Shownotes
- His career journey
- How Eric went out on his own
- How long it took Eric to land his first client
- We’re all product of our past environments
- Why you need to invest in marketing during economic challenges
- How to listen for your ideal client opportunity
Transcripts
I always had this belief that if you do a great job with project number
Eric Elam:one, project number two will follow.
David Shriner-Cahn:Welcome to Smashing The Plateau.
David Shriner-Cahn:We help consultants, coaches, entrepreneurs, and small business
David Shriner-Cahn:owners build their business after a long career, as an employed professional.
David Shriner-Cahn:We believe you should be able to do what you love and get paid
David Shriner-Cahn:what you're worth, consistently.
David Shriner-Cahn:I'm your host, David Shriner-Cahn.
David Shriner-Cahn:Today on Smashing The Plateau, I'm speaking with marketing
David Shriner-Cahn:strategist, Eric Elam.
David Shriner-Cahn:Eric is the founder and president of Elam Associates, a solo marketing
David Shriner-Cahn:agency, focused on delivering customized marketing solutions
David Shriner-Cahn:for small and mid-sized companies.
David Shriner-Cahn:In today's episode of Smashing The Plateau, you'll learn how to
David Shriner-Cahn:start and build a solo business in your field of expertise.
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David Shriner-Cahn:Now let's welcome.
David Shriner-Cahn:Eric Elam.
David Shriner-Cahn:Eric is the founder and president of Elam Associates, a solo marketing
David Shriner-Cahn:agency focused on delivering customized marketing solutions
David Shriner-Cahn:for small and mid-sized companies.
David Shriner-Cahn:Eric's three decades plus career traversed from corporate side marketer
David Shriner-Cahn:to consultant, to ad agency executive, then onto his current solopreneur role.
David Shriner-Cahn:Eric resides in Cincinnati, Ohio with his wife of 41 years, cindy.
David Shriner-Cahn:Eric, welcome to the show.
Eric Elam:Thank you, David.
Eric Elam:It's wonderful to be here.
David Shriner-Cahn:Tell me a little bit about your career.
Eric Elam:my journey to where I am right now may not necessarily be a traditional
Eric Elam:one, but I'll go ahead and give it to you.
Eric Elam:I started off on the corporate marketing side.
Eric Elam:That was my first job at a school.
Eric Elam:I did that for about a dozen years and then low and behold, I got laid off.
Eric Elam:I think back then they called it right sizing because they
Eric Elam:didn't wanna say downsizing.
Eric Elam:I was surprised I wasn't expecting it.
Eric Elam:I had two kids at home.
Eric Elam:And it was like, what am I gonna do next?
Eric Elam:So I started looking for jobs, of course.
Eric Elam:And, wasn't really finding what I was looking for.
Eric Elam:Colleague of mine said, why don't you consult?
Eric Elam:Why don't you try consulting while you're looking for a job?
Eric Elam:And I listened to her and I was able to get some consulting assignments.
Eric Elam:That was probably my first opportunity to dip my toe in the waters of consulting.
Eric Elam:I did that for a couple of years, and then one of the companies I was consulting
Eric Elam:for offered me a job well, at that point in time, while I was intrigued by the
Eric Elam:world of consulting, I wasn't ready yet.
Eric Elam:I still had a family to support.
Eric Elam:It just felt too risky.
Eric Elam:So I took the job, another corporate job, about three years after that.
Eric Elam:I moved from the corporate side to the ad agency side was
Eric Elam:offered a job at an ad agency.
Eric Elam:It was a much smaller firm and I felt like that was maybe getting
Eric Elam:me closer to the consulting world.
Eric Elam:Cause I was going from big corporate job over to an agency job.
Eric Elam:I worked in, two different ad agencies, really smaller.
Eric Elam:we're talking less than 50 employees.
Eric Elam:So these were small firms for about 10 years.
Eric Elam:So now I've taken you up to 2008, 2009.
Eric Elam:And, I guess like a lot of individuals during the course of their career,
Eric Elam:I was taking notes along the way.
Eric Elam:I was taking my mental notes, my time in the, corporate setting helped me
Eric Elam:to understand what corporate marketers are looking for from ad agencies.
Eric Elam:My time on the ad agency side gave me a better perspective of what life was
Eric Elam:like there and what agencies really needed to do to service their clients.
