Shownotes
On this episode of "Looking Forward Our Way," hosts Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson welcome expert Darlene Ziebell to share her strategies for turning around failing businesses and to dive into the challenges small business owners face.
Darlene Ziebell, a seasoned strategist and consultant, begins by discussing the critical process of assessing a struggling business. She stresses the importance of understanding financials and monitoring economic indicators to make informed decisions and establish a backup plan.
Top Takeaways
1. **Recognize When to Bail**: Darlene stresses the importance for small business owners to know when it's time to sell and not pour more resources into a failing venture, much like intelligent stock market strategies of selling high and buying low.
2. **Stop Bleeding Cash**: A struggling business must stabilize by ceasing spending on activities that don't generate sales, such as ineffective social media advertising, which often diverts focus from more productive avenues.
3. **Employee Efficiency**: It's crucial to measure the revenue contribution of each employee.
4. **Financial Literacy is Key**: Knowing and understanding financials thoroughly is necessary for assessing business profitability and making wise, informed decisions.
5. **Competitive Vigilance**: Regularly evaluate your business against the competition and stay ahead of market trends to maintain a competitive edge. Constantly adapting to changing market dynamics is vital for survival.
6. **Expert Insight**: Leverage the expertise of professionals in HR, legal, and financial domains. However, vet these experts carefully—poor advice can lead to mishaps.
7. **Strategic Communication**: Communicate effectively with both customers and employees, ensure that financial concerns are clearly addressed, and ascertain that everyone has the skills needed as the company grows.
8. **Marketing Wisdom**: Refrain from wasteful spending on ineffective marketing strategies. Seek advice on understanding customer preferences and collect regular feedback for more targeted and successful marketing efforts.
9. **Be Ready to Adapt**: Understand the signs of a failing business and the importance of having backup plans. A failing business may require a completely new strategic approach, including cost reductions and seeking the right expertise for specific issues.
10. **Empowerment for Female Entrepreneurs**: Darlene advises female business owners to practice saying no to avoid steering the business off course and to focus on sales-generating activities. Women should not hesitate to seek help when necessary and be candid about the challenges they face.
Memorable Moments
05:24 Prepare for economic changes with backup plans.
08:38 Business owners need to monitor operations closely.
12:26 Non-profit public speaking, lack of market research.
19:34 Be careful what you read and watch.
21:53 Small business owners should measure employee revenue.
25:58 Small business owners need to monitor financials.
29:21 Evaluate previous marketing, seek expert advice, adapt.
36:28 Sharing knowledge through webinars and consulting.
44:22 Revise strategic plan based on past failures.
49:20 Redirecting individuals to gain necessary skills first.
51:31 Fear of saying no affects business success.
57:22 Success requires constant effort.
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Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle270Media Podcast Consultants.
Copyright 2024 Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson
Transcripts
We are Looking Forward Our Way. 100% Zoom here, not in the studio, but, we made it really easy for ourselves to record at home, but also bringing in our, expert from Phoenix, Arizona. Hi. This is Brett. Carol and I have convinced to her to join us again, Darlene Ziebel, who is an experienced strategist and consultant specializing in supporting businesses through strategic growth planning. Today, Darlene is going to answer the question, can a falling business be saved?
Carol Ventresca [:Darlene, thank you for joining us again. This is, I think, our 3rd time together, which is very cool. Exciting. Yes. And and, you have not managed to send us sunshine today, but that's okay.
Darlene Ziebell [:Well, you sent me clouds. It's cloudy here. There you go.
Carol Ventresca [:And it's normally cloudy. All good. Yes. Exactly.
Brett Johnson [:We've got plenty of those to share.
Darlene Ziebell [:That's Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [:Yes. So I think you are really. So over the past few years, we have discussed strategies of owning a small business and reaching success Today, we're gonna do a have a different focus. We're looking at changing the trajectory of a failing business. I wanna quote you on this issue. This I found this very interesting. Remember that turning around a failing business takes time, commitment, and adaptability. It's crucial to involve key stakeholders, maintain open communication, and be willing to make tough decisions for the overall health and sustainability of the business.
Carol Ventresca [:Okay, audience. We are Looking to learn some amazing strategies that can save a business as well as understand the issues and determine the weaknesses before that business fails.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. So, you know, before we begin, Darlene, if you'd give us, a quick overview of your background. I mean, this gives some street cred here. You know? You've created a methodology to support entrepreneurs and their businesses through your consulting work and your proven business experience. Talk, more about your background and the many ways you're supporting your clients.
Darlene Ziebell [:Thank you, Brett, and thank you, Carol, for having me back again. It's always great fun, to be on on your podcast because I learn so much from you. I think people should be registered all over the country. They'll listen to you guys. You bring in so many, experts, so thank you. My experience has been pretty much entrepreneurial. My almost my entire adult life. I was never able to get the jobs that I really wanted to go into from college.
Darlene Ziebell [:In my generation, women were turned down for a lot of things. So people always ask me, how did how did I get this? So I just started by buying my first business and never looking back. And from that, I've done, 4 launches. I've done 3 successful exits. I've done startups to, you know, growth to turnarounds, which is really what we're talking about today. Turnarounds have been around for a long time. Small business owners typically don't think about the methodologies and the tools that are available to help them turn themselves around. And, and when I sold my last business, I started to spend time coaching small business owners.
Darlene Ziebell [:I realized that people were coming to me for help Looking me, how do I do this? How do I start a business? How do I buy a business? What should I look for? So I created a methodology around the experiences that I've had. So everything that I share, I personally experienced or so did my clients. So thank you.
Carol Ventresca [:So, Darlene, this has been critical, in all of our conversations. You've always talked about the fact that having a successful business meaning means to also understand you could have a failing business too. You created a webinar for entrepreneurs called turning around a failing business. It's really extensive, and I'm encouraging everyone who's dealing with this issue to definitely contact you about the webinar. But we're not gonna be able to cover everything today. What I thought we could focus on are 4 points that are in your strategy. Assessment, stabilization, communication, and seeking expert advice and resources. Every business owner needs to understand that their business could fail, which as never having owned a business, that was a huge shock for me that I would have to recognize that too, but it certainly makes sense.
