Consulting from the Couch

What If Authenticity Beats Experience In Business?

• Man Cave Media • Season 2 • Episode 2

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What if your first real job was owning the business?

At 18, Shelby McFarland gave up a full-ride scholarship to co-own a window tint and sign shop. She earned respect from employees twice her age, learned hard lessons about hiring friends, left a failed partnership, and started over with nothing.

That restart became The Marketing Broker. Today, she serves startups, small businesses, and Fortune 500s with one philosophy: authenticity beats experience, and heart-led marketing wins.

In this conversation, we unpack: → Earning respect as a young business owner → Building culture through radical transparency → The BOSS framework and 3 C's of leadership → How motherhood sharpened her leadership → Real advice for first-time founders

This is leadership forged in the trenches.

Connect with Shelby:
themktgbroker.com
@themktgbroker
Get her book: "Market Like a Boss" at shelbysmarketingbook.com


CONNECT WITH SHELBY:
Website: themktgbroker.com
Instagram: @themktgbroker & @bossbabe_shelby
Book: shelbysmarketingbook.com
Email: broker@themktgbroker.com


ABOUT THE PODCAST: Consulting from the Couch is a podcast about leaders, what makes them tick, and the challenges they face. Hosted by Steve Goodson, featuring genuine conversations with exceptional leaders.

Website: blcconsultingllc.com
Email: steve@blcconsultingllc.com

Brought to you by BLC Consulting, LLC.


KEYWORDS/TAGS 

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Small Business, Marketing, Authentic Leadership, Young Entrepreneurs, Business Ownership, Startup Advice, Heart-Led Marketing, Company Culture, Work-Life Integration, Women in Business, First-Time Founders, Business Strategy, Servant Leadership, Transparency, Credibility, Confidence, Consistency, BOSS Mindset, Marketing Agency, Fortune 500, Startups, Steve Goodson, Shelby McFarland, Consulting from the Couch, BLC Consulting

Teen Owner Sets The Stage

SPEAKER_02

Business ownership at 18. Not working for a business, not managing a department, but owning a business. Hiring people, making payrolls, being responsible for livelihoods when you're barely old enough to vote. Most people would run from that scenario. Shelby McFarland, she leaned into it. At 18, she coded a window tip and signshop. She managed employees who've been in the workforce since before she was born. She learned what it really took to earn their respect and how to react when the debt was stagged against her. And those lessons, they became the foundation for everything she's built since. I'm Steve Goodson, and this is Consulting from the Couch. A podcast about leaders, what makes them tick, what drives them, and the challenges they face. Today's conversation is about starting before you're ready, building something meaningful from scratch, and leading with heart in a world that sometimes mistakes kindness for weakness. Let's get going. Shelby, welcome to the virtual couch.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

So let's start where most entrepreneurship stories don't usually start. At age 18. You weren't just man yeah, yeah, you weren't just managing people. You weren't just leading a team. You were a business owner. You co-owned a window tent and sign shop. So take me back to that moment and tell me about how that kind of even happened.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I had a full ride to college and I decided to give that up and pursue what I thought was making money. I was like, I don't want to go to college. I want to just go straight into the workforce and make money. Yeah, it wasn't that easy, but anyway, so that was the choice and the path I took. And then I connected with that partner at the time, and that was his dream was to have a window tint and sign shop. So I was like, cool, let's do it. Like I didn't have a dream of my own. So I supported him and what he did, you know. And so I was like, okay, and I just jumped in head first and well, body first, all of it, the whole thing, the feet, the head, the arms, everything. And so we just kind of did it. And there was no business plan, there was no marketing plan, there wasn't there was no plan at all. It was just, hey, let's buy some window tent and let's start going to people's houses and doing it. And then that just kind of grew into a big monster within the first year, more so than what we ever thought. But it was exciting, but also really scary at the same time. But I'm really proud of, you know, who I was at 18 that did it.

Earning Respect As The Youngest Boss

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So 18, you're not just learning, you're not just learning to lead because you had employees, but you're learning to run a business. You're dealing with payroll, customers, operations, all the stuff that comes along with running the business. And you're doing it with employees who probably some of them may be around your age, but there may have been some that were significantly older than you. Couple questions. So, what was that first day like? And you know, do you remember like walking in as an owner and looking around thinking, what have I gotten myself into?

SPEAKER_01

I still think that. Um so yeah, so I think having employees older than me, I just kind of got used to that because I've always been more mature for my age than what I really am, like age-wise or whatever. So my partner was also older, so that kind of helped a little bit. But then I kind of have a demanding presence about myself, so it was kind of easy to like take that leadership role. And I don't mean that in a bad way, it's just like I'm very authoritative, as in like, okay, let's you do that, you do this, I'll do that, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I'm pretty simple and easy to get along with, but also I know how to take people's strengths and make the business work, you know, everyone together. So I just kind of like went in with this, and we with that attitude of, so what if I'm younger than them? Like, I've always been the youngest everywhere, ever, like my whole career. I've always been the youngest in my leads group, any kind of board that I've ever been a part of, the civic organizations, I've always been the youngest. And so I was just like, Well, I don't let that, you know, interfere with other things. Why would I let that interfere with my business? And I don't know, when you treat people right and you treat them with respect, they respect you. And I think that was like a really big thing that I learned at a young age was I can't treat them like crap because then they're not gonna respect me. You know, I have to earn that respect. Yeah, but the first day it was just me and him, but it was about a year in whenever we started hiring, and it happened to be friends, and I wasn't really for that, but it was just kind of what happened, and so it was hard to transition from oh, we're friends to now no, you have to like listen to like what I say.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so that's so that's a great lead in. So, you know, I worked in the utility industry for 35 years, and I watched leaders myself as a leader, you know, kind of progress, you know, up through the ranks, you know, some some slow, some some faster than others. You didn't you just jumped in 18 and learning by the fire. So you mentioned hiring friends. Don't know if this is gonna be part of your answer, but what was the hardest part of those early days?

Lines Blurred: Hiring Friends

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I would say just figuring everything out. Like I have it set out in probably the next five years. I want to come up with like this program for new business owners, right? It's like there is not anything out there that has an outline of you need to do this, this, this, this, and this. It's just a bunch of okay, you need to hire a lawyer, a CPA, a bookkeeper, a marketing agency. Like, there's just all these things of like, oh, I have to do this, but not really. I mean, you can learn how to do things on your own. I did our taxes for the probably the first three years, and I don't recommend, like I now I don't recommend that. But like back then I was like, okay, let's just like figure it out. And I think that that was the hardest part is going, well, what do I do next? Okay, well, how do I do this? You know, it was a bunch of like trial and error, especially now that I'm in the marketing field. I didn't realize how much I was learning back then about marketing the old school way, you know, yellow pages and things like that. And so I think that's definitely the hardest thing that I had to face was just figuring out what's next. Have we got all the legal documents done? Have I done the taxes right? Have I paid the taxes? How do I save for taxes? You know, things like that that you just don't learn unless I guess you go to college. I'm not really sure where you learn that.

