Small Business, Big Mindset

From Corporate to Entrepreneur: Trading in the Corner Office for a Home Office

January 12, 2021 Muscle Creative Season 2 Episode 44
Small Business, Big Mindset
From Corporate to Entrepreneur: Trading in the Corner Office for a Home Office
Show Notes Transcript

This week's guest was successful in accomplishing what so many would-be online entrepreneurs work toward - shifting from their full-time job to creating their own business. Veronica Sagastume is a content strategist for accountants and bookkeepers who moved from her lucrative CFO corporate career to running her own business - trading her corner office for her home office. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Veronica's entrepreneurial journey took many twists and turns impacted by her own aspirations as well as necessary environmental dynamics (COVID, anyone?). 

Discussion Highlights:

The Start

  • College graduate, climbed the corporate ladder
  • Moved up quickly in fast-paced San Francisco and Silicon Valley
  • Software and technology, CFO

The Shift

  • Loved the work but working 16 hour days took its toll
  • Negative impact on health, priorities, relationships
  • Something had to give, had to find a solution

The Strategy

  • Left corporate job to start her consulting business
  • Quality of life changed, aided her ailing grandmother
  • Nurtured network from past and present to build business connections
  • Prioritized those as to who would benefit most from her service
  • Leveraging LinkedIn voice messaging to increase engagement conversions with network

The Action

  • Reached a cap of trading time for money, only so many hours in the day
  • Come up with a productized or standard offer that doesn't depend on your physical time
  • Researched, interviewed, and hired a business coach to accelerate progress
  • Turned business 100% remote
  • Identified when and how to hire

The Mindset

  • Gratitude in the morning
  • Morning structure gives freedom throughout the day
  • No phone or social media first thing
  • Time blocks calendar
  • Goals and Vision: 
    • Work with her niche (accountants, tax preparers, bookkeepers) to help them train themselves/team to handle content creation 
    • Launching an on-demand workshop in Q1 2021 
    • Launching an inclusive digital course with office hours during Summer 2021 to help students create content to convert clients  

The Wrap-Up

If you could listen to one music artist for the rest of your life, who would it be? Bee Gees

Where can people find you online?

Unknown:

