Employee To Entrepreneur: Business Basics 101

Employee to Entrepreneur: Business Basics 101

Kandidly Kristin: Hola podcast nation it's your girl, Kandidly, Kristin. And this is the Kandid shop. Tonight's episode is employee to entrepreneur. We are going to talk about all things business moving from employee to entrepreneur. And joining me for this discussion is business law attorney award-winning author of, from entrepreneur to CEO, creator of the CEO collaboration circle, single mom, CEO contracts.

Done Wright and she is the founder of the Wright Firm P L L C Ms. Shahara, Wright.? Shahara also developed the CEO effect, LLC, to help CEOs of small and mid-sized companies enhance operations and execute strategic change. My next guest is self-taught business coach and founder of Mogul minded solutions. Ms.

Nyjah McCoy, Nyjah specializes in mindset in general business operations, and she helps entrepreneurs blaze their own trails in their industries and niches of choice through meditation, visualization, active learning and accountability, and last, but certainly not least we have with us Marco Torres.

Marco is co-founder of marketing boost.com. He teaches entrepreneurs how to soar sales and marketing through the use of value added incentives instead of discount. He has helped thousands of business owners, worldwide boosts, sales, and scale their businesses by as much as five fold. So welcome, welcome, welcome.

The three of you to the Kandid shop welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. Um, hello and thank you all. Thank you all for joining me this evening. So before we get started in the meat of the conversation, I'd just like to throw out a few stats really quick. I'm a stats person and I'm a researcher and some of stats will make people go, okay, cool.

I can do this. And some of them were a little more sobering, just to put what it means to be self-employed to be an entrepreneur, small business owner in perspective. So there are 31 million entrepreneurs in the U S 58% of small businesses in the U S start with less than $25,000. And one third start with less than 5,000.

So you can really start a business on a shoestring. But here goes the, putting it in context stats 70% of small business owners in the U S report, working more than 40 hours per week and 19% report working more than 60 hours per week. Approximately 20% of new businesses close in the first year of being open and roughly 50% of new businesses close within five years of being open.

So I'd like to ask each of you, what you think are the three most important things a new entrepreneur should have and, or do prior to taking this, step a way from, being an employee to an entrepreneur. And we will start Shahara.

Shahara Wright: I mean, I think, you know, one of the first things I ask is why you want to do this? And, you know, a lot of times people say is that my dream, or, you know, they have some other, you know, kind of pipe pipe breathing that they want to do it some pie in the sky reason why they want to do it. And I say, you know, listen, those are great.

but the thing that's going to keep you doing this when all of those things, and it goes bad and you're not happy, and you're frustrated that why is that, what thing is going to motivate you? so I think that that's important to understand, especially if you are leaving a job and you're getting ready to start a business.

The next question I ask is, you know, can you afford to lose. 'cause. I know a lot of times people think, you know, if you build it, it will come. And, you know, that's kind of true, but not really. you know, one of my good friends always says, you know, you gotta eat what you kill. so it's, it's a very different mindset.

It's a very different thing that happens and it's not steady income. especially at first. So that's important. And then I think lastly, you know, the question is, do you really want to own your own business or do you just want to do something for fun? a lot of times people just like enjoy, you know, making candles or making pins or stickers.

but they don't really want to do that full time. It's just something that they do for fun. And I think that makes a big difference as to whether or not you're going to really try to make a full-time business or is it just something that you enjoy?

Kandidly Kristin: Got it. And Nyjah, Am I saying your ? First of all. Cause I hate messing up peoples names.

Nyjah McCoy: So definitely in terms of one of the first things that you need to do, I feel it is sit down and consider your time, your scheduling, especially, if you are still working, you're still in that nine to five grind, it will be very hard for you to remain focused and keep your focus where it needs to be.

Especially

if like you have

your day job, you go out, you're working six to eight hours a day. then you come back, your energy is already depleted. So of course, it'll be harder for you to sit down and, and figure out or not even figure out. But like I said before, focus, focus on what it is that needs to be focused on.

Right behind that. I'm actually going to piggyback a little bit or for what Shahara said as well, in terms of knowing your, why you have to have a reason at stronger than just making money. We get what I'm saying. So, as I said before, even if that is your why find out something, deeper than just that, because just making the money, it's easier to give up on you, go interview for jobs, you get your job, then you're over it.

In three months, you quit, you will find a new job. It'll be the same thing. When you're doing the business. You don't want to start that hamster wheel is something continuously, generate income for you.

Kandidly Kristin: Got it. Okay. And Marco, the same question to you.

Marco Torres: Sure. Thank you. I would agree with both Nyjah and Shahara.

There are great, great, comments. but you know, another thing you need is. Uh, support, team, you know, your spouse because you really have to ask yourself. Do you really have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, which means that you, like you said, those reports that people work 60, 40, 60 hours a week.

I would say they work even more than that. Closer to 80 at the beginning. You are good. Do you really have, do you really have the desire? Are you willing to burn the candle at both ends? Because that's what it's going to take, especially if you're like moving from the job to a business, or typically I've done that many times.

I've reinvented myself multiple times in my lifetime. And I did have, there was, I can look back at some of the times where I did have a job while I was building a business, which meant that I had to burn the candle at both ends. I had to, you know, get home from the eight hour, 10 hour day job, and then work till the wee hours of the morning building what I was planning on launching and so forth.

