oh, what is the thing that I'm passionate about? And this conversation can get really opaque very quick in order to put teeth to it. The way I think about it is what is the thing in your life that you went through that you can help other people to avoid going through or help them to overcome, so they didn't have to suffer like you did. Right, and if you fill in the blank to those pieces, then I almost guarantee you you're going to find the thing that's going to fulfill you.
Speaker 1:It's wild. I started thinking about it as you're doing it real time, and I'm like what was the one issue I was having? I was trying to network with more people, so I created a podcast and now everyone can listen to the podcast and it's one of my most enjoyable things because I expand my network, I meet new people. And that's not saying go make a podcast, but it's like whatever you're doing, you can share that with other people, because there's somebody who wants to learn it from you, right, if you do it long enough you become good enough at it and then you know how to you can figure out a way to monetize it Right.
Speaker 2:And it's that saying right, the person that loves running is going to go further than the person that wants to get to the destination, right. And so if you just love doing this process of podcasting, and doing a podcast and talking to people and networking and going through the process right, like you're 160 something episodes in which is better than 99.999% of the podcast out there, which is freaking amazing man.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that. And the thing that Steve just brought up, which is the raps. It's funny Most people give up because they suck in the beginning, and everyone sucks in the beginning. So we usually don't give ourselves enough time to continue on that growth path to get to where we want to be, because we're so hard on ourselves. Especially as we age, we're like, oh, dude, I'm a grown man, I shouldn't know how to do this. No, you don't. And this can relate to podcasting. This can relate to ice skating. I've seen grown men have. I've seen a little girl ice skate better than a grown man, especially on skis. It's hilarious, especially being in Florida, because it's like no one's skiing that month, and so they're all like, oh, I don't know how to do this, but there is the ability to learn. So I think the whole thing that we're getting at here is that you have to be a lifelong learner and you can't be so hard on yourself in the beginning. Dude, how was the transition to working digital? Because I know it's.
Speaker 2:Dude, you built up this big company and then you have to in our pre-call, you're like yeah, I got humbled, like I'm starting from the ground again, like you know I got to temper that, though, because I was having this conversation with one of my employees who's a partial partner in my digital agency now and he's younger, he's in his early 20s as well and you know we have 12 clients now we're like six months in or so, and I had to remind myself that that's not how businesses usually start right, like most businesses start out, and it's a grind, and if you don't have the tenacity to get through that early part of being a business, like you said, most people give up. And that's the point where people either they fail to even launch and get off the ground because it starts to get hard and the reality of the tasks that they need to perform start setting in and it becomes a distraction more than it's a value add. But people that do get through that initial first steps to get into business, they then learn really quick that it's not as easy as it sounds. And so, getting into the space of digital marketing, it was a bit easier for me because, number one, I already had over 10 years under my belt of this skill that I knew, that I knew how to do for people, and because I had that under my belt, I already had other people around me that were asking me to help them to do that thing, and so previous to that I was just helping them. I was doing it for free. I would get on calls and give them advice and help them to understand some things that they could do for themselves. And then one day I was like man, I think I could do this full time and actually make money at this thing. And at that point I said you know what, like? There was a very slow and when I say slow, maybe it was over the course of a couple of months when I started to really understand what my passion was and what my why was.
Speaker 2:All of a sudden, selling women's clothing just became a total backseat adventure, because I knew that I had this thing looming this like dream, if you will that I knew that I had to get into, because that's the thing that was driving me, it was pulling me towards it right, and so diving into that it didn't feel as much of a jump as even like my first business venture, because I had every single belief that I was going to be good at this and I was going to be successful.
Speaker 2:Now, not to say that it has been easy by any means, because running a digital marketing agency and running a women's clothing company are two massively different ventures, right, and so I've had to learn how to go through the sales process with clients to get clients and get leads, instead of just being transactional and selling clothing online. And there's a lot of things that I've had to learn and I'm still learning in my business that I've never known before, because I've never freaking run a digital marketing agency, you know what? But I'm making about as much as I've ever made through my entire career because I enjoy what I do and I'm every single day coming to work putting in the reps and my what I see as my vision of what I can become doing this is a hundred times greater than I ever believed that I would be in doing what I was doing before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is profound because most of the time we don't give ourselves enough credit for what we know and then we don't give ourselves enough credit for what we've created and what we're creating currently and we're just so hard on ourselves because of the day to day. But I also love the part where you're like like previous on this call. You're like dude, I'm usually here at 6, 6, 30 and, like Steve's good, he doesn't need to be working till 6, 6, 30. But it's like I want to build the thing, I want to make sure it's good and I want to make sure it's right and their system is in place and everything's working correctly. And so the compounding of working each and every day skyrockets us and if we continually do that, it makes us so much better.