Welcome to the Small Business big mindset Podcast, where we dive into tactical strategies to grow your business. And to make an impact on this world. A huge part of success is keeping your mindset and vision on track. So this is a major part of our process. And this podcast. Let's do this. Hey, Erin here. Welcome to the Small Business big mindset podcast this week, we have Veronica Sacca stoom, a content strategist for accountants. Welcome, Veronica. Hey, Aaron, good to be here. So excited. We were just swapping notes because Veronica is based out of the Bay Area, which Joey and I lived in for about 14 years before making the trek over here to Austin. So it's very cool. speaking to somebody who lives were part of our heart is they will always be it's always waiting for you. I know San Francisco. Oh, my goodness. Okay. So, Veronica, let's jump in. Will you just tell us a little bit about yourself your background and rally how you got started and came to be where you are today? Oh, absolutely. It's one of those things where I like to say that I started off with a traditional route, like many of us, right, went to school, got a college degree and went to work in corporate America to start climbing up that that all elusive corporate ladder, which I did climb very quickly, especially living here in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley. I knew early on that I wanted to be in that software and technology sector of things. So I was in the right place at the right time. This was in the late 80s, were in early 90s, where the Silicon Valley was booming. And I'm glad that I didn't know then what I know now. Had I known I don't know that I would have jumped in when people were talking about going public or merging and acquiring companies and you know, doing all these, like whether it's a merger and acquisition or starting doing a startup, you just back then you didn't know what that meant. And it just sounded good. And it sounded like fun. And I found myself saying yes to a lot of those opportunities, which in turn, kind of were getting me ready for later on, because it was such a fast moving, you had to as we still say now, you know, you wanted to fail fast, because the faster you could fail, then you could then pivot or you would have to then tweak and repeat and keep going forward. And that served me so well. And later on in my career as well as in my business when I when I made that transition. And so I climbed up the corporate ladder, doing a couple of those IPOs, you know, that initial public offering. And that led me to that, in that literal corner office in San Francisco, quote, you know, a block away from Union Square in the financial district. And finding myself with a great team, I loved my corporate career, I loved all that experience and the challenges. I loved my team. But I also realized that I had absolutely no life, I had no balance. And it started to have an impact on my health, my priorities, my relationships. And it just started to change me. I mean, it's inevitable, you know, when you don't have balance in your life, you start some it's Something's got to give. And in that case, whether it was my health or my relationships, they were suffering. And thank goodness, that I had the sort of like the self awareness to start asking myself, there's got to be a better way. And it's not that it was a better way. But around the time when I was really questioning this, because I shouldn't be complaining. And let me just be clear, I'm not complaining about the compensation or the title as a chief operating officer at the time, or the corner office or the team. It was more about the fact that it was 116 hour day after another. There was no holiday, no weekends, it was just one day merged into another. And it was hard to even recognize the I just didn't feel like I could get myself out of it. Because so many people would tell you, Oh, you've got you've got everything, you know, you've got the the title, the position, the team that the compensation, but from the outside, it looked good. But on the inside. I mean, it was like it was falling apart and you've developed an eye twitch hair. And it was just an uncontrollable eye Twitch. And I seriously did not know that I had it as badly except that my team would tell me Stop winking. You're winking again. That's what do you know this time? It's time to go. And around that time. My grandmother who raised me I was I was raised by both sets of my grandparents but I had my one grandmother left and who still lived by herself in San Francisco and in nollie Valley. And if anybody knows As you know, those San Francisco houses have very steep stairs, and they are no joke, you know, it takes you like 10,000 steps to get to the front door, and even then you got to go in and climb some more. So my grandmother broke her ankle. And at that time, she was in her early 90s. And, you know, we trained the surgery or the rehabilitation, the physical therapy, the doctrine appointments, she were Hispanic. And so she didn't speak a lot of English. So we should, we were having to attend meetings, doctors meetings and having to translate for her. And I was very close to my grandmother always happen. But I found myself in that position of being stretched even thinner. When I was with her, I felt guilty by not being with my team. When I was with my team, I felt guilty about not being with her. And when I drove home to my own home, home life, there was just nothing left. And that's what made me just really think about, you're at that fork in the road. And what are you going to do? Are you going to regret not spending this time with the person that shaped you, the person that's poured so much into you, my original life coach, as I like to call my grandmother? Or are you going to, you know, what are you going to do? I just kept asking myself, What do you want? What regrets Are you willing to live with? And that was a really tough question. And it made my decision easy. And so between deciding to leave my corporate job to start my consulting business, it took about six months to prepare, six months to prepare. But ultimately, I made that decision in 2010. And to, to have