Unleashing Business Freedom: Achieving Greater Business and Entrepreneurial Success with Erin Marcus

Join us on a journey of entrepreneurial discovery as we unveil the secrets to achieving both financial triumph and personal fulfilment. Today, we're honoured to have Erin Marcus, a true expert in the business world, as our guest.

Erin is passionate about helping entrepreneurs and small business owners achieve financial and emotional freedom. Her outstanding skills include Public Speaking, Strategic Planning, Branding, Business Consulting, Marketing Strategy and running lead generation masterclasses. On top of all this she somehow finds time to host the “Ready Yet ?!” podcast.

With 25 years of trailblazing experience, Erin not only transformed her corporate savvy into entrepreneurial prowess but also ignited the success stories of countless driven business owners. Her strategic genius and knack for distilling complex concepts into actionable steps set her apart. Get ready to dive into her signature formula for crafting business success and turning start-ups into powerhouse businesses.

Today I want to tap into her knowledge and expertise to energise and inspire small to medium sized business owners to challenge themselves and achieve greater success.

Website:       https://conqueryourbusiness.com
Facebook:     https://www.facebook.com/ErinMarcusConquerYourBusiness
Instagram:    https://www.instagram.com/erinmarcusconqueryourbusiness/
YouTube:      https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLFD-aM6LmA10FQrFC_QchQ
LinkedIn:       https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinmarcusconqueryourbusiness/

ABOUT THE HOST

My name is Dave Barr and I am the Founder and Owner of RLB Purchasing Consultancy Limited.

I have been working in Procurement for over 25 years and have had the joy of working in a number of global manufacturing and service industries throughout this time.

I am passionate about self development, business improvement, saving money, buying quality goods and services, developing positive and effective working relationships with suppliers and colleagues, and driving improvement through out the supply chain.

Now I wish to share this knowledge and that of highly skilled and competent people with you, the listener, in order that you may hopefully benefit from this information.

CONTACT DETAILS

@The Real Life Buyer
Email: david@thereallifebuyer.co.uk
Website: https://linktr.ee/thereallifebuyer

For Purchasing Consultancy services:
https://rlbpurchasingconsultancy.co.uk/
Email: contact@rlbpurchasingconsultancy.co.uk

Find and Follow me @reallifebuyer on Facebook, Instagram, X, Threads and TikTok.

Click here for some Guest Courses - https://www.thereallifebuyer.co.uk/guest-courses/

Click here for some Guest Publications - https://www.thereallifebuyer.co.uk/guest-publications

Transcript

Intro  00:00

Welcome to The Real Life Buyer podcast. In this podcast, you will hear interviews with business owners, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, authors and technical specialists in their field. These professionals will hasten your development accelerate your career and broaden your business know how now introducing your host Dave Barr interviewing with a purchasing twist.

Dave Barr  00:21

Hello, and welcome to The Real Life Buyer. In this episode, I have the delight of talking to Erin Marcus, Erin is passionate about helping entrepreneurs and small business owners achieve financial and emotional freedom. Her outstanding skills include public speaking, strategic planning, branding, business consulting, marketing strategy, and running lead generation master classes. On top of all this, she somehow finds time to host the ready yet podcast and has authored a book by the same name. Today, I want to tap into her knowledge and expertise to energize and inspire small to medium sized business owners to challenge themselves achieve a greater level of success. So without further ado, I welcome Erin onto the podcast. Hi, Erin. 

Erin Marcus  01:08

Hello, I sound so fancy when you say all that.

Dave Barr  01:13

You are an expert. We were just chatting and you are very prolific on LinkedIn. You regularly are seen doing live, lives? Should we say and you're on on live today on my phone? Suddenly your name popped up?

Erin Marcus  01:27

Oh, yeah, I did. Oh, yeah. I was on a bit of a tear this morning about tracking numbers and what to do with it. And all of the all of the things. Yeah.