SPEAKER_02

I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. That's that's the that's all the the non-fun stuff, right? That you uh that's that all the stuff that that you have to do. You said something interesting you said about earning respect with the employees, and so I want to talk, just ask a question about that. So 18 years old, not 19 potentially, I guess, when you hire employees after that first year, you uh but you're also and they're friends, some of them are friends. Um youngest person in the room, you're also signing their checks. So, what is what does that conversation look like from the the perspective of earning respect, friends, boss, the whole rigmarole that's associated with that?

Early Mistakes And Missing Playbooks

SPEAKER_01

I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and lie to you. Like, I did not handle it very well. I was very young, looking back, obviously immature compared to the leader I am today. So I don't think I handled things very well every time. I think that there was times that I would get those lines mixed up of like, okay, well, now I'm like raising my voice at this person because they're also friends because we just hung out all weekend and I'm kind of tired of them. Well, then now I'm going to work with them on Monday, you know. But then, you know, I don't really have a great answer for that because it was just all such a big learning curve. Yeah. And I didn't do very well at it. I'm glad I didn't do well now because now I'm like really great at it. And of course, we're still growing as leaders and all that. But the bad things I did then, I learned and I'm like, okay, we're not gonna do that again, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, learn learn from your mistakes and learn from that. So you mentioned your business partner, he a former business part partner now. You said you said he was a little bit older. I I I th I I think you said he. But is there something particular had he been in business before, had he owned a business, or was there something potential potentially that you learned from him and him being a business owner? And the second part of that question, going in business at 18 years old by yourself is hard enough, but then having a partner that you've got to kind of make joint decisions with and and thing things like that. So talk a little bit about those those dynamics, uh, if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So he was we were married, so we got married young. And I would say that going in business with your spouse is not the most ideal thing. Yeah, and I never recommend it unless you were just so solid in your relationship that you were like, okay, we can do this. Like, it is not a recommendation of mine to do that because you get things mixed up, you know, emotions get high. Women, we have lots of hormone issues, we get emotional, we get offended, you know, all the things. Guys, they'll get disrespected, but if they don't really understand how to separate it, so it's just a whole thing. So I would say that you know, having a partner was hard for me because it wasn't a great marriage, and so then we had to then separate that to like go to business and make sure we're making money and paying our bills and that kind of stuff. And I wanted it to be successful, like that was something like no matter what was happening personally, I wanted the business to be successful because I put so much into it. And I learned a lot of things what not to do when from his ownership because he's never he never owned a business before. And it was one of those things where he was disrespectful to clients, he was not very great with communication with our employees. Like there was a lot of gaps that I had to fill. And then that made my job as like the marketer really hard because if these people are coming in mad and he's disrespecting them, well, then I'm having to step in and go, hey, listen, I'm sorry. You know, how do you like do that? Like, how do you say I'm sorry that he's acting this way? But then also I have to respect his position, you know, and so that was that was challenging, but I am grateful for learning the skills that I did because I learned how to tint cars, learned how to tint windows, and we started the science shop together, and I'm still doing that to this day. Of course, I've got a team of people now, which is great. It's not just me, but it was it was cool to learn skills, even like working on a car. I don't know, things that we did to cars, like we would take emblems off and you know, just random things. So I'm grateful for the skills that I learned during that time, and then also the things of what not to do in leadership to be just one.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that that's that's understandable. So, but 18 to 22 window tent and sign shop. During that time, were did someone directly challenge your authority at any point? I'm I'm sure in four, I'm sure in four years. And you know how did how did you handle that? I mean, you know, you you lost the room or you lost an employee or or or something. Talk about that and talk about that situ. Uh maybe probably several, but just talk about one that might stand out to you.

Partnership, Marriage, And Misaligned Leadership

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so you know, whenever you're in business with a partner, a romantic partner, you know, there are those lines like I was talking about. And I think the fact that him disrespecting me in front of our employees got into their head to disrespect me as well. And so when there were any kind of, you know, tiffs about, oh, I don't want to do that today, or why are you, you know, stacking so many cars in here, you know, or whatever. Like I would, you know, I'm the scheduler. And I knew what their capacity was, I knew what their ability was, and I knew how many we could push out every day, but sometimes they came to work and they didn't want to work, and that's not my problem. Like you come to work to work. I mean, I don't care if you're lazy or not, you know. And so I think that when there were those times that I was disrespected by employees, I didn't have someone to take my back. And again, being as young as I was, I didn't really understand what was happening, and I didn't really know how to respond to that. So I don't really have a great, like, hey, this is how I overcame that. I really didn't. It was something I had to deal with because I didn't have that support from the other partner in those situations.

SPEAKER_02

So, what it sounds like though to me is that during this time you were growing up and you were learning some hard lessons. You were learning lessons that you were learning lessons about people, you were learning lessons about trust, you were learning lessons honestly, about leadership and and whether good or bad, you were learning let you were learning those lessons a lot of times about things what not to do, what how how not not not to react. So you're getting a crash course in business and leadership during during this time. So looking back on that, if you could go back and tell your 18-year-old self something now when you were starting that business, anything you would tell tell yourself then?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah. I would just encourage her to be more vocal, be more confident, know that she is more than what she is in that moment. Like her future is so bright, you know. I was so tired of hearing that as a kid of like, oh, your future's so bright. But now looking back, I'm like, oh, I get it now. Like I told my kid that, like, oh, your future's so bright, you know. But now that I know what my future is, I'm like, oh, well, it was bright. Okay, thank you. Um, so I think that I would definitely go back and tell her, you know, be more confident, be sure of yourself. I was not sure of myself whatsoever whatsoever at that age, and just know that I deserve to be in the role that I was in. And that was something I didn't know back then, too. So I think it would just be a lot of encouragement and also to get out of that situation a lot sooner than what I had allowed myself to be in.

Authority Challenged And Lessons Learned

SPEAKER_02

So we get placed in situations for reasons, and that was that was why I mean 18 to 22, four four formative years where you learned a lot. And you and you were placed in that position for a reason. And and so at 22, you decide, hey, I'm I'm gonna do something different. You're gonna start the marketing broker. So kind of kind of sort of kind of might know what prompted that transition, but but talk a little bit about that and talk about just the fact that you're 22, second career already at 22, and time to start something different.