And, uh, you know, do you have the family to support you through all of this or your wife or your spouse? If, uh, you know, if you're single, it's easier because you're not having to. Uh, it may be easier, you know, in certain degree because you don't have to rely on, on somebody else's, uh, dealing with all your hours you're working.

But on the other hand, if you do have a, uh, supporting a supporting spouse, then you can, you know, you can, you can come to an agreement on, look, I'm going to need you to step up and work harder and make, uh, help, uh, make the ends meet with the, you know, with the salaries that you earn while I focus on the business and stuff like that, that, that you can, uh, actually get it done.

And, and like, like the other girls said, you know, you better have your why in place, because that doesn't really make a lot of sense. It is going to take that why to be, to be working into the wee hours of the morning, preparing what you need to do to get launched and then go back to the day job the next day and, and back and forth.

Yep.

Kandidly Kristin: Okay. So Shahara, this question is specifically for you. Talk to me about business structures types. Like you hear a lot about S Corp C Corp LLC. What would you say, is the way an entrepreneur should structure their business. And second part of that question is what is the essential paperwork that somebody needs to have to be legally operating their business?

Shahara Wright: I am not one of those people that is like a one size fit, all type of business entity. Right. Like I know that there's some people to just say, just get an LLC or just do this, or just do that. And that's not how I advise my clients. you know, it's really a nuanced question. So I really start with, what do you think, your business is going to be in five years.

are you planning on going international? Are you planning on bringing in, you know, equity partners? Are you planning on bringing in other people? do you plan on operating in multiple states? You know, all of these questions kind of come into understanding what entity, is best now, LLCs are the most popular, um, type of entity, mostly because, you know, they're relatively simple in terms of the structure.

so it makes it easy and I won't get into the nuances, but it just makes it easier for most people, because the way that the States set them up that they, it makes it easier for a smaller business. corporations have a more formal structure where you have shareholders and, board of directors and officers.

And while they can all be the same person, it's just that definitely a much more formal structure. And so, you know, a lot of times it doesn't really work for. business owners who plan on being small, maybe they think they're going to be big one day, but you know, if you're still, making under two 50, it probably isn't the best way for you, especially if you're operating in one place.

so there's lots of different structures. There's partnerships, there's, you know, so for sole proprietorships. So I think really what you have to really look at is what do you plan on doing with your business? And if you answer to that is, I don't know. I tell you to start with a sole proprietorship, you know, unless you have, you know, some substantial assets, that you could lose, if something goes wrong, it's okay to do that for a year or two to figure until you figure out like what you're doing.

I don't recommend, you know, off the bat. Spend the dollars to create a company when you don't, you know, and you still trying to operate out your own personal bank account and you still, you know, don't understand what a tax return is. And, you know, there's just a lot of learning curve that's there that I find that when people create an LLC, but they don't really utilize it the correct way it causes more problem.

Kandidly Kristin: Got it. Now, let me ask you this. you can change your business structure as you grow correct. Or is that

not correct?

Shahara Wright: You can. I mean, you can, so the short answer is yes. I think really the most important thing is to find the best structure for how you intend to operate, is better to do it that way because when you try to make changes, it costs more money.

I know sometimes we'll be like, well, you can just easily convert from, you know, uh, LLC to a corporation sort of yes, you can, but it becomes, you know, a lot more expensive. Um, you know, you don't want to get to, if you operate as a sole proprietorship, you don't want to start hiring employees. And if you're, you know, A million dollars and you still, you know, operate a sole proprietorship.

We don't really want to be there. and I've had to do that several times, you know, with clients where, their business exploded. Maybe they weren't really quite ready for the explosion. And so we had to create an entity and it's so time consuming, it's expensive. so it's no like right answer or right time.

I think you really have to just be paying attention to what's happening in your business. and have people around you, professionals around you that can help you navigate with the best time to make that shift.

Kandidly Kristin: Got it. Got it. And in terms of essential paperwork for a business, say I'm, I'm, I'll just pick something I cook.

So I want to start a catering business. Are there certain contracts or certain documents that need to be in place so that you're operating legally?

Shahara Wright: So for every state, you know, there's certain you have what's. So what we call sole proprietorships, where you have at the very least, um, uh, a, a trade name or an assumed name that, that may, they may be used one, either one of those terms where you're, you know, Shahara doing business as Shahara's catering, right?

It's really simple. You follow what? The county or parish at your way. You know, you're in business, right? And you don't have this formal structure, so you can have something as simple as that. as you get to have things that require licenses, you have to make sure that you're in touch with the city and the county that you want to operate in to make sure that you are having the particular licenses, and your state that you need to have.

So licensed professions, people that are doing catering that, you know, require, you know, food certificates, you know, food handling, those kinds of things. You need to check with your city and county county and your state. So the best thing to do is to call like the economic development centers, that are in your areas and ask them like, what do I need?

because every state in every city is going to be very different. and as far as contracts, if you're a service-based business, well, first of your web based business with. people are nowadays, you definitely want to have your privacy and policies and, and your terms of use, on, your site.

You definitely do not want to just pull down, some other version that you took from somebody else's site and step it up on your site because it's a contract. so we don't want to do that. if you're a service-based business, you definitely want to have a service agreement for your business.

so you want to make sure that you have a client contract that's there. and so if you have something where you utilize independent contractors, you want to make sure that they have a contract with it. You also want to have a nondisclosure agreement, to ensure that people, those contractors that have contact with your client's stuff, aren't sharing and utilizing that in a way that's inappropriate.