Carol Ventresca [:So my first question centers on a business that is failing. What are the signs that a business owner should recognize to reveal that they're in trouble?
Darlene Ziebell [:Way are the first signs they need to look for if their sales are stagnant and not growing or if some of their sales are starting to dip. Many people don't look at the economic signs that are going on. I'm always watching business news. I'm always reading business journals to see what some of the leading indicators are. They're called leading indicators. What are some of the leading indicators to let business owners know that things are starting to change in a climate? You know, for example, during the pandemic that sort of hit us, you know, out of left field. Nobody had a warning for that. But there are other indicators that people can watch for.
Darlene Ziebell [:If the interest rates creep up, if inflation creep up, creeps up, then you know your costs are gonna creep up depending upon what type of industry you're in. You you have to be prepared for that. You have to be prepared if there's I have small business owner friends who are manufacturers and they had some parts manufactured overseas. And I kept asking, do you have a secondary source in the United States in case any kind of embargoes come, in case you can't get things shipped into the country? How How are you going to support your client base? Those are just little things that small business owners can do that the Forward 1,000 do extremely well. They're they have backup plans on top of backup plans. So it's just being prepared and assuming you have to really presume that there will be some kind of a catastrophe that you need to have a backup plan on. It's amazing to me that some people come to me who have been in business 20, 30 years, and they don't know how they're gonna exit or who's gonna run the company for them. They find out their child their adult children aren't interested.
Darlene Ziebell [:So now what do I do? I give everything up. I mean, they have 1,000,000 of dollars invested. So even small, it could be a lot of money for some people. It's just being prepared for the unknown. And 85%, and this number hasn't changed in several decades, 85% of all startups have failed before year 5. And what I think happens is the last 3 of those 5 years, they're trying to hang on and don't have the skills or the tools or the knowledge on how to turn it around so that they can continue to get it to grow.
Carol Ventresca [:We, discussed the issue of succession in a previous podcast with you. And, audience, don't forget, we'll have resources available for you on our website when we post this, particular, episode. And, we'll have those, a link to those previous podcasts with Darlene also.
Brett Johnson [:So, you know, it sounds as though, you you know, you're kind of painting the picture of there are so many things that we cannot control as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, but maybe there are some things you can. So, as as we go through this list, it almost reminds me of of that, of a scenario of, okay, I can control this if I just do these steps. So so let's say an owner finally sees the handwriting on the wall as it were, and instead of burrowing their head or yelling at the rooftops, they need to assess your first word in in this, to assess the situation. What are the most important steps in assessing their predicament?
Darlene Ziebell [:The first thing is to understand their financials. And it's amazing to me how many people do not. They trust their accountant or they trust a bookkeeper or they trust an outside source. But, again, that goes back to measuring, you know, cost overall during after the end of the pandemic. Cost overall, and I just tracked this myself. It's just a habit. I I cannot shut my business brain off when I go even shopping. I'm always looking at the retail store, like, what could they have done differently? But I noticed overall, prices on the retail level have gone up about 30%.
Darlene Ziebell [:And paper products and some, personal care products. So people who have anything to do with that industry, you know, they're gonna be struggling because now their costs have increased, and their customers may not be willing to pay those prices. So what are they going to do? These are these are the things that they should have been measuring all along instead Way waiting for that crash to happen. And and, basically, we can talk about assessment, stability, all the things that you wanted to break down in this program. But, basically, in this webinar, what it talks about is you have to keep your eye on everything. You cannot take a day off from not knowing what's happening in your own business. And this is where I think so many business owners fail even if they've been in business 10, 20 years. They they they don't pay attention to what their employees are doing or their suppliers are doing or or even their customers, how their customers are reacting.
Darlene Ziebell [:They just go through the motions. Every Way, I look at my businesses if it's brand new. And what could I be doing differently? What's the reactions from my clientele? How can I improve things? This is something that I've just done, and I think that's one of the keys to my success that I've been able to survive all these odds. Because I've been able to turn my own businesses around. And I've done that by just looking at it every day saying, okay. If I'm starting out new today, how would I compete? How would I react to the market? What would I be providing to customers that would make it so different that they'd wanna come to me versus my competition? Well,
Brett Johnson [:against your business today. There is. They're they're starting a business, and they're looking at you as the competition going, okay. What are they doing right? Do what are they doing wrong, and how do I do it better? It that's reality. And if you look at it, like you said, a fresh look at it every day going, I have somebody starting a new business today that's gonna go up against me. Let's shore it in.
Darlene Ziebell [:Or fix
Brett Johnson [:up. What's going on? Yeah. That makes perfect sense for the assessment piece of it. Yeah.
Darlene Ziebell [:That's a great analogy to use. You know, someone's gonna start competing against me every day, and that's happened to me several times. I've had employees leave to start against me.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Yeah. Even if it's that, from internal to go to external. Yeah. Yeah.
Darlene Ziebell [:Absolutely. Absolutely. And that can harm you. And by the time you go through the legal issues, trying to prevent that from happening, I don't waste time doing that. I spend more time trying to grow and and capture more of the market share so that I can compete because I know the competition will be there.
Carol Ventresca [:How how many small businesses are there in the US?
Darlene Ziebell [:There's over 32,000,000 of them now that from the last census that's been, reported. They don't have I don't believe they have the numbers out yet from the, post pandemic, that where they expected way more businesses to have started. Because when people were forced to leave their jobs or work from home, they got creative in how to make money. A lot of people were using their hobbies or their side hustles or whatever they were doing. So the rumor is that there's gonna be a tremendous there's probably a tremendous increase in that number.