Advice To Her 18-Year-Old Self

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I had to get out of that relationship, and it took a while, but I finally got the courage to leave. I remember I had a 500 square foot apartment and an air mattress that had a freaking hole in it. And so every morning at two o'clock, I would reach back and go, okay, blow it up again, and then I'd go back to sleep. But career-wise, I had a lot of people ask me about social media because I had created like our business as a whole online was so great. And so then Facebook, like during that whole time I had that business, Facebook had opened up business pages, and so I had to teach myself, okay, how do I do business pages? How do I do Instagram? All the things. And so I had friends that were like, hey, can you help me set up my stuff? And I mean, I would do it for free. Like, sure, yeah, I'll help you. And then, and then I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I could do this and like get paid for it. Like, I'm this is the part that I enjoy the most about business was marketing. Like, that's how I knew I even liked marketing, was like, well, this is a part of like I knew I hated finances. Like, ask my bookkeeper now, thank God for him, because I do not do well. But I knew the creative side, getting the business, selling, that kind of stuff was what I really enjoyed about business. And so I opened up one of the first five agencies here in Arkansas that provide social media management for customers or like businesses, and so that was in 2016, and I was it was a hard start because people didn't understand social media then. Um, and so it was just like more of an education, but then on a personal side, like I had been trapped for four years, so I was partying, I was doing stupid stuff, I was dating around, like it was just like I look back and I see my OG clients today, and I still have some of them. I call them my OGs, like the ones that like somehow trusted me back then. But I'm like, why did you even like trust me? And they're like, Well, we knew that you were smart, and I'm like, I mean, that's great, thank you. You know, if it wasn't for those five to six people, I wouldn't have been able to continue my business and know what it, you know, know what I could do in it and how it would build and all that 10 years later. So yeah, I definitely thought marketing was easy, but then I still had to be a business owner and manage my own time and sales and things like that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so I mean that's a that's a remarkable, powerful, you know, testament. The four years that you went through came out the other side, this just the things you learned from the marketing aspect. Not you know, you learned the marketing things, but you learned about the business. You learned about, you know, you learned about leadership, you learned about being a boss, the marketing boss.

SPEAKER_04

You learned, you know, just so many lessons learned. So you're building this the marketing broker.

SPEAKER_02

You're recruiting your first team members. So, how was building a team as a 22-year-old different than managing or building a team when you were 18? Did you approach it differently, different leadership style? So talk a little bit about that.

Pivot To The Marketing Broker

First Team Build: Comparison Trap

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so I'm reinventing myself, 22 years old, trying to figure out who Shelby is as a person. I kind of knew who I was as a business owner and business leader, but I didn't really know who I was personally. So I'm trying to figure that out. But I did the solo thing for about two years, so that would put me at 24. And then I saw one of my competitors. They had posted on, which by the way is super toxic, everyone watching. Do not look at your competitors, do not compare yourself. So, anyways, I looked at one of my competitors online and I noticed that they had added all these people to their team. And I was like, oh my God, everyone's like engaging with it, you know, like, oh, good job. This person looks so successful. I was like, wow, they added like five people to their team. Now they're gonna be like this big business. Like, how am I gonna keep up with this as like a solo person over here? And so I just went out and was like, screw it. I mean, I can do that, right? I can add people. And so I go and I hire, I think it was four people at the time, and I'm sitting around a table and for our first meeting, and I look at like think to myself, well, what are these people gonna do exactly? I had not thought any of this through. I mean, I was just like, get people in the room, I want you to work for me, like we're gonna be a powerhouse, like we got this, but there was no like outline of these are your duties and this is the processes, and this is how we're gonna grow our business. And and I mean, humble, very humbled to have to say this is like a month later, I had to let all of them go. I had no idea what I was doing. I lost money, I just paid them, but I didn't I didn't do the correct things on the back end. I knew where I wanted to go, but I had gotten ahead of myself in that way. And I typically tend to do that, but now I'm like trained where I'm like, okay, I've got you know, people, I've got a business coach and stuff that I actually consult with before making decisions because I now know that I don't need to do that kind of thing. And so having my business coach, I hired him right after that, told him the whole situation. And so then we start putting processes together. And he's like, you know what, it's just gonna take time. And I had to realize, like, I'm not that other company. I am me. What's working for me? What's working for my clients, and how am I gonna be able to see myself grow, but not necessarily in the same way they are. And I took a couple years to really focus on myself and understand, like, okay, this is where I'm gonna be at as a business owner. Then COVID hit. Then I had a baby. Yes, I had a COVID baby. I was one of those people. And so, you know, having a baby and like doing all that, and now I have an amazing team. So, you know, fast forward 10 years later and finally understanding, oh, well, this is a process, and these are the team members, and this is what each person does, and this is how we communicate. And it's been a learning curve. I I didn't just jump in at 22 and be like, okay, yeah, let's hire all these people, and I was super successful. It was like you mentioned earlier, I learned the lesson and I always learned it the hard way. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_02

You know, and I would say probably maybe, and you might you might agree with this, might disagree, but I think as a as a business owner, I've worked for a business for so long and then I retired, and now I'm trying to do this. But being a business owner, one of the the biggest things you have to learn is patience. You have to learn it's a slow grind, right? It's not it's not just gonna happen immediately. I mean if it does more power to you and you found that pot of gold. But you know, one of the interesting things is it is is being patient and understanding that and and that that was a great little tidbit. Don't don't look at what your other what the competitors are doing. Focus on what you're doing and stay true, stay true to that. And that that kind of leads to the to the next question. You know, so so you went through that process, you hired the folks, you let them go. It was a slow build, but eventually you did start adding team members. And you started adding folks that were, I'm assuming, passionate about marketing, passionate about communication. You know, and passion is one thing, but I want to talk about I'm a really big culture guy. I think culture is culture is is everything. And I believe culture doesn't happen accidentally. I think it's intentional. So through all this, you're making intentional decisions, but walk me through how you built culture at the marketing broker and now again drawing on past experiences.

