In this episode of the Corporate Escape-y Podcast, Thom shares his unique journey from being a pastor for 19 years to becoming a successful entrepreneur and StoryBrand coach. He discusses the challenges he faced during his transition, including imposter syndrome and the importance of building a network based on trust. 

In this conversation, Thom and Brett discuss the importance of growth strategies for small businesses, emphasizing the role of networking and the concept of source networking. Thom shares his approach to building a client base through strategic introductions and the significance of investing in oneself as a solopreneur. 

The discussion highlights the need for efficiency in networking and the evolution of business strategies over time.

Key insights include:

• The importance of starting with those who already trust you when building a business.
• How to reframe networking into “source networking” by trading high-quality introductions with a curated group of peers.
• The value of flexibility and adaptability in aligning services with client needs, especially as a solopreneur.
• Why investing in yourself and finding the right support can accelerate success.

Thom’s practical advice and actionable strategies are a must-hear for anyone considering leaving corporate life or seeking to optimize their networking approach. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your solo business model, this episode is packed with inspiration and tips to help you succeed.

Takeaways

• Thom transitioned from a 19-year career as a pastor to entrepreneurship.
• He faced significant imposter syndrome when starting his business.
• Building a network of trust was crucial for his early success.
• Flexibility in service offerings can lead to unexpected opportunities.
• Effective communication is key to connecting with clients.
• Clients care more about results than titles or certifications.
• Adjusting messages to fit client needs is essential for success.
• Thom's first contracts were largely based on sympathy from his network.
• A client-centric approach is more effective than a one-size-fits-all strategy.
• Understanding the client's perspective on revenue is vital. Position yourself as a fractional chief growth officer.
• Networking should be approached with intention and strategy.
• Source networking is more effective than traditional networking.
• Control introductions to ensure quality connections.
• Investing in yourself is crucial for success.
• A full pipeline comes from warm introductions.
• Consistency in chosen marketing strategies is key.
• Avoid cold outreach; focus on relational connections.
• Your unique selling proposition is you and your chemistry.
• Business strategies should evolve over time.

Chapters

00:00 Thom's Unique Escape Journey

02:56 Transitioning from Ministry to Business

05:47 Navigating Imposter Syndrome and Early Success

08:58 Building a Network and Gaining Trust

12:07 Adapting Services to Client Needs

14:57 The Importance of Communication in Business

17:51 Flexibility in Business Offerings

21:00 Client-Centric Approach Over Titles

23:37 Positioning for Growth

24:45 The Power of Networking

25:52 Source Networking Explained

29:46 The Importance of Introductions

32:40 Building a Full Pipeline

35:48 Investing in Yourself

For sure.

Hey Tom, welcome to the Corporate Escape-y Podcast.

Thanks, Brett. It is fantastic to be here today. I appreciate the invitation.

leisure and I'm excited about this. I'm starting to see a theme with someone over recent guests where all escapees use, yours is a unique escape path. is, maybe it's not the traditional corporate escape, but it's an interesting one. And then you've built and carved a new career in growth with small businesses. And I think you've got a lot of really good strategies and insights that our audience can think about, especially if they're still in corporate. So.

Yeah.

Again, the pleasure is all going to be on this side because I'm going to be taking notes as we go through this process as well. So anyway, welcome.

I appreciate it. Yeah. We'll see who takes notes. I'll flip the script.

Well, that's a good thing. This podcast, we do like to have the back and forth and more of a discussion than the one sided, but definitely brought you to learn from you. maybe, you know what, let's go, but let's start with your escapee journey. Cause then it leads perfectly into what we want to talk about for the majority of the program. So give the listeners a little bit of the background, if you will.

For sure. So as Brett said, it's a little maybe non-traditional, but I was a pastor for 19 years. in 2020, during the pandemic, I left ministry and I was part of some very large churches. So I'm in rural Manitoba, grew up going to a church in a very small town, you know, where we had 20 kids in our youth group from grade seven to grade 12, that kind of thing.