Dave Barr  01:37

Fabulous. So you know, obviously people can check you out. We'll talk about where we can people can find you shortly. But you've got obviously got your own unique journey. Yeah, I believe you started off in journalism, you had 11 years, I think I would describe it as a business development role. And in one company in insurance, then you spent another six years with the wonderful title of President. I do love that title. I wish I had that.

Erin Marcus  02:02

It's your business you can do whatever.

Dave Barr  02:04

Its wonderful, isn't it. 

Erin Marcus  02:05

King Mouse? 

Dave Barr  02:07

Okay. And you're now the founder and CEO of Conquer Your Business. And that's been going since around about June 2016. So very well established. Now. Can you share with us kind of your journey, what sort of things have happened in your life, you've had quite a range of experiences, what some of the standout moments that have made Aaron Marcus become the person we're talking to today.

Erin Marcus  02:31

But the origin story, you know, the the, if you want to go way back, I think one of the things where it started was that I went to so I went to public school in Chicago in the 70s and 80s. With people from 22 different countries, it was huge immigration waves, then nobody spoke English. And nobody had any money. So we there wasn't if you've watched any of the, you know, the Hollywood films from the 80s, and all those teenage angst and keep it you know, keeping up with the Joneses, that was the opposite of my high school experience, right? There was everyone's just trying to survive, but we were kids. So we were also just trying to get along with each other and have a good time. And one of the things that taught me was how the people are just people, right? People are just people and how to talk to anybody, regardless of language, regardless of background, regardless of experience, just to lead with curiosity and be interested in people because it was amazing. Like, it wasn't just the kids I was in school with it was their grandmas at home that we that we were interacting with. And then you fast forward, I got over some hunger over my juvenile delinquency ways. And I found myself in college, getting that journalism degree. And I was writing for three different newspapers, three different daily papers at the time. And when you're a student, they give you access to all sorts of things. So I was interviewing people way above my paygrade, like, state level national level politicians, I was covering murder trials, like I would have never gotten an actual job with access like this. And once again, I learned people are just people and how to communicate with anybody and how to ask questions and how to listen for what they're saying but also hear what they're not seeing and putting that all together. And that curiosity and interest and complete lack of attention span combined with what I've since learned is one of my top three Strength Finders have learner right I just love learning and things to if you combine loving learning and no attention, so you get a lot of activity is what you really end up with. And what I finally figured out is I love the puzzle of business. I love the puzzle of business. And the advice that I give people is wit find that intersection of what you do really, really really well and what other people need Right, where's that intersection in your services between the thing other people need and the thing that you do really, really well, in my business where I was president, because that was exciting. That's what happened. It was a, it was a business, it was franchise, actually. And it was working with families with aging parents, but I got my franchise, my office to the top 10 out of 200 offices in about 18 months. Because I love the puzzle of business, not because I was so amazing and taking care of aging parents trust me, I was not the most amazing, right, I had to be team members who were much better at doing the thing than I was, I just love the puzzle of business. So the franchisor had me training new franchises and speaking at their events. And finally, it just think if you're paying attention, and if you listen as you get older, and as you get more experience, it's not so much about discovering what you're good at as it is about letting go of everything else. Let go of the noise, let go of the chaos, let go of what you should be doing, let go of what everybody else thinks you shouldn't be doing. Because I absolutely promise you I left a C suite multiple six figure income expense account the whole nine yards and corporate, to start a business working with families with aging parents, which means we were like working in their basements going through their stuff. And that is not a conversation you want to have with your mother. But it all comes together. And this is you know, so I'm so excited about doing what it is that I am doing now I get to just hone in on the thing that I know how to do.

Dave Barr  06:30

For a young person in the presence of people that as you said, you saw them as at a different level, perhaps to you were and I guess you were pretty intimidated, in some ways by the people in front of you. But by having the experience of sharing the same time asking those questions here in their answers, I guess that had quite a profound impact you as a young person, where are your friends? Other colleagues perhaps weren't getting the experience that you were getting at the time? 