the flexibility to start a business while also have the flexibility to then go and be with my grandmother and the doctor's appointments or help with physical therapy, or go spend more time with her than I would have had, I still been pulling into 16 hour days. So that led me to my first transition, which was to leave my corporate, I basically say, I traded my corner office for my home office. Yeah. And it was absolutely the right decision, because I got another five really good quality years with my grandmother, who lived to be 100 years old. And, you know, it was an amazing experience for me to have and I had 100% zero regrets. Now that's so great. And it's like, you know, it's right, because so many who will come to that crossroads in their life of like, Okay, what now like what, you know, this is not working anymore. And my you know, my, my life and my health, and my family and friends have to come first. So, for people out there who are alike, how did you do it? So like, how? How did you transition? Because you had a very senior role? Yes. And so how did you What did you do to prep like a? How did you transition out of that into kind of forming your own business? Aaron, I think it's a couple of your podcast episodes, which I listened to, you know, we you focus about, you know, on the topic of networking, and I'm not going to be different from that, I will say that, by the time you even if you've only been in your career, 235 years, you've accumulated contacts, and those contacts that you've accumulated through going to conferences, or workshops, or even volunteering for some sort of event, what ever you've accumulated all these different names and contacts that you worked with, or worked for. And those are people that you can reach out to start reaching out by the genuine relationship building, right, especially in this 2020 pandemic year that we've just left behind. Well, not the pandemic, but the year 2020. You know, it's just kind of, it's a great opportunity for you to reach out to some of those contexts that you may have neglected, and reignite those relationships that you may think, you know, what, as I start to think about what do I want to do next, whether it's consulting or freelancing, or actually creating at some, some sort of service, you start looking at all those contexts that you've accumulated and think about, okay, what would be that first tier people that you know, that could absolutely, you know, like benefit from that service that you could offer or the consulting that you would offer. And think about also people that you work closely with that know, your work ethic, you know, what you bring to the table, the fact that you are a responsible person who follows up and follows through so that networking can start so early on while you're still at your nine to five job and starting to just think about what it would look like to to leave that safety net of a job for starting your own business. You start by reaching out to those contacts, prioritizing who, who it is that you want to reach out to make a game plan carve out time every single week. Mine would be on a Friday. I usually do it on a Friday between two and three. I still send out either a handwritten note, a voice message, a text email, I already know how it is that they communicate, even on LinkedIn. The one that I use now is it's only available through your mobile phone but it's the voice message. So just like you leave a voice message on Facebook or Instagram, if you leave one on LinkedIn, I will share with you that almost 100% of the time people respond because they can't. It's like, you get this voice recording through LinkedIn. And it's so unusual. And to hear the person's voice, you know, to say, hey, Larry, it's B, they'll, they'll just use the company v. So it's like, how are you doing? I was thinking about you, I read this thing in the, I read this thing about your company the other day, and it made me think of you tape Do you remember such and such, and it's just about reigniting that relationship with whatever you have in common from the past, how you met, where you worked. And that's what started your, your reigniting your network, you will find that your first or your next consulting or freelancing, or just any client, it's already there already in your network, you just have to reignite that relationship and really focus on the building of the relationship, don't go just right off the bat pitching your services to somebody, you have to nurture that relationship, which is what that's the name of one of my, my free resources is nurture your network? Because that's what it is, is nurturing relationships. Yeah, it's all about relationships and connection, right? You know, and then kind of building from there. And then once you do have that connection, then, you know, people are more apt to want to help you out and vice versa. Because while they could be a connector for you, you also can probably be a connector for them and kind of help them out in kind. Exactly, exactly. And so you mentioned that going from, you know, working in corporate and then you became a CFO consultant was kind of your first shift, something tells me that there was something after that. Let us know, after that, you know how you hear those stories, like, oh, A Funny Thing Happened on my way to the online world, right? Well, like like many I know that we hear this because it's true, like many consultants are freelancers, you reach a cap, there are only so many hours that you can trade for dollars. And unless you start to maybe like productize. And by productizing. I mean, like maybe even having some sort of like, I will share, I developed this thing that I called my CFO hotline, where it's not limited to trading hours for dollars, but it's, you can kind of come up with a productized or standard offer that you can deliver to a lot more people. So you're not so limited by the hours. But that's still reaches a cap. And so I had heard something, I think I attended a conference in Vegas in 2015. And I had heard someone speak, and she was had this accounting background, very similar to mine. And now she was doing business coaching online. Now