Kandidly Kristin: Got

1. Wow. Thank you. see people don't think about all this stuff. They're just like, oh, I can so-and-so did it. And I'm going to just slap my LLC or just put the letters, LLC, and then I'm good to go. So thank you. Thank you so much for that. I want to talk a little bit about best practices for starting your business.

Nyjah you grew your business completely, on your own you're self-taught. So if you could just speak to me a little bit about the steps that you took, starting your business and setting yourself up. That would be great.

Nyjah McCoy: So like you said, a 2:00 AM a researcher. So I definitely sat down and researched that question.

One of the first things that I came up with obviously was the business plan. So I literally researched the parts that belong in a business plan. Like the mission statement, your KPIs, all of these, all of these numbers, all of these things that you need inside of there, you have to really sit down really, , Google it hit the library, hit the online library website.

If you have to and find whatever, whatever documents it is that you can find on, correctly putting your business plan together. once I did that, I sat down and of course looked at my market. That's the very next thing that you need to consider, where is it that you can get in, where you fit in, so to speak, where are your strengths and your weaknesses within the market?

Analyze your competitors. what are their strengths and their weaknesses? What are their customers like about their brands and their customer service or whatever the case may be? What did they dislike? because these are giving you key points as to kind of where to start with positioning yourself.

You get what I'm saying? then right behind that I would say is considering the, the, the products that you're going to sell as well. so you have to definitely look at that. Look at again at your market. See what the general price ranges for, if you are a product-based business, any products that you sell, for example, my very first business was a boutique.

A beauty, a Beautique is what I called is beauty. And I was selling like bundles, lashes, all of that, but I don't use any of this, so I didn't know what the price point. Of

Shahara Wright: course, I had to hit Google, look at website,

Nyjah McCoy: see what other small businesses and what other, even big brands too, because they are also, your competitors are doing with their pricing, these things that,

Nyjah McCoy: so definitely you want to consider your branding, your logos and colors, all of that, technical stuff

as well.

Kandidly Kristin: Okay. So Marco, this question is for you. if you're starting out and I'm going to ask you another question about growing your business, but for right now, if you're just starting out, what should your marketing, how much time, money, energy should you be spending on marketing, like your website, your launch, stuff like that.

Marco Torres: Obviously that depends on your budget and what, you know, what your, what your, uh, gross and net profits are going to be. Because, you know, I, you know, I talked about, I say a budget, but at the same time, early on, when, when I had multiple businesses, I've never really had a set budget because it was like, okay, I spend some marketing dollars.

If I can turn, you know, a hundred dollars in marketing into $300 in revenue and there, and that revenue has profit built in, then I can keep going. I can throw more money at, at, at the, at the marketing efforts, but you do have to be prepared. I mean, if you have no marketing, that's like no wind in your sails.

So you're never going to get any, you're not. any momentum going, you're not going to get any movement of your business. If you don't have some way to get the word out and marketing doesn't necessarily mean advertising spent, it means getting the word out one way or the other that could mean starting a Facebook group.

That can mean, trying to get organic traffic participating in local, you know, local events, trade shows, wherever you can be, you know, networking, uh, obviously it all depends on what your product or service is all about, but if you're not, you know, knocking on doors or doing something to get people aware of what you're doing, then obviously you're, going to be going nowhere.

Pretty quick. So, uh, marketing is, is in my mind, you know, people ask what comes first sales or marketing. And, both go hand in hand. You're not going to have any sales, if you don't have marketing to go with it. And you know, you've got to have, so to me, marketing comes first. You've got to prepare your, your brochures, your, your image, your branding, your, some of the same topics that we just mentioned, you know, your, your logo, your, so you've got to have something that makes you that that looks your, that looks credible.

your site, your brochures, your, your social proof. as soon as you start generating clients, you need to, uh, you need to generate testimonials to have some referrals that you can. I mean, testimonials really, you need reviews as quickly. and you'll never get them if you don't solicit them.

So as soon as you got your first customer, you know, you need to ask that first customer, as soon as you make them happy. Hey, would you be willing to give me a review? You know, maybe even a video review and, uh, and that's, and that's where marketing boost incentives can come in, because you can usually literally use the incentives that my company provides to incentivize a client, to give you a review and, uh, you know, reward them for it.

And then start building those reviews that gives you the social proof that helps them to help spread the word. You know, again, organically help get the word out, ask them to post, you know, uh, on Facebook, et cetera, that they, you know, they're happy with your service, that kind of thing. And, uh, little by little, it grows from there.

And if you're, doing the job well, you're going to. Slowly build up and be able to keep affording more, more marketing dollars, including advertising dollar and then start growing.

Kandidly Kristin: Okay. So I'd like to ask the three of you. Does it make sense anymore to have a brick and mortar, or is online the best way to, to start a small business?

Like some things, if you're trying to, have a restaurant, a brick and mortar is what you want or a physical space to operate out of, but in this day and age, does it make sense anymore? And any of you can answer that one i

n your opinion.

Shahara Wright: Oh, it's a Shahara. Yeah. I mean, I, I definitely think that it makes sense to have a brick and mortar, if that's what you want to do.

