Ep. 41 The Stern Truth: What is it Really Costing You? With Flora Gordon

Flora Gordon has always been creative. As a child, she started off drawing, and that led her to become a graphic designer. She drew her entrepreneurial inspiration from her aunt and ended up launching her own business in 2015.

We get into how she got started with her graphic design business and wind up talking about the challenges that can come with entrepreneurship, like operating while dealing with health issues, bringing on new team members, and having a vision vs. being a leader.

Flora and I discuss how the “do it all yourself” mindset costs entrepreneurs money, time, opportunities, and growth potential. Being smarter with those resources and reaching out for help to manage them is the best way forward.

When these types of questions and challenges come up, the best thing to do is turn to an expert. They have seen the economic shifts. They can guide you through the challenges. The best ones even open up a whole network of other people to help you.

Flora’s golden nugget from this episode? Everything that you're going through, someone else has gone through too. And a bonus golden nugget from Flora—build your expertise by learning from other professionals.  

Connect with Flora here:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/floragordon (*please mention that you heard her on the Stern Truth!)
Instagram: instagram.com/imageimageagency
www.imageimage.agency 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Marshall Stern: When you think of a brand, what do you normally think about like McDonald's? When you think about McDonald's, the brand, what are you thinking about? Probably the golden arches. That's my guess, and that's what most of us think a brand is. It's the logo. Today we have a special episode where we sit down with Flora Gordon, CEO and founder of imageimage agency.

[00:00:21] Now I've known Flora for about 10, maybe 12 years now. She is amazing. She's phenomenal at what she does, but today we go really deeper into more what's behind the brand and how if you don't do it right, what it can cost you. Okay? So grab a paper and a pen and get ready for some real big golden nuggets and takeaways.

[00:00:42] Plus, just a reminder, if you are feeling alone in your business and isolated, overwhelmed, and really unsure of which way to go, why don't you join us in our next Momentum Mentorship Group program? Contact information is below. Reach out to me. We can get you set up. Just come as your guest. Check it out with some other business owners.

[00:01:00] You'll enjoy it. You'll learn something and you might even get some accountability. Enjoy this episode.

[00:01:09] Hi, I'm Marshall Stern and I've spent over 35 years leading and growing multiple small businesses. I know firsthand the struggles of entrepreneurship, feeling isolated, lonely, overwhelmed, and feeling like you have to do it all by yourself. I've been through multiple recessions, and I have felt the highs and the lows. I've been there, and I get it.

[00:01:30] This podcast is here to change that. Every week I will bring you straight talking advice, real world strategies, and honest conversations about what it takes to succeed in business without the fluff, the gimmicks, or the sugar coat it. If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start making real progress, then you are in the right place.

[00:01:52] This is the Stern Truth. 

[00:01:57] All right. Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Stern Truth Business Unfiltered. And today I had the pleasure to introduce you to Flora Gordon, someone that I have known for 13 years, I think. Something like that. I don't know. Flora, how are you? 

[00:02:13] Flora Gordon: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. And I agree with your calculation, Marshall. 12, 13 years, somewhere in there. 

[00:02:19] Marshall Stern: Yeah. BNI. 

[00:02:20] Flora Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:02:21] Marshall Stern: That's where it all started. Tell us a little bit about who Flora is, what you do, your business. So and so forth. 

[00:02:28] Flora Gordon: Yeah, thanks. So, I have been creative since I was a little kid. Definitely can find some little books I drew in as a child and it was always drawing and things like that, so it's pretty natural that I became a graphic designer and now I'm a branding specialist and creative director. 

[00:02:46] So I help companies dramatically increase their perceived value through branding and strategy. And I also create accessible publications with features, for readability to serve audiences with barriers to reading. 

[00:03:04] Marshall Stern: I did not know that part, the first part – that second part. So how did you get into this whole world of marketing and design and branding?

[00:03:14] Flora Gordon: I guess I always knew that I wanted to do something creative, but when I went to art school, when I went to Emily Carr in the first year, I did the foundation program, which is a great way to sample different classes and courses and future streams of study and streams of work. And when I took a design class because I was thinking, oh yeah, if I take a design class, I'll be better at arranging my portfolio.

[00:03:40] And just have a polished eye for how I present my artwork and what it turned out with – what turned out happening was I just loved design right away. And I really enjoyed the intersection between business marketing and design and having very practical applications for what I was doing, specific problems to solve.

[00:04:01] So as soon as I started taking that class, I realized, wow, this is where I want to go. I'm not really visioning my work being in an art gallery as often as I'm thinking about people using things I designed on a regular, everyday basis. 

[00:04:18] Marshall Stern: Okay. So you have that kind of training. Let's talk, let's just delve right into the stern truth about entrepreneurship. Like, tell me the Stern Truth, the good, the bad, the ugly. 

[00:04:30] Flora Gordon: I will tell you, when I was trying to get into art school. I was really, really affected by the sort of rumors going around that I think, I'm sure this is still happening in high school. I'm sure that people say, like, have a lot of anecdotal information about what it takes to get into a particular institution, you know.

