Small Business Growth: Getting Unstuck, Patience, Marketing Strategies | Wayne Mullins

Discover the essence of entrepreneurship with Wayne Mullins, the visionary CEO of Ugly Mug Marketing. Wayne's journey from a young lawn care entrepreneur to a seasoned business leader is packed with wisdom on patience and the importance of sticking to time-tested business principles. He reveals how understanding when to push forward and when to pivot can be the key to navigating the turbulent waters of entrepreneurship. Through his personal stories, Wayne paints a vivid picture of how impatience can be both a hurdle and a teacher in the entrepreneurial landscape.

Our conversation with Wayne dives into the heart of what drives successful business endeavors—freedom and passion over profit. Wayne shares how his early experiences, including the influence of Zig Ziglar, shaped his approach to business. He emphasizes the power of prioritizing customer needs and aligning business goals with those insights, which can lead to genuine and sustainable growth. Wayne’s transition from a lawn care business to founding a marketing agency serves as a powerful case study on the broader implications of marketing and the critical need for operational excellence before embarking on grand marketing plans.

For those looking to make their mark, Wayne provides hands-on advice for defining your customer avatar and making your brand stand out in a crowded field. He introduces the "magic journal page" exercise, a tool for understanding customers more intimately, and stresses the importance of being different rather than just better. Wayne’s insights on marketing's delayed impact highlight the necessity of patience and experimentation. As we conclude the episode, we express our gratitude to Wayne for his invaluable contributions and encourage listeners to immerse themselves in more episodes filled with rich insights and guidance for entrepreneurial success.

Wayne Mullins: CEO and Founder of Ugly Mug Marketing

Website: https://www.uglymugmarketing.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fireyourself/

#MarketingStrategies #GetUnstuck #BusinessGrowth #EntrepreneurJourney #PatienceInBusiness #SmallBusinessGrowth #EntrepreneurLife #BusinessStrategy #BusinessSuccess #Entrepreneurship #BusinessPodcast #PodcastEpisode #SmallBusinessPivots #Success #BusinessOwners #ZigZiglar #MichaelDMorrison #OklahomaCity #BOSS #EntrepreneurAdvice #WayneMullins 

Chapters

• 0:00 Small Business Success and Patience
• 3:57 Entrepreneurial Mindset and Growth
• 13:37 Marketing and Business Success
• 19:18 Targeting Customers and Standing Out
• 26:23 Marketing Mindset and Business Pivots
• 38:03 Final Goodbye and Moving Forward

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All right, welcome to another Small Business, pivots. We have another special guest from around the world and I know, as I always say, that business owners are the only ones that can say their name and their company name like they want to. So I will let you introduce yourself, your company, where you're from.

Speaker 2: 0:17

Thank you so much, Michael. My name is Wayne Mullins. I am the founder and I guess you could say CEO of this company called Ugly Mug Marketing.

Speaker 1: 0:26

Cool. Wow, that sounds not too pretty, but it looks pretty behind you. For those that aren't watching, it's a beautiful background of colors and things, so I'm anxious to hear what that is. What do you think we're going to help our listeners with today?

Speaker 2: 0:41

I think number one just getting unstuck. I think you know I have been out of school, out of university if you will, for man. Time flies 23, 24 years and during that entire time I've only worked as an employee for someone else, for a total of about two and a half years. So the rest of that time I've been my own boss, I've been self-employed and I've had successes and I've had failures in this thing we call entrepreneurship, and lots of scrapes and bruises and lots of successes as well.

Speaker 1: 1:13

Wow, this, this will be fun. So let's introduce our show and then we'll be right back. Welcome to Small Business Pivots, a podcast designed for small business owners. I'm your host, michael Morrison. A podcast designed for small business owners. I'm your host, michael Morrison, a small business coach and founder of BOSS, where we make business ownership simplified for success, so that you can own a business that runs without you. To learn more, go to businessownershipsimplifiedcom. All right, welcome back to Small Business Pivots. My friend, where would you like to start today? You said you've been beaten up and bruised and got your fair share of bloody noses. Anything you'd like to start with before we get into the meat of getting unstuck?