I operate mostly online and I have an office. and even if I work from home, I still have a place where I can meet clients

Nyjah McCoy: if I need to receive mail, all those kinds of things. So I think it

Shahara Wright: makes sense if you're doing a candle shop, you know, you may not want to have everything operating out of your house anymore.

So, you know, you need a warehouse and you need space and you and grow and employees, so you need that stuff. So even if you're a completely online, retail store. as you grow, you're not gonna want to do that out of your home all the time. So you're going to need space, to be able to grow and have, you know, a place to be.

So I think that's definitely true. And it's even if you do digital products, you know, and you add employees and things like that, sometimes you just need space, to be able to be somewhere and you can do stuff virtually still, but I think the idea that there is no brick and mortar, I don't agree with that.

I think it just may look differently where you may not have space for customers come in and walk in, but it needs space for the business to operate

Kandidly Kristin: and Nyjah

Nyjah McCoy: I think that. On and a brick and mortar store, at least looking into own and go to a brick and mortar store is one of the quickest, easiest, and smartest ways to get your name and your brand recognized quickly.

online, you have to do too much, like talking to people, you have to go into all of these groups, make a thousand posts a day comment on everybody's stuff, pretend to be friendly, like people in order to stuff, you go

Shahara Wright: inside of your store, stand behind your

Nyjah McCoy: POS system and say, hello, welcome to my lovely store.

How is your day going? And even they're going to buy or they won't, but regardless they know where you are. They see your brand, they see your face. You personally welcomed them. It gives you a more, homey feel to your, to your brands.

Kandidly Kristin: Yeah, I,

Marco Torres: I, I would disagree with both of you, but that's okay.

It obviously depends on what you're doing, what you're selling. Of course. Uh, I I'm in the travel space and I have been since 1993, I used to have a 10,000 square foot office in Miami. you know, I had a huge staff, huge payroll, huge, overhead. And, uh, today I run the complete operation.

With, hundreds of employees now, but, but they're around the world and everybody's virtual or, well, we do have some call, I'd have a hundred agents in a call center in the Philippines, but I outsourced the whole thing. So they don't, it's not my building, it's not my lease. And that I'm responsible for, for the a hundred agents that work in the call center in the Philippines.

I've got my it staff in India, outsourced to India and they, you know, they have their office it's on their dime, not mine, you know, I pay for the services monthly, but I'm not responsible for their hiring, their firing, et cetera. I've got other other teams and, uh, in, in Australia and then in, in Pakistan and I've got home-based agents in Canada all over the U S.

I'm sitting on my yacht right now in Fort Myers, Florida. And so I work completely virtual, you know, I could be on my boat or I could be at my, you know, my home. I no longer have to be at an office anywhere. And, I love it that way, you know, but I, you know, I, I do relate with, you know, in my early entrepreneurial years, I had restaurants at a nightclub.

And so there's definitely a place for the brick and mortar business. But I think there's never been a time greater for an entrepreneur to step out into the online world and one way or the other, be it, network marketing, be it, you know, multi-level marketing, be it, affiliate, marketing, be it, you know, there's, there's ways to build an online business today.

That can be virtual and, having your sales calls over zoom and, you know, so there's so much technology's so, so affordable today. there's never been a time like it, where, where you can, you can start and launch a business virtually, and eventually it may end up being a big, uh, brick and mortar operation.

Right. But, but you can launch and start from your kitchen today. Like never before.

Kandidly Kristin: Yeah, I got it. I got to circle back to something I have to ask what benefit is it to having call centers in the Philippines versus here or in other countries? Is it economics

Marco Torres: So what's the benefit of oversea of outsourcing for one, I recommend you, you know, one of the things that too many solopreneurs that launch and start out, they, uh, they want to do everything themselves.

They become kind of like, uh, a control freak, and then they figure, I, you know, nobody can do it as good as me. So they're trying to do everything. And that's one of the, I think the biggest mistakes a starting out entrepreneur can do invest in the right people, hire people that you can find on Fiverr on many other sites to find support teams and hire people smarter than you at the stuff that you're not an expert at.

You know, don't try to build your website and kind of try to design your own logo. In other words, hire people and build a team around you, including somebody you can access for, for law support or for coaching you for in your business. But overseeing like the calls, the call center, we used to have that big call center in Miami.

What was some of the benefits, one work ethic, hiring people in the United States of America these days to get them to show up, to work, to get them, to show up on time, to put in the hours, putting in the effort and, uh, and then not come back and, end up suing you later for claiming overtime hours. And I mean, I had so many issues in Miami.

finding myself in court, you know, multiple times a year with, with employees claiming this or that or the other throughout the year, it was, you would think that you can, you know, you can't fire people just because they're not performing. You've got to go through all kinds of steps to fire somebody.

You got to give them three warnings for the same issue. And you know what? I finally had enough of it and I had a call center in the Philippines that I never thought in my life would, would replace the entire operation of us based my US-based staff. But eventually I taught my, I taught my staff over there to.

Better than my US-based sales team. And, uh, it was a matter of them team learning my, my systems, my process, my scripts, but I found they had better work ethics. They, they, they followed, you know, everything I asked them to do to the letter. They didn't question it after six months, they didn't think they knew better than me.

It started making the changes, like , my American staff, after a few months of training, after the training, all of them would start putting their own twist to it. But in their own, you know, they all thought they knew better than me and better than management. And they thought they could, you know, invent their own way to do things.