Process, Coaching, And Patience

SPEAKER_01

So I think culture it goes further than just the people that work for us, too. I think that the clients I bring in, you know, a lot of people just stop culture at like, oh well, this is what happens in the office. No, like your culture is how you sell yourself, it's how you get the clients, you know, and they have to see who you are. And, you know, I really try to be the most authentic person as I can. If you follow me on social media, you know, I'm all about let's post about, you know, my daughter, my work, if something didn't happen. I put the wrong QR code on a freaking huge piece of perforated vinyl, and it was the funniest thing I'd ever done. Like I posted about it because I was like, I just went into this beautiful perforated vinyl. The QR code goes to someone that lives in a different state. You know, it was just like, you know, just like showing those what those things about business. But like my culture inside, I want, you know, my girls know that they can come and communicate with me about anything. If they have things that's going on personally, I make sure that if it's something I can do to help them out. I'm not a leader that's like, oh, that's their task and they're the only ones that can get that done. Like, absolutely not. I've done this for 10 years. Like, tell me what you need me to do. How can I help you? You know, if your workload is a little bit too much, okay, well, how can we kind of spend your time a little differently, you know? And also just kind of receiving feedback as I give feedback. I think that's very important as a leader, too. Like, we have to open that door and understand that we don't, we're not gonna like what we hear. We may not like it, but it's gonna help us be a better person and also be a better leader moving forward. And culture-wise, I'm very proud of what I have built in the business because everyone's friendly with each other. My clients know, like, hey, you know, they'll text me at night, but they also know that I, you know, will respond in the morning time. And so it's just under or setting those expectations out, I think, is a really big thing about culture too. Like, what kind of expectations do you want on yourself, your team, and your clients? Like, what does that look like? And being able to clearly put those out there where everybody can communicate back and forth and know that you know they're all on the same page.

Designing Culture With Clients Included

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I, you know, I I think too, from a from a leader standpoint, I I always thought that it was my job to position the folks that and I and I always said people said mincing words, but I thought I thought it was it was very important to me, you know, whether I had 10 or 15 employees that re reported to me, I supervised whatever title, however you want to say it, I always said that they worked with me. I never said they worked for me, I always said they worked with me. But I always thought that the folks that worked with me, it was my responsibility to position them to succeed. To to to put them to put them in the best position and to do whatever I could my efforts to to make them have a good day, to to to enjoy what they're doing, but most of all succeed. And so whatever I had to do to to and like you said, hopping in and hey, you know, you look like you you looked a little frazzled, you know, what's going on? You know, what's you know, how can I help? What can I do? And and and that's that's uh that's servant leadership, and and and and it's and it's something that's probably lacking a lot, you know, today. So let me tell you the really the the thing that caught my about your story though is the concept of heart-led marketing. And in a world, you know, in a world where we have data-driven, metric-focused, ROI-obsessed things, you're you're talking about heart. And I know that those other things are important to you. As a marketer, they have to be. But you talk about heart. So and some people may hear that and think mushy, you know, softy, filly, mushy, filly. But I don't think that's what you mean by that. Explain what heart-led marketing is and and why it matters.

Heart-Led Marketing Defined

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, heart-led marketing. I guess I've never thought about it being mushy, but that's funny. So I I correlate that with authenticity. And again, that's my brand, that's who I am. The person I'm talking to you, like who I am talking to you, is the same one that my daughter's gonna get after she gets home from school today. It's the same one that my partner gets when he gets off work. You know, it's just the same one I show up for my best friend. I'll probably say a few more coastwords around my best friend, but you know what I mean. Like it's the same type of person. Yeah. Um, and so I think that it's very important as business owners. Let's talk about our brand. We are a brand. You have your business, but you personally, as a business owner, have a brand as well. So you need to lead with your heart in that brand. You need to share your passions, you need to be yourself around people so they know what to expect when they do business with you. But then, on a business standpoint, heart-led marketing is show your employees, celebrate them online. Anything you're posting on social, I want to see as much as I can of the business behind the scenes, the products, the people. That stuff is more important because you are selling to cut to people, you're a person selling to people. So if we are only doing things that are numbers driven, then we kind of become a robot. We don't want to be AI. AI is like its own thing. I love AI, but like we'll let it do it. And I want us to be people selling to people. And with my customers, that's that's our strategy. I'm like, okay, well, we need to come take pictures, we need to do videos, we need to make sure we are putting those personal touches on social media because we are bombarded with ads every day as consumers. So, how are we separating ourselves? And if you are dealing with people and selling to them, they want to know who they're dealing with before they even call you. They want to see your face, they want to know who you are, they want to see your employees, and then they'll call you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So something you said in that that resonated with me a lot, but you talked about authenticity and being authentic. And and you know, I was blessed, a lot of people, you know, communications, marketing in the in the electric utility world, it's not it's not glamorous, it's not sexy, it's straight, you know, it's straightforward. And and and and even beyond that, I work for an electric cooperative, which is even more rooted in homegrown your your your local electric a lot of times they serve a lot of rural communities and whatnot. But the the one thing that I feel very fortunate about was that that space, that especially at co-ops, it's all about servant leadership and it's not a buzzword. And you know, it's part of the business model, you know, it's part of our business model. And the other thing that I really learned about that was that good leaders, the best leaders, they don't lead with authority, they lead with authenticity. And and that's that's the key. When you genuinely care about people first, you know, things things just fall in place. They they just they just seem to just fall in place. And so what you're describing is is is kind of what is you know, it's kind of what I live for 35 years, and and and so again, so you know, very, very intriguing. Now, this is one thing, shifting gears a little bit. So, as part of being the marketing boss and the C CEO, you're juggling something that a lot of leaders face. You're a mom. Mom and CEO. That's two full-time jobs. One of your signature speaking topics is mom and CEO. So I'm just curious, how do you navigate that? And more importantly, what's been being a mother taught you about leadership that you might not have learned from running a business?