Speaker 2: 1:55

important that we learn to have patience with ourselves. I think maybe it's just here in the Western world that we are very impatient. We want results yesterday, and the person that we beat up the most, the person that we get frustrated with the most, is often the person who looks back at us in the mirror every day. So you know, for me in those early days I wish someone had told me just to be patient. You know that doesn't mean you don't work hard, that doesn't mean you don't have big ambitions, big goals. But to be patient, and the other part of that is to don't try to reinvent the wheel. Right, don't try to reinvent the wheel. There's some fundamental things in business that for years I spent trying to prove that I was smarter than those things, trying to prove that I knew better. And those years were some of the most painful, not just in terms of business and slow growth, but because of that they became very painful in my personal and family life as well.

Speaker 1: 3:05

That's interesting. You say that because I can relate, and I'm sure our listeners can too, to being impatient. So, following on that, I do have a question what are your thoughts on when do you run out of patience? So, in other words, when do you? You know, a lot of times they say, hey, you got to let this kind of play itself out to see the results. Do you have a time period, or is it just a gut feeling? How do you handle that Like when is enough enough?

Speaker 2: 3:34

Yeah, I don't know that there's one a one size fits all answer to that, and the reason is, as I've grown a few different businesses over those 20 plus years, that has been different in every business that I've been a part of.

Speaker 2: 3:47

In other words, the length of time that I needed to be patient, that I needed to wait it out, that I needed to hang in there a bit longer, was different in every single one of those, I think.

Speaker 2: 3:57

At the end of the day, though, I think the absolute best place to start isn't necessarily with your vision or with your grand idea for a product or service, but rather it's with an understanding of the person or the people that you feel called to serve, whether that's through a product or through a service. I think so often in those early days, we get so wrapped up in our vision that we lose sight of the very people who are going to give us the money to survive. We get so wrapped up in getting all the things right, doing all the million different things we have to do as entrepreneurs, and the thing that we neglect first are the customers. Now, I don't mean we don't fulfill the orders, I just simply mean we lose sight of their pain points, their frustrations, their goals, their desires, and the more we're in tune with that, the more clear that path to whether you call it freedom, prosperity, success, whatever you want to call it. The more clear we are with the clients or customers we serve, the clearer that other path comes to us.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Great advice. Speaking of paths you mentioned, you barely started adulting before you started your entrepreneur journey. So what kind of upbringing did you have that kind of got you in that entrepreneurial spirit?

Speaker 2: 5:22

Yeah, I would say, michael, that for me, you in that entrepreneurial spirit. Yeah, I would say, michael, that for me, I just grew up working. I grew up working from the age of probably 11 or 12 years old. My parents didn't have a lot of money and so that meant that if I wanted something I had to earn money and go buy it myself. And so, 11 or 12 years old, a friend of mine, he'd come over to play. We found this old scrap piece of plywood and we literally spray painted on their yard work, put my parents' phone number on there and, lo and behold, within a few days we got a call and that began a lawn business that I would basically manage and run all the way through college to earn extra money. I also worked in construction, did lots of different jobs along the way, so I was able, and fortunate, because of all that work, to see kind of the insides of a lot of different businesses, and I think that's really what sparked my curiosity about entrepreneurship.

Speaker 1: 6:18

So would you say you had the right mindset to start? Because I know a lot of people I talk to. They're like, oh, I wish I could start my business, or I just don't know if I'm qualified. So what, at such a young age, did you say I'm qualified to do this?

Speaker 2: 6:35

I don't know that there's I'm qualified to do this. I don't know if that thought ran through my head. What really ran through my head was this that there are people with a lot of problems and there are people with problems that they're willing to pay other people money to solve those problems for them. And cutting grass was was that so? The first quote unquote lawn customer I had was actually an elderly person that lived across the street. Her husband had passed away and she couldn't cut the grass. She didn't know how to use the lawn equipment, and so it was like here's this person with a problem and, honestly, what began as just charity, right To go help, and she would then give me money for helping. I didn't ask her for money, she gave me money. That was kind of the the light bulb, I guess, is like huh, this is interesting. People have problems. They want those problems fixed. They're willing to give money which I won't in exchange for those. What problems can I solve?