And before, you know what everybody's doing, whatever they want and nothing's being done with it by systems and, uh, you know, nothing's being put, and then you can't figure out why your sales are dropping, you know, mess with my team overseas. boy, you know, they would follow it by the book and we did have to deal with the accents, of course, which made it a little more, little more.

But, eventually it worked like a charm and still does. And not only was it a benefit and then the other thing was, you know, it was a complete hands-off right?

So if the employee in the Philippines is not happy with the employer and they've got legal issues over there too, but, but if they're suing their boss or something over there, there's, it's, it's not, my company that I've hired a call center and all of the staff that's, you know, that is reporting to my company, works basically a hundred percent for my, for my firm, but that's a campaign for them.

 I don't have to deal with any of the employee. Headaches is.

Kandidly Kristin: Huh. Interesting. I, I didn't expect that to be the answer. It was always my assumption that most companies outsourced to other countries because they could pay them less. See, I learned something.

Marco Torres: Yeah. It's not just the money.

It ends up being a, for me, it became, yeah. Is somewhat less, more affordable, but it was really a complete eye-opening as to the work ethic to the, uh, they love. In the Philippines, for example, being a call center agent is a great job. It's a career. People go to school to learn how to work in customer service and in sales for customer service.

And it's a career it's like being a, you know, they're, they're looked up to in their communities. They make more money than nearly everybody that they around them. So, so they are thrilled. They don't, and in, in the United States, for example, call centers, staff, it's like, well, I'll do this until I find a better job.

Right? So it's a, it's a not something people look up to, to be in a call center environment, you know, in a cubicle and in the Philippines, that's the job to have.

Kandidly Kristin: Nice.

So let's, I wanted to talk a little bit about, Nyjah specifically. You're a business coach, so, I want you to answer just as an entrepreneur, not as a business coach, but is that something that most businesses need?

Maybe not long-term, but. Is that something that you think that an entrepreneur needs to have, alongside of them as they're starting this process

Nyjah McCoy: I do think that it's something that is beneficial. Definitely. I think definitely you need to examine your level of business first examine where you're at and then kind of gauge who you want to work with or who you want to work with you, based on their own level, because the worst thing that you could do is be someone who's been in business for 5, 10, 15 years.

Right. And you're ahead of your business coach and you get on a call with them or. However it is that you guys meet up, you meet face to face, and they're talking to you and you're like, yeah, I did all of that. Like my first year so definitely yes. I feel like it's something that's, um, that's necessary.

Your business coach definitely, can help you in terms of gaining clarity around all of your visions, they can help you in terms of guiding you, um, with what is best for you as a brand versus a person, know a lot of people think of their businesses as their babies. And because of that, they tend to be really biased with the work they, they put out.

I like to use Erica Badu as an example, I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my ish. So this is definitely very much the same thing. Put out a content piece. I think it's the bomb and it's just. So Brandon Hertz, or even, you know, something that I see a lot of business owners doing, they don't realize that, the moment they say, okay, I'm a business owner and I sell this, this and that, that that's the moment that you kind of become like a public figure.

So gone are the

days where you can

be frustrated with your business and you'd be like,

okay, you know what, everybody, y'all love to support fashion over. Nobody wants to support me. And it's like rent. They're not going to want to support you because you're a crybaby, honestly speaking, you get what I'm saying?

So you have to learn how to kind of toughen up, so to speak, and not take everything so personal. And that's definitely what your coach would be there for it. It's not always a personal thing. Sometimes it can honestly be just something you missed

Marco Torres: tom Brady that one of the top football players of all time has as many as 12 coaches, specifically helping him with different, different areas of his, on the field career and off, the field. Yeah,

Nyjah McCoy: that's something I just found out recently that there's something called like celebrity coaches with they help the celebrities kind of balance out those different parts of their lives.

So it's, it's like, there's so many different areas that you can go into. You get what I'm saying at the end of the day, it all kind of circles back around to life coaching, basic life coaching, because you're pretty much just, fixing up your life. You're fixing up that area of your life and that's going to help you with fixing your general lifestyle.

Kandidly Kristin: And you need somebody to give you honest feedback and they hold you accountable because your friends love you. They don't want to tell you girl that food nasty or too salty, or, you know what I mean? So you need somebody objective. Who's going to say, you need to tweak this. This is good, but not great.

And the goal is great or at least it should be. So let's talk real quick about financing your business. like our red before 58% of small businesses start with less than 25,001 third start with less than 5,000. So if you don't have 5,000, what's the number that. someone should be at realistically to launch a business.

And the second part to that is if you don't have that sitting, you know, you're not independently wealthy or you don't have a lot of savings, but the time is now maybe because you got laid off or whatever your reason, but the time is now are loans, a good idea grants. What are some avenues that budding entrepreneurs can look to to help finance their business without, selling their, first grandchild or.

Shahara Wright: oh, I got so many opinions on this one. I don't know.

So this is what I say, you know, I think you need to tailor your business idea to your budget, not the other way around, because. A lot of times people will come to my office and they have these dreams of grandeur. and they want the world and they have this $1.5 million idea and they got, $250 in their account.

And I'm like these two things don't match. You gonna have to

Nyjah McCoy: First of all I

feel very attacked.