Speaker 1:So, steve, the skill set I think you might have that I don't know if you realize is the ability to kind of handle your plate, so juggling these different ventures and transitioning into different activities, because it's not an easy task, and this could be the full-time employee going into business ownership. This could be the person who's in an entrepreneur voucher and it's not working out and they're making the jump. How do you make this transition and how did you make it? Try to make it as seamless as possible.
Speaker 2:Man, it probably sounds like it was a lot easier than it really was, you know, because there are those times where I was like man, I know that I'm pulling away from what I had been doing and getting into something completely new. And so there's this amount of risk that I know I'm taking on and the unknown about what is what I'm really doing with my time and what I'm what jump I'm taking into, what I'm really jumping into. I think for me, the thing that helps to balance all of these things is I number one, the why and the passion, all of that stuff. Right, understanding the things that you really enjoy doing makes it easier because you enjoy the run more than you do. Just, I'm going to a destination every day, right? Yes, I never feel like I don't.
Speaker 2:I can't remember the last time I got to my office and that the end of the day said to myself oh my God, I'm glad that day's over. It just drug on forever, right? Almost every single day I get towards the end of my day and I look at my clock and I say to myself it's already six o'clock. I literally could have said it was two o'clock, right, like that's how the day felt. And I think if your days feel like that, and it's not because I am just busy that busy can feel like that too but because I'm doing and accomplishing and actually creating and being productive and the things that I enjoy doing and the time just starts to go by much quicker, right. And so the balance of like all of those things in terms of the grind of the thing that I'm doing, that's new to me, that that's how I've overcome that.
Speaker 2:Now the other part of it is stepping away from something that I had been doing previously.
Speaker 2:I have great people, and understanding how to have the right people in the right places that you can hand things off to, that are skilled at what they do, is a massive part of having the confidence to be able to invest in and step away and do the things that you know you can do right. So it's those levels of understanding where your leverage is, but then also having the wherewithal to say I can now step away from this thing that's a business and hand it to somebody else that if I hadn't had that piece of the puzzle already in place and I'm literally trying to hold all of the plates up in all of these businesses it would have been virtually impossible and you say like, okay, maybe a guy like Elon Musk that has all of these businesses that he's running, like that's bullshit, like he's not actually running all of these businesses right, like his skill set is he's really good at getting other people to do all the things that he needs to get done, and that's really it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's two parts to that. I think one that I really enjoyed was the run versus the destination. There's so many of us that are sitting there and going like, if I just make a million dollars, if I just have my business with this many clients, if I just meet the girl, if I just buy the house, if I just whatever, and it's not, hey, I gave it my all today. I'm trying my best, we're doing what we can and we're moving forward and we're making progress or we're making profit, like it's an easy distinction and it helps you get there, because the other side of that is you're not going to be happy when, like, you're not going to. You have to find that joy in what you're doing today.
Speaker 1:And the second part you said is which I think is the most challenging thing, as I've talked to with a lot of people is building a team. Like building a good team is the most challenging thing in business, and we see it in sports a lot, where people hockey teams, football teams like they're trying to build a team. They have unlimited money, they still don't all win the Super Bowl. How?