Carol Ventresca [:But even with 32,000,000, if an employer thinks there's nobody out there doing the same thing, they are really shortsighted.
Darlene Ziebell [:Extremely extremely shortsighted. And even if you do come up with something that no one else is doing, you have a 40% chance of failure Because you yourself think your product or service is what everyone else wants to buy, but it may not be Right. If you haven't done the market research to see if there's a market for it.
Carol Ventresca [:Right.
Darlene Ziebell [:And most people fail too.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Darlene Ziebell [:Because they try and put as much money into it as possible to make it happen. It's it's really a shame because I've had, I I offer, I do a lot of public speaking for non profits and I offer some of my time, I comp some of my time to help people just, you know, answer a few questions or get them started. And it's amazing to me how many come with ideas for products or services that they think will just be great. And I start digging into a few questions like, well, who's buying this? Why are they buying it? Why are they buying this versus something else? And they haven't even thought about going through those basic questions. And so it's it's those businesses are even more difficult to try and turn around because they never had a market for it in the first place. You know, in our generation, you guys remember the Brett rock. Right? So how much how much how much money do you have to create
Carol Ventresca [:a market? Beanie Babies. Yes.
Darlene Ziebell [:Beanie Babies. It takes a lot of money to create a market. You have to create the buzz, the advertising, and that's 1,000,000 of dollars. And small business owners don't have that. And unfortunately, today, when you're talking about assessing it, they're looking at social media for ideas. And to me, that's that's the, the old fashioned infomercials we used to see on television. And those have just moved for to social media. Many of them aren't even paying for the for the time.
Darlene Ziebell [:They're just putting it out there and everybody thinks it's gospel. Right.
Carol Ventresca [:So. There there's a company here in Ohio, and I think it is actually still going, but it's a small, small portion compared to what it was at its height of success. And they made baskets. And, there was they were all handmade and they would, you know, lots of media on showing picture pictures of people making these baskets and they were expensive. Now I think in all of my years, I bought 1, but I had several as gifts. So I was at a, antique store in my little area here in Westerville. And I was talking to the owner and she I I said, I noticed some baskets back there and just kinda wondering, you know, what's the process? And I'm thinking myself, to me, they're nothing but dust collectors. You know? So can I am I gonna make all those 1,000,000 of dollars off these things? Not only is there a huge process for them to even take them, but you're still looking at maybe getting 25% of what you paid for the basket.
Carol Ventresca [:So here you have It
Darlene Ziebell [:could be less than that. It could be even, like, if you get 1 to 10%.
Carol Ventresca [:Right. But but it's interesting because at the time, that business, which started out as a small family owned business, grew very large and basically outgrew its its its ability to to do things well. So people have that notion that everybody loves my baskets. Everybody's gonna buy my baskets and I, and this is gonna be like, you know, Tupperware forever kind of thing. Well, that doesn't happen, without Well, it well,
Darlene Ziebell [:it can. I mean
Carol Ventresca [:Reinventing yourself constantly. Right.
Darlene Ziebell [:That's but that's, that's knowing when to get out fast. Right. That people always ask me why have I exited. Well, because you have to know when to get out. Because as you said, the baskets, you know, that was a trend. When you're in a trend business, you don't know when the trend is going to end. Mhmm. And so a smart business owner who starts a trend and gets the buzz going and gets it to a certain point should sell at that point and get out.
Darlene Ziebell [:I mean, that's how you turn that failing business around because it's going to it's going to collapse at some point, as you said. How many people can collect these baskets? The Beanie Babies. We've all seen these trends. Right. You know, the the buzz that all the toy companies put out over at Christmas time. They do that deliberately to sell out and then they can sell more toys in January. Because the parents, if they couldn't get it as a Christmas gift, will be picking it up in January and February, the slowest months of the year. So there's there's a strategy around many of these things.
Darlene Ziebell [:But the small business owner who builds a trend should should know when to get out, when to sell.
Carol Ventresca [:It's just like it's just like the stock market, you know, like, sell high, buy low.
Darlene Ziebell [:But Exactly.
Carol Ventresca [:How exactly do you know? Yeah. Yeah.
Darlene Ziebell [:Yeah. It's a it's really a psychological dilemma. I'm sure there's a lot of studies that have been done on this by psychologists. You know, how much money do you keep throwing at something that's failing because you feel you've invested so much. Right. So you keep putting more and more and more instead of stopping, you know, closing it. And this and this gets into, you know, the stabilization, stabilization of a business. I mean, how do you stabilize it? Sometimes you may just have to shut the doors in order to have some assets left that you can sell and recoup some of your money.
Carol Ventresca [:Right.
Darlene Ziebell [:And then think of some other business to go into versus letting it get down to, like you said, the stock market where, you know, it keeps going lower and lower and then people panic.
Carol Ventresca [:Right. So you're talking about stabilization. You know, what are the first priorities? How do you stabilize an organ an an entity that is looking like failures is in the is in the future?
Darlene Ziebell [:First thing I tell them is to stop spending any money that doesn't generate sales. Because people will start small business owners will start to spend more money on social media ads, some kind of advertising, or, they'll work with other programs that they purchased Looking that it's going to be so easy to get clients in. There I have, believe it or not, 9,200,000 competitors on LinkedIn that use 1 of 4 titles, Business consultant, business coach, business mentor, or business adviser. I just looked this number up last week. I had to do a webinar for somebody and I wanted to know. I was telling them I was teaching them how to differentiate themselves from their competition. And I saw my gosh. I got 9.2.
Darlene Ziebell [:So, so people are small business owners are now gravitating to what I call the I hate to use the term snake oil customers by using social media. And all they're really good at is selling themselves over and over and over again to keep their funnel going because their clients typically do not increase their Ventresca like mine do. Mine increased their revenues, you know, 300%, at least 4 times to 300%, a 1000% when they come working with me. Or I don't take them as clients unless they do stabilize their business in some in some way. But unfortunately, stabilization means just quit spending money on stuff that's not working.