at that time, my online presence was on LinkedIn alone, I didn't even have a Facebook profile. And so I was very resistant and shame on me, because I did not see the opportunity that social media could offer to, you know, show up online and have a greater reach and a deeper impact way beyond your geographic location. And so I spoke to her, I then realized that there are all these different business coaches online to help you with to get to accelerate your learning opportunity for online marketing, or social media or email, all these different terms that I didn't even know back then. And so I did my homework, I asked around, I interviewed a few business coaches, and I decided to hire a one on one business coach, at the end of 2015. To help me in accelerate, you know, I mean, if you want to do something and do it, well do it right and do it fast, hire someone who's done it and that you want to kind of either emulate or learn from because you like what they have to offer. And that led me to transition, my consulting business here in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, which was an in person consulting business, to start thinking about how do I deliver that business online. And that's, that led me to realize that there's this whole other world in the online space, that we can deliver a service, a program, you know, whether it's a digital product, a digital course, or an actual service, like my consulting practice, turned 100% remotely, the business side, the business consulting, the CFO consulting that I had started, years prior. And then I started to realize that my accounting contacts started to reach out to me and asked me, How are you doing this? How are you spending? How are you showing up online? How are you creating content, all the how tos, and I saw an opportunity to help my own industry and the accounting, Bookkeeping and Tax Services, to help them to navigate this this online world in a way that could give them the results that they wanted. And I kept emphasizing, you know, content to clients to really focus them on. It's not a waste of time. It's not a waste of your, you know, social media can absolutely work for your business. It can scale your business, but you need to know what to do and how to do it. And that's how transition from CFO consultant to content strategist for accountants, I love it, I love it love it, because I mean, it's like, it's it's so key, you know, because I'm just, you know, it's like, I always tell people, you know, social media presence is very important as well as an email list, I will say. However, you know, when you're, when you're growing a business, like I always try to guide people into having, you know, to not trade time for dollars, right, like you have that you could have as a part of your income stream. But you're gonna want this kind of like asynchronous part of your business as well, that doesn't necessarily need you to run into grow, you know, to scale your business. So I love that. And it's, you know, sort of helping one to one, it's like, it's one to many. And so then, as you were saying, you can impact your reach is so much further, and you can help so many more people. And so, now that you know, you mentioned COVID-19, before, you know, it's still with us, it's not going away, not going away, though, it sounds like, you know, these steps that you took already kind of really positioned you very well for what was to come with the pandemic, but I'm curious, like, you know, how did it impact your business? And did you have to shift or were you already like, you know, 100% online, and you know, your clients still needed your services, or how did that kind of wash out? I love talking about this topic, because in the midst of a pandemic, one of the things that has shown up is that your ability to be fluid and not be so rigid and being wanting to stick to that plan, really gets gets got tested, and it will continue to get tested, I think, but when COVID first when we were first sent home, and that for us was March 16, and 17th, where our governor went on, you know, in every news channel and everywhere social media on TV, and said you got to go home and stay home. The first thing that I thought of was first my, my previous business, my CFO consulting clients that I had had in the past and current, I send an email to all of them. And I just basically said, I'm going to create all these videos to show you how you can set up your team at home, how you can manage online, how you can, you know, still stay connected and not miss a beat. I got busy recording, I want to say almost 20 videos, they were short, you know the how to how to set up what equipment you need, how to set up the equipment, videotaping myself on how, because they didn't even have webcams, you know, they they had they were all you know i in San Francisco, either buildings or what in the in Menlo Park and Mountain View. I'm just going down the list of my clients, San Carlos. They're all like they're going home. They're like, Oh, my God, how are we going to do business? So I would create all these videos, and I just put them in a place. And all of this was for free. I didn't say I'm going to charge you if you pay me. I just did it for free. Aaron, what that did is it created goodwill amongst the clients I already had goodwill with, but in a whole new way. Because they didn't never saw that side of my business. They only saw the you know, the CFO consultant. They didn't see the remote online presence that I had built for my online for my online business. That on the content strategy side. What that did is they started to then I was top of mind, they started to reach out. It's again that how do we how to now they were booking all these strategy calls with me paying those for the strategy calls, getting me on zoom. And now they realized that they had more access to me now than before, because it was so readily available. I had, you know, integrated. My my scheduling system is acuity scheduling. So they could go there schedule, their time, the zoom integration was already there, the merchant processor that they could pay in schedule, and it was all done seamlessly. And they had more