Speaker 1: 7:31

Yeah, so what was your first business venture, other than the lawnmowing, once you got out of college? And what did you go to college for, by the way?

Speaker 2: 7:39

So I do have a degree in business with a specialization in marketing. Okay, so that was my degree. So during college I got out of school and during the midst of college, at some point I was introduced to this gentleman of the name Zig Ziglar. Oh wow, Never heard of him. Yeah, If someone listening or watching has not heard of him, go Google him, look him up on YouTube, follow him. Amazing guy. So he turned me onto the profession of selling. So when I left school I went into selling. That's what I did.

Speaker 2: 8:13

Um, I spent about two and a half years in sales and then I had this dangerous idea. So I had a corporate sales job at that point, Monday through Friday, eight to five. Um call, I was doing advertising sales, all the benefits, making pretty good money for that age. And then I had this dangerous idea of you know what? What if I went and did something for myself? Like, would my income be capped? Would it be based on how long I'm here? Would it be based on this person's been here before me? So they're up next for promotion, Right? So I want to escape all that. It wasn't that I hated my job, it wasn't that I hated my boss, it was more so for me, like I wanted, the freedom to control my potential. That's what I wanted, and so I actually started back at Lawn and Landscape Company, left that job.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Left that job and, much to the dismay of my parents, left that great corporate sales job and went back and sat on a lawnmower. There is no qualification, there is no patch, there is no license. It's just do it. If you want to own a business, learn how to start one and just start it. And what I find amazing, almost every business owner that I've talked to, it was for the freedom. And for those that don't own a business, they think it's we probably started it for the money. And I've yet to talk to a business owner that it was truly for the money, it was a passion, it was for freedom, it was a lifestyle, but it wasn't truly just for the money. Would you agree with that?

Speaker 2: 9:56

I do agree, and what I've discovered is that there's actually two different types of freedom. I discovered this because, you know again, I started that lawn and landscape company and then I sold that company and that turned into consulting, which then turned into the agency I have now. But what I discovered in hindsight, looking back and working with so many entrepreneurs over the years, is this that there's two different freedoms, and one of those is freedom from and the other one is freedom to. Now the distinction is very, very subtle. Oftentimes people end up as quote-unquote entrepreneurs because they want freedom from.

Speaker 2: 10:35

I want freedom from my boss telling me when to show up. I want freedom from all the gossip, all the politics in the office. I want freedom from the job I hate. That is the wrong reason to go down the entrepreneurial path. The other freedom is freedom to. I want freedom to be able to control my schedule. I want freedom to. So it's very, very subtle and it's a very fine line, but you have to look inside and intrinsically determine am I just trying to escape from something? Because if all I'm doing is trying to escape from that thing, when you start your business you just thought your boss was bad before. Your boss is about to get a lot worse.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Yep.

Speaker 2: 11:17

Amen yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:19

And so that.

Speaker 2: 11:21

That, to me, is that subtle distinction, that fine line right there that I think is so important for people who are in that phase of considering to explore.

Speaker 1: 11:31

Well said, Well said. So you started your agency and it's not ugly by any means looking at the background you have. So tell us a little bit how you got into that. We mentioned, or we've talked you know, before that you were kind of in that stuck stage for a while. So let's start there, because that's where most of our listeners are. And how did you transition into getting to the next level? Because when you get stuck you're like literally stuck in a business. I know I've been a business owner since the nineties. What did you do to kind of get past that hump?

Speaker 2: 12:06

Yeah, great question, and what I would say is this that I think all entrepreneurs get stuck and they get stuck at various points and stages and I can come back to explaining how that plays out, but for me, so whenever I sold the lawn and landscape company for context, I grew that company over the course of three years. We were the largest lawn and landscape company in our entire region. I put the company up for sale in December, worst time of the year to ever sell a company in that space right, because grass isn't growing.