Carol Ventresca [:So, first, I I have I love that notion of be careful what you're watching and what you're listening to online. I posted an article on our website on Facebook probably a month or so ago. This young person who probably was 22 talked about issues on finding a Johnson, and, oh, here are some ideas for you on how to find a job and how to network and blah blah blah blah blah and all of this other stuff. And I couldn't help it. I posted the article and said, this is a, a great article with great information. Now I was teaching this to my Way So please audience listen, you know, just assume that, when you read something, it's not necessarily truth, not necessarily complete truth. It could have grains of ideas in there, but be very careful when you're doing your research. The other thing that I I wanted to touch on in that notion of stop spending money that doesn't create sales.
Carol Ventresca [:I was working with a, local, very large, not, it wasn't a nonprofit. It was a festival, cultural festival here in town. And the board I've been doing this for, I don't know, 10, 12 years. And the board members decided to suddenly make some changes to the structure of this festival. And and I went through and I said, Looking only way we make money is here, here, and here. And you wanna make changes so we will no longer make money here here and here and there's no guarantee you're gonna make money over here here and here. So shouldn't you like prove this first, before you get rid of this. And, and needless to say, they didn't listen.
Carol Ventresca [:And needless to say, went through some years of tough financial situation, but again Brett it back up because they went back to the here, here, and here. Stabilizing you know, immediately, the first notion employers have of cutting back cost is to get rid of people. But people may be how the only way you're gonna generate income.
Darlene Ziebell [:That is so true. And and one of the issues that small business owners have, they're not measuring by person, by employee, how much revenue each employee is indirectly or directly responsible for generating. Right. I had, a potential client come to me with a very nice business model, been doing it for about 20 years, but there was a food component attached to it, a a kitchen where people would come to this event and then they were buying meals. Well, after I talked to him for a while, I found out they're making a lot of money on these meals. People were spending a lot of money every evening going to event and spending an additional 30 to $50 on meals, but then he cut back on the menu. And I said, well, why are you doing this? And he said, well, I'm just so tired of working in the kitchen. Well, you know, you're a business owner.
Darlene Ziebell [:You can't just say, okay, I'm tired. I'm not going to show up today. You have to you have to
Carol Ventresca [:close the doors.
Darlene Ziebell [:You can't. You can. So he said, well, I just cut back on the menu, so I don't I don't have to work in the kitchen as hard because the cook didn't always show up Forward I said, you know, there's I know every restaurant is having problems finding cooks and and but there's ways you can actually become creative from your competition in the area. You know, what can you offer them that'll make it easier for them to come wanna come to work for you versus somebody else? And so, you know, because you just can't stop generating the revenue because you're tired.
Carol Ventresca [:Right. But the other part of this of what you were saying too is when you when we started this conversation, you're you said know your financials. If you know your financials, you know what's making money and what isn't. You know where sort of the fat of the organization is that you can cut back. So it may be on print advertising as opposed to something else, but, you know, it it's it's Well,
Darlene Ziebell [:it's interesting you you brought that up because in this particular case, this gentleman did not know his financials. He relied on his partner to take care of that. The partner was running the financials and he was running operations. So there was the disconnect right from the beginning to understand why the business was failing. The assessment wasn't there. Right. Yeah. Assessment piece couldn't answer which part of the business I and I was able to calculate that based just on some of the numbers he was he gave to me.
Darlene Ziebell [:And I said, well, this is this is where the profitability is coming from because, oh, I'm so tired. Well, why'd you go into business? I mean, that I can't That's
Brett Johnson [:a whole different problem right there.
Darlene Ziebell [:That's a whole different problem. I I get I get that question all the time. People ask me, how am I so resilient to go through all this? I don't know. I just wanna make it I wanna make it work. I wanna succeed.
Brett Johnson [:Well, you know, it seems that no news is not necessarily good news in these situations. What would you advise a a business owner should do, to include in their communications to those both inside and outside of the organization? Who needs to hear the message? And, I mean, how do you get that message across in a very clear and concise manner that it's not, the world's ending, you know, kind of feel to it.
Darlene Ziebell [:The sky is falling.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Yeah.
Darlene Ziebell [:It's it's interesting because communication, you have to communicate with the right people. And this gets back to, let's say, this example I just gave you, of these of this partnership. There was no communication between the partners and the financials. There was just this trust while it's taken care of. I don't need to be involved with that. And that's an example where you can trust somebody to do the financials, but you have to understand what they are. And I tell people on a minimum, at least understand your financials monthly and communicate with whoever is helping you put these numbers together. I I have a friend who's a bookkeeper and she has a client who hasn't communicated anything for, like, 3 months on her financials.
Darlene Ziebell [:And I overheard the conversation, and I'm thinking this business owner has no idea if something is in those financials that could point to the fact that her business could be failing 3 or 4 months from now. Because those are indicators Looking back to the leading indicators. And if she sees that her sales are shrinking or if her expenses have increased like this costs that have gone up over 30% since the pandemic, those are things that you really need to keep your eye on. And people I find small business owners are just going through the motion of running their business every day and presuming everything is still is still fine, that they wake up and the and the the building will still be there. The customers will still come in, and then they're shocked when something happens and they go, oh, now what do I do?
Carol Ventresca [:Yeah. Darlene, do you think that this is coming from, individuals who started the business really small, sort of had pretty complete control over every detail, but it was at a very low complexity. And then as the organization grew, sales grew, things processes became more complex, they didn't change with that?
Darlene Ziebell [:That is a that's a very real possibility. In most cases, people don't wanna change. And I don't care if they have one person, 2 people, 3 people when they start. I always advise people to put those structures in place early on so that as your business grows, the structure is there, the foundation is there, the support is there to provide you with the knowledge, the communication, the tools, everything you need to get it to a 7 8 figure per year business.
Carol Ventresca [:Mhmm.