access to me than ever before. Now that's on the consulting side, which again, I wasn't trying to grow it but it grew anyways. So I was able to hire some consultants and give them a job during a time when people were getting laid off. And at the same time reaching out to the accounting firms, the bookkeeping, everybody that I could think of, and showing them how they could still service their clients online. And how do they create it? I mean, it was such a crazy time. I don't need my throat felt like sandpaper. I was just and I was just so, you know, I felt this urgency to help them to say, you guys aren't you don't have to go out of business. You don't have to close your doors. You don't have to wait three months or four months from now. We don't know how long we're going to be sent home. I personally I share my life with a scientist who knows way too much about you know, science and He shares it with me. Half the time, I don't understand it. But I understood this, the severity and the seriousness of this, and we try to do our best to share it with our friends and family. But I knew that I couldn't do that with my clients. And the best thing that I could do is to set them up for success. Right off the bat, some of them resisted, because they didn't think it was gonna last that long, they still reached out to me to have me help them a couple of months later. And I still did it not all for free, you know, what I did is I create I pivoted in terms of creating service offers, that would appeal to them, it wasn't going to lock them into a long term contract, it wasn't going to lock them into a three to four month one on one coaching or consulting with me, it was more of like either a one time strategy call, or a they could do like a group like three or four sessions for a price. And again, I it wasn't my intention to lock them into a contract, or the only person that you can work with it was for me to show them how they could work with somebody online, and how they could keep their business going and work with their clients and still keep their teams employed. Right? I mean, you saw a need, you saw, like, this hole, right, that needed to be filled. So it's like the pandemic came along. And like you were saying, a lot of people were not equipped to handle it. Right. A lot of people were not online, you know, I mean, my goodness, your clients didn't even have webcams. So it's just, you know, they would have just been just floundering without your help. And the fact that you got to work immediately saw the need, how can I serve? This is how I can help. I mean, that is, to me, that is the epitome of a true entrepreneur, of you know, how can I serve my audience? How can I serve my community? And is that like, it's the know, like, and trust factor, and that you exactly, just, you know, hit it out of the park, you know, with that, because that connection got that much deeper, and your value became that much more apparent. So, so I love that. And it's just the more stories I hear of how entrepreneurs have shifted during COVID-19. It's just amazing, you know, and there's so many people who are like, I never would have made this a part of my business model. But now, I can't imagine it not being a part of my business model. Right? Exactly, exactly. We just don't even know how we're going to react or show up, you know, and asking ourselves, I think that during that this pandemic, us thinking about how can I be of service? How can I help you, it really takes that precedence over, oh, I'm afraid of going live, or I'm afraid of doing a video or the, you know, worrying about ourselves? or How do I look? How do I sound instead of being like, Who needs to hear me, who needs my service, who needs to, you know, my knowledge, my experience, my how to training today, focusing on the other person who needs you more than what you look like or sound like, Man, that's just like, the most incredible thing for for an entrepreneur to experience? It really is. And so I would like to know, you know, as you kind of went through all of this and grew your company, like, what tool or process like change your business for the better. So, you know, maybe there is tips to grow an engaged audience, that'd be super helpful for those listening. And also, you mentioned that you had hired some consultants to help you with the workload that you were experiencing. So I love for you to talk a little bit about that as well, like, no show, when do you know it's time to bring on help? And how do you do that? I'm gonna share the process that I started to, to recognize first, and then I'll go into the hiring. But the, for the process, it was more of like, I'm not going to say the tool, but it's that the process of creating shareable content, especially for the audience that I serve, which is you know, those accounting, bookkeeping tax, traditionally, these are industries that may or may be called a little boring, a little dry, drop my attorneys to I love the attorneys. And they're also, you know, or they think that by sharing a publication or another tax code, or that here's the deadline, that that was their way of creating good content. And it's an education process, you know, it's shareable content is the combination of a little bit of story, a little bit of, you know, some valuable tip or a deadline or the How to, and then asking the question, so you they, you can start and continue the conversation. And that I saw that was one of the biggest, you know, just sort of like an educational piece for for that industry and other industries, too. I'm going to also call out like the insurance industry of the world. There are the non creative industries that really they don't know how to show up online. And when I talk about shareable content, I'll often reference like a carousel and how they can, you know, each slide could be like, I call it I guess, an arc, whether it's you know, Having a question or a statement, and then sharing the tips and maybe having a highlighting a case study or an example, and then have a simple call to action that people can engage with. And that's been a little bit of, it's been a learning curve for folks. And so I'm constantly