Erin Marcus  06:58

Absolutuely, I absolutely know that my experience as a reporter during college was monumentally more beneficial to me than any class that I went to. Right. I mean, the classes were interesting, they were certainly better than high school. I did the I did better in them than I did in high school. But there was nothing. There was some that stand out. But none of them compare to being able to sit down with a senator and have him pay attention to you like you mattered.

Dave Barr  07:28

Wow, really powerful stuff. Would you if you reflect back now, would you say there's any one particular person I know, it's really tough question that really impacted you in a way that you never really expected to happen?

Erin Marcus  07:45

Oh yeah. I was lucky twice, twice with mentors and corporate. So one of my more corporate level positions was at a international commercial real estate company. And it wasn't handed to me. I mean, I think that's a big, a big piece of information, opportunities don't get handed to you, if you don't behave in a way that shows you deserve them. And so I had massive work ethic, I asked a ton of questions, I got way involved. And my first mentor, as opposed to a boss, right. My first mentor was in that company. And I was only there for a few years. I didn't like the business in general. But the they were two women. They were a team. They were the number one female team of commercial real estate in the Chicagoland area, which is crazy huge. Like you can't even imagine this is a, there's a lot of business. This is five counties, something like 5 million people. And I ended up getting to join their team. And what I learned from them was because it was the 90s how to maneuver in a male dominated industry without having a chip on your shoulder without doing anything inappropriate, like how could you be authentically you and still maneuver in that world through communication, right in a way that benefits you. That led to my next job, where that mentor, the owner of that business late, took me to meetings that were so above my paygrade, so above my paygrade and we would go to dinner afterwards, or we'd go to lunch afterwards. And I'd had my notebook and I had written down everything that I didn't know, what did that mean? What did that mean? What did that mean? What did that mean? What was that acronym? Right? Like, just with all the patients in the world, gave me a business education, that once again, now that company paid for my MBA, I was able to use our company, his real life, case studies, projects for that MBA, but he took it a step further. And the story that sums it all up is I was there for 12 years. As I was a senior vice president by the time I left, and when I told him I wanted to leave, first, I had spent about three hours trying to bribe one of my partners to tell him for me, and Pat wouldn't do that I was, you know, I was willing to give him more and more money to go have that conversation on my behalf. And so I walk into the office, and I'm like, there's an opportunity that I've come across, and I think I really want to do it. He stopped everything. He called the the other founder, he called the corporate lawyer, he called the executive vice president. And we all went into the conference room together, where he asked me in the three hours, asking me questions, going through paperwork, what are you going to do about this? What are you going to do about that? How much money do you have for this? How much more do they give you for that? And for three hours, went through everything, not just the paperwork, but me. And he goes, alright, you're ready, you can go do this.

Dave Barr  11:01

Wow. That's very generous, really, isn't it?

Erin Marcus  11:03

It's unheard of. And I think it's what I emulate, right? If I could even be a portion of that. So I hire people, and I try to help them create their entrepreneurial dream job within my brand. I try to treat my team members, my vendors, whoever I use, in a way, as if they were my clients, right? When the water what does that say? When the waters rise, all boats go up. I mean, yeah, it's just a happier way of being too.

Dave Barr  11:34

I reflect on my head. Now, I think of the analogy that people to learn a language, the best way to do that is not sit in the classroom, is not to be told it's not listened to tapes, it's been immersed in the culture. So if you want to learn French, go to France, you'd be there for a long period of time. And, you know, if you don't learn it very quickly, you're gonna go hungry, let's say, in your case, you immersed yourself, or people immerse, she was well into the business world, into the corporate world, you're exposed to things, you know that most people rarely get the chance to be involved in. And that gave you a quite a unique vision, interpretation of what people do, why they do the things they do, what they say the things they do, said, You're writing down in a frenzy trying to learn from all this. But that gave you the opportunity to learn it in a very different way to most people have that chance. So that really formed you, shall we say, at that time? Yeah,