Darlene Ziebell [:Don't wait, until that happens, and then go, oh, okay. Now what do I do? Now how do I structure this? Now how do I organize this? Because you're talking about communication. Early on, another problem that small business owners have, as far as failing business is providing too much information to employees who are not going to be key later on as the company grows. Could be somebody who's with you from at the very beginning, but they may not have the skills or the talent you need to get that business to the next level. So now you may have to bring in other employees or other talent from the outside to make that happen. And now there's too much communication. That first employee knows too much about the about the business, and that's a really good indicator to me that that employee will leave and then compete, against a business owner. So those those are the things that I look for.
Darlene Ziebell [:And it's all it all comes from experience in my end, guys. I've just been through it so many times at the very beginning. I've been through bad partnerships, been through employees leaving and competing against me. And these are the, those are the steps that I've learned along the way so that these are what I advise other people with not to do. You're learning from, from the mistakes that I made.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. I
Carol Ventresca [:think that's So those communication paths are very important. How do marketing strategies fit into this, and are they critical in a turnaround? What how do you lead your clients through that marketing step?
Darlene Ziebell [:Again, that goes back to, not spending any money unless it's gonna generate revenue. So in the marketing piece of a failing business, I take a look at what previous marketing has been done, and it indicates to me that it wasn't working. So you don't wanna keep making the same mistake over and over because you're gonna get the same results. So before you spend more money on a marketing strategy, then you have to bring in an expert. This is when you start bringing in some outside expertise and advice on what are your customers currently looking for so that you can market to that. People don't go back, especially people who have been in business for a few years. They don't tend to go back and assess why the customers came to them, why their customers are buying from them, what what makes them different, what what makes them realize they just presume they're always gonna keep coming back. But they have to go out and ask the questions.
Darlene Ziebell [:Well, why did you come to me in the first place? Why do you buy from me versus someone else? And these are just basic marketing studies now that that people can use online tools for, where before I used to have to hire a marketing agency to go out and do that for me. But there's a lot of free survey tools online. You can just ask your customers, would you mind answering a few of these questions? Let me know Way, why you like buying from me? And you can send, send them out in blocks of emails where you can get the results and not know who's who's saying what so you can get totally objective advice. And from that, you can build a really nice marketing strategy around now knowing why you succeeded to where you did succeed.
Carol Ventresca [:Mhmm. Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. From my experience, you know, I used to be in sales, selling radio, and then now moved into consultant or agency feel to it. And I know businesses will they may over rely on their local rep for that marketing piece that, you know, if they did radio or TV or whatever. They have to also remember that their representative, their account exec is really only there to sell them more. They're not really there as an advisory role versus and, again, this is not a shameless plug for you, me, whatever, but it's that Right. 3rd party that you're you're you're working with them because they want you to grow, not grow their own, you know, billing cycle with you, but to grow your business. And and, yes, they're your friends. They're you've bought from them for years for this traditional media or digital media, whatever, but their goal is they have to make money and they have to sell.
Brett Johnson [:And booking with a consultant or marketing firm or whatever, their goal is to help you grow. Otherwise, you're gonna fire them. So, you know, look at I think looking at that too can help from from a communication standpoint of communicating with the right people to help you grow as well, I would think.
Darlene Ziebell [:It's it's unfortunate because most small business owners who come to me or look for help presume they have a marketing problem. Right. They just presume that the their pictures aren't pretty enough, or the words aren't right, or the graphics are different. And, Brett, you're exactly absolutely correct. This is when they go to a marketing company or digital marketing. There's so many of them out there. There's probably 7,000,000. I've got 9,200,000 business advisers as as competitors.
Darlene Ziebell [:I'm sure they have about 7,000,000 because everyone's a marketing expert now. But none of these people have actually ever run a business. So they're going to people for advice on how to grow their sales, but what they really need is some kind of a strategist. What's the whole strategy of of of the company? Why are you in business in the first place? What's the strategy and how you're going to compete against the competitors you do have? And what's the strategy for retaining the clients and the customers after you receive them? So that's that's where growth in companies come from. So you're absolutely correct. Relying on someone whose goal it is is to just sell more ads or sell more digital marketing is not the answer.
Brett Johnson [:Right. It kinda goes into your yeah. Into that next category of experts and resources. You know? Brett let's take a look at experts that can help improve functional areas of the organization. And it goes beyond marketing. It could be human resources, financial, legal. Let's take a look at those. Yeah.
Darlene Ziebell [:There's so many different, business experts that small business owners need that they just they just do not realize. I had a client who is actually, in a in a trademark dispute, because one of his pre previous advisers just said, well, let's just wait and see what happens. I mean, that's that's not an answer. You wait and see what
Brett Johnson [:happens. That's not a strategy at all.
Darlene Ziebell [:It's not a strategy. I mean, let's just wait and see if this affects your sales. Well, of course, it's gonna affect your sales. Somebody's using yours if someone's using your same name and you've already built this huge brand, do you think Coca Cola is just gonna say, well, let's just see what happens?
Brett Johnson [:We're too big to fail. There's no way they could take anything. Exactly.
Darlene Ziebell [:So, again, Brett, you're absolutely correct. Both of you, Carol and Brett. I mean, you have experts on your show all the time. So when you you vet them before you bring them on your show, small business owners need to vet these experts because some of these experts are so good at digital marketing and making themselves look great and, like, they've got, you know, slew of customers and everybody is just making millions. I mean, I'm not gonna use names because there's one guy out there, he's for a $100. He's saying in 90 days, you can build a $5,000,000 business. There's no way. I have never ever seen that happen.
Darlene Ziebell [:No. No. Never. So, I mean, there's just so so many snake oil salesman out there. And I think that's why so many of these business owners come to me after they've spent in some cases, they spent $100,000 in in fees trying to get their businesses off the ground. And, this is why I changed my, my tagline. You'll you'll wish you met me first. And because I
Brett Johnson [:love that.