[00:04:54] Get into his university or that university. I mean there are the marks, but if there's anything that's more subjective, people had all sorts of, you know, comments. Oh, this person who's so good didn't get in and this person, it took them this many tries. Like all of that sort of – like the rumor mill. I don't know what to call it, but I feel like right now with how much online information expanded, there might be more clear parameters and rules, but back then I was just taking all of that information to heart. 

[00:05:31] And the same thing happened when finishing my degree at Emily Carr, it was like, it's going to take this and this to go, go out in the workforce and the – all these people from last year didn't get a job and oh, I saw so and so and they're so good and they, they only have work one day a week or something like that. I would hear those things.

[00:05:49] And I'm a fairly sensitive person and I would just, I had terrible insomnia and anxiety and depression, and I couldn't even make anything because I was feeling so much pressure that everything I was doing was turning into garbage. So it was blocking me. 

[00:06:08] Flora Gordon: Just from being functional in any way, like my emotions.

[00:06:12] Marshall Stern: So how did you get into this world of entrepreneurship to start to having your own business, your own agency? 

[00:06:18] Flora Gordon:  I feel really lucky that – I have an aunt who had her own business for years and years, so I feel like seeing someone else doing their own thing was really encouraging. So even when I had my nine to five jobs and internships and things like that, I did get a lot of work in my field and I was really fortunate.

[00:06:38] I always did my own projects after hours, be it like some design projects for a company that did not compete with my day job. So often people would offer me freelance work and I was really grateful and I try to do my best possible job. Or was, you know, maybe it was like walking dogs sometimes or different things like that.

[00:06:58] Where I could make extra money and build confidence. And I was also doing some volunteer work as well, and I made some good contacts that way. 

[00:07:07] Marshall Stern: And what year – let's go back. What year, when did you launch your agency? 

[00:07:11] Flora Gordon:  I feel like I formally launched it just over 10 years ago, but I was doing freelance work since 2005.

[00:07:21] Marshall Stern: So when I met you at BNI, maybe you were, were you on your own at that point or were you still…? 

[00:07:27] Flora Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:07:27] Marshall Stern: Oh, you were? Okay. 

[00:07:29] Flora Gordon: Okay, so maybe it was 12 years ago then, but yeah, I had left my kind of nine to five job as an in-house designer and I had – I thought, okay, this is kind of the time, because I'm thinking, I'm thinking back then, I'm like, I don't have a family, I don't have a mortgage, I don't have dependent, I don't have a huge student loan or something like that.

[00:07:50] So if I'm going to take our risk, it's the big risk for anyone who's listening. 

[00:07:56] Marshall Stern: Yeah. 

[00:07:56] Flora Gordon: Is that you're not getting that regular paycheck. And then you're also responsible for things like your own taxes and your own prescriptions and whatnot, like someone else is really looking after you. When you're at an, at a job and you might not realize it.

[00:08:13] Marshall Stern: Yeah, imagine the tack on kids, private school, if you choose any university. 

[00:08:18] Flora Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:08:19] Marshall Stern:  Or then as we get older, aging parents and so on and so forth. Just responsibility, mortgages and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. 

[00:08:26] Flora Gordon: Exactly. So I felt like things were fairly under control in terms of the costs in my world.

[00:08:33] So I felt confident that if I started a business, one reason I was confident was because I already had these freelance clients that I would see after hours. So I thought, okay, I can send them a message and say, hey, I have more availability, no pressure to send me more work. It's not like that, but I do have more availability.

[00:08:52] Marshall Stern: Right. So what would you, okay, so we met at BNI. 

[00:08:56] Flora Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:08:57] Marshall Stern: I think we reconnected many years later. We might follow each other on Facebook and LinkedIn, that sort of thing. What, when it comes to business owners, entrepreneurs, and this is not like saying this networking group is for that, or BNI or whatever.

[00:09:13] Flora Gordon: For sure. 

[00:09:13] Marshall Stern: When it comes to networking, what has worked for you? I'm curious. 

[00:09:18] Flora Gordon: Yeah. I feel that, similarly, you know, some people will put up a website and then think that people will just go to that website. I think some people think they're going to go to one networking event. They'll just drop off, drop into one thing, one event, one thing that's happening, meet a few people.

[00:09:40] They don't follow up. They don't, you know, take the time to notice what other people are up to, to legitimately help them. And it's like, you have to, it's like a – it's like an animal. You have to feed or something. You have to put effort into it. You have to come prepared. For instance, sometimes I've gone to networking events and it's been a time period where I've had so many deadlines, like just, there's so many deadlines stacking up.

[00:10:09] Someone on my team is away perhaps, and I'm thinking people are going to want to help me with something, so I better have. Something that, that they can help me with if they want to. Because I can't really take work on right now. So what could I ask of them? If they're offering to help me with something?