Mom And CEO: Finding Harmony

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so let's start there. So I got pregnant during COVID, and that was a big shock because it was a miracle, honestly, at that point. I'd always been told I wasn't gonna have a kid, anyways. So I was like, wow, okay, here we go. We're gonna have a baby. That's cool. And but if you think about it, my firstborn, I've always joked about my firstborn as turning 10 this year, you know, because it's my business. Like, that is my firstborn baby. I like nurtured it, I made sure it grew, you know, we're in the stages now that we're growing even more. So I joke with Kinzie and say she's my secondborn, she doesn't really like it, but it's funny. But being like a mom has taught me so many things that I didn't know I wasn't ever gonna know. Does that make sense? Like if I had never been, yeah, if I had never been a mom, I would have been like so selfish, way because I was very selfish before having a kid. I worked a lot. Now I still work a lot, but back then I was putting in 70 to 80 hours a week. I was always at networking events. Me and her dad were married at the time, and so I didn't put time into our personal relationship, which definitely didn't do it very much justice. I mean, obviously. And so I was more obsessed with working and chasing money. God, that's all I cared about was like, how much money can I make? What's the next move? How can I get to the next cell? I never celebrated the wins, you know. And so with Kinsey, it taught me to slow down. I thought I was gonna be this great mom that was gonna work full-time, own a business, have employees, and be a mom full-time. Like I was gonna be this boss of a woman. And let me tell you, I got about eight months into that and I was like, that's a cute idea. But I was not made to be a full-time mother. I was not made built for this. This was not my thing. Like I was, you know, very focused on business. And one of my friends told me, they said, you know, well, why don't you want to put her in daycare? And I was like, well, because I'm controlling and I want to make sure my kid eats what I give her, that she's learning the things I'm teaching her, you know. In that moment, I was just very controlling over what happened to my kid because I didn't want to mess up. And she said, Well, you know, we're all gifted with different things. Why don't you allow a teacher or a daycare worker to use their gifts to teach your child? I was like, dang, like that was really powerful to me because I'm like, I expect people to hire me because I'm an expert in marketing. Why would not, why would I not allow someone else to teach my kid and like take care of her? So once I finally did that and let go of knowing that, okay, because I felt like a failure, you know, in that moment. I was like, well, what can I do to help her, but also still feel a little bit in control. So she went to daycare. Now she's almost in kindergarten. She'll start kindergarten this year. So she's thriving in life and way smarter than what I could have ever done full time with her. But as a leader, being a mother has taught me to slow down, to celebrate the small wins. I mean, just like watching her walk, you know, rolling over, things like that. Like, I need to celebrate the small wins. And as you said earlier, patience. That is a huge thing that I deal with, and I am not great at it. I am, I'm still not great at it. I don't care. It is, it is. It's it's hard being patient when, you know, I'm like, well, okay, can you please just put your jacket on? Like, bro, put your jacket on. Every morning I'm like, put your jacket on. Just do it, you know. Why can't I do it for you? But I've got to teach her to be independent and like do things on her own, you know. So I think those are the three big things that has taught me from being a mother. And I don't really, I don't use the word balance, I use the harm the word harmony. So my life is hard, you know, I harmonize the things of being a mother as well as being a business owner. Sometimes she gets more, sometimes it gets more. And they both just have to understand. Like my team understands that if I've got things to do at the school or a field trip or something like that, I'm not gonna be able to talk to them for a couple hours. But then she also understands if she's home from school and mom has five meetings back to back to back that I've got to do and be on the call for. She's so great about playing on her own, and you know, I'll have lunch with her and you know, things like that. So it's just finding that harmony between the two. I mean, it's a daily, daily struggle.

Failure As A Teacher

SPEAKER_02

Well, and you know, and kudos to you because a lot of people think, and I mean, let's just be honest, especially women leaders, they think you have to choose. They think you have to choose. They think you you have to choose one or the other, but and that you can't be fully present in both roles. But I think you know, you challenged that assumption that assumption. You you you figured it out. And and and I think you you know you made a great point. You you know your staff, the folks that work with you, are gonna understand that there are gonna be times that you're just gonna be out of pocket. There may be a music recital, there may be a an award ceremony or something, you know, once you well, once they start school. And at the same time, you know, and at and at the same time, you know, the presence of mind of of being home and you may have to potentially take a call from a client, or you may it may be the only time the client can talk, and and you're there to work with the client. So really the key is is is finding that balance. And a lot of folks, and again, just being honest, a lot of folks, especially women, feel like they have to choose. And you've found a way to do both. So I think, you know, I think that's you know, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_04

So, you know, it's a kudos to you. So let's talk a little bit about failure.

SPEAKER_02

And you've talked a little, you've talked a little bit about it because I truly believe, and it's it's a hard lesson when it's happening and when it's going on, but I truly believe that a lot of really good things can come from failing, right? We don't want to make it a habit, a habit, but you know, we do, but we do need to understand that one of the greatest teachers in life could be failure. You went through these two ventures, you mentioned failure in the window intent business, you mentioned some failure some failures in the marketing broker business, you know, hiring the employees and then having having to lay them off or firing, you know, making hard, hard decisions. So tell me about a potential, and you may have mentioned it if you have, you can, you know, just repeat it. A leadership failure that may that's really shaped you, and and something that's that's changed how you might approach lead leadership or being an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_01

Gosh, I've had so many leadership failures.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we all we all do.

SPEAKER_01

Like I feel like the hiring that would have been a really big one. You know, hiring at the wrong time and learning that lesson in a hard way.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Serving Startups And Fortune 500s

SPEAKER_01

Because I wasn't, but I think the things I learned mo most about that was about myself. I was not ready to be a leader, I was not ready to be in charge of people and their families and paying and all that kind of stuff. Before that, I had jumped into this is a good lesson. I had jumped into networking when I first started this business because I'm trying to like create my own reputation in a small town versus having the one that I had with him, you know, with the window tint stuff. So I jumped into networking, I went and got on boards, I was like president of everything, I was in all these organizations, and I thought that that was gonna give me enough clout and you know, help me get out of this little hole that I had been in with him for so long. And instead, it hurt me as a leader because I was just chasing after validation and chasing after what people thought of me versus is this really helping me? Is this really helping my business? And when I evaluated my time at that time, I had spent 40 hours over a one-month period volunteering, as in like on the boards, organizations, you know, networking, things like that. And at that moment, I charged$100 an hour. So I lost$400 that month. No,$4,000 that month. See, I don't do math, I don't do finances, I do me neither. I lost$4,000 that month just because I was trying to get the approval of other people. And I do say that that was a failure. I do say that that was a learning curve of how do I spend my time and what do I need to do moving forward to make sure that I'm growing as a person and a leader. And so I took those hours and started doing listening to podcasts and reading books and taking time for myself and developing myself versus just being out there and running my battery low, you know, running my social battery low, because then I'm not showing up for anybody at that point.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So the marketing broker. It's an amazing story. So you serve both startups, you serve Fortune 500 companies. And that's a that's a wide that's a widespread. A lot of agencies, I I've never been owned an agency, but I've dealt with my my position for for for years. We had a had agencies of record and and and work with agencies. A lot of agencies tend to pick a lane, right? They're either gonna go after the the the small local businesses, the mom and pops, or you know, or maybe mid mid-sized businesses, or they're gonna go out go after the big fish. You're doing both, which I think is cool. I think that's awesome, because I think there's a lot of lessons that can be learned from that you can take from the Fortune 500 folks and and apply to the smaller business. But I think there's probably, in my opinion, just my opinion, I think there's even more lessons you can take from the small businesses and how you market from a small business to the Fortune 500 folks. But that's just that's just me. But how do you so how do you scale that serving a local startup to a large business without losing that heart-led marketing that makes that difference? Talk about that a little bit.