Erin Marcus  12:32

I mean, when you combine all these things, I always felt like my life was very segmented, I went to grammar school, I went to high school with nobody from my grammar school, I went to college with nobody from my high school. Just by happenstance, not with any design, I always felt my life was very fragmented, and segmented, until I now look back and see how this all goes, you know, growing up with so many people who were so different from me, and then having a journalism degree where I was literally trained to communicate with intent train to ask questions, and then have another opportunity to be with people that I mean, I grew up in Chicago, my mother was a beautician, my dad was a cop. I was a delete. Right? So when would I have ever but I still, and I think this is where people harm themselves so much is they wait, they wait for it to be handed to them? They wait to be asked. The I've always been, you know, maybe it was a big mouth type of situation where I would just interrupt and said, What are you talking about the thing that has served me I don't know where it comes from. But the thing that has served me so well is I do not get upset, or think poorly of myself. If I don't know something I just asked. I you know, I think a lot of people are scared to admit if they don't know something, I will be the first one to tell you.

Dave Barr  14:05

What's that fear of exposing yourself to people that you are intimidated by, in most circumstances yourself? You've got over that already.

Erin Marcus  14:16

The way that just right. I mean, when you're talking to people from all over the world, and well before Google Translate, asking them what what is just going to be regularly.

Dave Barr  14:27

Yeah, but at least that way, asking those questions, you really get to understand the answers. But as you say, most people if they're intimidated with other knots anything at all, or wait for other people they hope will ask the question that you want to ask or you're very meekly try and get some sort of answer out of that individual.

Erin Marcus  14:47

And the mistake we make when we do that is the other person isn't thinking they're thinking about themselves. Also, they're not thinking, you know, it's kind of like going to the gym and not doing the exercise because you don't want people to See you doing a bad job. They're not they don't care. They're not watching you. They've got their own problems. They've got their own thoughts. It's the same thing. All the people that were worried about seeing us are, they've got their own thoughts. They're not even thinking 99% of time, they're not even thinking about you. I say that about us here in the Midwest, and in the US in the Midwest, we're all very nice, right? We're very, very, very nice here, God forbid, we not be nice. And that becomes a problem when sales. Because while you're being nice, not wanting to bother me, I'm being nice, not wanting to be pushy with you. And so everyone's very nice, but nothing gets done. We're all very nice.

Dave Barr  15:38

Let's, I ask you about networking, we've gone through a number of changes where we had face to face was common standard, everybody, you know, would go and meet each other, then we had this awful pandemic, where everybody couldn't meet each other. You'd be online doing phone calls, video calls, whatever. And now we appear to be transitioning back into more face to face a little bit of a hybrid right at the moment. Now, what would you say with your experience will be the most effective means of networking, when we're talking about people who may be intimidated, perhaps a small business owner, talking to other business owners? What would you say works best? How do you cultivate those really good relationships that end up with referrals and businessing. And everything else, not standing on the sidelines and watching what other people are doing and being that blast person with a coffee in your hand?