[00:10:28] What's an area – am I looking for an introduction to someone or am I looking for an online to testimonial or like a volunteer opportunity? But, yeah, clearly, knowing what you're looking for and clearly, and, and helping people without some kind of agenda behind it. For instance, a lot of people want to sit down and say, hey, when I hire a branding specialist or a designer, like, what should my expectations be?

[00:10:55] And I'm happy to explain those. You know, should they be expecting to get certain kinds of files or certain kinds of deliverables? Or things like that. So, be prepared to know what's going on in your industry and go to multiple events and choosing what events you go to. For instance, if you go to an event that's all people in your exact profession, you're going to do a particular kind of networking or you'll meet like, hey, I don't like designing this.

[00:11:23] That's perfect. You do great. But what about being the only branding person at an event for mortgage brokers? Right. 

[00:11:32] Marshall Stern: There's a difference between the industry specific where you're talking shop, you know, versus where there might actually be potential clients, and especially like a BNI, where you are the only branding person if you have that seat, because that's the way BNI works. 

[00:11:47] Flora Gordon: Precisely.

[00:11:48] Marshall Stern: But again, where, again, for like BNI, it has to be the right fit. So it has to be exactly. Either your people need to be there or you're just building your network and those people have people that might be a fit. 

[00:12:00] Flora Gordon: Exactly. And finding like the people in the related professions, which they call power teams.

[00:12:06] Marshall Stern: Right. 

[00:12:06] Flora Gordon: That all, that are happy to work together. 

[00:12:12] Marshall Stern: Yeah. That's a newer, a similar working, that's a newer thing. The power teams is a newer thing that wasn't around back in the day, I don't think. That's a good idea though, power teams.

[00:12:21] What has been your biggest or one of your biggest challenges running your own business?

[00:12:29] Flora Gordon: Yeah, I think one of my biggest challenges is that I have some health issues and it can be really hard to wake up feeling like a piece of garbage and have the motivation to work really hard and not only get your work done, but be proactive. And on days when – if I was an office worker, I like this, definitely qualifies for a sick day.

[00:12:53] I'll make sure that all my files are on the server and that I check for an urgent email, but I am like, yeah, no one gives you sick time when you are,  when you are self-employed and being, having like chronic illness or ongoing challenges. Yeah, and for instance, also many self-employed people don't have a sort of like the health benefits.

[00:13:20] Like someone might have a partner who does or be playing into their own plan, but it's sort of a hit to, to health and wellness. I mean, it balances out because you can make your own schedule and say, I'm going to take a walk at this time of day, which I find super helpful, super useful. 

[00:13:38] Marshall Stern: So along those lines, because I know people that I coach and mentor and just probably even had on the show, they're listening. We start, most of us start in business, in our own business for what we call that freedom word, right? Whether it's freedom, freedom of financial freedom, or freedom of time. But what ends up happening – I love what you said, because what ends up happening, and maybe your health issues have forced you to understand that.

[00:14:05] Because what ends up happening for so many people is they have no freedom of time. Right? Entrepreneurs are small business owners and they allow themselves to become what I call the employee of their own business. And they're just in it nonstop working 16, 17, 18 hours a day. 

[00:14:20] And they don't take that opportunity to go for the walk because they're constantly stuck with client deadlines and they feel like they have to get all that busy work done, and then they forget about why. The why they started their business in the first place, which probably was some sort of freedom. 

[00:14:37] Flora Gordon: Completely. So, yeah, exactly. They end up being captive in their own business and not being able to look after each other or themselves.

[00:14:45] And that's totally happened to me. And one suggestion, if I can make it is to like, take a really good look about at what parts of your business you can scale. I'm going to give an example. There are tons of very talented branding people out there, or say designers who have a keen sense of branding.

[00:15:08] And I'm very lucky to have an amazing team working with me. But of all my offerings, I find branding the hardest thing to scale. Like if I say I'm growing my company, I have five branding projects, I'd like someone else working with me to take over two of them. They would work directly with the client.

[00:15:30] I find that to be harder to scale. That's just me giving an example. So are there services, for instance, with the document design, we have like a proprietary process that I came up with for that where I am doing certain parts and overseeing certain parts and I have quality control and things like that. But I am not in those documents every single day.

[00:15:54] So I know that I can take more of those projects and so I will actually promote those projects more. 

[00:16:01] Marshall Stern: Because you could scale more with that rather than the branding per se itself. 

[00:16:04] Flora Gordon: Exactly. Exactly. And one reason, like I used to have a photography business, like an event photography business, which is really hard to do when you're chronically ill.

[00:16:14] But, I knew that people expected me at the event, photo shoots and events. I knew if I sent someone else, they might even be a better photographer than me. But they're expecting me and I would know who all the VIP people are. I would be familiar with what was going to happen when, because we'd have these events that would recur.

