From Struggling to Thriving: My Journey to Business Success

Back then when I was struggling so desperately to make it, knowing that I had the talent, but lacked critical business skills and know-how, that if someone were just generous enough to show me how to do it, it would have changed my life. Way, way back when I first started my business, I was like everybody else. I was floundering as an entrepreneur without the resources, without the business acumen and without the confidence. I was lucky enough to be in a place where there were plenty of opportunities and I felt like my talent was good enough, but my marketing business and pricing and sales skills were zero. Like many creative people, I thought if the work is good enough, you never have to actually sell anything. Boy, is that a dumb idea. So I'm put into situations where I'm bidding on projects with global brands, Fortune 500, Fortune 100 companies like Nissan, Sun Microsystems, Janus Funds. Companies had made billions of dollars and here I am as a 23, 24 year old kid, fresh out of school, bidding on projects and not knowing what it is I was doing. It was heartbreaking. It was just devastating to me to be able to be considered for these really big prestigious jobs, which were high profile and time and time again, step up to their plate and just swing and strike out every single time. And it was just like emotion, like very hard to handle because I'm like, I know I'm doing a terrible job on these conference calls. I think my work is good enough, but it's just, I'm missing something here. So I get into a solutions mode. I start to call up people that I know. I called up some of my friends who were directors who had graduated before me thinking, what is it that you know that I don't know? How are you getting work? And I got some of the worst advice ever. Advice like, just leave the call, take control. They're looking for answers. I'm like, okay. And I tried that. I knew in my heart that was not the answer, but that's what they told me. And then I started to do the unthinkable. I called up my competitors and asked them, hey, you don't know me, but we're in the same space. And I was wondering if I could chat with you about a couple of business concepts. And I just want to know how you win your clients because we're having a really hard time. They either laughed or they gave me the weirdest response and hung up the phone. I'm like, okay, this sucks, man. So I'm going to be stuck in this loop. It's a catch 22 thing where people won't hire me because I don't have experience doing something, but to get experience doing something, I need to be hired. Super frustrating. So we're just scraping by and it was the toughest two years in business. And everybody knows this, your first two years, you're probably going to be the roughest in your life. I'm not ready to give up. Now luck or fate would have it that I would run into producers who knew how to bid projects. And something as simple as bidding a project was back then, super complicated in my mind, something that had a lot of mystery around it. And it was a lot of guesswork. So the first producer came in, bid the project. I didn't win it, but I started to see how they started to work. One of my friends from school referred me to the former executive producer at Eat Entertainment Television. Her name is Karen Rainey. Karen, wherever you are, thank you so much for helping me out. She came into my office, bid the project, asked me how I'm going to do it, mapped it on a calendar, created milestones, figured out the resources that I need, and put together a five-page spreadsheet via Excel to formalize the bid. It looks super professional. The beautiful thing is she did the exact same thing that the previous producer did, except she gave me the file. She goes, if you need anything else, let me know. And I didn't win that project either. But now my brain can go into the Excel spreadsheet and see how things were bid. And it was an eye-opening thing. And I started to change the formulas. I started to craft it. And over time, refined this thing to perfection. And we used this way of bidding for years afterwards and it allowed us to be much more confident in our bidding. The reason why I created the pro group back then when I was struggling so desperately to make it, knowing that I had the talent but lacked critical business skills and know-how, that if someone were just generous enough to show me how to do it, it would have changed my life. So years ago, I created the solution that I wanted for myself so desperately. A place where you can go to get information and resources, to be coached by someone who's been in business much longer than you, who has seen many battles on the field and can share those experiences. But I realized something, is that where I'm at and where someone else is at, is at such different levels that even though I think the advice is very sound, they cannot see it for themselves. Like, well, I don't have those same accolades. I don't have the same social proof. My bank account isn't as flushed. So I cannot say what it is that you say. Sad as it is for me to admit, there's truth in this. We want to learn from someone who's slightly ahead of where we are or where we're going to be. Because then that information feels very relevant. It feels very doable. It's going to make me feel like I can take on the world. So the pro group was born because it is an international, diverse collection of like-minded individuals and entrepreneurs who are a little bit behind you or a little bit ahead of you. If you believe Jim Rohn in his expression saying that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And I see this. If you spend time all day with children, your brain, the way that you speak, the way you think is at a different level. Not to say smart or dumber, but you're looking to protect children, which is a different mindset. But when you're around people who are just in the streets, trying to make their name, dealing with marketing sales, tough clients, bad clients, good clients, your business acumen is going to rise. Your business IQ will go up. It's the law of averages. And that's what I want to create here in the Future Pro community. Jim Quick says this too. He says the best student is also the best teacher. And the best teacher is also the best student. And so we think when we join a community, we want to be a student and people are just going to feed us information. We're going to grow. But as it turns out, if you just turn around and look at the person slightly behind you and you help them, not only do you help them, you help yourself because you gain clarity through articulation, David C. Baker. By helping them, you fortify what it is that you think you know. And this is how I became a much clearer thinker, much more level-headed and a faster processor of creativity and information because for 15 years I taught. And that first year in which I taught, I learned so much about myself in the way I think. I grew in confidence in an unshakable way. And it was all through teaching. So we hope that if you're considering joining the Future Pro group, that you're going to come in it with a learner's mindset, but also with a teacher's spirit of generosity. If you can do both, you're an ideal person for this community. And I hope to see you in there.