Erin Marcus  16:31

Well, the good news about networking is every way you can assume everyone's there for the same reason. They, they're there because they want to meet people. So it's not like going to a bar and you see somebody sitting by themselves with a drink. Maybe that person just wants to be by themselves. You don't know when you approach that person, anything about them, you can assume if they walked in the door at the networking event, they do want to meet somebody. And my my big advice on all levels of business is around intention. Have an intention. Don't do random acts of marketing. Don't just show up and see what happens. Do things with intention. So finds if you're a nervous person, find someone else who's nervous, I promise you there'll be one, right? Find someone else who's nervous and go be nervous together, it'll just or you can do the opposite. Find someone like me, and I'll just take I'll just take care of it for you. Right? I've done that plenty of times where I've just, you know, no problem. You and I met somehow you're a little nervous here, I'll take care of it for you. Right? No big deal. The thing I like about zoom, is we're all the same size box. So for me, it's not hard for me to walk into a room a few I've been talking to strangers my entire life, right? Not a thing. But I do understand that especially if I'm all excited about something that can I can be a little intimidating I could be the line I heard that I love is the fact that I'm too much in real life makes me just enough for the internet, it's so online, you're not competing with someone who happens to have high energy, you're not competing with that person. So if you find yourself more intimidated, the beauty of post pandemic is how many options you have in person you have virtual there is zero shortage of ways to meet people. Pick the one that works for you. One of the mistakes I watch businesses make over and over and over again, small businesses is they believe in someone else's marketing, which isn't a bad thing. It just means the marketing worked, did what it's supposed to do. And they buy into an outcome from a tactic instead of a strategy. And that tactic does not take into account your unique strengths, your unique business, your unique goals and the things you hate doing. Because if you hate doing the thing, you're not going to do a good job at it. You're just not. So there's a million other ways to do things. If you don't want to walk, or if you live somewhere or have moved since move somewhere where they don't have good in person networking. Great. It's online. I don't do a lot of in person networking. And interestingly enough, when I do I usually have to go out of state for it. There's only one place here in Chicago that I and then I go to very cultivated experiences, but the intent find the intention.

Dave Barr  19:35

So for new business owners and there seems to be quite a resurgence in people starting a business at the moment. I've seen on a number of calls, I've had networking meetings, I've been to what a plentiful supply of new people trying to get into this. And they're all trying to find their way. They're all trying as you say network and ask the right questions and do the right things. So if you were going to start over yourself and you have If you didn't have some of the experiences you have, but you wanted to make an impact, how would you go about that? What key things would you suggest to a new business owner? somebody starting out? How could they make an impact when everybody is bombarded with social media and everything else going on? How can they stand out that little bit more?

Erin Marcus  20:21

Two things. Number one, everything has to be reverse engineered, don't start at step one. It's random acts of marketing, messages that aren't dialed in. What happens is people practice on their prospects, because they haven't done the work before they go to work. They know they have a business, so they're supposed to go out there and meet people. Okay, I'm supposed to go networking, right? What does that even mean? What am I trying to accomplish? What's the outcome that my business provides? What's the problem that I solve? Nobody buys a process. So getting my ducks in a row, getting your ducks in a row before you even go to your first event will help you immensely. Because the truth is, you can be the best photographer in the world. But if you can't talk about it confidently, people are gonna think you're bad at photography. It's not fair. But it is true. So get reverse engineer, what kind of business are you trying to create? What kind of clients are you trying to work with? What is the problem that you solve? What is the pain that they feel, and the problem that you like, write it all out, write it all out, it's going to iterate don't get, don't get married to it, it's going to iterate. So but do that work before you walk out the door. So because number one that is going to shorten your learning curve, you're going to get clients much faster. So you'll get your ball rolling faster. The second thing is be a thought leader, not a vendor, whatever you can grab on to that you're confident in. It doesn't have to be everything. Right? This is a snowball effect, grab something you're confident and be very emphatic. Don't there's no money in the middle. There is no, no wishy washy. I love asking people, What are they against? Don't just tell me what you're for. Tell me what you're against. Personally, I focus on business strategy. No, and the you know, my cute little saying is no one size fits all soon to be obsolete, instant tactics. I don't care if I disagree with them. I say, you know, the tactics are great for your business, and that might not be ready for him. So I'm not being a jerk about it. You can disagree with something without being a jerk about it. Right? So the beauty of AI is how much easier it is going to be to stand out. It's so going to be everyone is already sounds the same to me. They have here's a US AI we use it to be efficient. We use it to get things done faster. But the reason I go live every week The reason I do this is you can't dial this in video. You don't have to do live and I didn't start out doing live let me tell you. It took me a minute before I was willing to just I think the pandemic made us all better on video because we're just used to it we're just used to being recorded at this point in our life. Right? So video hacks know like and trust because you you get my energy you here home, like you know if I'm your person by now or not really have an inkling Do you want to talk to me more? Or do you like this woman is nuts. I do not want to talk to right? You know this, but you know who I am? In a way that written word right now is too easily faked but dialed in or utilized chat GBT, I love using it for ideas. You know, the way, the way we do our content is I do my live show that gets turned into articles and posts and all the things so it still sounds like me. And then we go to chat GPT. And we ask it, what are the other things that some a small business owner would be concerned about around XYZ? And he gives me like 15 ideas. And then I pick two or three of them. And then I go deep on those. So I'm helping right? It's getting me past writer's block. Yeah, but it's not. I'm not you know, it. You have to understand how it works and utilize it like efficiency, or big fan, but you're gonna stand out by being authentic.