Eric Elam:And I made this decision that I think something's broken.
Eric Elam:Okay.
Eric Elam:Business as usual to me, wasn't working.
Eric Elam:And quite frankly, David, I was feeling really unfulfilled in my agency job.
Eric Elam:And some might say why I was vice president of business development.
Eric Elam:I had a nice six figure income.
Eric Elam:I had a really good title.
Eric Elam:I had all the things that were supposed to be making me happy,
Eric Elam:but I felt really unfulfilled.
Eric Elam:and, I mentioned to you that I'd been married to the same woman for 41 years.
Eric Elam:And she was like, why don't you do something about it?
Eric Elam:And to be perfectly honest with you, I was nearing a milestone birthday.
Eric Elam:It's amazing what milestone birthdays can sometimes do to us.
Eric Elam:And I got to the point where, what's the worst that could happen to me.
Eric Elam:I guess I could fail.
Eric Elam:I'd been laid off a couple of times in my career.
Eric Elam:So what would be wrong with failing at this?
Eric Elam:So back to my point about, business as usual, wasn't working.
Eric Elam:I learned a lot about what, I thought the business should look like.
Eric Elam:Here's the bottom line of what I decided to do.
Eric Elam:I made the decision.
Eric Elam:I was gonna go out on my.
Eric Elam:One of the things that I learned is it doesn't matter whether you're working
Eric Elam:in a corporate setting, whether you're working in an ed agency setting or whether
Eric Elam:you're a consultant, there's three things that matter in the marketing business.
Eric Elam:One relationships let's face it.
Eric Elam:We do business with people we know and trust.
Eric Elam:We do business with people.
Eric Elam:We like, and I had always been really good at building relationships.
Eric Elam:I knew I could build those relationships and leverage 'em.
Eric Elam:Secondly, this business is about ideas.
Eric Elam:Okay, you must generate ideas to either grow a brand, to
Eric Elam:generate new leads, to grow sales.
Eric Elam:You have to come up with ideas and why should ideas be the
Eric Elam:domain of a large agency?
Eric Elam:Why can't I generate those ideas?
Eric Elam:And third it's about execution.
Eric Elam:I had lived through situations where.
Eric Elam:Great ideas would die on a vine because the company didn't
Eric Elam:know how to execute them.
Eric Elam:So I decided, okay, I'm gonna try this myself.
Eric Elam:So it took me, I probably, from the time I decided I was going out on
Eric Elam:my own, it was January of, 2009.
Eric Elam:It wasn't the best time in the, in our country from an economic
Eric Elam:standpoint, 2008 had just happened.
Eric Elam:Some people, who were close to me, thought I was crazy.
Eric Elam:What are you doing?
Eric Elam:Leaving a secure job to go out on your own.
Eric Elam:My gut told me I could make it work.
Eric Elam:I just felt like I could do.
Eric Elam:So you never forget these dates, David, June 29th, 2009.
Eric Elam:I resigned my job and I hung up a shingle right away and I started Elam Associates.
Eric Elam:I had no clients, I had no revenue.
Eric Elam:I had a belief that I could make this work.
Eric Elam:I had a couple of prospects that I thought I could approach and get some work from.
Eric Elam:and I had a, a message from my wife that, okay, buddy, you got
Eric Elam:six months to make this work.
Eric Elam:You better be able to generate some revenue in six months.
Eric Elam:And she was right.
Eric Elam:I had to make some money.
Eric Elam:I had to prove that I could make this work, that I could take this idea.
Eric Elam:And my idea was, I'm gonna build an agency or a consulting business.
Eric Elam:And really three tenants behind that.
Eric Elam:There would be no walls.
Eric Elam:Okay.
Eric Elam:I'm not gonna open up an office.
Eric Elam:Why open an office?
Eric Elam:Why do I need an office?
Eric Elam:That's just added expense that I don't need at this point in time.
Eric Elam:So there would be no walls.
Eric Elam:Secondly, there would be no barriers when I say no barriers.
Eric Elam:What I meant by that is, I need to work with clients that will allow me
Eric Elam:to immerse myself in their business.
Eric Elam:If you let me in, I can help solve your marketing challenges.
Eric Elam:No walls, no barriers and tied into that.
Eric Elam:No overhead.
Eric Elam:Okay.
Eric Elam:Yes.