When I got into youth ministry, my first job was in Winnipeg or capital city at a church with 12 staff and I couldn't believe it. Pardon me.

uncomfortable split. The details are not terribly important, but I found myself in a really challenging position where I didn't agree with what the direction the leadership was going. I knew that we were going to be at odds eventually. And it was the summer of the pandemic, so no one was meeting in person. Everybody was kind of just figuring out what to do with their free time, honestly. And I had bought this book called Building a Story Brand by Don Miller.

And as I started reading it, I got through this book and I went, huh, I had bought this for the church because I was helping with the communications for the church at that point. And at the back of the book, it says you can certify as a story brand guide. Now they just changed the wording and we're now going to be called story brand coaches, which I actually think is appropriate. I like that. But you can certify as a story brand guide. And I thought to myself, I wonder if I could actually do this. But it was not the kind of thing that I was just going to float by my wife.

So I went out and I tested the waters. I went to some people I knew, said, would you hire me to do this kind of thing for you? When I came back home, I remember one day when I came back home, I basically had $20,000 worth of contracts, which I thought were, you know, they're a done deal in my mind, right? Because I was very naive,

Bye.

Sometimes it's the best way to go in. Ignorance can be bliss, but maybe not financially.

Right. man. So, well, yeah. So what I did was I took a six month unpaid leave of absence from the church halfway through that. I actually left officially because at that point I had a viable business and October 1st. I certified with Storybrand in September of 2020 on October 1st, exactly 19 years to the day. So the first day I had as a pastor.

I launched my business and I kind of did all the marketing things at first. But I had kind of a lot of success right out of the gate and I didn't realize that it was unique. I had $10,000 months by month three.

So,

And I just figured, you know, I guess if you certify with Storybrand and you just make six figures, and I paid myself twice as much in that first year as I ever made as a pastor, so it was viable.

You're like, life is easy. This is, I should have done this a long time ago. I'm sure we'll get to the, the, the but moment here in a second, but you know, just to go back into, when you're talking about, you know, the, church had the split and leadership had a different vision. mean, that's corporate in nutshell for almost every one of us. That's been at some level you're like, I just don't agree with this anymore. you know, earlier in the career, and maybe when you were earlier within the church,

Yes.

You disagree or think differently, but you may give your two cents and then you just rolled on because that's what leadership. I found at the end, especially when it was in management consulting, if I disagreed, I couldn't keep quiet anymore. just, I'm like, no, this is, I cannot get on board with this where I'm like, that's probably when I knew that my corporate was ending just because it wasn't, I couldn't conform to the, that process anymore.

Yeah, you know, that is very accurate. When you look at churches, churches are led through legislative leadership. its political leadership is what it is. That's the closest sort of correlation to the secular, you know, outside the ministry walls sort of thing. But you have to woo people. You have to bring them along, you know? And there's this really interesting thing that happens in religion that

Yeah.

People are really attracted to sort of black and white thinking. You're in, you're out. This is right, that's wrong. And it's funny to me because the Jewish scriptures, and they were all grounded in Jewish belief and philosophy, they're always in attention with each other. They welcomed questions and discussion and...

But the evangelical church in North America, and it's true in Canada, although Canada is a very secular country compared, we're more European in our faith worldview than the US. The US has the evangelical right, which is kind of politically motivated. We don't have that quite as much in Canada. But when you're in this kind of evangelical world where there's black and white thinking all the time, you can't ask the gray questions. And I lived in the gray.

It was probably going to be just a matter of time before something, you know, was going to happen anyways, because I was asking the types of questions that a lot of our young people actually were asking, but not a lot of adults were comfortable with.

Yeah, I get it.

answering or addressing. Yeah, it makes sense. You know, the other thing before we are going to get your business, I promise. interesting. Maybe it was six months ago, somewhere in that area, we had another story brand guide, I guess now coach Paul, and his background is interesting, because he was actually like a whitewater raft right outdoors, guiding people down that thing. And but he started to do some work for the business and discovered the story brand and then got hooked.

Yeah.