Speaker 2:Only once even. Yeah right, and I've sucked at that a lot, and obviously there's a lot of people that do it professionally, which at times are really good and at times really suck at it too. But just like anything else, man, it's been a thing of reps. I've probably done over a thousand interviews in the last 15 years with people. I've employed more than 500 people and, through those reps, of seeing who does what and how people react to and how you lead them. It helps you to understand and put the dots together and how you can get better hire the right people, train the right people, lead the right people. And then it's again. It's just reps. You know one after another.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And what do you think was the biggest thing for you in realizing your why and realizing making those decisions to make a change, because there's probably so many of us that sit there and go, dude, I should really be doing this. I understand that there's like strategic steps, but, like, what was the why that you found out, like you shared with us in the pre-call with the girl who's selling the art, and it's just an incredible. Can you share that story actually?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So about the girl and the art, or you know, I'll back up to my story. And so, as a kid growing up I'm the youngest of four boys and my oldest brother's 11 years older than me my dad was an entrepreneur his my whole life and during the course of my upgrade upbringing, there was a period of time where our family moved four times in a period of five years foreclosures, bankruptcies and my dad, he was really really good at what he did. He was a dental technician. He like basically made like people's fake teeth and crowns and all that kind of stuff and he loved doing the thing that he did as a craftsman and he was really, really good at it. What he was not really good at was business, because he never had enough customers. He never had enough money coming in.
Speaker 2:It was always a struggle to pay bills, which then had a massive impact on our family growing up, because I wasn't able to do the things that I wanted to do. And there was one situation I remember where I was probably 12, 13 years old I wanted to go play like tackle football, right, I wanted my parents to sign me up and I remember it was going to be like a hundred bucks to sign up and there was going to be like practices and then games, and I begged my parents to let me sign up to go play and ultimately it was just a no Like my parents. Every single time there was something like that that I wanted to do, it was always a we just don't have the money to be able to afford that thing. And there were times where I would get home from school and there would be a note on the door that our power got shut off and I didn't know at the time that that wasn't normal. That you know, sometimes you walk around the house at night with a candle. I thought it was just the kind of this fun thing and then day or two later you know they pay the bill and the power came back on. Right, that's normal, right.
Speaker 2:But I got to a certain point where I realized that there was a massive limitation that I was experiencing in life in terms of opportunity because my parents couldn't figure out how to become successful financially. And I don't say that because I want any kind of like attention or I'm a victim. I say that because that then gave me the passion and the drive to figure that out, like there are other people out there that are successful my dad. He ultimately started his business because he went and worked for somebody that did what he did, and that person that he worked for was one of the most successful people he had ever met, right. So the difference, though, is that that guy, I'm sure, was not just great at that thing, that he did the business the technician, he was good at business too, right.
Speaker 2:So I then made it a lifelong thing to figure out business, like I'm going to figure this business thing out, right. So I went to business school and I went that whole path, and then I got into work and I worked for a small business, and then, five years later, I started a business and went through that whole process, and, unfortunately, by the time I kind of figured it out, my dad was passed that point, and kind of he's passed on now, but what it's given to me is this motivation and my why of understanding that there's so many business owners out there in the world and in the US and all over the place that they have this business, this idea, this dream, this vision, where they want to create something for themselves and their family which is a better life than they had or a better life than they've ever thought that they could have. And then they get into business doing a thing and they start to understand that it's a lot harder than you think because they can't figure it out and they get so discouraged. And one of the most fulfilling things that I do with clients is I get on the phone with them and I give them a vision of what their business could be, but not just a vision, but a very clear path of where they are and how we get to that place. And for the first time for a lot of my clients in a long time, they have this understanding of oh, this actually can happen and it gives them hope.
Speaker 2:And for me, instead of selling people more sales and getting them more clients, what I know that I'm doing for them is I'm giving them hope because at a certain point they lost that and the details of the nitty gritty and the grind and being busy and the bills piling up. You lose hope. How do you get that back Right? You have some kind of vision that you have an understanding of very clearly, like here's where I am and here's where I want to go. How do I get there? And I just give them that path and, for the first time in a long time, a lot of these people are having these realizations that, oh, it is still possible, right? And they get excited again, and that's the thing that feeds me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I just want everyone to realize that he is doing marketing. No, but I'm saying, you hear that story and you're like, oh my God, like you're moved and you're like how do I find that? How do I help people find their hope? But the thing is, everything we do is helping people find their hope, but you just have to find it inside of you, that story, whatever that is for the audience, that drives you and motivates you.
Speaker 1:And build that story, because it may not be the hope, but we all have our own hope that we're kind of building on and we have our stuff that we can build and we can be that for somebody else, and I think too many of us lose that, like you're saying, Steve. So I think that's absolutely incredible and I appreciate the entire story because once you really paint the whole picture, you're like, wow, he wasn't just handed a boutique, he wasn't just handed a marketing firm with swell paying, fine. Like you realize that there's a lot to uncover here and it's a lot of beliefs and it's a lot of. What can I do and what can I achieve?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I can say 100% just about every one of the clients that I have right now.