[00:16:38] And I didn't find photography to be a particularly scalable business. Now, don't get me wrong, there are people that do it, but I didn't see that as a clear path. So I think people should look at everything they offer and say, well, maybe at the times where it looks like I'm going to be busy in the next season.

[00:16:58] Let me point people towards like some of my self-serve options or some of my digital products or some aspects that other people in my team are supporting so that I can grow, but it is not all dependent on me. 

[00:17:15] Marshall Stern: So what would you suggest then, and we're talking about building a team. So people are listening to this episode and they're, whatever their business is, they could be a landscaper, right? Although it's summertime as I record this, they're probably out there doing the work because yes, the weather's, the weather's nice, at least here. 

[00:17:34] Flora Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:17:34] Marshall Stern: On the west coast, which is nice. How do you find the part – In order to scale, so we're not in it being the employee doing everything ourselves – how do you find, how did you figure out, maybe, like, did you have to let go a bit of control, like bringing people on your team and they do some of the work, especially if they're client facing, like…?

[00:17:55] Flora Gordon: Yes, and I still do most of the client facing work in particular. But if we could go into those, at the landscaping example for sure, like maybe the main landscaper business owner knows how to do the estimating and design the garden. But once they've done that, the regular maintenance of trimming hedges and biting and mowing the lawn and watering and like replanting certain things.

[00:18:24] Those are things that they could have recorded in standard operating procedures. 

[00:18:29] Marshall Stern: Good point. 

[00:18:30] Flora Gordon: So, thank you. Yeah. 

[00:18:33] Marshall Stern: But what if they're thinking no one can do it? This could be any business, your business. My business. No one can do it as good as I can. I don't trust people. 

[00:18:43] Flora Gordon: Yeah. That's a really common place people get stuck.

[00:18:45] And I do think, yeah, they're going to have to think. Yeah, it, you know, they might have to have a test. They might have to hire someone on their team to do it at their property. Or like one of their longtime customers is practically friends and family at this point. Hey, can we do a trial with this person?

[00:19:09] Can we see, yeah. Can we, can we give this a try? Yeah. 

[00:19:18] Marshall Stern: And, yeah, I think it all always goes back and this is what I suggest to my clients as well. Like it always goes back to, because we forget, many of us forget why. So I'm all about the why and the what. Like why you do what you do, what you want to create, 2, 3, 4 years down the road.

[00:19:34] But also the why, the deeper why. Why did you start? And it goes back to that question for a lot of people, they say, well I started because I wanted – and I'm not talking to people who, during the pandemic, lost a job and they started their own thing or whatever. But people, a lot of people started business for the freedom could be the only being their own boss.

[00:19:56] And we forget that. And then they get stuck doing the work and they seem to be. Look. Look, I mean the most thing that holds the thing, the one thing that holds most of us back is that six inches between our ears. 

[00:20:09] Flora Gordon: Yes, 

[00:20:09] Marshall Stern: Right. 

[00:20:10] Flora Gordon: Exactly. And not thinking anyone else is capable of helping us 

[00:20:14] Marshall Stern: And not, exactly.

[00:20:16] Flora Gordon: So if that's truly the case, I would promote those services. 

[00:20:20] Marshall Stern: Yeah. 

[00:20:22] Flora Gordon: Yeah, and I would promote like the maintenance part that other people can help with. And I would create soaps with videos and transcripts and links and checklists and – but I think you have to give people an opportunity to learn.

[00:20:38] Like they might become, they might become really good and –  one of Martha Stewart's business books, she talks about being receptive to creative ideas from people working for you. And she talks about areas where you can be creative. Like you can't be creative in the health and safety and like you're working on a juice bar and the hand washing, like- 

[00:21:02] Marshall Stern: That's the way you have to do certain things. You have to do those. 

[00:21:04] Flora Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:21:05] Marshall Stern: Yeah. 

[00:21:06] Flora Gordon: But maybe someone comes up with a new flavor you want. Or, you know, a better way to open at the beginning of the day, or a different way to slice the fruit. Something. If you've created this world where you are the person, the only person that can do certain tasks, I doubt your staff are going to come to you and say, hey, I have this idea because you've created this sort of.

[00:21:35] Holier than thou persona. And you're, you're not going to seem receptive to something that could really, really increase productivity. Other people are going to, who are customer facing all day, are going to hear, are they going to have another perspective from dealing with people on the front line?

[00:21:58] Marshall Stern: No, a hundred percent. And the one thing, it's all about leadership, right? And most small business owners, small business owners, I find don't see themselves as leaders. They see themselves as business operators. They buy themselves a job. It's like the whole E-Myth thing.

[00:22:15] Right? They become the technician. They just do. Yes. They're doing it, doing it, doing it. And it's amazing what happens when you actually do let go a little bit and you do empower, not delegate, but you empower, you hire a team or even subcontractors and you empower other people and you ask.

[00:22:32] And you get them involved. Have them buy into your vision. And be part of the team. Part of the bigger picture. And one of my favorite books, we – I don't know if we've talked about this before, is local guy, WTF, Willing to Fail? I don’t know if you've read that. Brian Scudamore.  