You

bought in, then became a coach and now he does this for small businesses. And I just think it's interesting that I've met two folks and again, I'm a huge fan of the story brand method. that two different paths, two very unique paths, right? Not out of corporate, but none, what I call non-corporate found, you know, so what was the, what was the appeal to you of just the way that this, story tied to it or, maybe you can't even answer. I'm just taking it on a rabbit hole here, but.

Well, no, it's interesting because when I started, I had such profound imposter syndrome. mean, fortunately, I grew up on a very successful farm. And so my dad was very, very entrepreneurial. I think he was very open about money and talking about business with me. Maybe that's where I got it. Maybe it's just kind of in me. I don't know.

yeah.

Yeah.

But I had massive imposter syndrome at first. then in month three, actually, when I turned the corner and finances everything, I just decided, look, marketing is communicating in a new genre. And I'm a good communicator. That's how I built my career off of communication. So as soon as I made that shift in my head, I just took off. And that first year, I call myself an entrepreneurial adolescent.

because I didn't know what my strengths were, I didn't know who my people were, I didn't know what I wanted to be, kind of when I grew up as an entrepreneur. Very quickly though, after about a year, maybe 14 months in, I went, I'm a copywriter. I love the words of business, I love the words of marketing, this is what I wanna do. So I actually worked for quite a, I white labeled for other agencies, did copywriting on contract for them. It was a fantastic way to get my business off the ground and I'm very grateful for it.

Okay.

Yeah, it worked. It obviously worked. Yeah. Cause they tell people there's, know, some people have a lot of early success, others it takes a little bit longer and you know, the rule of thumb within six months, you should see some success. And if, things go well by the end of the first year, you should be on a run rate to replace your corporate income.

with the spectrum, right? So depending on what you're selling, takes longer and how quickly and comfortable you get. And one of what we'll spend a lot of time is the networking, how you get those clients. So yeah, I mean, it's not, it's, I wouldn't call it rare because there are folks, I just had a conversation with somebody in our community yesterday. She's like, I thought this was going to take longer, but I'm already doubled what I was making in corporate in the first year. Now, some of it is space that you're in and the work that you do and the network that you already have.

Right.

but it's there for the, I'm gonna say the taking, it's there if you wanna put the effort in and figure it out.

You know, yeah, my, my, my belief is, is abundance have an abundant mindset, have a generous disposition sort of, if you, if you live that way, it's kind of amazing. One of my friends said to me, Tom, you just never really even like thought failure was going to be an option. And I went, no, actually I didn't. And I didn't mean that glibly or arrogantly. I just actually never crossed my mind that it, that it wouldn't work out. But

Yeah.

When you talk about the network, you're absolutely right because my first six contracts were all sympathy gigs. All of them were sympathy gigs. They were people in my congregation who didn't like what was happening, who didn't like how maybe I'd been treated. And they said, Tom, we know you as a person. We know you as someone who has integrity, who's good storyteller, who understands words and communication. We'll take a risk on you.

Hahaha.

And some of those clients actually have retained me for some work even now. So four and a half years later, I'm still working with some of them, which is incredible.

Good

And there's nothing wrong with sympathy clients to get started and there's that's actually a good way to do it and you know, it's interesting to with That LinkedIn expert that I had on yesterday Deanna was talking about No, can trust right which we've heard but the beauty that you already had with your network was they know and like you and it's now that they're gonna well they'll take a leap of faith on the trust that you're gonna be able to deliver it and what I love about your story is

Nope.

Right. I talk all the time about if you've been in corporate for 20 plus years, you've got skills that are in demand within the small business world. They need your help. And you came from a non-traditional where you technically wasn't, you had business skills, but you know what I'm saying? It's, it's a tie over from, a human skill, right? It's, it's not working. It's how do we connect? It's how do we develop and communication I think was the key piece.