Speaker 1: 12:38

There's no business.

Speaker 2: 12:39

Yeah, revenue's down from what it is in the summer. I listed it with a national business broker. Revenues down from what it is in the summer. I listed it with a national business broker and, much to my surprise, within a couple of weeks I had three different offers for the company and so sold that company. But an interesting thing happened, michael, during the course of growing that company so rapidly, I started having business owners reach out to me and say, hey look, I don't really know you, but I've seen, you know you've gone from one or two trucks to now you've got multiple crews, you're maintaining the biggest accounts right, the biggest properties around. What do you do, like, how are you growing? And so that turned into these consulting jobs, which then, after I sold the other, the Lawn and Landscape company, I didn't know what I was going to do, but these consulting jobs kind of piqued this idea, this curiosity what if I did this full-time? What if I turned this into an agency? So for the first, I wish I could tell you it was shorter than this, but for the first seven years of this business. So we're going on 16 years now.

Speaker 2: 13:37

For the first seven years it was an immense struggle, like the first business, the first business I grew the Lawn, the lawn landscape. Success came easy. I mean literally from startup to multiple crews, all the best accounts in town in a three-year period, and then having multiple people compete to buy the company came very easily. When I started this, things didn't happen that way. I was very stubborn, I was very set in my ways and I had lost sight of that. One thing I mentioned earlier I was more focused on what I wanted than what the customers wanted, and so, to briefly kind of peel back the layers here, what had enabled me to grow the lawn care business so quickly was a very specific type of marketing. Business so quickly was a very specific type of marketing.

Speaker 2: 14:24

So whenever I started this business the agency I wanted other people to use this same approach because I knew it worked. I was, you know, I believed it would work. I was willing to stand for that it would work, but it was so different from what they were used to they didn't want it, and so I would spend meeting after meeting trying to convince all these other business owners to try this method, and they would say, no, I don't want to do that, but can you help with this or can you help with that? And I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that stuff right. I know this stuff works sell them what they want and then figure out how to give them what they actually need. So for me, that took years of getting over my own ego and my own stubbornness and listening to what they had to say.

Speaker 1: 15:16

That's great advice. Well, let's talk about your agency, because it's marketing, and I know a lot of small business owners struggle with marketing. Where do you want to start? Because that's a big, big part of business.

Speaker 2: 15:30

Yeah, what I would say is this that, first of all, most people don't even understand what marketing is, so that is the best place to start. Most entrepreneurs use marketing and advertising as interchangeable words, and they're not. They're two different things. Advertising is merely one piece of marketing. Marketing encompasses everything, and when I say everything, let me explain what I mean by everything. The way you answer your phone is marketing. The way you respond or don't respond to someone's email is marketing. The smudges on your front door at your business those are marketing something. They're communicating a message to someone. The fact that your restrooms are clean or dirty is marketing. All of these things are marketing. And yet, as entrepreneurs, we get so hung up on. So I challenge people look, if things aren't going well, let's first look at all these other pieces and components.

Speaker 2: 16:36

Several years back, we had this very, very popular restaurant. I say popular. We're in a small community, so there's not that many local restaurants, but it's a local restaurant with a long history here. They came to us and they were getting ready to launch an entire new restaurant new building, new branding, new image. And they came to us and said look, we want y'all to be our partner, we want y'all to handle all the rollout, all the publicity, all the stuff. And so we go back and we start digging in before we commit to working with them. And we look online and back then Yelp was the number one place for people to leave reviews and their reviews were 3.2 stars out of five. And so we go back to them and we say, look, we would be honored to be your partner and to roll this out and get all the shiny stuff and get all the attention.