[00:22:50] Flora Gordon: I haven't, but it sounds really good. Oh yes. Okay. Yeah, 

[00:22:53] Marshall Stern: The 1-800-Got-Junk story. 

[00:22:55] Flora Gordon: Yes, he's amazing. 

[00:22:56] Marshall Stern: Well, it's his story, but about 1-800 and it's all about people. And he says in the book, he would never have gotten, or he wouldn't – 1-800 and his whole company as a whole would be nowhere near as successful if it wasn't for the people on this team.

[00:23:11] Flora Gordon: Oh yeah, completely 

[00:23:13] Marshall Stern: And he talks about the mistakes along the way and maybe hiring the wrong people and the wrong leadership. But it's all about bringing people from the start, from his painted picture. Bringing people on your team that were smarter. 

[00:23:25] Flora Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:23:25] Marshall Stern: Better in other, in areas that, you know, he wasn't in and helped him.

[00:23:29] He knew. He knew the what? He knew the vision. That's what leaders do. But he wasn't sure about the how. And sometimes we as business owners think we have to be the how people, it's our business. We got to figure out the how. And sometimes whether it's a coach or a mentor or someone on your team, reach out to them.

[00:23:46] They can help with the how. 

[00:23:48] Flora Gordon: That's awesome. And I've definitely got to get that book on Audible. 

[00:23:52] Marshall Stern: It's a good one hour book because he narrates it. It's a really good, it's very good. That's a good listen too. 

[00:23:56] Flora Gordon: Oh, amazing. But yeah, if people just underestimate the capabilities of others, like I go out and specifically hire for skills.

[00:24:04] I don't have, like I'll admit, I used to be quite good at drawing and be, I'm out of practice now, but even when I was, it was pretty laboured for me. And I sort of got to a point with logo design that was like, I can have the best idea on paper and then if I can't get it onto the computer looking great, clients are going to reject it and say it looks unprofessional.

[00:24:25] And I'm thinking, I know I've got something good here. Now I need to bring someone with the right expertise in. And now with my branding company, I actually will reach out to artists and say, hey, I want to create something super unique. I want to make something that's the opposite of AI. I want something very custom for my client.

[00:24:44] That's very cool. Maybe using some older technology or manual processes, it just gives them something really rich that they cannot get any other place. And I'm excited to be a zombie feeding off the brains of all the people who help me. And I think that's, you know, the way, the way to go and then try to get everybody credit for the work that they do, make sure their name is displayed with the project.

[00:25:12] But yeah, you have to be willing to let yourself be surprised, know that there are skills, like even the smartest person, like if I was going to be hiring my next person, I would hire would have, skills type setting, Chinese. And just like understand the design aesthetic for different, you know, different cultures, different languages, things like that.

[00:25:36] Marshall Stern: Okay. So here's a question for you. 

[00:25:39] Flora Gordon: Yeah. 

[00:25:40] Marshall Stern: You're in the marketing space, the branding. That's more specific branding. I know because marketing is very broad. I don't know if we're in a recession, we're in a down economy, whatever you want to call it. We've been in a down economy for a while. Okay.

[00:25:53] Flora Gordon: Completely. 

[00:25:54] Marshall Stern: A lot of companies, a lot of business owners, big companies, small companies are starting to panic a bit also with everything going on with the tariffs and all of that. Okay. So one of the first things that a lot of companies cut is marketing any money towards marketing. My question to you is this, what would you say to those entrepreneurs?

[00:26:15] Those the ones that have a small business, the people who are listening to this, that are not sure they should be spending money now. Now is not the time economy, you know what I mean? The economy's down. I got to be frugal with my money, but I don't know what to do. I don't know if I should be rebranding.

[00:26:33] I don't know if I should be doing Facebook Ads or Google Ads or all that kind of stuff. Or hiring a sales person. What would you say to people who are like a little bit scared, I guess because of what they hear. 

[00:26:44] Flora Gordon: Yeah, I think that they should actually, before they sign on with an agency, I think they need to have a business plan and a plan in place.

[00:26:54] Like they have to think about their customers. Can their customers afford them anymore? Do you know what I mean? They're dealing with the same thing. So I think that they should try partnering with marketing company after having made a business plan and maybe a marketing plan. I think they should partner with companies that understand what their budget is and are going to work with it.

[00:27:19] So, for instance, maybe they need to invest some money now. But they're going to get some sort of things they can maintain themselves. They're go, yeah, like, maybe they are going to get some templates that they can maintain themselves. So understand you're not going to get as much and it's going to take away from the time operating your business.

[00:27:41] But if you truly cannot afford someone from marketing, I think they should also take a look at who their audience is for instance, like we're not getting into politics here, but like we're not going to have as many international students coming in. So if your target market is international students, you're going to have to change the direction of where you're aiming your campaigns.