Eric Elam:I understand the need for overhead in an agency world, but I'm not
Eric Elam:gonna bring that to my clients.
Eric Elam:I'm gonna bring you fresh ideas.
Eric Elam:So I set out looking for a client and, I found one, I found a small client.
Eric Elam:They were, in the business of making educational furniture.
Eric Elam:So furniture for colleges, schools.
Eric Elam:They didn't have a lot of money to spend, but they gave me a start.
Eric Elam:And about a month after that, I found a second client.
Eric Elam:All of a sudden, I've got some traction here.
Eric Elam:I forget.
Eric Elam:I'm energized.
David Shriner-Cahn:And how many months in was your first client?
Eric Elam:probably a month, probably three weeks.
David Shriner-Cahn:That's pretty quick.
Eric Elam:Yeah, it was pretty quick.
Eric Elam:I'll be honest.
Eric Elam:I was leveraging relationships.
Eric Elam:I've talked to you about the importance of relationships.
Eric Elam:I contacted people who I knew, who knew me and, I think oftentimes,
Eric Elam:your former colleagues and friends want to give you a chance.
Eric Elam:They wanna see you succeed.
Eric Elam:And, all I was saying was give me a project, give me a project and let me see
Eric Elam:if I can deliver against maybe what your expectations were or what you had received
Eric Elam:from other marketing agencies before.
Eric Elam:So the first year I really had two core clients, but I wasn't making anywhere
Eric Elam:near the money I was making before.
Eric Elam:David.
Eric Elam:I was so much happier.
Eric Elam:I was energized again.
Eric Elam:I was feeling fulfilled.
Eric Elam:I was feeling like, I know I can make this thing work.
Eric Elam:And, the second year I landed another client and, things took off from there.
Eric Elam:And now I'm 13 years in it.
Eric Elam:there have been some years that are much better than others.
Eric Elam:I've learned a lot along the way.
Eric Elam:There have been a lot of, unexpected transitions moving into this that I had no
Eric Elam:idea what I was getting in, getting into.
Eric Elam:maybe if I had known everything that I was getting into, I wouldn't have done this.
Eric Elam:So it was probably best that I didn't know.
Eric Elam:it's funny.
David Shriner-Cahn:I see a number of parallels in our situations.
David Shriner-Cahn:like you, I have been laid off several times in my career the first time.
David Shriner-Cahn:I totally didn't see it coming.
David Shriner-Cahn:it was very early on.
David Shriner-Cahn:I'd been working for about four years at that point.
David Shriner-Cahn:And the company I worked for had lost a lot of business and terminated a big
David Shriner-Cahn:percentage of the staff, including me.
David Shriner-Cahn:And at that point I actually thought about becoming an entrepreneur and doing
David Shriner-Cahn:something, not necessarily consulting, but just doing something as an entrepreneur.
David Shriner-Cahn:I, I knew so little about how to run a business, that
David Shriner-Cahn:it just, it wasn't feasible.
David Shriner-Cahn:And I ended up getting another job, but in a different sector, I went from
David Shriner-Cahn:engineering to the nonprofit world.
David Shriner-Cahn:So I did make a transition, but not quite the one that I had initially hoped.
David Shriner-Cahn:And then when I started my consulting business in 2006, one of my
David Shriner-Cahn:mentors at the time, Said to me.
David Shriner-Cahn:And I was pretty early on in my business and I I was getting some traction and
David Shriner-Cahn:he said, you have to be really motivated to make it work as a consultant.
David Shriner-Cahn:You may also find that there is someone who offers you a job, whe somebody that
David Shriner-Cahn:you're consulting for offers you a job, and you're gonna have to make a decision.
David Shriner-Cahn:Whether you take the job or you really wanna pursue.
David Shriner-Cahn:Getting this consulting business thing to actually work the way you want it.
David Shriner-Cahn:And in fact, there was, there was an opportunity that came along
David Shriner-Cahn:that was really a plum job and with really good compensation.
David Shriner-Cahn:Tied to it that I ended up, not pursuing because I really wanted
David Shriner-Cahn:to make the consulting thing work.
David Shriner-Cahn:I totally relate to that.
David Shriner-Cahn:And you have to go all in, like you said, you have to have
David Shriner-Cahn:faith that it's gonna work.
David Shriner-Cahn:You have to go all in.