Speaker 2: 17:22

But it looks like you have another issue going on. You think you're here, you think you're five stars, but the market is telling us you're 3.2. So we can argue all day long that these few people and there was way more than a few are crazy, but the numbers would indicate, on average, this is where you sit, this is where you stand. So we can talk about marketing all day long, but part of your marketing is your service, your food, the quality, the speed, all that stuff. So we have to start there. So for those listening, what I would say is, yes, advertising is important, yes, getting your message out there is important. But if you're getting your message out there and you're not returning phone calls, you're not responding to emails in a timely manner. You're not filling orders in a timely manner. All the marketing in the world isn't going to save you. All the advertising is not going to save you.

Speaker 1: 18:15

No one's ever said it like that Appreciate that. That was a great breakdown and a differentiation. So where would a small business owner? You're listening to Small Business Pivots. This episode is proudly brought to you by BOSS, where business ownership is simplified for success. By Boss, where business ownership is simplified for success. At Boss, we help business owners create their businesses to run smoothly without them being there 24-7. Our seasoned business coaches, who have walked the path themselves, provide invaluable guidance and support and with additional services like fast business loans some approved within 24 to 48 hours, past business loans some approved within 24 to 48 hours comprehensive online courses, detailed workbooks and engaging classes, boss offers a wealth of resources to help you succeed. Discover how small business success begins with Boss at businessownershipsimplifiedcom.

Speaker 1: 19:08

If you're enjoying the podcast, make sure to stay connected by hitting that subscribe button, giving us a thumbs up or leaving a positive review. Your support keeps us going. Now let's get back to our incredible guest. So where would a small business owner start? Because there's a lot of noise out there, you should be doing this and you should be doing that, and take yourself back to the early days when you were stuck trying to make a name for yourself. What are some things that they should be focused on now, because it's all important, but, as a business owner, we only have so much time.

Speaker 2: 19:43

Yeah, 100%. So the very first thing to focus on is back to your customer. Who are they? Where do they live, where do they work, where do they show up? Where are they getting their information from? Where do they work, where do they show up, where are they getting their information from? And I can dive into all this in detail. You can go Google search customer avatar or customer avatar worksheet, or reach out to us. We'll send you one.

Speaker 2: 20:03

It's completely free, like go, complete one of these things, because what we want to do is we want to get a crystal clear picture of who that person is. You know, let's just say, michael, that you and I we're business people here. We're like you know what. We're going to go into the grass-fed, grass-finished business. Right, we're going to open a ranch. We're going to sell grass-fed, grass-finished beef. That's what we're going to do. What good would it do for us to advertise to vegetarians or to vegans?

Speaker 2: 20:35

And yet business owner after business owner spend their time, their energy and their resources and their money, which they don't have a lot of marketing to the wrong people. We have to get crystal clear about who those people are and then, once we know who they are, we know where they consume their content. Is it Facebook? Is it TikTok? Is it Instagram? Is it YouTube? Is it none of those? And then we show up where they are. Now, when we show up where they are, the next piece of that is we have to speak in a way that means something to them. And one super quick thing here is when we build out a customer avatar, which is all of this like analytical type of information. It gets us thinking very logically about our customers. The problem with that is most people the vast majority do not buy based on logic. They buy based on emotion, and when we approach our marketing and advertising from a logical perspective, we are not communicating in the way they're buying.

Speaker 2: 21:38

So the simple exercise that we teach people to do is this. We call it the magic journal page exercise. So what you're going to do is you're going to pull out a sheet of paper and you are going to write a journal page as if you are your customer. You want to talk in terms of what it feels like to wake up in the morning and have a sick kid. You want to talk about how your boss is wondering when the report's going to come in, but you've got a sick kid over here. You want to talk about how there's stress around money right now because the economy's bad or whatever the things may be. You want to pour yourself into their mindset, write a page as if you were them and then, if you turn around and go write your ad, write your Facebook post. It is night and day different than the way you would write it just based on analytical facts.