Darlene Ziebell [:Yes. So many come to me and say, I wish I met you sooner. Mhmm. I've just been spending money, everywhere. And this, this is why I say when you're going to bring in an expert, ask them where they did it before. You know, don't be embarrassed. So So many people are embarrassed to say, well, where have you done this? My clients really I appreciate when they go through my background and and ask me questions on everything because that's the learning experience that I have that I'm sharing with people. I share it through my books.
Darlene Ziebell [:I share it through my webinars. I share it in my consulting 1 on 1 consulting with people. This goes back to, you know and then if I don't have the answer, like, if it's a legal issue, I'm looking for the best attorney in the country who has specific experience in what my clients need, and I'm vetting the lawyers for them. I'm asking the questions, where have you done this before? How many cases have you won? What's this gonna cost? What's the future look like if you make a mistake? Because I've had attorneys that made mistakes for me, and I've lost money because of it. So I'm very, very careful at the people that I bring on as my advisers. I wanna go to the very top if I can. I go right to the horse's mouth. I wanna know where did you learn this, and are they still around? I wanna find out where they learned it, and and how can I benefit from all of this knowledge and experience that's available to us? Because it's everywhere if it is available to us.
Darlene Ziebell [:Just have to be able to be willing to go and search for it, ask for it, and ask the right questions.
Carol Ventresca [:And take the time that is necessary to do that, Vedi.
Darlene Ziebell [:Take the time. And if it sounds too good to be true, it is. Yeah. Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [:I had a conversation with the director of a nonprofit here in town. It was a completely different issue and topic, but he was I I would said, you know, this probably wouldn't have been such an issue had you done more communication with the clients involved. Have you thought about ways that you can find them, contact them, that kind of thing? And he said, well, yeah, we could probably do an article in this newspaper or on this radio station which are targeted very finely tuned media outlets for a very small portion of the population. And I said to him, well, you can do that, but you're not gonna talk to many people or hear from many people because nobody in your client base has anything to do with those 2 media Yeah. Avenues. And he and it was like, I I it was this dead silence on the phone, like, oh my goodness. What did I, you know, I'm like, yeah. And I said, and and for his particular nonprofit and situation, I said, you know, you can call the local newspapers, the local radio stations, the local TV stations.
Carol Ventresca [:They may not put you on exactly when you want it, but it's, it's an interesting enough topic. They will pick it up and it's free.
Darlene Ziebell [:Yes, exactly. So don't
Carol Ventresca [:spend a $100,000 on media postings in 2 different venues that nobody listens to.
Darlene Ziebell [:So I tell my I tell my clients all the time, who is your ideal customer and where do they hang up? If you don't know those 2 things, when you're launching a business, that's, you're doomed for failure. If you do succeed, it's by sheer luck that you happen to tap into the right, you know, the right nest of people, that wanna buy whatever your product or service is. But if you don't know who you're selling to or why you're selling to them or where they're located, then you have no idea on how to connect through some kind of marketing strategy. Right. I had a, a woman who, I met at a conference. I was speaking at this conference and we had a little breakout session and and I asked her who her ideal client Way, and she said, anybody who is breathing on the planet. And I said, well, good luck. I said because there, you know, I've studied the history of business and there isn't any any business that I'm aware of that succeeded in selling to 7,000,000,000 people at one time.
Darlene Ziebell [:Yeah. Because that's how many people are breathing on the planet. So unless you can shrink that down to a very, very, very small select group of people, you're gonna have a very difficult time. So that's another reason why so many people are failing. They try and target anybody and everybody because they're afraid to lose a sale. And that goes back to communication and and who you're dealing with, who your advisors are. Because as you said, Carol, you know, if you're spending money on the wrong marketing and advertising venues, it's it's such a waste because that that's I call that hope strategy. You're hoping to meet somebody who's gonna buy your product or service.
Darlene Ziebell [:And hope is not a strategy. Right. But it but it
Brett Johnson [:can turn into one when you're desperate at when you see the ending happening.
Darlene Ziebell [:It can't
Brett Johnson [:you're grasping at straws. Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [:Yeah. Exactly. That's real that's effective for all parts of all processes of your organization, not just marketing and communications. If I look back at the agency the nonprofit agency that I led, our target audience was 50 plus Ventresca Ohio, which was our county and the contiguous counties, and those looking for a job. So that's a a really specific group of people still in the tune of 1,000, but a specific group of people. So what I found was that I was spending a lot of time out reaching out to people through other organizations when anybody would ask me to come and give a talk or do a workshop or whatever, I was there. You know? I'm thinking in my head, I want to find all those 50 plus Ventresca Ohio looking for a job folks who need help. So what I found was there were a lot of organizations who had asked me to come in and talk because they needed to fill up their line of guest speakers.
Carol Ventresca [:And so I learned my, one of my questions to them before I made the commitment was who's your target audience? Who is going to be in the audience? Well, if it's not people who are looking for a job, 50 plus Central Ohio, I couldn't help them. It's not that I didn't wanna talk to them, but I couldn't help them. So I I was wasting time. So it wasn't marketing dollars, but it was my time, which is just as valuable in terms of a small organization with a small staff.
Darlene Ziebell [:You're absolutely correct. Because I one of my blog articles is on networking is a waste of time and it's a total waste of time unless you know if your ideal client is in the is in the room. Right. Otherwise, you're really wasting your time. Or a group of people in the room who are connected to your ideal client. If you're doing some kind of a strategic alliance, which is another, tool that can be used in trying to turn around a failing business is connect with another company or even a competitor and find a way to differentiate yourselves where collectively you both now have more power, to sustain a business and keep get it more sustainable versus failing.
Carol Ventresca [:So you're thinking in cooperation between competitors?
Darlene Ziebell [:Absolutely. I've done that before and that works. Major, major corporations do that all the time. The CEOs of similar products or services are always getting together. And how can we how can we compete and how can we maintain our own separate identities? That happens all the time. Yes.