Radical Transparency Over Hype

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, small businesses are my babies. I mean, that's what I started out with, and I would say even if I like niched, I guess, would be small businesses, but I have become lucky or blessed enough to have Fortune 500 companies that are like, yeah, come in, be our CMO, like see what you can do for us, and then I'll work with their marketing team. So that's kind of how I lead in that way. So I'm more of like a leader strategist and that kind of stuff for those people versus using my own team to do the marketing like we do for the smaller businesses. So with the small businesses, you do learn a lot more. I mean, we have learned things from roofing to learning things about hog trapping. Like, I've got a hog trap company right now, you know, and it's one of these things where you get to learn about the person too. Like, what's their passion? How do they get into this? Why do they get into this? Like, that's what I really love about the smaller businesses is understanding the owner and hearing their story and and knowing that like I'm gonna be a part of their success one day, especially the ones that just started up, right? And they have a smaller budget, so I have kind of gone away from like the startups to more like the three to five years. They've been in business a little bit, they understand marketing, maybe they've done it on their own and they're ready to hire somebody. And so that's kind of where I'm growing into that to the Fortune 500. So that way, you know, those startups are they just their budgets are so small that I'm like, listen, buy my book, buy my course, figure it out. You can do this on your own. You have the time, you know, I encourage them, coach them, that kind of stuff. But yeah, the lessons from them are a lot harder than the bigger ones because the bigger companies leading with heart led marketing is harder because they're usually owned by investors and investors like money, and that's all they care about are numbers. And I'm over here, like, well, we can do that, but we're not gonna grow the business online. If we're not showing up as who we are. And so there's a lot of pushback in there because they don't understand that and they want to be like this big company and look really big. And I'm like, you can be successful in a large company, but you can also relate to people that are walking down the street and see that, oh, that employee works at this company. I'm gonna say hey, or you know what, I recognize him from something.

Market Like A Boss: Why The Book

SPEAKER_02

So the heart-led marketing in that way is a lot different because there's a little bit more pushback in the yeah, and that so you know, again, tying it back to my experience, both for the marketing broker and for these smaller businesses that you're dealing with, that's actually a competitive advantage. So, so so, you know, for myself, I didn't work for a big investor-owned utility. I didn't have to to, you know, we weren't answering to stockholders that were in New York or wherever they were. We weren't trying to manipulate stock pricing, you know, on the stock market. And we had something, honestly, that mut that money couldn't buy. We knew the folks that we served. We call them members, co-op calls them, you know, co-ops call them members. We genuinely knew our members, and we genuinely, you know, we showed up, we cared. And that's a competitive advantage. And and you can't, no matter, you know, bigger and always better. And that's just something that being bigger, you just you just can't replicate. It's just not you can't, it's part of the secret sauce. And and you know, I was just thinking back about when you would go, you might go and you might be competing with an agency out of say Dallas, because that's that that's a large metropolitan area near you, or you may be competing, you know, somewhere from Chicago or something like that, and you know, they're coming in all slick, dressed up, and you're coming in, you're you're coming in your genuine self. And not that you're not that you're not fixed up and no, I get it, yeah. And you're right, but you've got a competitive advantage that that those big guys just just can't get. And that's you know, and that's they're all the clock. That's exactly so. One thing else I've noticed about your approach, both in the book, and I've and I've actually started reading the book and in how you talk about your work is radical transparency. You're honest about mistakes, you don't pretend to have it all figured out. I don't if anybody has it all figured out, yeah, yeah, they're bluffing.

SPEAKER_03

I don't know, make a comment, let us know. You can do the next one.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, they're bluff, they're bluffing for one thing. But anyway, uh that's a that's unusual in business where where everyone wants to project, you know, this perfection. So why is transparency important to you as a leader?

The BOSS Framework And Next Book

The Three Cs: Confidence, Consistency, Credibility

SPEAKER_01

So as a leader, like with my people, I'm I make mistakes every day almost. You know, if I'm like, if my marketing assistant is asking, in fact, this happened two days ago. She was on Slack and was like, hey, I need, you know, I was like, hey, I need you to do this. And she goes, Oh, well, I would, but you for you didn't send me that. And I'm like, I am so sorry. You're right. I did not send you that. Okay, you know, and then I'm going and I'm sending. And so I have to be able to own up to things because if I'm not owning up to things, why do I expect them to own up to things? Right. And same thing with my kid as a mother, and this will all come full circle, I promise. As a mother, I like to make sure that she understands, like, listen, I did not do well in that moment. It's normally me in traffic. If I'm driving, that kid is laughing because I'm like pissed off that people are not driving the way they need to be driving. And then we get to where we're going, and I'm like, you know what, baby? I'm so sorry. That was not appropriate. I should not have acted that way, you know. And so she understands, like, okay, mom shouldn't have done that. Maybe I shouldn't do that in the future. But in marketing, especially in this industry, my competitors are notorious for going, I can get you on Google in 30 days, or I can get you to the first page in 90 days. You know, it's like they put all these expectations out there and they sell this glittery box of what secrets that they have, you know, or this big quote unquote SEO stuff that should be costing$3,000 a month, which is insane, by the way. And so they're selling these things to these small businesses or businesses in general, and they aren't following through. They're like, hey, listen, I didn't really do that. But then they've got these people locked into a contract. So these people are paying them monthly and they're not really doing anything for them. They're not actually holding up their end of the expectations that they set from the very beginning. And so that is my advantage as a transparent person, is or leader, is when I'm going into those meetings, I'm like, listen, this is gonna take time. Organic growth is gonna take time. If you don't have money to spend extra on like meta ads or geofencing ads or Google ads, then it's not gonna be fast. Like this is a slow burn type of process to make sure that you know you get the results that you're wanting. And that's why it's important to me because you know, sometimes I've been so transparent in competing with other people that that are selling the glittery box, and I don't get that account, but they holler at me a year later when their contract's up and they're like, I'm so sorry I didn't go with you. And I thought that that was a bad thing at first. I was I'm losing these like bids because I'm like, hey, listen, this is a reality, this is what's gonna go on, and this is what you can expect from me. And they buy into the other person learning that lesson the hard way at the other end of it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we we used to have a phrase where we used to always say, underpromise, over deliver. And and and and if you can do that, then you'll position yourself in a you know in a good space.

SPEAKER_04

So let's shift gears real quick and let's talk about the book.