Shahara Wright: Like, you know, it's not going to work out. Like, you know, think that, you know, somebody else is going to fund their dreams and get angry because they're not getting supportive. And I'm like, I don't know what funder is going to give you money when you don't even have money to fund you.

Kandidly Kristin: You dont have no skin your own game.

Shahara Wright: Right. You know, I mean, let's, let's just be realistic. I started when I, and it was a long time ago. Y'all so let's just be clear. you know, I had $150. Some business cards. I told people, you know, I was licensed to practice law and I was like, okay, I'm in business. And I just started passing out my cards, going in networking things where I could, and, you know, until I got clients, you know, so it can be as simple as that.

But I think that really, it depends on what you're trying to do. if you. I feel like, you need to have, a website that costs $10,000 and you don't have $10,000 and maybe you just need to start with a Facebook page, I think people, see the end, right. And they see this thing and they want that.

 And it's okay because everybody starts at all different levels, and what people need and what they, what you have, comes in different levels. And so I think that, You have to really think about that.

And as far as loans, I'm not against business loans, but the truth is that, especially if you're going to a bank it's not easy. you have to be in business, operating for two years. You need to show some profits. You need to have decent credit. banks are very, very stingy, when it comes to money, they only land when you don't need it.

so, it's very hard to get there. There are very few small business grants. There's some more now, but I think a lot of them. That are out there are, especially that are for minority businesses are, are kind of, I'm want to use the word predatory, but I don't really have a better word, which is, you know, they make you do a whole lot of work for a little bit of money,

so they'll offer you a $10,000 grant, but you know, you got to spend eight weeks in class, you got to take all of these courses, you got to do all those kinds of things. And by the time you finished that you could've made $10,000, you know, with the same amount of effort, you know? So I think, you know, you gotta think about that.

So I just say, you know, when it comes to financing your business, really, what do you have? What can you put in there? What can you get to sell sooner rather than later? And what can you really afford, to start your business off? That's really where I would start. And if you can't afford to start the business without financing, then you might need to look at re evaluate, your plans.

Kandidly Kristin: Got it. Got it. And Nyjah

Nyjah McCoy: I'm sorry, because of my

business

plan, I swear I was supposed to make

$250 million by this time.

That's funny. but

yeah, it's definitely, you need to really sit down and analyze your real life budget, right. Because. That's how you're going to start for real. I, a hundred percent did bootstrap everything I still do. So I'll find my business a hundred percent

out-of-pocket but the difference between me now

and me in 2020 is that I understand that it's my money.

That's actually going to drop the business. So where I was looking at like $10,000 to get, oh my God, I look back now, as you can see, and I crack up laughing because it's exactly like you say, it was just the most grandiose behavior. but, it also honestly helped me with understanding my own finances and understanding how to really budget my money and take my real life.

bills, like my rent, my utilities, phone bill, things like that into accountability first, and then consider all of the other extra things that I'm able to do. definitely I promote Wix, GoDaddy all of those so hard. It's ridiculous because they're the first off for me cheapest. You can probably start your website at like $35 go daddy, literally $10 a month for hosting.

all of these platforms. They're not, they're not so expensive, but you have to know what you're doing. Something else that you have to do too is before you actually start putting your money into your business, start saving for life. Something that happened to me was I was preparing not in the very beginning.

I was probably like middle stages with building my business by this point. And I was preparing to actually leave my job. and I ended up losing the job before I left. so it was the start of the new year. This is January 3rd when I was supposed to make my $250 million.

And

I had just got fired from my real nine to five.

And to this day, I still don't know why. So it's like, you know, life really does happen and you have to take your real life into accountability. something that I said in the very beginning as well, that same energy that you're taking in, you're giving to your boss, something that I was doing giving my boss 110, 150%.

I would come home. And honestly, yes. Work until the wee hours of the morning, but still was so tired. I couldn't really focus the way I needed to. And then couple that with the fact that I had just had a baby too. So my attention was split and way too many directions

at once, but and stuff. Yeah, go ahead.

Kandidly Kristin: Are you full-time business now or are you still. Kind of working a regular job and doing your business?

Nyjah McCoy: No full-time business. My coaching business is actually getting my, beauty brand back up to where I want

it when I started

it was

definitely hard, because I'm perfect and I cannot anything doesn't go the way that I plan it definitely, you know, three, six months in. And I think I had only made like $150 at first with the beauty brand. And I was like, okay, I'm going to just throw the whole business away. But I really sat down.

I researched how to market, I researched things like,

how to figure out your

audience, targeting your audience, how to talk to people, literally how to talk to people because I. I wouldn't have, I would not have been on this three years ago. You get what I'm saying? I just I'm so private. I don't like anybody knowing anything about me, but it's all about, knowing what to share and knowing what to talk about and things like that.

So even outside of your technicalities and all of your structures and things like that, you have to definitely sit down and like, kind of get you in line first and be real with you about you. you can make it to wherever you

dream,

but you have to definitely pace yourself and be realistic.

Kandidly Kristin: Pace yourself and be realistic and have a real plan.

Not just a, you know, it's got to come out of your head and on paper or type it or write it out, but I've been on your site. Beautiful. Thank you so much. Ma'am so, Marco, I want to get to you for financing, but we have a caller and Mr. Pook, I wanted to give you an opportunity to ask questions of the guests or just to say welcome.

Hello.