trying to translate that into something that they could, that they could sort of like, recognize and embrace. And the thing that the thing that has been sticking, Aaron, I would have never in a million years guessed that this would have been it. I explained to them, Do you ever watch reality TV? And at least they they all watch one show one show, I only need them to watch one reality TV show for me to then be able to say, you know how there'll be a confessional? And you never hear the question, but you hear the person responding and talking about the the thing that they were just asked, but you never hear the question. Basically, that is valuable content. If I asked you, what's one of the most important deadlines that's coming up, and why should I care? I mean, once we did that, it just clicked for people, because almost everybody watches at least one reality TV show right? Now, that's such a good example. Because like, Oh, is that all I have to do? Yeah, just pretend somebody just asked you a question. And then film yourself. Or so many people are shy, right? It's like, go into a picture and do a voiceover. And so that's been a really big deal of just finding what can I explain to them. So there's no resistance there. Because there is resistance to being on camera, or you know, filming yourself. And they're like, not wanting to dance and like, you don't have to do any of that. Here's how you can do it. So shareable content, to me is just the content that people are going to be like, Oh, you're gonna need to know that or I need to save it for later. That's why I love carousel posts myself for that I just started to see a big difference in my insights on Instagram, as well as on LinkedIn people just kind of like on in LinkedIn. Aaron, people don't like to leave a lot of comments, but they'll send you a direct message. I think it's because people don't want you to don't want others to see what their question or the comment is for fear that no one no one's paying that much attention to your stuff. Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah, focusing on themselves, though. Exactly. Exactly. And I would say from for the hiring piece, when when you start to realize that you're doing something like a repetitive task, that you think somebody else could be doing it or something that I because I come from that CFO, money, accounting background, I'm constantly calculating, like, how much is my time worth? And could I be paying somebody else to do that task that I'm doing, I do not need to be researching hashtags. I do not need to be looking for stock photos that will fit you know, that Facebook ad, just right? I can videotape myself loom I do the paid version of loom to videotape myself, as well as my desktop or show examples has been the main thing that I train people with. And I'm going to say when I go to hire, and I put together a small project in a, you know, videotape myself, and I'll put some milestones or some overall, describing the project. And I will give more than one person the exact same project, whether I'm going to Fiverr Upwork, or I'm actually getting a referral, I'll give that same exact project, which will be small, it's not a huge investment, it could be something as small as you know, hey, go go curate about 20 stock photos for me that will go with these 10 captions that I've written. In LC, I'm not only looking for the quality of work, I'm looking for communication, I'm looking for who asked really good questions, who meets the deadline, and ultimately, who delivers what I asked for, and followed the instructions. And a lot of times, when you find somebody that you can get most of those things with, hire them to then do a little bit more and a little bit more. Don't try to get them to do it all at once. You yourself have to know how much bandwidth you have in order to train someone. Because how often do we hear? I don't have time to train somebody. Right? Okay, but you have time to hit that, you know, share the screen, record your screen, record yourself and the screen most most video things can do that now where you're actually talking to the camera and talking through what it is that you're doing. So record yourself doing the task, and then give them that task. You don't need to give them even the entire project. But yeah, it's I love that. Do you have those typically are the sources that you go to when you're kind of outsourcing these tasks, like do you kind of like have someone dedicated that is more, you know, a staffer, and then but then you kind of outsource smaller tasks via fiber and that sort of thing. Yes, I one of my team's team members has been with me for over three years and she started out with maybe five hours a week. And I did what I just talked about. And as I saw, not everything that I've given her she was great at. And so once I found out what our strengths were, then I've given her more and more. But sometimes I'll have like one off projects, like whether it's maybe I'm running out of time, and I have I wrote an article in December, but I had no time to really edit it and, and fine tune it. So I did hire someone to fine tune it for me. And that was a one off project. But I already have those people in my sort of like in my resource toolbox, because I've tested them before. Or if it's a spreadsheet that I was creating, again, I was creating it for this community, I created the the baseline, but then I needed someone to come and finish formatting it for me or give me a tab with either some comments and notes. And so I will do maybe the bulk, or I'll then pass the baton and ask somebody else to finish the project. or other times, I will say I've had somebody helped me with a bigger project and just write some captions for me for a very specific launch or an email sequence that I was working on. Now, I think that's great. And I'm so glad that you shared that because I think so many people. I mean, it's so easy to have that mentality of like, if you want it done, right, do it yourself, you know, and that it's like you don't have time to train. And then also some people, they don't want to ask for help, you know, they just try to they try to handle everything