David Shriner-Cahn:And the financial situation is definitely quite different
David Shriner-Cahn:than when you're an employee.
David Shriner-Cahn:It's not consistent.
David Shriner-Cahn:And some years are really good, some years, not so much.
David Shriner-Cahn:And you have to be comfortable with that.
Eric Elam:Yep.
Eric Elam:David we're all products of our past environment.
Eric Elam:And, the second time I got laid off was, my first ad agency job and
Eric Elam:I was VP of business development.
Eric Elam:So it was my job to bring in new business.
Eric Elam:And I was bringing into business.
Eric Elam:Then we'd lost.
Eric Elam:One of our largest clients at and T was one of our largest clients.
Eric Elam:It was at and T cable or broadband at the time.
Eric Elam:And they were a large percentage of our business.
Eric Elam:And, I never thought I was gonna get laid off.
Eric Elam:And the head of the agency brought me in and said, I hate to do this, but
Eric Elam:quite frankly, you're making too much money and we just lost a lot of revenue.
Eric Elam:And I guess having been laid off for the second time, when I felt
Eric Elam:like I was doing my job changes your perception of security, right?
Eric Elam:people always think, wow, you've got a secure job.
Eric Elam:No.
Eric Elam:When somebody else controls your destiny and you don't control
Eric Elam:it, you can be gone the next day.
Eric Elam:It doesn't matter if you're doing a good job.
Eric Elam:So those were definitely factors.
Eric Elam:When I went out on my own, it was like, okay, I've been laid off twice.
Eric Elam:Maybe this time I can control my own destiny and you brought up something
Eric Elam:else that I think was really important.
Eric Elam:We all have a handful of mentors in, in, in our lives.
Eric Elam:And,
Eric Elam:I had a gentleman who was one of my mentors who's just recently retired.
Eric Elam:One of the more brilliant corporate identity strategists that, I think in
Eric Elam:the world, the guy's name is Philip Durbrow, ran a company called Marshall
Eric Elam:Strategy out on the west coast.
Eric Elam:I hired him for a project when I was on the corporate side
Eric Elam:and I learned so much from him.
Eric Elam:And when I was time for me to consider going out on my own, I called Philip
Eric Elam:and told him what I was gonna do.
Eric Elam:And he encouraged me said, you can do this.
Eric Elam:You're capable.
Eric Elam:You have the skills.
Eric Elam:What do you have to lose?
Eric Elam:Go do it.
Eric Elam:I think a lot of times we rely on those mentors, the people
Eric Elam:that we followed when we were.
Eric Elam:Building our careers.
Eric Elam:I learned a lot from watching how he ran his business.
Eric Elam:So it was interesting to hear you talk about a mentor because I think
Eric Elam:it was a big factor for me, but no, not all the years have been good.
Eric Elam:Okay.
Eric Elam:And there are things that you don't necessarily think about,
Eric Elam:when you go out on your own, I didn't think about cash flow.
Eric Elam:Okay.
Eric Elam:I was so used to a check, every two.
Eric Elam:And early on cash flow was good.
Eric Elam:And then I had a couple of years that were a little lean and it was
Eric Elam:like, whoa, I hadn't seen a check roll in six weeks or eight weeks.
Eric Elam:And that's, something you have, you learn to live with the cash flow issue.
Eric Elam:You learn to balance a little bit better.
Eric Elam:When you're on the corporate side or working for an agency, you have an it
Eric Elam:department, when things, collapse for you and you're on your own, you better
Eric Elam:get it fixed pretty quick, because how are you gonna be able to communicate
Eric Elam:with your clients, all those things that were the spoils of working for
Eric Elam:someone else, but you learn to work around them, they're barriers and you
Eric Elam:just have to learn to work through them.
David Shriner-Cahn:Yeah.
David Shriner-Cahn:And I also have found that in the last.
David Shriner-Cahn:Two and a half years with the upending of all of our lives and businesses
David Shriner-Cahn:with the COVID restrictions that, so solo-preneurs have often been much
David Shriner-Cahn:more flexible and quick to respond to the changing marketplace and some have
David Shriner-Cahn:done quite well during this period.
Eric Elam:That's interesting.
Eric Elam:actually one of my larger clients did quite well during the pandemic.
Eric Elam:And, I really was a little bit surprised by that.