Marco Torres: Hi, my name is, um, poke, buy, go buy poop. Um, I was, I've been listening cause these type of podcasts interests me more than anything else. And for the lady that was just speaking, um, something cued, just got my attention and her comment. And I just wanted to make a quick reference to that and correct me if I'm wrong.

She said she was fired recently fired and

Nyjah McCoy: yes, it was back in 2020, well, early 21, this happens.

Guest Caller- Pook: Okay.

Did anybody, has anybody ever told you they set you free.

Nyjah McCoy: Yes, actually, I told myself that, and it took about three weeks for me to see that it was a blessing in disguise. As I said, you know, I was preparing to leave.

I didn't know that I was already prepared. I had my self-esteem and I was afraid. I do firmly believe everything happens for a reason. I now look at it as just a blessing in disguise. I was so upset with it by that point. But I mean, at that point in time, That was my job. And I was thinking of that as what was feeding me.

It was feeding my family, my babies, you know, and I took that personal because of that. I just, I had the concept of job in my mind. not even realizing that I had my own, like I called my, my Facebook, my ATM on my phone

Kandidly Kristin: and then listen, Pook. Cause that's how you show up online. I, I muted you cause you had a lot of background noise, so I'm sorry.

I don't know if you have a TV on, but that's going to be all audio stuff. Thank you. All right.

Guest Caller- Pook: The other,

the other thing is as, uh, somebody looked at me one day and said, stop wasting time building somebody else's dream and start building your own. And when you start realizing those things and it just completely redefined your outlook on.

Future and you can't become a slave to a boss that has no respect for you. And at the end of the day, they're going to replace. If you drop dead today, they'll replace you tomorrow. Am my

send flowers.

Kandidly Kristin: So Marco, your thoughts on financing your business?

Marco Torres: I agree a hundred percent with what Shahara earlier in that, you've got to match your budget. I mean, it's going out and getting into debt, especially if it's any serious amount of money to launch a business is probably not a good idea.

I would suggest, you know, your, maybe some credit cards or what have you to test some marketing and, and what have you, but you've got to put your dreams, your, your, your business dream and the reality as to what, you can afford to do launch with your, at this point. So if you don't have a home that you can refinance, I mean, if you're, you know, depending upon what you're trying to do, but I would recommend start in sales.

And, uh, prove that you're, you know, your own ability to generate revenue and sales you know, launching out out of the blue to, for example, open up that restaurant is Pook was suggesting, you better have some deep pockets because there's going, there is a learning curve and there's a timeframe that regardless of how much your deep pockets you have before, it turns from red to, black.

no one's going to loan you money anyway, you might find partners. And that's the other thing I'd recommend. I've always leveraged in my life. relationships with, you know, with business associates that I did business with in the past where we were employees together in the past.

And then we launched a business together. None of us could have afforded to have hired each other because we were all, you know, top levels people. But together we put in our resources and our efforts and we launched the business together. And, you know, 12 years later, we're still married to each other.

We're still doing a lot of a huge amount of business together and, and doing, uh, you know, business around the world. So leveraging relationships as another way to find the funding by looking for some people you can partner with, who also had some money to put in and some skill and talent and possibly, you know, pool resources together that way

versus, uh, any kind of loan or, or banking situation, which it's not going to happen anyway, because again, like, like Shahara said, banks only loan money to people who don't need it. And so if you, if you need it, if you need it, it's not happening. when you don't need it, everybody's willing to loan you money.

Then they're, reaching out to you. You sure you don't need a loan?

Kandidly Kristin: Right out and you can fan, but Marco, while I have you tell me a little bit about value, add incentives versus discounts and

Marco Torres: why. Yeah. One of the biggest mistakes business owners can make is trying to keep up with the Joneses.

I'm trying to keep trying to compete with their competitors by lowering their prices. So you, you want to be cheaper than your competitor and before you know it, you're racing to the bottom and you've got no profits at all. So with marketing boost.com, it's the service that I provided.

We we provide business owners, the opportunity to compete on a, on a equal level with the big boys, with your big competitors. And we provide travel incentives, which right now believe it or not it's being used like never before people are revenge. Travel is real. We're done with where people are done with COVID the lockdowns and everything.

And so we, we provide for $37 a month, which any, any solo for newer entrepreneur can afford the ability to give away unlimited, complimentary hotels days and over 125 destinations around the world, around the world. hotels, savings cards, restaurant savings vouchers. And we teach our members where we have a Facebook group with over almost 28,000 entrepreneurs in the group that, are always helping each other and critiquing each other's offers and campaigns and, creatives to, uh, you know, help each other with launch their campaign or what have you.

But we use incentives to, for example, instead of discounting, you know, whatever you're doing, let's say it's coaching. You can be saying, Hey, if you hire me for, instead of just, you know, a three month coaching campaign, if you stick with me for a minimum of six months, I'm going to reward you at the anniversary of six months with a six day five night trip to Cancun on me, or maybe it's 12 months at your one year anniversary.

not only are you going to see the rewards of all this additional revenue that I'm going to help you generate, but I'm also going to throw in a complimentary hotel stay. these are the types of incentives that we. Complimentary hotels days, restaurant vouchers and restaurant and vouchers so that you can have micro incentives for micro calls to action or big complimentary trips with a big call to action and, hold the value instead of discounting and, uh, you know, drop a huge value bomb with, complimentary hotel stays, they can be used for lead generation.