Speaker 1: 22:29

Absolutely. Yeah, that's a good point. We worked with an attorney not too long ago and they were. Of course they had all the full-page ads and the prominent magazines and all that good stuff, but when we started working with them, their actual target audience were uneducated people. Uneducated people, in other words, teenagers, young adults that maybe had a criminal record. Those are two different love languages, if you want to call it that. I mean one's kind of a prominent, well-spoken drives, cadillacs and rolls. You know that. And then the other one is barely making payroll, barely making ends meet, and don't have the same vocabulary that the others do, and so you're. You're right on point there. What would be the next thing after we get our avatar, complete, our ideal customer? What would you suggest that they look into with the limited time that they have and resources?

Speaker 2: 23:29

Absolutely. I think the the biggest takeaway if I could give just one, if I had to summarize it to one takeaway is this when it comes to your advertising or marketing, you can't think better. You have to think different. So I see this time and time again our best salesperson for our entire company is the competitor of the person who reaches out to us. So what happens is Sally across the street, who owns the local coffee shop across the street. Her competitor three blocks over just gets a new website. Sally sees it and says, wow, their website's amazing. Look at ours. Ours looks like garbage. Let me call Ugly Mug across the street and say, hey, we need a new website.

Speaker 2: 24:13

You cannot out better your competition. You can out different your competition. So, when it comes to your marketing and the pieces you're creating, if you want the best case study on what to do, go look at like if you're doing facebook. Go look at what they're doing on facebook and then do something that's completely different than what your competitors are doing. Because in this world and you mentioned it in this world there's so much noise, there's so much chaos. The only hope we have is to stand out. That is the only hope you have as an entrepreneur, you cannot blend in. You must stand out with your messaging. There's too many other messages that are too similar and you will spend too much time trying to convince them why you are better than the competitors. But when you communicate how you are different, it cuts through the noise. They know why they should hand you the money instead of your competitor.

Speaker 1: 25:20

Going back to your reference of patience, what is kind of a typical timeline of so we do some trial and error, some posts, some things like that, trying to connect with our prospects? What's kind of a timeline before we go yeah, that's not working, we need to shift some things. Is there anything kind of best practices in marketing that we kind of a timeline before we go yeah, that's not working, we need to shift some things. Is there anything kind of best practices in marketing that we kind of give it at least this amount of time?

Speaker 2: 25:39

The answer is it's going to vary based on the industry. However, what I can tell you across the board and over the last 16 years I've worked with thousands of entrepreneurs At any point in time we have roughly 120 active clients that we're working with in lots of different dozens of different industries. At one point, and what I can tell you is this is that most entrepreneurs are not patient enough with the ads, with the things they're doing right. So just when things could possibly start working, we're tired of seeing it. That's been up for three weeks. We're like can't we do something new? Can't we do something different? Like it's time to change it. We've got to learn to be more patient with those things. The two other things I'll mention number one and again, this varies greatly, but as a general rule, what you're doing today marketing advertising wise you probably will not see the benefits of that for six weeks. That's again a good general. So the work I'm doing today I'm not doing the work today for a client today I'm doing the work today for a client six, six weeks from now. That's the mindset we have to have. We have to be thinking this is for six weeks in the future. So if I'm not doing anything today. My business still may be good today because of what I did six weeks ago, but if I stop doing it today, six weeks in the future, it's going to start drying up. Now again, that timeframe varies a little bit based on the industry.

Speaker 2: 27:09

The other thing I would say is this that all of marketing boils down to these two things human psychology and math. That is it. So human psychology makes sense, right, we have to persuade people with our marketing messages to pull out their wallet and hand us money. And then math, because our job is to hold every dollar accountable. We can't just put some money out there and hope and pray it works. We can put the money out there, hope and pray it works, but we better be measuring it. So we have a benchmark that says okay, I hoped and prayed last time it would work. It produced this return. This time I've got to beat that return right. So math comes into that.

Speaker 2: 27:50

But when we look at human psychology, there are really just three core ingredients to get people to go from learning about us to actually pulling out their wallet and handing us money. Number one they have to know about us super, super obvious. Number two they have to like us. Going back to what I mentioned earlier, we're never going to convince a vegan or vegetarian to like our cattle business, right, our grass fed beef. So don't waste our time. So know about us, like us.