Carol Ventresca [:So we've we're talking about experts still, and we've been talking about sort of assessment and evaluating where the company is at the this point Looking to turn it around to success. Are there experts out there that can help you build for that future success? How you know, who do you invest in with technology and marketing and, you know, how do you know you're on that right trajectory? Who are those people that can move you forward?
Darlene Ziebell [:Well, that goes part of you have to have a new strategic plan, which is, if people don't understand, it's just reinventing your current business plan after you've come out of this failing slump and you've figured out how to, stabilize the business, determine where the costs are that, and reasons for failing, where can you reduce your costs? How can you perhaps eliminate even eliminate some people from your organization that are not helping it grow, getting back to do you have the assessments correct on, what each person in your company is generating towards revenue even down to if it was a mega corporation of 10,000 people, they've got it down to the janitor sweeping the floors. You know, how much does each person cost and how much is that generating in revenue to the organization? Once you have all that kind of stabilized, then you should do a new strategic plan that would include all these activities. Because each reinvention, each turnaround is going to be different based on what caused the problems in the first place. It may not be technology, so maybe you don't need a technological person. It could be you haven't measured your financials correctly or they weren't documented correctly, and then you need a new finance person. So it all is that that answer is kind of a loaded question, because it's going to depend on what problems were that caused the failing in the first place that you need to repair in order for it to turn around. And then again, whenever you hire any expert in any field, you always ask them, where have you done this before? Have you ever done this before for a company in my situation? Have you done this before for a company of my size?
Carol Ventresca [:Right.
Darlene Ziebell [:And just don't be afraid to, to Brett the people that you're bringing in because I truly believe a lot of these problems are caused by bringing in the wrong advisors.
Carol Ventresca [:In your negotiating with those experts and advisors, is there some formula or we'll stick with formula. Is there some formula that you follow to ensure that what they have sort of promised you, they have delivered. So I'm thinking, you know, accountability. They may have done it before, but how do you make sure they're going to do it for you correctly? What do you need to build into your contract?
Darlene Ziebell [:Again, that's very difficult because you in certain instances, depending upon the situation, nobody's going to give you a guarantee.
Carol Ventresca [:Okay.
Darlene Ziebell [:I don't even give a guarantee that you're going to see the results, that I am helping you build because I'm not there doing it. So there's no way I can guarantee that you're going to even implement what I'm recommending. I mean, I can set up a program to question you every week. Have you done this? Have you done this? Have you done this? But nobody gives you guarantees. Lawyers don't give you guarantees. Financial advisors don't give you guarantees. So you have to go back to checking their references and where they've done it before, and then you have to see if there's any kind of pattern. Because as Brett said earlier, all these people are outselling.
Darlene Ziebell [:They're selling too. Everybody's out selling. And so are they going to be able to deliver is, I think, the question, Carol, that you're Looking, are they gonna be able to deliver? And you're just gonna have to see where they've delivered in the past.
Carol Ventresca [:Okay.
Darlene Ziebell [:And then use your, use your best judgment. Do you think they'll be able to deliver for you?
Carol Ventresca [:Do you do you think that there's benchmarking isn't the right word, but are there steps that you take to sort of ensure that it stays on the right
Darlene Ziebell [:path? Again, that goes back to, the original assessment, steps that we talked about. Are you keeping your eye on the ball? Right. You just can't hire, for example, hire the attorney and walk away and never get back and connect with them and Way, you have to you have to stay in touch. And what's the progress? And this this goes back to, yeah, you have to work at it.
Brett Johnson [:Right? I was just gonna I was just gonna say, you don't hire somebody to, take care of the problem. You you are the problem.
Darlene Ziebell [:You're the problem. Absolutely.
Brett Johnson [:You have to solve it. You're you're you're hiring experts to help you get through this and learn from the experience, possibly, hopefully, because at the end, you'll you'll turn their business around. But that that person does not have anything or the company has nothing vested other than to help you get where you want to go. You have to do the work.
Darlene Ziebell [:You still have to do the work.
Carol Ventresca [:Right? And really is close on the loops too. I mean I mean, that's your, when you do the assessment and stabilize, you have to keep moving it through and closing all those loops.
Darlene Ziebell [:Which is why 20% of the people come to me for help. I always turn away. I tell them where to go to get advice or where to go to get help, because they themselves need to understand that they have to work at this. And if they're not willing to work at it or if I get the sense from their past experiences because I Brett my customers too, where have you done this before? You know, what makes you think you're going to make it become a good business, owner? Have you ever managed people before? Have you ever measured finances before? What's in your background? Because these are some of the skills that you're gonna need to learn before you even open the doors. Mhmm. Right. So go get these skills somewhere else. Start building up on that and then come back to me when you're ready to launch a business because you're not there yet.
Darlene Ziebell [:That that's number 1, doom for failure when you don't even have the ability to understand what's going on in your business.
Brett Johnson [:Well, you know, we wanted to add one other item to our discussion, which we I think is extremely important, the issue for women business owners. And we've touched upon that over, you know, seasons. So we brought in biz women business owners, obviously, like yourself and other women business owners and talked about the the issues that are around that. You've provided your expertise to female owned businesses through your nonprofit. It's called the Center Forward Women Business Owners. It's extremely difficult to be a successful female owner. Bottom line, I I think from what we are learning, it's getting a little bit Brett, but that that but but that's because of people like you that that that, you know, they help women weave through the the nuances of, okay. These are the the cards that are stacked against you, but let's go here.
Brett Johnson [:What are the top tips for female owned businesses, particularly if they're facing a failing business?