Speaker 2:There's a certain point where, whether it's on the initial call, where I'm learning about their business, or at some point during the first month or so, where there's this like teary eyed moment of like understanding what it is that we're doing, that it's not just making money, it's not just selling more, it's not just growing a business.
Speaker 2:There's so much more to that and which is the reason why I love the small business game so much right, because I felt that as a human growing up with me and my family and the impact that it had, because my family and my parents and my dad couldn't figure that thing out right, and so I love seeing that play out in a much brighter way. And, like you said, yeah, we're talking about marketing here, but it's a real avenue that helps so many people in life and my vision and my goal is to expand that out to help as many people as possible, people that are in that situation where they feel like there's no avenue out of the situation that they're currently in and there really is. It's just a knowledge gap, and that's the thing that I love delivering for people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and there's so many of us. It's funny. Over the weekend we were, basically we were at my fiance's parents' house her parents' house and she's cleaning the house. And my fiance's mom was like, oh, you guys should start a cleaning business because you guys are really good at cleaning. And I'm sitting there and it's clicking with me and I'm like I don't think they want to clean. I know they're cleaning right now, but in real business sense you would hire cleaners, you would have to get marketing, you would have to get cleaning contracts. But there's so many of us that are in that framework of you're good at a skill, you should have that business. And it's like no, no, no, it's all backwards. So how do you think people can figure out their business for them?
Speaker 2:Number one don't listen to your mom. That's like, literally, moms are like the worst at business advice in the world and bless their hearts, right, it's like they love us and so they're gonna tell us and be encouraging and give us all of the hope about, like, whatever it is that we're doing, then we're gonna be amazing at it. But in reality, it's not true at all. Right, like what is true? Because I've talked to a lot of people, right, and I hear this around the area here in Utah that there's girls that are to be told by people around them like, oh, you should be a model. Or like, yeah, just like you said, people have these certain things they do, and people are like, oh, I love these cookies, you should like start a bakery and start making these cookies. And right, and just because, like, your family loves them doesn't mean that the world and the market is going to love those things, right? So, like, how do you understand that that thing that you're doing you're actually good at and that it's actually something that people want? I would say number one is get outside of your inner circle and the people which are closest to you Buy it. Yeah, and put that thing out into the world outside of just your inner circle, and if people still resonate the same way that they did when they're in your inner circle, then maybe you know you have something right. But secondly, I would not go ahead and try to just say I'm gonna forsake everything else and try to monetize this opportunity Because, like you said, it's not just that thing Just like we started out in this conversation is there's that thing.
Speaker 2:But then, yes, running a business is a job in and of itself and for most business owners, they get into this monotony of doing all of the things and, before you know it, all they really have is this job that owns them and the business owns them. And for most business owners, yeah, maybe that's the thing that they want and they want to own their own business. But eventually what's gonna happen? Like there's gonna be no kids to hand it down to. They probably don't want your business. You're just gonna wind it up someday and then you're gonna retire, maybe, and then move on with your life, and then the circle of life goes on. But if the dream is I'm going to create this thing that is an asset, that's a business that runs and it's this machine that's well-oiled and actually lives without me. It takes a long time to get to that point, right, because you have to understand the nature of doing the thing that you actually do that delivers value, but then creating the machine that actually delivers that value, and they're two totally different skill sets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's funny because most people are like oh, when you're working a job, you can clock out, and then when you have a business, you never clock out and you're just doing all that. And Steve's kind of explaining here where it's like you have multiple jobs, you're doing several different things, because it's not just you need multiple skill sets to run a successful business and it's not easy acquiring all those skill sets because you have to maintain that the business still runs while you're trying to develop the new skill sets. And these are where the challenges come in. But, like Steve mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, somebody's done it before, steve's done it, you can do it and anybody can do it. You just can't give up and you got to understand.