Speaker 2: 28:16

And the one that creates the most amount of time is the third ingredient, which is trust. They have to trust that our product and service is gonna be of more value to them than the money they part with. So the bigger the ticket item, the more trust has to be there. The smaller the ticket item, the less trust has to be there in that equation. So use that just as a framework, based on the industry that you're in, the type of people you're serving and the cost of your product or service to kind of give you some parameters on how long you should expect things to take in the marketing cycle.

Speaker 1: 28:57

To piggyback on that. I've used an analogy lately. We all know who Amazon is, right, we see their trucks, their advertisements everywhere. And to your point, when I ask people, can you tell me where the arrows are on their logo? Most people can't, and you don't even know what it really is. So your little piece of the pie in the world, no one knows you because most people don't know that the little loop goes from A to Z under the letters, and that's just kind of an analogy. That kind of works, along with what you're saying is you might be sick of it, but nobody else has even seen it. You know or recognize it, and so that's a great point. You went from the small business to the larger business. The show is all about small business pivots Any pivots along the way that you made that you can think of 100%.

Speaker 2: 29:57

Every day, every day, is a pivot. What I've discovered over the years, michael is Every day, every day is a pivot. What I've discovered over the years, michael is again, this isn't scientific, it's just from my real world experience, literally working with hundreds and hundreds probably several thousand entrepreneurs at this point. But I believe that there are five core stages that all businesses go through, and these stages don't necessarily have to do with money. They have more to do with the entrepreneur's mindset during those stages. So, if you don't mind, I'll just briefly.

Speaker 1: 30:26

Let's hear it Mindset's big, yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:29

So stage number one is what I would call the me stage, and this is the stage where you're learning to trust yourself as an entrepreneur. It's where you're learning to do the basic things of running a business right. It's all about this self-trust. And that then leads into the next phase, that I would call the we stage. This is where you're learning to actually trust other people to do pieces and components of what you know to do. And then the third phase is what I would call the they phase, and this is all about systems and processes. So this is when we're learning to actually implement and roll out systems and processes that we trust. We trust these things, we vetted these things and we're learning to trust those things, not just from me as the leader, but the team as well. And then the next one is I call this the machine. This is the most complicated one, I think, but this is where we're actually getting the people in the systems and processes to work in harmony Very, very difficult to do without a lot of money or a lot of time, one of those two things.

Speaker 2: 31:38

I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's very, very it's challenging and part of the reason is by default. Most entrepreneurs do not like systems and processes. What do you mean? I have to clock in, like I created this company. What are you talking about? I'm not clocking in. What do you mean? I've got to request my PTO, like I'm the founder of the company. I'm not doing that. The problem with that is that that attitude undermines the entire culture, because we all know this If you're a parent, you know this. More is called than is taught. They're picking up on the way we behave. We can say all day long that these systems and processes matter, that clocking in matters, that requesting PTO matters, that following the checklist matters, but if we're not doing it, they're never going to do it.

Speaker 2: 32:29

So, anyway, that was the fourth one, the most challenging one in my opinion. And then the fifth one is what I would call creative destruction, and what I can tell you is, when I started this company, I had a very specific type of marketing that I only wanted to do. It took me years to finally say you know what? I've got to pivot from my stupid idea that I know works, but I've got to start actually selling people what they want. So I had to pivot there.

Speaker 2: 32:56

Another one was I pivoted and then I kept having people ask me hey, can you help us with the website? Well, no, we don't. I don't ask me, hey, can you help us with a website? Well, no, we don't. I don't know anything about websites. But you know what I said. You know we're going to figure out websites. Last year our web division was our biggest division within our company, all because of a pivot. All because I said you know what. The next time somebody says can you help, I'm going to say yes and figure it out.