Eric Elam:But part of it was, there were some people who panicked, right?
Eric Elam:And they stopped doing their marketing.
Eric Elam:They stopped advertising, but this particular company
Eric Elam:took a different approach.
Eric Elam:It's we're gonna come out on the other end of this.
Eric Elam:So let's say the course, those are great clients to have,
Eric Elam:obviously with solopreneur.
Eric Elam:clients who don't panic in clients who are willing to stay the course.
Eric Elam:And I've always tried to find clients who view marketing as an
Eric Elam:investment and not an expense.
Eric Elam:There are some clients who view it as an expense.
Eric Elam:It's a line item in the budget, but, smart clients know that you have to invest.
Eric Elam:You have to invest in good times and in bad times,
David Shriner-Cahn:Yeah.
David Shriner-Cahn:And actually, you've just brought up 2 billion important points.
David Shriner-Cahn:So with regard to marketing, if you look at the data during, long periods of time,
David Shriner-Cahn:companies that have continued to invest in marketing, when business is bad, do
David Shriner-Cahn:much better when business turns around.
David Shriner-Cahn:Yes, because yes, business does turn around.
David Shriner-Cahn:The economy has.
David Shriner-Cahn:Up times and it's down times and you do need to invest in marketing when the
David Shriner-Cahn:economy is weak, because it does rebound.
David Shriner-Cahn:And if you're not top of mind, when the economy rebounds, you will
David Shriner-Cahn:miss out on huge opportunities.
David Shriner-Cahn:Yes.
Eric Elam:If I could just give you the one little case study, the
Eric Elam:client that I'm referring to is a company called Salon Concepts.
Eric Elam:They're in the booth rental business.
Eric Elam:They rent suites to salon professionals, hair, stylists,
Eric Elam:nail techs, cetera, et cetera.
Eric Elam:And they only operate in Cincinnati and Minneapolis.
Eric Elam:They have a total of 24 stores, but at the beginning of the pandemic,
Eric Elam:their occupancy rate was like 84%.
Eric Elam:this past month they had a record high of 93%.
Eric Elam:So during some really trying times over the last 24 months,
Eric Elam:26 months, whatever that was.
Eric Elam:They've grown their business, and they were willing to invest at
Eric Elam:times when others were pulling back.
Eric Elam:So I love those kind of stories.
Eric Elam:They're few and far between, but clients who, dig in and say,
Eric Elam:okay, we're not going anywhere.
Eric Elam:We're gonna ride out the storm.
Eric Elam:We're gonna continue to invest in marketing.
Eric Elam:We're not going to pull back and then you see them be successful.
Eric Elam:those are great stories.
David Shriner-Cahn:Yeah.
David Shriner-Cahn:I also wanna recognize the fact that when it comes to building a business that has
David Shriner-Cahn:no walls, you were ahead of the curve.
David Shriner-Cahn:Cause in 2009, it was not necessarily looked upon as a positive attribute to
David Shriner-Cahn:be bringing on a consultant or hiring a business that didn't have an office space.
Eric Elam:It was a barrier for me and
Eric Elam:I learned some hard lessons I learned who was the ideal client.
Eric Elam:Okay.
Eric Elam:There are some clients who are comfortable with an ad agency that has four
Eric Elam:walls that has a big conference room.
Eric Elam:I didn't have any of that.
Eric Elam:I was operating out of my home and I was very transparent with everyone.
Eric Elam:And I found out that some clients just weren't comfortable with my model.
Eric Elam:And that was okay because David, I didn't need.
Eric Elam:A lot.
Eric Elam:It was the quality of clients that I was seeking, not the quantity.
Eric Elam:And I ha had to recognize.
Eric Elam:And that's where I'd learned that the companies that really
Eric Elam:responded well to my story.
Eric Elam:Were small to mid-size businesses.
Eric Elam:They were companies that knew that they needed marketing support.
Eric Elam:They were intimidated by agencies.
Eric Elam:They did not want to pay big retainers.
Eric Elam:They couldn't afford to pay big retainers.
Eric Elam:So I made a decision early on that I was not gonna be retainer based.
Eric Elam:I was project based and that was somewhat risky, but I always had this belief.
Eric Elam:That if you do a great job with project number one,
Eric Elam:project number two will follow.
Eric Elam:Okay.