They could be used to generate referrals. They could be used to generate testimonials. They could be used to, uh, close, sales on a webinar. They can be used to get people to join the webinar. They can get a book to stay till the end of the webinar. I mean, there's so many ways to use our, types of incentives or others to, to grow your, business other than discounts..

 I don't want to hog the microphone for the last 12

minutes, but

Kandidly Kristin: no, no, that's, that's fine. I appreciate that. Especially the restaurant vouchers. I liked the eat, so, huh. so because we are closing in, on our final few minutes, I wanted to give each of my guests. Well, first I wanted to invite anybody who had a question and either type it in the chat or hit the call in button.

If you wanted to speak directly. before I give my guests an opportunity to give me their last thoughts and one single piece of advice to all of the people, that'll hear this that are on the fence about whether or not to, go full speed ahead or slow speed ahead, or however into the business that they've been thinking about for a long time.

So any calls, any questions.

Okay, so each of you in turn, and it doesn't matter to me who goes first, could you just give my listeners, the people in the room now and the people that will hear this in the future. Last thoughts about going from employee to entrepreneur and launching your business and one single piece of advice.

Marco Torres:

so I'll jump in with what you said earlier too, given my

Kandidly Kristin: whole train of thought.

Marco Torres: To give up my final thoughts one, obviously there's, there's all kinds of tools today. The technology is so affordable. I really recommend that, you know, you've got a hell also have automation in place.

So there's, there's such a, you know, there's, there's so many ways to communicate with clients online today, as you start to building prospects. So you've got to be using email, text message, voicemail, broadcasting, and these are tools that are available to the marketing boost members that we, uh, that we also offer that as an upgrade.

But again, with if to find out more about what we offer, it's simply go to marketing boost.com. if you go to marketingboost.com forward slash podcast, you can get 30 days of marketing boost for $1 and try it out, give yourself a complimentary trip to Cancun, what I'd recommend, we have an incredible amount of resources available. Our mission in life is to teach small business owners, how to build their business, how to grow on a scale. and that's what we do. And we make it super affordable to do that. So we're not, we're not one-on-one business coaches. I do recommend you do that as well with people like Nyjah and Shahara or whoever offers coaching it's it's great. We don't do that, but we certainly do offer essentially group coaching, webinars training, and, uh, I'd like to help entrepreneurs get off the ground. And so that's what we're here for.

Kandidly Kristin: I'm trying to sit on a yacht like you shoot, so, huh. Okay. And Nyjah. You're welcome.

Thank you.

Nyjah McCoy: I would say start within honest self assessment, and it doesn't have to be anything extensive, just literally, basically your strengths and weaknesses. If your strengths outweigh your weaknesses, go in what I call it as RAA. Like what a monster say. So research, analyze the research and then attack our RAA.

and when I say attack, that's correctly, positioning yourself, getting in where you fit and literally just take off. don't second guess anything, stay consistent work hard and watch it pay off.

Kandidly Kristin: Nice. Thank you. I love the RAA that's going to be in the show notes. Thank you. Thank you. And Ms.

Shahara,

Shahara Wright: so I don't know who said this quote, but, um, it's like, it took me 10 years to become an overnight success.

I mean, I think one of the things that people need to know is that, you know, it takes a while and yes, there are some, some people very few that, you know, kind of hit the ground and make more money than they thought. And it took off faster than they thought, that comes with its own sets of problems. But the truth is, is that it takes time.

and don't, kind of judge yourself by. People on these internet streets that are telling you that they may, you know, $5 million in three days. the likelihood is that it's not true. it takes time. It takes, blood, sweat, and tears, to build your business in the way that you want it to be built.

so that can be longevity and success. So just give yourself patience and grace, to grow, so that you know that you have a sustainable business.

Kandidly Kristin: Love it, love it, love it, love it. Thank you all for that. we are sadly at the end of our time together. but

 This has been so much more than I thought it would be. I want to thank Marco Nyjah, Shahara for giving me this hour of your time. Cause you didn't have to. I appreciate it for myself and for. My listeners, cause I really do this for them. And you gave them lots and lots of good information. thank you for sharing your knowledge.

It's important to me, that listeners, get real practical resources and tips at the end of the day from this show. So I appreciate you all for coming and giving just that. Thank you so much.

Marco Torres: Thank you. I had fun.

Kandidly Kristin: Thank you, Marco. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And uh, thank you, Shahara. Thank you and Nyjah

thank you.

Nyjah McCoy: I had a great time too. I couldn't find my mute.

Kandidly Kristin: It's all right, so guys, that's a wrap for any of the employed entrepreneur episode. I hope that it was informative and entertaining for you and all of the guests contact info. All of the key takeaways from this episode will be in the show notes when the recording of this show goes up on Friday morning.

 So you go to the show notes at www.thekandidshop.com Kandid with a K look for this episode and the show notes and transcript will be there. So, please come back next Tuesday, March 22nd at 8:00 PM Eastern for my next live show, which is going to be trade secrets.

Part two, investing in wealth, building tips and tools. Last year I closed the year in December with trade secrets, part one, and it was one of my most downloaded. Episode. So I thought, let me run that back and do a part two. And we're going to talk about real estate investing, being your own bank, leveraging insurance, all kinds of different ways to invest and build legacy wealth for yourself and your family.

So until we meet again, guys, I want you all to keep it safe, keep it healthy and keep it Kandid.