Speaker 2: 33:20

We pivoted again, you know, with social media, another huge pivot for us. So there's been lots of pivots, but I'll go back to this one thing. The absolute biggest pivot in my entire journey happened probably seven or so years ago, and that is when I looked at the person in the mirror every single morning and I asked myself which do you love more, wayne? Do you love the excuses and the exceptions you're making or do you love the success that you're after? Because I had, for seven years, had all the reasons why my employees didn't want to work hard. My employees showed up late, the vendors didn't send the stuff they were supposed to send, the customers were ungrateful. I had this long list of stuff. Everybody else was to blame but me, and that's when I realized that our businesses are nothing more than reflection of our own mindsets. That is what they are. Our businesses reflect back our own mindsets and our own ability to lead ourselves. That pivot for me has been the most difficult, but the most rewarding and the most beneficial.

Speaker 1: 34:30

Yeah, it's real eye-opening when business owners come to the realization is the business they have today, whether there's challenges or not, they either created or they allowed Because they own it. So exactly what you're saying Tell us about your business so that listeners know who to call.

Speaker 2: 34:51

Yeah, absolutely so. Super quick version. So the name of the company is Ugly Mug Marketing. That name actually comes from this quote by the name of a gentleman by the name of David Ogilvie. David Ogilvie came over to the US, I believe, in the late fifties. He started an advertising agency on Madison Avenue called Ogilvie and his partner, Mather. Ogilvie and Mather became the largest ad agency in the entire world. They're still in the top 10. David Ogilvie had this amazing quote, which was I would rather you show me an ad that's ugly and effective over one that's beautiful but isn't. And so that is our North star.

Speaker 2: 35:27

We, we operate every single day in an industry that is so enamored by winning awards most creative design, best video and so it's very easy to do things for the sake of creativity. Our goal is to get results for our clients, and we are so confident in our ability to do that that we don't even require contracts. We simply tell our new clients. We say look, give us two months. If, at the end of two months, you are not thrilled with the direction we're going, If you're not thrilled with the results that we're starting to produce for you, we don't want your money. We want you to go find somebody who can get results for you. We're not going to lock you into this long-term thing just because we can. So we've built our reputation on getting results, and the beauty of that is two things. Number one, it's wonderful for our clients. But number two, it forces us to not hold on to what once was true in the marketing world, but to always be discovering what's true today, what is working today.

Speaker 1: 36:31

If somebody wants to follow you, find you, where would they do that?

Speaker 2: 36:35

Simplest place, our website, that is uglymugmarketingcom. The other place, just where I kind of share more leadership and personal stuff, would be on Instagram, and that's at fire yourself oh.

Speaker 1: 36:48

I love it. Are you on LinkedIn, anywhere else where they can?

Speaker 2: 36:52

link LinkedIn the same place, company name there as well.

Speaker 1: 36:55

Fantastic. Well, I always end with one last question, that is, if you were in a room of business owners of all different sizes industries, what is some advice you could give them that would be applicable to everybody?

Speaker 2: 37:10

Love the question. The answer would be this Consistency creates miracles. We, as entrepreneurs, often by our wiring, hate consistency. We love chasing the next new idea.

Speaker 1: 37:24

That's me.

Speaker 2: 37:26

Yeah, it's all of us. We love the next big thing. The problem is that mentality can become very detrimental to building a culture specifically, a culture that is self-accountable and high performance. Specifically, a culture that is self-accountable and high performance. When we are constantly jumping from thing to thing, when we aren't willing to develop our own disciplines and our own consistencies, we end up with a company that is a reflection of us, which means everyone's jumping from thing to thing all the time and we get no traction.

Speaker 1: 37:58

Wow. So I learned something today, also listeners. Well, Wayne, you've been a wealth of knowledge and a blessing to many. Appreciate your time and insights and wish you the best moving forward.

Speaker 2: 38:10

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 38:12

Thank you for listening to Small Business Pivots. Please don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast. If your business is stuck, you need help creating a business that can run without you, or you need a fast business loan or line of credit, go to our website businessownershipsimplifiedcom and schedule a free consultation to learn why small business success starts with boss. If you want to talk anything small business related, email me at michael at michaeldmorrisoncom. We'll see you next time on Small Business Pivots.