Dave Barr  24:23

Yep, be yourself. Exactly. Now, we talked about networking. And quite often one of the things that you get as a result of networking is collaboration. Now, what's your thoughts on collaboration? What do you see as the great power of collaboration, if you've got an example was where something occurred, where you've met somebody, you've ended up collaborating with them, and suddenly an opportunity has arisen that you never expected? Can you share some as examples?

Erin Marcus  24:52

Yes, so first, a warning. First a warning. Be careful who you let hitch their wagon to your horse, if you're a go getter, if you're high energy, if you're producing results, people get excited. They're not, I don't believe most people are malicious or manipulative on purpose, I really don't. But people will approach a high energy, high drive success, wanting to be a part of it. Right? Not in any way that in any negative way. But as you can imagine, people have a heart if people don't keep up with is what it is. People don't keep up with me. So in my early years, those collaborations didn't work. Because it's just like a group project at school. One person wasn't me, by the way, things have changed. Everyone wants the good grade, right? So be careful in the beginning who you are, if you're the horse who you allow to hitch your wagon to. That being said, don't, don't ask someone to marry you before you bought them a drink. There's a relationship that has to build, I have someone right now. In fact, he just texted me just popped in that I did five podcasts where they were on my podcast, and I was on there's five different people who all went, Oh my God, you got to meet this guy. You got to meet this guy, you got to meet this guy. We scheduled a call, he cancelled it because he was on an airplane, we rescheduled a call, these power went out, I gave up. I'm like, I don't know why everybody likes this guy. He doesn't show up. And I just really didn't worry about, we finally met, were supposed to talk for 30 minutes, we talked for three hours, we've done two events together, we have another one planned this summer, it has become very obvious that if someone is successful with me, he's what they need. Next, I have I've sent him hundreds of 1000s of dollars in business, he has brought me into rooms where I've closed and and on my way to closing within a week, probably another $50,000 for the business, we just get along, we're just so on the same page with a little bit of overlap a little enough to understand each other. But we know how to position if you are going to collaborate with people, you have to understand how to position them. Which means if you want to get referrals, you have to show people how to position you, I get a ton of my business from referrals. I give away probably more. A when I had my business with families with aging parents, I gave away $6 million in referrals for real estate. But for houses didn't have a license never made a dime didn't you know, people were like, oh, you should get your license so they can pay you. That wasn't my business. That wasn't the business I was in. If you want collaborations to work for you, if you want referrals to work for you give before you get give before you get everyone who's on my podcast, I find them to more podcasts to be on, give me free like it's not linear. There's a big business bucket in the universe and you give to the business bucket and the business bucket gives back to you. And I always thought wouldn't it be great to become known as the person who does that? Like, it's just fun. Because like, I just I refuse to do the bang my head against the wall way of doing business and entrepreneurship and small business ownership can feel so lonely when I'm sitting in my office. And the dog has no good ideas today. And I've got to figure something out, like collaborations and referrals. And I said the bonus my bonus. The bonus I never saw coming on in my own business. Were the relationships I made networking. Yeah. Because great because corporate is inherently competitive. There's 100 people to get promoted, one get promoted. It's just inherently competitive in a way that small business isn't. Doesn't have to be.