[00:28:04] So for instance, marketing people, are you still going after solopreneurs? Because I really like to target companies that are big enough to have a marketing budget. And even if that budget shrinks, they still know that they have to set aside a certain amount of money. So with solopreneurs,  they don't have like a board of directors, right?

[00:28:29] That they, and  a sounding, sounding board, to say, hey, you know, the quality of your marketing materials is speaking to your audience before they read a word and they're deciding whether you're, whether they're going to buy your product or the Amazon dupe, right? 

[00:28:47] Marshall Stern: Yeah. Yeah. No, a hundred percent. No, that's well said.

[00:28:51] And I think I always say, I think we just have to be, as business owners, especially small business owners, probably big as well. We just need to be smarter with where we put our money. Right? I think they always say, and it's historically in down economies, especially recessions, some of the strongest companies are built out of that.

[00:29:10] Flora Gordon: Exactly. 

[00:29:11] Marshall Stern: So it is an opportunity as well for, I don't care who you are as I mean, it has, there has to be a market. So if your market is international students for example, then you might need to change your business model a little bit. 

[00:29:24] Flora Gordon: Yes. Or in Canada, at least within Canada, what's going on here?

[00:29:27] Marshall Stern: Yeah, well probably in the US as well, with immigration. 

[00:29:31] Flora Gordon: Oh, for sure. Sorry, didn't mean that way. Pardon me. Good point. 

[00:29:34] Marshall Stern: You know. So I've been saying that now is the time, but strategically like bringing on someone like yourself, or it might be a coach or a mentor or someone else in a marketing field, or a business strategist, someone who could help you.

[00:29:52] Look, there's not people out there as long as you have a good product. Not just a good product, but a product obviously, that people want or a service that people want. There are going to be a lot of people who do panic and do, shut up, shut up. Shut down. They might shut up shop. They'll close down shop because they're panicking and or they can't make ends meet.

[00:30:13] So a lot of people think, especially since the pandemic, I don't know if you've found this in your networking circles, there are a lot of people who started a business and just in the last year or two, a lot, I've seen more and more people close them down and get a job again. 

[00:30:27] Flora Gordon: Completely. And, one thing I want to mention though, about people who do close down their business or things like that, back when I was, earlier in the episode when I was talking about those sort of rumors and anecdotal, comments people were making about getting into university.

[00:30:43] So when you see someone close their business and take a job or make some kind of change like that. It doesn't actually mean that their business really failed and that your business is going to fail too. Like, I think people see this stuff happening and I think a lot of it comes down to commercial lease space.

[00:31:03] For those who aren't aware, we have really strict laws in Canada about how much we can – so you're renting an apartment and it can only increase a certain amount per year.  But in the world of commercial real estate, if you're renting, you know, an ice cream shop space,  they can actually really change that contract and make it so that you would have to be scooping all day and all night, even in the winter. Right. 

[00:31:32] Marshall Stern: Part of the, the reason I sold my. Sign company two years ago. What really took me over the edge, what really got me to do it was, was just that my lease was coming up and a year from then. So I got out a year before, but my property manager even said to me, it's doubled when you come to resign. Go to resign, your lease will double. 

[00:31:59] Flora Gordon: Yep. And that's so hard. 

[00:32:00] Marshall Stern: Right. It was significant. Right. So there's that aspect of it for sure. But there are a lot of people also who don't have fortunate –  they work remotely, they work from home, so they don't have that commercial space completely.

[00:32:13]  But now, yeah, I think it's a matter of just knowing what you want. And now I think it is a good opportunity. It is a good time because there will be a lot of people who do are, who are already backing away from some marketing from, whether it's relaunching a website or doing a campaign. And I, there's an opportunity for people if you do it the right way, strategically and in line with where you want to take your business.

[00:32:38] There are opportunities there to capture some market share. And that's traditionally been the case in down economies. 

[00:32:43] Flora Gordon: For sure. So I like people to think about, if they were to get branding or other marketing or professional services, like they're getting an awesome business coach like you. How many sales, like how many of their average sales is it going to take to recoup their money?

[00:33:06] Give that some thought. I mean, there are different formulas, whether you're doing a gross or net or whatever. I'm not going to get into that. But, for instance, if you have someone who's been struggling to do DIY branding for six months and they're trying to name their company and they've already bought six URLs and then they find out they can't trademark them and that the, the business name and that it won't work because someone else is sending them letters and they're going to need to get a lawyer.

[00:33:32] Like at what point have you - do have, you just got to say, stop. I need professional assistance with this.  DIY tools aren't cutting it for me, and I'm just not, I'm stopping myself from moving forward. I've just hit a ceiling. 

[00:33:46] Marshall Stern: You make up a really, really, really. Great point. There are so many people out there that try to DIY.

[00:33:54] It is – they don't, they're coming from a place of scarcity. They can't afford it, Right. I did one of my early episodes. I will win. I will hire a brand strategist when I will hire a marketing. When? When what? Oh, when I have enough money. Well, when will that be? It's a catch 22, right? So, but there's the cost.