Eric Elam:Even if you have a retainer, clients can still fire you.
Eric Elam:They can still cancel your contract.
Eric Elam:And usually it's, 30 days and you're out.
Eric Elam:I really started to learn who was an ideal client.
Eric Elam:So it was those small to mid-sized clients that they were in a growth mode.
Eric Elam:Okay.
Eric Elam:They were trying to grow their business.
Eric Elam:They needed marketing support, but they didn't wanna take a big risk
Eric Elam:by signing a long term contract.
Eric Elam:Secondarily, they were typically companies.
Eric Elam:Did not have a marketing person on staff.
Eric Elam:At least they didn't have a marketing strategist on staff.
Eric Elam:That was one of the things that I thought I could bring to the table
Eric Elam:because I had been a corporate marketer and I had been on the agency side.
Eric Elam:I had worn both hats.
Eric Elam:So I could come into a client and say, I can provide you
Eric Elam:with that marketing strategy.
Eric Elam:I can provide you with the guidance to move your business forward.
Eric Elam:And when you need agency services, I can deliver them.
Eric Elam:Now, the way I do that and the way I've done that.
Eric Elam:That's the associates part of Elm associates.
Eric Elam:One of the benefits of being in this market for a long time, David
Eric Elam:is I knew all the good people.
Eric Elam:I knew all the good freelancers and, I had reached out to a number of them when
Eric Elam:I was getting ready to make this move.
Eric Elam:And I said, I'm gonna need your support.
Eric Elam:I'm gonna need your help.
Eric Elam:Because I'm gonna generate work.
Eric Elam:I'm gonna generate work for you.
Eric Elam:And for me, these are copywriters.
Eric Elam:These are designers.
Eric Elam:These are web developers.
Eric Elam:These are social media experts.
Eric Elam:These are media planners, PR professionals, you name it.
Eric Elam:I had a bullpen to go to.
Eric Elam:And the advantage that I had is I could go to the client and
Eric Elam:say, you're only going to pay for these people when you need them.
Eric Elam:We're gonna do project for you.
Eric Elam:I'm gonna give you an estimate of what it costs to bring them in.
Eric Elam:I'm gonna run this like an agency.
Eric Elam:But it's a virtual agency.
Eric Elam:There's no walls.
Eric Elam:And, there's no long term commitments.
Eric Elam:And my gut told me that this would work, that I could find clients
Eric Elam:that would respond to this.
Eric Elam:The greatest validation of this was about two and a half years into my business.
Eric Elam:One of the former clients at my previous agency moved a
Eric Elam:piece of their business, to me.
Eric Elam:I may have mentioned this company's name to you before it's, Graeter's,
Eric Elam:which is a company that has been making ice cream for over 150 years.
Eric Elam:They, I think, not speaking outta school here, I think they had tired of
Eric Elam:the traditional agency relationship.
Eric Elam:They knew what I was doing.
Eric Elam:They saw that I'd been out there for two years.
Eric Elam:I had proven myself a little bit.
Eric Elam:They gave me one project and our team killed it.
Eric Elam:We just did fantastic work that won awards.
Eric Elam:And, from 2012 to 2015, we basically became their agency of record.
Eric Elam:And, a lot of satisfaction came from that because I had proven that we
Eric Elam:could do quality work outside of the realm of a traditional agency.
Eric Elam:Structure.
Eric Elam:So probably one of my favorite stories and, I don't do much work with
Eric Elam:them anymore an occasional project.
Eric Elam:They now have a VP of marketing.
Eric Elam:They didn't have a VP of marketing when they hired me,
Eric Elam:they needed someone like me.
Eric Elam:And that often happens where companies will grow and evolve
Eric Elam:and eventually they hire people.
Eric Elam:And when they hire people, they don't need me anymore.
Eric Elam:But.
Eric Elam:That's okay.
Eric Elam:That's that's the nature of the business,
David Shriner-Cahn:right?
David Shriner-Cahn:for, congratulations on everything you've built, speaks to the power
David Shriner-Cahn:of perseverance and also recognition of who you're meant to serve.
David Shriner-Cahn:Who your business is and who your business is not great point.
Eric Elam:Yeah.
Eric Elam:And it, I had to learn that over time.
Eric Elam:Okay.
Eric Elam:Yeah.
Eric Elam:And I made a lot of mistakes.