Dave Barr  28:54

Yep. Those. You mentioned about big business. And one of the things I see big business been able to do, because they have the resources to do it is to become organized. They have documented procedures, they have processes, they have plans, they set tasks, they set objectives, and that's quite normal. But when you're talking about a small business owner, with limited resources, that can be quite daunting. Would you say it's still critical for small business to recognize the power of those things, even though they may be very difficult to attain and develop?

Erin Marcus  29:28

I don't think they're difficult to attain. I think we don't like doing them. I put myself at the head of that list. I most small business owners, most entrepreneurs are at least somewhat ADHD. We also like to create things I cook I can't follow a process to save my life. I have zero interest. I have zero interest in it. But if I want to scale a business, everything we do has to be process. Click up is a project management software tool, and it's free. So I want to hear right now None of this, like Google Docs is free. If you know, okay, I had to pay for someone to track to actually implement them because I have no interest in doing it. Right. Again, a pitfall for small business owners is thinking they have to do all the things. If I would have gone into the finance department in corporate, and try to log into the computer and start paying the bills, I would have been chased out with, you know, pitchforks and torches. Why would I do that? Now, there are certain things that if you own a business has to happen. And if you are recreating the wheel, every time you send a proposal, every time you there's client fulfillment, you're putting a cap on your income, it doesn't have to be complicated. It's I don't know about where you are. But here in the Midwest, we take pride in working really hard, right? That work ethic, the problem with having a work ethic, that of hard work is you make things hard in order to feel good about yourself. None of this has to be hard. So just I mean, I started out on a yellow pad, what are we what am I doing, I'm old, I gotta write things. I can't create on a computer, it starts on notecards, it moves to a yellow pad, then it goes into the computer, right? We just listed all this. There was two of us, there was two of us. And we had a list of everything that had to happen in the business and who was doing it. And it was either her name was not a very exciting list. But we had a list. 

Dave Barr  31:22

Yeah, yeah, clarity as well.

Erin Marcus  31:24

We had clarity. The other thing that it does is it frees up all your energy. Because I don't want to spend time worrying about whether or not something was done. And I will worry about it. If I'm not sure, but if it's document, and I'm telling you in the beginning, it was Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets, and it was a red box if it wasn't done, and it was a green box. If I mean, do not overcomplicate this, but start, because eventually you will make the money you need to invest in the person who will turn like one of the mistakes I watch is people document it. But there's a very big difference between okay, it's listed out, or it's now a usable tool. And at some point, someone who knows how to do it has to move it from a list of what to do into a workflow into a project management tool. It's very cool. They work around me. The beauty of being the founder is sometimes my part of the process is to tell somebody else what's going on. But I've gotten much, much, much better at it. Because if you look at how driven I am, how ADHD I am, how excitable I am, the thing I love is Don't slow me down, do not slow me down. And so now the my part of the process helps me go faster, right, you just have to kind of reframe your thought about it. But there's two things coming out of corporate and into the world of entrepreneur will just kill you. Number one is that risk adversity, corporate, we're talking billions of dollars at a time they're very risk adverse entrepreneurs, small business, you have to embrace risk, you have to like, automate it so that by the time you pass out from fear, it still happens. Right? Like, embrace the risk. And the second thing is the horrible truth. We come out of corporate like myself, senior vice president awards, bonuses, yay, yay, yay. So You Think You're so brilliant, and like this is going to be easy. And then what you realize is you were brilliant on a very narrow path that somebody else defined. And so that just kills you in the beginning. Everything else learn like you don't see, you don't see the owner of McDonald's flipping burgers, there's a reason for that. And you have to take basic business structure and simplify it for your business. client acquisition even has to be a system, it all has to be a process. I did a live show a few months ago that I called the love letter I thought I'd never write and it was two processes, because I never would have thought how excited I was about it. But it has to happen or you don't I don't get to do the fun stuff, if the rest of the stuff doesn't happen early on.

Dave Barr  34:07

Now, before I asked my final question, I'm sure there's an awful lot of people very curious about yourself. Now. They've got an opportunity to find out more about you on various platforms, where are the best places to go. And when you've shared that, tell us about your book.