Speaker 1:And the other part I wanna bring up is what you were talking about where, who do you get advice from? One of the big things I pulled was regarding mentors get info from the person who's doing it, like from someone who's successful. Like I have a rabbi, I don't ask him about business advice. It's just not relevant, it just doesn't make sense. You ask the guy who's ran several businesses Steve, for example, business advice, tell me more. And like you understand that because but that relates to all areas of life, because too many times we put too much emphasis on one person, where they might be good at certain areas but they might not be great at other areas. So you have to have that distinguishment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's absolutely true. And ultimately, I think once you get to a certain point where you're trying to have a business that creates revenue, then the market's going to tell you right. And one of the worst mistakes that I hear people make, especially early on in his business, is that they believe they have this amazing thing that they've created that the world just needs to know about and that not enough people just not enough people have heard about it. Right? But if it was really as amazing as you think it is, then maybe five people hear about it and then they tell other people about it and then it spreads like wildfire through word of mouth. If it was that good, that's how your business would grow, right?
Speaker 2:If nobody is buying the thing that you're trying to sell, it's probably not because not enough people know about it, it's probably because it sucks. And it's one of the hardest things for entrepreneurs to depersonify is the ownership of whatever it is that they're trying to sell, because they literally feel like it is part of themselves. And it probably should be especially early on, right, like there's people that tell you and you've heard these sayings like you are your business. To a degree, that's true. I also disagree with that, because people do take on too much of the ownership of their business and it makes them feel like if the business isn't successful, then they somehow are wrong. They're not good as a person. Right, which is totally untrue. It's that there's a gap in your abilities and your skill set and you just have to learn how to overcome those things and the business will get better and the business will grow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's where a lot of people struggle is that identity crisis, where you're identifying too close to the business and it's not that Jordan Edwards is a good person, but it's like I'm only a good person if this happens and that can be so demeaning to I mean you probably seen it much more than I have where someone's business goes down. I mean you just said it about your dad, where he was struggling and didn't feel that confidence, didn't feel that swagger, when in reality, that's built inside of us. We create that on our own. Yeah, so, steve, you are incredible. You are incredible. Tell us where people can learn about you and learn about working digital and how someone can overcome that marketing fatigue and that fear of marketing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it, man. Yeah, a couple of questions there. So how can people follow me? Reach out to me? I'm on Instagram, my handle is Steve Merrill eight and my company's name is working digital. It's working without the vowels, so WRKNG digital, working digitalcom at working digital.
Speaker 2:And then overcoming the barriers to marketing. Right, like, and what I think most people struggle with when they think about marketing or how to do marketing for them and their business is they see everybody else doing marketing on the internet and they think the number one, that that's the way that marketing should be done, but number two, then they start feeling deficient on not being everywhere, not being omnipresent as a business, right, and it starts to feel really overwhelming in order to take on all of those things at the same time and I've been there, especially when you're in the grind of running your business. How do you then make that jump into saying, okay, now I'm going to focus on marketing, because that's going to take time away from all of the other things that I need to do as a business owner? Like you just said, right, every entrepreneur, at a certain point you're a bookkeeper, your HR department, your payroll, your you know safety department, your all of the things that go on in your business. You have all of these hats that you wear. Marketing should be, obviously, be a big one of those. But that understanding of I need to do this thing and I need to do marketing and how am I going to overcome that? I would say don't take on everything all at the same time. Pick one channel, right.
Speaker 2:If you think your customers on Instagram, just get on Instagram, start posting on Instagram, start creating content. It doesn't need to be insane. Just start posting something every day for your business and tell the story of your brand, tell your story, tell the story of what you sell. Post something and eventually you're going to learn what catches and you're going to learn what people engage with. But if you try to do Instagram and TikTok and YouTube and Facebook and all of the things at the same time, you're never going to do anything because it's all going to be too much, right.
Speaker 2:So pick one thing to focus on and do just that. Eventually, that's going to create some momentum and then you're going to have the ability to say you know what like? Now, we can maybe just start doing more emails too, and so, instead of just Instagram, let's start sending emails every single day too, and before you know it, that ball is rolling faster and faster and you have more revenue and you can hire more people, and I make it sound really, really easy. But again, the doing needs doing and you got to start somewhere. So just pick one place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that and I think it's just building the asset and then leveraging that as you continue to build. But yeah, we're going to put all of your stuff in the show notes. Steve, you've been incredible and I appreciate all the information. It's been awesome.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Thanks for the opportunity. Man Love conversations that we have here and you know outside of this and appreciate your time. Thank you.