themselves. But you cannot truly scale a business No. That way, you know, so I love that you talk about that. And that you that specific of the steps that you took to do so I think so many people just get stagnant, you know, exactly in their business without it. So. And I will say I think one other resource that you could tap into is just asking other colleagues or in your in Facebook group communities or LinkedIn groups, asking for them to recommend someone not to say is there a VA out there that focuses on you know, that knows kajabi really well or some software tool that you're using? Instead ask them to refer someone that they would recommend? Because the that personal referral is worth gold? It the trick there in order, the key thing is is that for them to recommend someone else not themselves. Right. Yeah. Now that makes perfect sense. And did you follow a similar path when you were looking for a business coach, as well? Because I think that's another form of help, right that people need? Oh, yes, absolutely. Especially because I, I knew the kind of personality that I work well with. And so I was looking for somebody that really knew their stuff and had testimonials, yes, but social proof and also had that background, I wanted someone with corporate background had that had transition online, because then I would know that they had done it and that there was a way that they could speak to me that would resonate with what I wanted to do. So I'd asked a lot. I mean, it took me probably three to five weeks to between when I started asking, you know, going to people's websites, following them a little bit. And then booking some calls, to just ask questions and go through the process, and then finally hire the person that I hired. Okay, yeah. So I think that that's so key, you know, it's like whatever, just for people to sit down and figure out the trajectory that their business is on the goals they want to accomplish this year, this quarter. And reverse engineer and I bet you so many times, it's gonna need additional help from others, other you know, someone to help you out with what you need to get done, or someone that's gone before you that you can learn exactly. And I think that's, you know, you hit the nail on the head when you're like, I was looking at somebody who had already done what I wanted to do, because there's a lot of people, people have to be careful, especially when they are looking for a business coach, that the coach has actually accomplished what they are looking to accomplish and didn't just kind of get a quick certification or something like that. Exactly, exactly. And I think that's where my my corporate background has also served me well in terms of having that foundation and structure and running businesses. Knowing that it does take an investment in not only yourself, your personal development, professional development, but also learning new, new techniques, new tools, and you're going to have to invest if you want to run and scale a successful business. You have to continue to invest, whether it's in tools or your own development, and learning how to do things through digital courses, group programs, coaching, mentorship, masterminds, there's just so much available to us. There really is and so I always you know, I love that. You know, when I hear people say and I've said it too, like, if you You don't know something? And then you know someone asks you about it, you're like, well, I don't know, that's just laziness. Because the information is out there, you can figure it out, you can know that. Whether it's, you know, as you said, digital course your own research, what have you. And so as you're, you know, you're handling a lot, you're growing your own company have other things going on in your life, like, like, what are the daily routines that help your business and, and personal success? You know, some people, you know, they they work out every day, they have a gratitude journal, like, what do you incorporate into your routine, a part of my daily routine is something that was instilled in me by my grandmother from early early on, and that's having that gratitude in the morning, you know, starting off the day with gratitude, but not just for the big things, but for the small things. And, you know, that sets the tone for for me to just wake up with a very positive mindset, and, and get myself right and ready to face the day. Because no one no two days look alike for me. But part of that is also having a routine. And I say this, and sometimes people don't understand it, but I'll say, structure gives me freedom. And by having a structured morning, whether it's, I wake up at the same time, you know, the shower, getting ready, eating breakfast with my partner, and I'm very lucky that he loves to cook. So he cooks breakfast every single morning, very nice that scientists of mine. Yeah, but also starting, you know, our day with our dog, we don't have kids. And so it's just Eric and I and our dog, Coco. But starting every day together as a family, even sometimes we're having breakfast at 645 7am. But we're early risers, and we didn't know we're both getting our day off on the right foot and we take our dog for a walk. But just having a little bit of that from time for myself, not social media, I don't hit my phone first thing in the morning, you know, time for myself getting ready, being in gratitude. And then taking care of my health by eating really healthy, a healthy breakfast, and then going on a walk with cocoa in my in my partner, you know, that allows me to know that my priorities have been taken care of first, and then I'm ready to go, I go to work, I go and check in on my team. And then I because everybody's at at different times timezone. But between my morning routine, and my evening routine, which includes setting up my my task list or my blog, I do time blocking on my calendar, which is also linked to my Asana project management system, which is also linked to acuity. So I know what's available to me the next day what I need to focus on, and adopting that mindset of wait to worry, you know, let's just focus on what's what's ahead of us, and really give our be