[00:34:12] That lost opportunity. That opportunity cost. It's costing you to do DIY-ing you said for six months. 

[00:34:19] Flora Gordon: Yep. 

[00:34:19] Marshall Stern: Or six weeks where you could just hire someone. 

[00:34:22] Flora Gordon: Exactly. So if you've got someone takes care of that for you, they get it 90% of the way. Two of you polish it up at the end. Say in that time because you feel confident, you go to more marketing events, you, so you go to know more networking.

[00:34:38] You feel like you can contact you can cool call people. Because you may know if you look. They look you up, they're going to be impressed with what they see. And what if you make four more sales because of that. So one thing I'm doing in my business with my branding is if I do not think I can move the needle for you, if I don't think my services are going to make a difference, I don't take the client.

[00:35:03] So I've had some people think, approach me thinking they've come up with some way to create some passive income and they need my services and I let them know not,  a bunch of costs that I don't think they've thought of because like we talked about, you can't just put up a website and expect people to, to go to it and find it.

[00:35:23] It's not necessarily going to go viral. Like chances are the opposite. 

[00:35:28] Marshall Stern: Yeah. 

[00:35:29] Flora Gordon: So if I don't think I can help them, I don't take the project. So, and I mean, it took me some time to get to a point where I had enough business where I could do that because I have had to take work in the past when I didn't have enough money to pay my bills and I didn't feel that kind of confidence that I do now.

[00:35:49] Marshall Stern: Right. 

[00:35:49] Flora Gordon: But yeah, if I'm not the person, for instance, I don't know much about the sports world, so I'm not going to be the ideal person for branding in the sports world. But if I feel like someone's explained their business to me, and it seems like one of those scenarios where the Dragons on Dragons Den or the Sharks on Shark Tank thing.

[00:36:10] It's going to take so much for people to just understand this. It's so different. I think it's going to take quite a bit of, you know, media buying, for instance. Like, you can, you can have a pretty reasonable design and advertising bill and sink a lot of money into media buying. So that would be TV ads. 

[00:36:33] You know, ads before a movie, radio ads, things like that. And those can be really valuable, but you have to do that, right? Because if you don't work with someone who's going to do a geographic analysis and, and tell you how other people in your field performed and what time of day are your customers up and things like that, you can just be, syncing triple, quadruple digits into that.

[00:36:58] Marshall Stern: Yeah. Yeah, I see that, and it does happen a lot. 

[00:37:03] Flora Gordon: Mm-hmm. 

[00:37:04] Marshall Stern: And that, and what we talked about earlier, people just wasting away time. I mean, I cannot believe it's almost the end of the first half of the year as we record this. Yeah, right. Exactly. It was just the holidays. It was just January 1st. It was just summer, like last year.

[00:37:22] Yes. It goes faster as also the older we get, it goes faster. Okay. Final, final question. Yeah. Before we wrap. Before we wrap up, what is one? This is for my father, my late father. He always said, oh yeah. One golden nugget. If you can get one golden nugget out of a seminar. Podcasts weren't around in the eighties, but that kind of stuff.

[00:37:41] What would be one golden nugget you could share with our listeners, your experience? Maybe people are struggling in their business, they're not sure what the next step should be. Just general golden nugget. 

[00:37:53] Flora Gordon: I think everything we're going through with business, possibly with the exception of some of the new challenges we have with new technology, everything you're going through, someone else has gone through it as well.

[00:38:04] So the idea that you're going to lock yourself in your office all weekend and figure it out on your own. Without the help of professionals, if you think about that mentality, just pause with that for one second. Because the likely thing is that you, that the business this person's coming up with, they're going to want people to pay them for their expertise and products and services, but they have this mindset that they won't spend.

[00:38:32] They're actually creating this loop where it's like, I want to. I want to work with people who value experts and high quality, but I don't fundamentally value them myself, nor do I believe in my business. So it can be very powerful to help your competition to, like if you're a professional photographer, pay another photographer to come take photos of your family or your event.

[00:38:58] You can see how their pricing works, what they do. But you're also contributing to this idea of paying for expertise because that's what you want people to do when they hire you. 

[00:39:12] Marshall Stern: Yeah. 

[00:39:12] Flora Gordon: I hope I'm making some sense with that. It's a little bit roundabout, but – 

[00:39:16] Marshall Stern: Yeah. No, no, I get it. No, and yeah – it's awesome.

[00:39:20] It's great. I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot there that I think people need to hear and I hope, and  I'm sure, and I'd love to hear people's comments from this episode, some takeaways. because I've taken notes and there's so much there of different gold nuggets to throw out. And one of the biggest ones is really, I think just for me, and I see it way too much, is people just, whether it's a lack of belief in themselves. 

[00:39:46] Flora Gordon: Yes.