Eric Elam:I early on, I got really aggressive and I was, responding to every RFP
Eric Elam:that was out there for agency services.
Eric Elam:And I was unsuccessful there and I started to realize it
Eric Elam:was like, Eric, wake up here.
Eric Elam:The clients that are sending out RFPs are used to working
Eric Elam:with traditional ad agencies.
Eric Elam:they're not interested in your business model and you spend weeks and weeks
Eric Elam:working on these RFP responses.
Eric Elam:Let's face it.
Eric Elam:We're all competitive in this business.
Eric Elam:If someone says, would you like to have an opportunity to win my business too often?
Eric Elam:I would say, yeah, of course I do damn right.
Eric Elam:I do.
Eric Elam:And I'm gonna win, but I wasn't realistic about who was a good fit.
Eric Elam:I've learned over time, who was a good fit for me.
Eric Elam:And it's not the larger companies and there's so much more satisfaction that
Eric Elam:comes from helping a young company grow and, being able to interact with
Eric Elam:the founders and helping, Experiencing some of their pain along the way.
Eric Elam:That's what I really enjoy doing
David Shriner-Cahn:well again, Eric, congratulations on what you've built.
David Shriner-Cahn:we've covered a lot of territory about your business
David Shriner-Cahn:in particular, and also a lot.
David Shriner-Cahn:The lessons learned.
David Shriner-Cahn:If someone wants to, go deeper with anything we've discussed access
David Shriner-Cahn:to any resources you have, or get in touch with you, where would be
David Shriner-Cahn:the best.
David Shriner-Cahn:the best way to reach me on LinkedIn, just search under ELAM
David Shriner-Cahn:Associates and I will pop up all of my contact information is there.
David Shriner-Cahn:I do have a website it's, ElamAssociates.com.
David Shriner-Cahn:So both of those are great resources.
David Shriner-Cahn:My phone number's on there.
David Shriner-Cahn:I only have one phone number.
David Shriner-Cahn:It's my cell phone.
David Shriner-Cahn:I don't have a corporate line and a mobile line.
David Shriner-Cahn:I just have a mobile / business line.
David Shriner-Cahn:And I'm the only one that answers it.
David Shriner-Cahn:That's one of the other things that I learned when I started my business is,
David Shriner-Cahn:Eric, there's no one to delegate to.
David Shriner-Cahn:So if you call that number, if there's only one person
David Shriner-Cahn:that's gonna answer it, which.
David Shriner-Cahn:Typically me if it's, a Friday and I'm watching one of my granddaughters,
David Shriner-Cahn:they might answer my phone, but they usually hand it over to me.
David Shriner-Cahn:So I love it.
David Shriner-Cahn:I'm just being transparent about, and what is the phone number?
Eric Elam:The phone number is (513) 703-5334.
David Shriner-Cahn:Great.
David Shriner-Cahn:we will include this information in the show notes, Eric, I want to
David Shriner-Cahn:thank you so much for taking the time to join us today and Smashing
David Shriner-Cahn:The Plateau and share your insights.
David Shriner-Cahn:My guest has been the president of Elam Associates, Eric Elam.
David Shriner-Cahn:Thank you again, Eric, for joining us.
Eric Elam:David.
Eric Elam:It's been a pleasure and thank you for creating the community because I will
Eric Elam:tell you if you don't mind me saying in closing, I didn't know anything about
Eric Elam:the community until I was referred to you by, a friend and colleague Rock
Eric Elam:Robinson who has appeared on your show and I'm a devoted follower now.
Eric Elam:I listened to all the podcast.
Eric Elam:And it's great to, to be able to hear people who are dealing with
Eric Elam:a lot of the same things that I am dealing with and have dealt with.
Eric Elam:So you're providing a great service to the solo entrepreneur
Eric Elam:community and, for that personally
Eric Elam:thank you.
David Shriner-Cahn:thank you.
David Shriner-Cahn:Thank you so much, Eric, because it's an honor to, to hear
David Shriner-Cahn:this and to be able to serve.
David Shriner-Cahn:Folks like us that need this help.
Eric Elam:All right.
Eric Elam:David, I look forward to talking to you again soon.
Eric Elam:Thank you.
David Shriner-Cahn:Thank you, Eric.
David Shriner-Cahn:All right.
Eric Elam:Bye-bye
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