SPEAKER_02

Market Like a Boss. Love the title, think it's awesome, think it's think it's amazing. How I turned a small startup into a thriving business using grassroots hustle and strategy. The subtitle tells a story all by itself. You know, when you say small startup, in essence, you're talking about the marketing broker, right? And and and and you know, so tell tell me about the decision to write the book and what made you say I need to share what I've learned.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I love that I still get chills when people talk about my book. Like I'm such a nerd, and I like see it on the screen. I'm like, ah, there it is, you know, and it's been out for like you know, six months or so. But I have always loved writing, I've done it my whole life, and I have always sought out to be an author. I don't know why. That's always been a goal of mine. I want to write, I want to like share stories, I want to like teach people, and education is a really big part of what I do as well with all my podcasts that I do. Um, I also have a boss marketing community that I have, but this book has allowed me to share specific things that I have taught people over the course of 10 years. So this book isn't perfect for those startups that can't hire an agency yet. They're gonna learn how to market themselves without having to hire somebody, if that makes sense. And I share things in there that's like hilarious stories of, you know, a guy that cussed me out, but then was wondering why he wasn't getting business. Well, if you're talking to them like you're talking to me, then that's you know, probably the reason why you're not getting business, you know. So it's a really great read for those that are looking to learn more about marketing and learning from my mistakes and my failures. There are wins in there, there are failures in there, but I wanted to write the book to be able to share that, as well as if you're a business owner listening to this, like writing a book validates you like having a website. It's something that people are looking at and it will help you in your marketing moving forward. It'll help you in your sales moving forward. And it was something I wanted to do to get to that next step of speaking at conferences and things like that. I make the joke of, you know, I knew everything before I wrote the book, but now that I wrote the book, somehow people know that I know everything or you know, the things that are in there.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, no, yeah, no, I know exactly what you're saying. So one of the things that that reviewers keep mentioning is how practical the book is and and and the you know and the read. It's not theory, it's strategy from the trenches, real life scenarios from someone who's been there since they're 18 years old. So when you were writing, so when you were writing this, how did you decide what to include, what not to include? Because you know, between the tent shop and the marketing broker, you've got a lot of experience to draw from. So how did you whittle it down so it's not like a like it's not you know 900 pages? Yeah, a novel.

SPEAKER_01

So with this book, I wanted to be just skill-based. I wanted to teach people real life tactics of how to market themselves. So we it's 10 chapters of how bosses market themselves. So each chapter has the word boss in it, and I'll come back to that in a second. But my next book that I'm already starting on is called Hustle Like a Boss. So that's gonna be more of leadership, entrepreneurship from the age of 18. So that'll be more based about like how to own, like how to lead in a business, how to change yourself, how to understand your Enneagram, how to understand your human design. How can those like come into play? Because those are very important to me now as a leader and how I help my staff and help my clients. But BOSS is an acronym, stands for bold, opportunistic, strong, and service-minded. I came up with that at 24 years old when I hired my business coach. He was like, we need to come up with an acronym so that way you can always focus on that. If you're going through a failure, come back to that BOSS acronym. If you're going through a win, come back to that BOSS acronym. If you need inspiration, have it in front of you at all times. And I wanted to share that with people of like, listen, adapt this acronym to your own life. I want you to be able to apply it to your own life. Be bold in what you do. I want you to find opportunities. I want you to be strong and know that you deserve to be where you're at in your career, in your business, in your house, in your life. And then also being service-minded, as we talked about earlier. We have to have that servant mind and leadership so that way we can continue to be successful.

SPEAKER_02

That's awesome. Last question as it relates as it relates to the book. In there, you talk about, and this, and I and I say last question because this may be this may be a long answer.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Three critical elements confidence, consistency, and credibility, the three C's. So talk about those a little bit as it comes to being a leader, to being an entrepreneur, and and and how those play a role in confidence in what you're doing.

Closing Reflections And Takeaways

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, confidence is key. When I was younger, I faked the confidence very, very well. It was one of those.

SPEAKER_02

Fake it till you make it, right? Fake it till you make it.

SPEAKER_01

Fake until you make it. That was before the authenticity thing came into play with my life. Um, but yeah, I confidence is important in sales and in marketing and in leadership. Let's use some examples. Like, I would go into a client or potential client meeting and I would have like an off day. You know, we all have those off days. Well, I wouldn't be as confident. And I would notice a shift in those meetings where they picked up on that energy of like, oh, she's something's weird. Like, what's going on? We don't want to give off those vibes. So I want you to continue to be confident and know that you deserve to be in that meeting. There's some meetings that I didn't think I was deserving of being in. Like, God, I'm 25 years old. Like, how did I get here? This person hired me for this. Like, how do they hear about me? Like, I don't deserve this. Like, yes, you do. You deserve to be there. And you have to understand that you deserve to be there. Because when you do understand that, that confidence comes out and you're gonna sell a whole lot better. And if we think about confidence in our leadership, if I'm not confident in how I'm leading my team every Monday at nine o'clock on our team meetings, they're gonna be like, Do I wanna work here? Like, what's going on? Like, she's not really sure if we're gonna reach those goals. So, are we gonna reach those goals, you know? And so that's very important to me is showing up and being confident. And I'm not saying you're gonna be confident all the time. I'm not confident all the time. I have my moments where I'm like, God, this is just not my day. I don't like what I'm wearing, I don't like how my hair looks, I don't like any of this. So I kind of take a step back and go back to that acronym of boss of like, okay, I need to be bold. Bold is the number one for a reason. So how can I be bold in a moment where I don't feel confident? Um, the consistency is what I preach on. If you listen to my podcast or follow me on social, like I am all about consistency. And there's a few ways. If you are consistent in your personal life, working out, finding ways to be mentally healthy, maybe go into therapy, maybe it's you take a walk every day, whatever it is, you need to show up consistently for yourself and to prove to yourself that you are gonna be a great leader or you are a great leader, because that will then show up in consistency in your leadership. If you can't make a promise to yourself every day of, okay, let me say my personal thing. If I don't work out every day, walking Peloton, maybe I'm doing some strength training, whatever it is, maybe it's literally me doing a couple of crunches and going peace. That was my workout for today. Like I show up for myself every day because if I don't, then I see that that energy flows into my leadership and I may not show up every day for my staff when they need me. I may not show up every day for my clients when they need me. And that's very important to me is showing up and being consistent. And when we're talking digital marketing-wise, we have to show up online. If we're not showing up online for our for our clients or potential customers, how can we prove that we're gonna also show up for them? Like you can't, like, we need to make sure we have that consistency there, and then I think those two things lead into the credibility, the credibility aspect of everything of how have you shown up for people in the past? How have you shown your leadership in the past to where you now have a credibility? Before I walk into a meeting, that person has already talked to somebody because I'm 100% referral-based when it comes to my business side of things. They have already talked to somebody, and so that credibility and the way that I treated that person has already sold this person before I walked in there. I think it's important.

