Ep 271: Building Your Personal Brand as a Small Business Owner with Jill Flodstrom | Recap Episode
AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody. This is AJ Vaden. I am here with your recap episode, from my conversation with Jill Flodstrom. And I love Jill she’s a longtime friend. She is a, a client of brand builders group, which is so cool that she’s a fellow entrepreneur has a thriving, personal brand and also really pull insurance business and real estate business. Anyways, we wanna know more about that. Don’t listen to the full episode but here is my quick recap and I promise to keep this short and sweet. And I always say that sometimes I will actually do today, but there were two really important things that I pulled from my conversation with Jill that I wanna share with you guys today. And both of those really hit true to me because as an entrepreneur and a small business owner and someone who is trying to build and grow right, their personal brand, in addition to helping others do that she said a couple of things that I think are just truly universal and applicable, no matter where you are and what you you’re doing.
AJV (01:04):
And the first thing is that there are, there are things that you can be doing that you are not doing that would make your life better. All right. And that’s really what I heard. And I think so many of us live in the day to day of just doing things because that’s what we’ve always done. And there is the easier way and many times a better way, but the pain of going through the change to actually make it easier or better seems like more work than it’s worth to do. So we keep doing it the way we’ve always done and we keep being stressed out, overwhelmed, overworked and ultimately not happy. And that was like a really important thing, was like, how many things am I doing right now? That one I just shouldn’t be doing at all, but because of a scarcity mentality I won’t outsource them or delegate them or I’ve convinced myself that I’m the only one who could possibly do this, which is just not true.
AJV (02:05):
That are some things that maybe you should be doing, but you’re definitely not the only one who can do many, most things in your business. So what are those things to you? And she gave some really tangible tactical tips on how to get your email in order. And I love this. I still don’t know what it is in terms of how to use it with office 365, which is what I use for email, but this idea of templated responses of how do you minimize the repetitive work that you’re doing. And there’s so many things as business owners, entrepreneurs, just humans that we do that are repetitive, that we need to find systematic with ways of improving to get back the minutes, because those minutes turn into hours and hours mean a lot, right? Like my kids don’t need to be with me eight hours a day.
AJV (02:57):
They need a little bit of really intentional time with me, right? They’re in school, I’m working. They don’t need all day with me, with me being distracted. They need my pure focused intentional time. So if I can get one hour back every single day that I can repurpose for my husband and my kids, I will change my life. And so minutes turn into hours. So what are you doing to help a accumulate those minutes? And I just, I loved this concept of todo lists and it’s like, you shouldn’t do everything on your to-do list when something are on there to remind you, they should not be on your to-do list, but you should always start with the things that turn into revenue that make you money. Because that’s, that’s the orientation that we’ve should be viewing these things when it comes to work.
AJV (03:41):
Right. and I think those were just amazing tips around how do we get more time back in our very busy days? That was huge. Second thing. And I’ll leave you with this. And I swear, y’all she has been talking to Rory Vaden. This is a message that Rory Vaden hits me with the time, and I’m not exaggerating. I’m reading this new book right now. That is incredible called nothing to prove. And it’s by Jenny Allen. I recommend it to any single person on the planet. It’s a must read. It’s extraordinary. It’s so good. But one of the questions that was in the end of one of my chapters was last night. This is literally a conversation we had last night, right before my interview with Jill Flodstrom today at serendipitous. But the question was, if you knew nothing could hold you back and if nothing was holding you back, what’s the number one thing that you would go out and do.
AJV (04:36):
And I asked Roy this last night and he literally said it would be one of two things I’d go all in on paid traffic is another topic for another day, but I’d go all in on paid traffic or I would completely stack up our team. And I was like, those are the two things that you would do if nothing was holding you back. Mine could not be further from that in the whole world. But it was interesting. And I was like, you would staff up our whole team. What do you mean? He goes, babe, it’s like, I would get you every single bit of help that you need. I would, I would just pull the trigger and I would hire this person and I would hire this person. And I would staff up so that you don’t feel burdened, or I don’t feel burdened to do the things that are pulling us away from time with each other time, with God time with our kids. And I was like, okay, well, those weren’t mine, but okay. That was good. And it just, I kind of like forgot about it. And then literally in this conversation with Jill today, I asked her at the very, very end. I said, Jill, from all the businesses that you’ve started scaled, sold, dismantled building a personal brand, like what’s one main life lesson as an entrepreneur that you would give to other entre entrepreneurs. And without hesitation, she said, hire before you’re ready.
AJV (05:50):
I was like, I’m sorry, what? And she said, hire before you’re ready. It’s like, sometimes you just know that there is
AJV (05:56):
A message that someone has to deliver just for you. That interview is for me today. And I think that’s the beauty and the power of having common community and listening to podcasts and listening and learning to other people is sometimes you know it, but you need someone else to speak it to you to speak it into you. And man I’m needed that today. And so maybe someone else needs that too, but hirer before you’re ready because I’ve been procrastinating on hiring some positions, cuz I don’t think that we have enough cash to do it or that would put too much financial strain on the business. Or if we hire people, what if we can’t give bonuses and raises and I’ve been putting it off. But guess what guess who’s taking on the brunt of that workload? Me, me and me again. And it’s like, why am I doing that? Like make us ready, get us ready, but hire before you’re ready. All so good. Love this interview. Go check it out. Come back again. Stay connected, make sure you like comment, share subscribe but stay in stay in tune with us on the influential personal brand. This is Aden and we’ll.