present and give it our all for what's in front of us and not worry about what do I have to do on Friday? Guess I oh my gosh, I could talk about time blocking and Asana gave me Sorry. I know, I know, I wasn't a fan of Asana. At first, I was like, I don't want to have one more thing to learn. And then I invested in a course. And it changed everything. And I got it for my team as well. It's like this is what we're doing for our clients for ourselves. And it up leveled our business for sure. Yeah, no, it is a great, great, great tool. And, you know, I, you know, I time block my calendar. And it's, it's great, because then you just know, it's so efficient, right? So you know, for one thing to the next instead of like, Okay, well, I finished that. And now Why should I worry? You know, it's everything is laid out for you? Yeah, yeah. And then with the routines that you're doing, you know that start your day, then it's like, you're you can be so much more intentional, you know, with how your day is going. So, as you're looking forward, tell us like what are the goals? What is the vision for your business as you continue to grow? I definitely retired some things in 2020. And so the focus in 2021 is to continue working with my niche of accountants, tax preparers, and bookkeepers, to help them to either train themselves or train someone on their team to handle content creation, and really focusing on creating that killer piece of content to then have this whole plan of action to repurpose that content in order for them to stretch the life of that initial, you know, that core piece of content that they're creating. So there's going to be a, I've got a, a workshop coming out, that's going to be more on on demand, it's not going to be live. And that's again, knowing what my my people my niche is heading into tax season. And so if they're looking at something they don't want to attend a live webinar, so knowing your people knowing your niche, knowing their behavior really helps out in what you're going to roll out and for me, I'll be rolling out in the first quarter of 2021, a workshop that's focused on that killer Have you know how to create that killer pillar content? And then that'll lead into the summer, which will be a more in, I would say more inclusive course digital course along with like, you know, office hours to be able to help them. How do they repurpose that content that they've spent so much time creating in order to convert the content into clients? Because at the end of the day, we need clients to have a business. Right, exactly. Yeah. It's so great how you're like, Listen, you know, your audience know who you're serving. And then you can come up with different solutions, right? Because it's like, not one size fits. All right. And so right to some people may need this help in this way in this platform. No. And that's great that you're, you're doing it that way. Okay, so where can people find you online. So my, my, my home base would be my website, Veronica Saiga steamy, calm. And on my home site, on my homepage, you can find all kinds of free resources. And there's going to be a bunch of stuff coming out in 2021. So that's where I would want people to go to because my social media handles are there too. So you can come on over and say, Hello, I love hearing from people. I still answer all my direct messages, because I carve out time on the calendar to do that. You got a time block? Yeah, yeah, for sure. I love it. So we end every podcast episode with the same question. Which is, if you could only listen to one music artists for the rest of your life, who would it be? That is such an impossible question. I understand. And I'm so glad that it's hypothetical. I would say so I have I do have a group. And I have a genre, that the group would be the beegees. All right. You know, that speaks to like being a teenager and in, you know, going to dance classes and you know, being in the disco era, but it's still to this day, Eric, and I love the Bee Gees and we, you know, like dancing to them and we enjoy their music a whole lot. But when it comes to the genre, I'm gonna share that as well. Because it's a you know, it's it's Prince b 52, Cyndi Lauper, Tom Tom Club, you know, it's just such good music. Good. So good. Okay, I love that question. That's such a fun question. I mean, it's like it gives you a peek, a sneak peek into somebody's personality just by sharing their music taste jazz, for sure. And what is yours? What is yours? So minus the Beastie Boys? Oh, come on. I can't I mean, it's a good one. Yeah. And I think Joey's is Led Zeppelin Is that right? Yeah, let's Oh, my goodness, it's excellent. So we're, I can't I meant to do this over the winter break. And I didn't get to it. But we're creating a playlist on Spotify, with all the entrepreneurs that we've had on, and we're gonna put all of their favorites in there. And then we're gonna release I love it. Oh, I can't wait. I love that. I love playlists on Spotify. Because, again, you know, you just get exposed to all these different musicians and music styles. So I look forward to that. Yeah, it's gonna be great. And I think, you know, it's music that people that that are, like you and I, who have this ambition and are growing something great. And it's music that fuels them, you know, so I think that'll be great for people. I had so much fun talking with you. Likewise. Thank you, Aaron. Thank you. Thank you for coming on and taking the time. I really, really appreciate it. You've been so helpful to so many people who are listening right now. Oh, it's great to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Thanks for tuning in to the Small Business big mindset podcast. To keep the fun going. Check out our Facebook group start and scale an online business For even more free trainings and resources from fellow entrepreneurs. If you haven't already, head on over to Muscle Creative calm and click subscribe to join our email list for weekly updates. And if you've enjoyed this podcast episode, check us out on your favorite podcast platform to follow us and give us a review. As always be authentic. bring an insane amount of value and keep crushing it