[00:39:46] Marshall Stern: Or a lack of faith in others. Belief in others. They just, they're wasting time. Stop. And as, like as you said, stop DIYing it. Right? We overthink, we DIY, we think we can do it. We don't need someone else. It, we could do it better. No one can do it like us. That whole mindset of like, and this is a stereotyping, this is a male mindset.

[00:40:12] I don't need a map. I can figure it out. 

[00:40:14] Flora Gordon: Okay. Yeah. 

[00:40:16] Marshall Stern: You know what, maybe you can, maybe you can lock yourself into that, into your office for the weekend or go on a retreat, you know, a two day retreat and figure it out by yourself. But why do you want to- 

[00:40:26] Flora Gordon: Completely, 

[00:40:27] Marshall Stern: Yeah, it's so much better when we have a team.

[00:40:31] It's so much better when we have resources. It's so much better when we have. Just going to networking events, meeting people like I've met you, whatever it was, 12, 13 years ago. So much better to have people in your circle, in your inner circle, who, even if it's just a phone call or a text message, right?

[00:40:48] Or can help you on this project or collaborate on that project just goes by faster. And we're not getting younger, any younger. None of us are. 

[00:40:55] Flora Gordon: Completely and like making a distinction between – it's a DIY, like you want to do some little decor in your own home versus something like your business is your livelihood.

[00:41:07] Like you don't want to be going around with an unsecured website that is going to, you know, there's going to be, it's going to be spamming your customers or, yeah, there are going to be viruses on your computer or things like that. There's just areas where. DIY is not going to work. And, if you want to get to that next stage, if you want to be like Brian, he has a huge team behind him and he's done absolutely brilliant work.

[00:41:33] And he obviously had to put people, faith in people. And I'm so pleased that you recommended that book. Thank you. 

[00:41:39] Marshall Stern: Yeah, it's a really good book for those of you listening, watching, I – listen, turning it back to personal, if someone needs a heart surgery, they ain’t DYI-ing it. 

[00:41:51] Flora Gordon: Yes, completely. 

[00:41:52] Marshall Stern: They're bringing in the experts, right?

[00:41:54] They don't even think about it. Oh, I'm going, I'm going to perform my own heart surgery to save some money or save some time. No, you bring someone on. And I, and that's the same thing. And that's the, I think, one of the biggest, I think, honestly, that's one of the biggest messages I hope to have on a weekly basis for our listeners.

[00:42:11] And I'll hear it from myself or from other guests like yourself, just in different ways. Don't do this alone. 

[00:42:17] Flora Gordon: Thank you. Yeah. Exactly. And, and, there's just so much richness from, from collaboration and, yeah, you end up with more than you thought was possible. 

[00:42:30] Marshall Stern: Well, to wrap it up, even like a year ago, right? It's been over, a little over a year ago. We had the Entrepreneurial Growth Summit. Right? 

[00:42:36] Flora Gordon: Thank you. Yeah. 

[00:42:37] Marshall Stern: We could have ran it and we could have had Ivana, who was my co group admin person. We run the group together. The two of us could have run the event and the two of us could spoke all day.

[00:42:47] We had the 45 people there. It could have just been the two of us, but we brought on people, amazing people like you. Collaborate with people like you who came and shared your journey, shared your knowledge, and not only was the, did we get more from it, and it was, it was just a richer event and everyone who participated and came to the event got so much more because it was, it wasn't just about us, it was about everyone.

[00:43:14] Like it takes a village and it was the group. And I think that's what it's all about. And that's why great organizations like BNI exist and other networking organizations. And yeah, so anyways, I could talk forever with you. 

[00:43:27] Flora Gordon: Thanks so much for having me and the opportunity.

[00:43:31] Marshall Stern: Thank you. And. If people want to get in touch with you. 

[00:43:34] Flora Gordon: Yeah. So add me add me on LinkedIn under Flora Gordon and, maybe, if you don't mind, including in the note that you heard me on the podcast or how we know each other just because of the volume of requests that I take. 

[00:43:48] Marshall Stern: Yeah, perfect. 

[00:43:49] Flora Gordon: That would be a great place to connect. 

[00:43:51] Marshall Stern: LinkedIn. Okay. And I'll put that in the show notes as well. 

[00:43:53] Flora Gordon: Perfect. 

[00:43:54] Marshall Stern: Alright everyone, thank you. Thank you, Flora. Thank you so much. 

[00:43:58] Flora Gordon: Thanks so much Marshall. Have an awesome day. 

[00:44:00] Marshall Stern: You too. And thank you everyone, and we'll see you again next week on another episode of The Stern Truth. Bye for now.

[00:44:09] Thank you so much for tuning in to the Stern Truth. If you found today's episode helpful, we would love to hear from you. Please like, share and leave us a review. Also, if you'd like to be a guest in the upcoming episode or join us in one of our Moment Accountability Group sessions, simply email me to marshall@marshallstern.net.

[00:44:29] That's marshall@marshallstern.net. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button, so never miss an episode. Until next time, keep pushing forward and leading with confidence.