Erin Marcus  34:22

So the best place to go make it real easy. You just go to "conqueryourbusiness.com". If you go to "conqueryourbusiness.com" you can get to everything else. So make it really easy for you. It's all there. The book is underway. It's not quite finished, it's underway. And it really is based on my podcast and these conversations that I've had, right. So it's called ready yet just like the podcast and the thing that I learned outside of the business strategy is you'll never do it. It takes until you become the person it takes to do it. And so I took that concept and my tagline for the business is "Be in charge, take action, get results", and I combined them. What do you have to be? Who do you have to be? What do you have to believe? Who do you have? How do you have to think, in these three categories in order to gain the success you want? Because one of my terrible took me way too long don't take this long realizations was it wasn't what I was doing. It was how I was thinking, that was messing me up as a business owner. And so these are the stories from the podcast, my own personal experiences, to show people what are these traits? And how can you think that'll make all the difference?

Dave Barr  35:36

Right. Sounds intriguing, I have to look forward to that being released them. Final question. Yes. mentioned earlier, that's lots of new businesses starting, which is great. But I've also seen an alarming increase in failing businesses, particularly small business. And unfortunately, those businesses that are producing handmade products in the creative and cottage industries, for those business owners are struggling to make ends meet. And they're really struggling to deal with this incredibly rapidly changing economic and political climate. What would be your top recommendations to them to keep them going and moving forward?

Erin Marcus  36:13

The beauty about that group of people is their creativity. So creativity, just apply it differently. This is a pattern. This is not a new pattern. So when I was a kid, when I was a teenager, I worked at a corner pharmacy, corner pharmacies don't exist anymore. Walgreens bought them, CVS bought them, there was a place called fundermax. Back in the day that bought them. And there was a big oh my god, oh my god, you know, they went on a business. That happens. There's certain industries like, as soon as something does, well, someone with more money comes in eats it all. We're watching that with Airbnb, right? That was a frickin amazing tool. Loved it. And now it's getting eaten by people who are buying it corporate here in the US, we have the problem with rental homes, that used to be a way to make extra money. And now you have these corporations that are buying all of our houses, so that they can rent them. And people can't buy houses and they can't afford rent. Like this just happens. Kind of sucks. But my boyfriend, so don't tell him he gets mad when I talk about this. I call it end game capitalism. I try not to be a conspiracy theorist. A little bit of endgame capitalism going on here. The beauty about people who make handmade goods is their creativity. Look at stay in front of it. So you don't get sucked under rights. What are your leading indicators that your business isn't working? Not your lagging indicators that we already, you know, pooped the bed now? That doesn't mean like, I'm good. How are you distributing our product? How are you destroying it? Right? There's other there's always a different way. There's always another way. It's extremely frustrating for any small business, I just went through this myself, where a way that worked for a very long time stops working. But that's business that that's business, businesses change constantly, the marketplace changes constantly, marketing changes constantly. This is never going to stop, it's never stopped before. If you want you know, this is the price we pay. This is the price we pay. This is what we have to figure out in order to get to not have to go to a job. It's a price we pay for admission. So stay in front of it. Make sure you're measuring all of your efforts. Make sure you have a point in mind that if it gets past this, I'm going to I'm Balan, and I'm going to find a new way. And again to your example, I think the more creative you are, the better you are doing.

Dave Barr  38:55

Brilliant, was a great note to finish on. Thank you so much for sharing all those stories, those experiences, there's a lot of insights there some brilliant nuggets that you've shared there. I find that fascinating. Love to talk to you again some time. And I'm sure the audience would love to hear more about you and dial into your podcast. So again, thanks very much for your time today.

Erin Marcus  39:16

Thank you so much for having me.

Dave Barr  39:18

So there's another Real Life Buyer podcast. I do hope you enjoyed it. And it has given you some ideas and inspiration for greater action and achievement. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes, and a five star review will be most appreciated. If you would like to discover more about me and what I do, take a look@www.thereallifebuyer.co.uk. Bye.