Darlene Ziebell [:The first the first topic I have for almost every woman business owner, and I have, 2 2 female clients. The rest are men. It's interesting. But, the 2 female business owner clients I have, their biggest problem is knowing when to say no.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Darlene Ziebell [:They are so afraid to hurt someone's feelings that they will take their business in the wrong direction versus saying, you know what? You're not my customer. This is where you need to go. Or they, don't know how to say no to people who are trying to sell to them. Either digital marketing or some kind of supplier services or inventory if they're selling a product. They don't know how to say no. And the first, 1st few months I spend with them is I tell them if you don't say no, you're going to be failing a year from now and I will not be able to turn you around because you're not going to have any money left. So it all goes back to, are you spending the money? The money you're spending, will it generate a sale? And within what period of time is that sale expected to come? Mhmm. Yeah.
Darlene Ziebell [:Well, kudos to well yeah.
Brett Johnson [:Let's go and Studios to you for having more male clients than female. I think that's fantastic that men are recognizing women have the answers. No. I mean, it's a it's a double edged sword to a certain degree. I'd love to have more female, but I'm thinking, oh my gosh. That's super, though. I love that.
Darlene Ziebell [:I can also have that. Way more way more middle clients, opportunities, marketing calls. They're they're pretty much they're they're not it's it's, yeah, it's really a a pleasure because they're not they're not well, I don't wanna say they're not intimidated, but, they're they're polite enough to say, you know what? I I don't know what you know. Can you can you help me? I mean, they're they're pretty honest and they they just say no to people. Yeah. That's not gonna make me money. I'm done with it. They move on.
Darlene Ziebell [:But the women are like, oh, I don't wanna hurt their feelings earlier. They spent hours trying to sell me on this. And I go, really? You you gave now I'm yelling at them for giving up hours. You don't even have those hours to give up. So you know what? Just tell them you're at your quota. Your calendar is full. You're at your quota. You can't you can't possibly meet with them this week.
Brett Johnson [:Right. Right. Right.
Carol Ventresca [:You just
Darlene Ziebell [:have to know how to say no. So I think it gets back to women being in charge of the home, having a big family, trying to keep everybody happy, and putting in way more hours than they need to. So with women business owners, I'm like, you're gonna be focusing your time and money on activities that are gonna generate sales. Yeah. If not, you run, say thank you, and move on. Mhmm. You just have to be tough. I you know, I I learned that because my first adviser was a man who was a very, very, very successful CEO in the United States.
Darlene Ziebell [:He happened to be the father of a friend of mine. And I didn't realize how lucky I was at the time that he was he was my mentor because I learned all this from him. I learned how to I have to be tough. So I wasn't going to make it. And and so that's those are some of the messages I'm trying to sell, especially into women business owners. Their biggest problem is they're trying to take on more than they can handle. They're trying to be more than they they can do. They're trying to deliver more in a shorter period of time.
Darlene Ziebell [:They wanna keep everybody happy. Instead of admitting, I have to follow a process, I have to say no, and, we're just not the right fit. They're just so afraid to use those those three terms. Basically, that's that's what the problem is. They all have the talent. A lot of them have way more talent than most of the men who come to me. They take all the class, they take all the courses. I wanna learn everything.
Darlene Ziebell [:They but they unfortunately sometimes buy too much from everybody thinking they trust they trust more than men do. I'm not a psychologist, but this is just what I've been learning over the past 40 years. And they seem to to trust people and they they they don't want to hurt people's feelings. And I'm like, no. You better ask them, where did they do this before? I mean, because it's your reputation. It's your business. Mhmm. Yeah.
Darlene Ziebell [:They just have to learn to be a little tougher.
Carol Ventresca [:I thought you were going to say that you had fewer female clients because they were more successful than your male clients. I'm sorry, Brett.
Darlene Ziebell [:Women business owners. Yeah. They, they they their numbers are staggering. It was only 4% that'll ever reach 7 figures a year in sales, and it's a very, very small, small group of women who make it to the very top. Very, very small group. Goodness. Unfortunately. But yeah.
Carol Ventresca [:You know, we say this every time we have a conversation with you and that is that the time goes by too quickly. I know. We and but we have fun during our conversation.
Darlene Ziebell [:I know.
Carol Ventresca [:We always ask our guests at the end to give us those tips or suggestions or ideas that, you wanna make sure that the audience has heard or is did we miss anything? You know, what are your final words of wisdom for all of us?
Darlene Ziebell [:Don't don't be afraid to ask for help. That's another problem. Don't do not be afraid to ask for help. Do not be afraid to admit, you know, I admit I'm in over my head here. And, I had to practice those words myself not just recently. I'm in the middle of, launching another business, which I can't tell you about yet. And, I had to go to somebody that I look up to, and I said, I'm in way over my head. And he goes, you? I said, yeah.
Darlene Ziebell [:I need help. And, so so I'm I've got people from actually around the world. He's in another country. I called him. I said, I need help. And, don't be afraid to ask for help. If it's something you don't know, just don't guess And just don't trust everything you read online, especially now with social media. It's just so prolific.
Darlene Ziebell [:It's just everywhere. I can't tell you. I get all these feeds in social media from my competition, and they make it sound so easy. And it's it can be easy, but you have to do it right from the beginning and just can't rely that you can't take your eye off the ball. You're not gonna be launch I can guarantee the billionaire CEOs I've met in my career, and I've met several, I can tell you they're not sitting on the beach, you know, waiting for the phone to ring to say you made, you know, you made a 100,000,000 today. They are all working. They are all working behind the scenes. They're all busy.
Darlene Ziebell [:They keep their eye on everything. So don't presume you're going to launch this business, sit on the beach and money's going to be rolling in. You still have to do the work.
Brett Johnson [:Well, Darlene, thanks so much for joining us and and and sharing your willingness, for your insights and your expertise. Listeners, thank you for joining us as well. Don't forget to check out our show notes for Darlene's contact information as well as resources on our website at Looking Forward Our Way. And we're looking forward to hearing your feedback on this, or any of our other podcast episodes. Thanks again, Darlene.
Darlene Ziebell [:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Carol. So nice to see you both again. Yes. Yes.