SPEAKER_02

That's awesome. So, last last comment about the book is I think one of the reviewers that I was that I was looking at the review said, and I think this is the ultimate compliment for the book, but you know, besides it being a practical, they said that it was the perfect book for the entrepreneur wearing every hat. And I think I think that's great. I mean, you've written a book for for someone who i is having to do it all. And and you know, I think when we when when we share from experiences, it it it it's it's genuine, it's authentic. And obviously, you were that entrepreneur wearing every hat when you were 18 years old. So I think that's awesome. So last got got a couple questions left. The the last one, and then I've got some we do something called ra rapid fire. Fun questions, serious questions were the first thing. But before I I ask you that, if someone's watching the show or gonna listen to the show and they're thinking about starting a business, they may be 18, 20, 22 years old, whatever. They're scared.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

What would you tell them? And what's the so what would you tell them and what's the one thing that they need to understand before taking that leap?

SPEAKER_01

First of all, just freaking do it. Then, period, do it. You have a burning fire already, and if you even have the thought of, I think I want to own a business, then you're made for it because people that aren't made for it don't just think about it.

SPEAKER_02

Don't think about it.

SPEAKER_01

And I think that the number one tip for that is to know that okay, set expectations out correctly for yourself. You may want to own a business because you don't want to work for somebody, okay? I get that, but also understand you will be working for hundreds of people. In fact, I work for hundreds of people because those are my customers, those are my clients. So you're technically still gonna be working for somebody. And then also, if you say, I want to start a business because I want to make a lot of money, absolutely, totally get it. Let's make some money, but it's gonna take a hot second. You've got to build up that credibility, you've got to build up that presence within yourselves. And so the last thing that people start businesses over is well, I want to do anything with my time. I want to not work from nine to five. I want to work whenever I want to work. Let me tell you, I work more than any of my friends that have an eight to five job or nine to five job. I'm putting in more hours because you know what? When you go to bed, you're thinking about it. When you wake up, you're thinking about it, you know, that kind of stuff. But absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

Be careful, be careful what you wish for. Be careful that that that nine to five, that eight to five, nine to five thing. I want to work whenever, you know, I want to because it can become it can become obsessive.

SPEAKER_04

So, rapid fire, real quick.

SPEAKER_02

First thing that comes that that come comes to your mind. Coffee or tea?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, coffee.

SPEAKER_02

If you could go back to your 18-year-old self one on day one of the business ownership, what's the one thing that you would tell her?

SPEAKER_01

It's gonna be hard.

SPEAKER_02

Morning person or night owl?

SPEAKER_01

Night owl.

SPEAKER_02

Me too. Best business decision you ever made.

SPEAKER_00

Starting a business.

SPEAKER_02

Window tent or signs, which part of that first business did you enjoy more?

SPEAKER_00

Definitely signs, still doing it.

SPEAKER_02

Biggest biggest leadership myth that needs to die.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, you have to be a certain age to be a leader.

SPEAKER_02

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

SPEAKER_01

My besides your kid's daughter.

SPEAKER_02

I was gonna say besides besides your kid. No, but that's fine. That's fine. No, that's that's fine because I totally understand. I I have my kids are older. I've got a 26-year-old and a 30-year-old, but I do have two dogs, and they get me out of bed bed in the morning. So one leadership habit you practice every day, every single day without fail.

SPEAKER_00

Um following my calendar. Okay, setting my time aside, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. If you could have coffee with any business leader, living or dead, who would it be?

SPEAKER_01

Ed Mallette.

SPEAKER_02

Ed Millette. Tell me who Ed Millet is.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, he is a huge leadership, I guess, guru, and he's kind of my idol. I listen to his podcast every day. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Most definitely. Okay. Last one. Yeah, that's a good thing. Last one. Most underrated leadership skill that nobody talks about.

SPEAKER_00

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01

Most underrated leadership skill.

SPEAKER_02

I've got a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01

I think it would be yeah, I think it would be like showing up for yourself. How do you show up for yourself?

SPEAKER_02

That's a great one. I would say listening. I think people don't talk a lot about listening. They think as leaders, it's what people follow you, they they they hear you. But I think listening, but I definitely agree with what you're saying. Showing up for yourself and making time and taking time for yourself to keep that that sanity, right? And I love I I love what you said, and we're delving from the rapid fire, but I love what you said about working out, even if it's doing a couple crunches, and and and and just telling, hey, I did it, I'm done, let's you know, let's move on. Because that's showing up for yourself and making time for yourself, because in in in life, in business, especially with what you do, you have no idea what's going to come up that day. And and it's a it's a that's a fun thing sometimes, but fun, but sometimes it can be uh be it can be a little scary. So I think I think showing up, showing up for yourself is a great answer. So Shelby, this has been fantastic. It's been awesome. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. Thanks, thank you for the time. And I'm gonna pop back over again. If you're watching this and and you enjoyed it and you want to learn more, obviously mark like a boss. Shelby McFarland, CEO, the marketing broker. There's her her email address. You're you're brave to put I put your cell phone on there. Maybe I'll mark it out or something. No, it's fine. But but got that on there, themarketingbroker.com, and and there's some ways to follow you on Instagram, LinkedIn. I know you're on LinkedIn because that's how we connected. Yeah. I'm assuming some some Instagram things and and I don't know if you're on TikTok X and all that stuff. Okay, so you're on all social media. Which is understandable. You're that's that's what you do. So anyway, so Again, thank you so much and have a great day and appreciate the time.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

That was Shelley McFarland, CEO of the Marketing Broker and Arthur of Market Like a Boss. You know, during my work career, I learned that the best leaders aren't the ones with all the answers. They're the ones who ask the right questions and genuinely care about their people. Shelby owned her first business at 18. At 22, she started the Marketing Broker, and today she's competing with agencies 10 times her size, serving startups, small businesses, and Fortune 500 companies, all while being a mom and an advocate for women in leadership. But here's what matters most. She's doing it authentically, leading with heart, and it's working. If you're a young entrepreneur, worried that you're too inexperienced, Shelby's story proves that authenticity matters more than age. If this resonates with you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. And please leave a review. It can help others find these conversations. This podcast is brought to you by BLC Consulting LLC. We're a communications and organizational strategy group working with service-related businesses. You can learn more at LC Consulting LLC.com. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep leading with heart. I'm Steve Goodson. Thank you for joining me on the couch.