Yeah, but Brett, what you just said there about no like trust, this is what I tell new entrepreneurs all the time. When you start, you actually can't afford to wait to build the no, the likes, the trusts. You can't afford it because if you're gonna, if you really do need to turn or need to start making money at the six month mark, you've gotta be courageous and go start in the center with those who already trust you.

then those who like you and then those who know you. And once you've kind of exhausted that, you will have already built up kind of that, you know, that group in the, in the outer circle and you can begin to move back in. But at first, like it, I, what I don't like about it is it feels a little bit like MLM, you know, it's the friend I haven't seen for like 14 years and suddenly they want to be my friend on Facebook. And then I find out they're selling some sort of product that doesn't feel nice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But if you have genuine relationships with people and you just let them know what you're doing and you say, look, even to, for example, story brand provides a keynote for us to do. So I said, well, I love teaching. mean, that was my jam, right? So I said, I went to my friends and I said, look, would you come to my first online keynote? And I got about 12 friends there and I was very honest with them. All I want you to do is tell me, me feedback on it. I want to know how I did.

But in my head, what I was doing is I was thinking I'm educating them on what I'm doing. And even if they don't hire me, because most of them wouldn't, they know people who might need my services. So I was very strategic about who I invited to that. And they were willing to come because they liked me, you know, and it was fun and they were learning something new anyways.

Yeah.

So that was, if you can do things like that where you bring people in that you know, you can educate your network on what you're doing in a really kind of practical and valuable way, you're not taking from them, you're actually giving to them. That will pay back.

Yeah, it's such a good idea of doing that because you know when we talk about reaching out to your network and letting them know hey this is what I'm doing or if you're still in corporate thinking about doing I'm thinking about going on my own and this is what I'm doing just put the keynote speech on it's like here's what I'm doing invite people to it and just ask them to give you feedback is I don't even say it's really smart and

I may even do that now with the thing that I'm launching is just invite some people to give me feedback on the way I'm presenting this. So, huh, interesting.

You know, the other thing I the other thing I've told a bunch of new entrepreneurs to do is invite friends, especially people you respect in business, and say, look, can I buy you lunch or buy you coffee? What I need to do is I need to give you my sales pitch. I'll give it to you. I need feedback on it so I can learn from you because you've been in business longer than me. But again, it's not about just practicing your sales pitch, which is valuable in itself. It's about educating them.

Right.

about what you're doing so that they can actually think about it and tell other people as they run into, you know, further down the network.

Yeah, it's so true and it's such a good idea. Let's go back to your journey a little bit too, because they keep glossing over the success you had, not glossing over, six you had, but you came from a, you where you weren't working with other business owners in this communication. So was part of the process when you went through the certification, the training of the story brand, gave you confidence to approach these or were you just saying, Hey, I can help you tell your story. So what were the early days? How did you position that?

And how did that evolve?

Well, you know, I do this one workshop called getting to yes, it's on sales. And one of the things that I've never done is said, I'm going to do this and only this for this audience. And that's really important because I think that the more flexible you are and the more willing you are to adapt to what the market is saying, the better you're going to be. So my neighbor.

good friends of ours. went to our church. They also own a Shell gas station. And I went to them and I said, look, I did this thing. Do you want to me for marketing? And in the conversation, they said, well, we don't really need StoryBrand. I mean, we're a gas station. They're one of the most successful, by the way, in North America. They win awards all the time. And so they don't really need marketing, but they needed to pump up their gas, their car wash, because there's way more margin in that.

Yeah.

So we talked about that and I did some social media for them. But actually my first project was building them an app because they were they were using these paper cards and stamping for every gallon of gas you get or whatever you get a stamp and then you get a free car wash. And I said aren't you guys sick of keeping track of these papers? And they're like absolutely. We have no idea what to do. I said they're like can you build an app? And I was like heck yes. And if they're listening right now.

Sure.

just so you everyone knows I did a good job, but I didn't really know what I was doing. I knew that there'd be a platform out there that allowed me to plug and play. I didn't have to reinvent or code or anything like that. They're still using the app. So if I had said no, I do story brand. Well, there goes my first $2,400 contract, right? So you have to be willing sometimes to go to adjacent offers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, not outside what you're actually gifted at because that's actually just, you know, that's deceptive in some ways. But if you can actually do it legitimately and it doesn't fit with what you necessarily want to do, or maybe the client isn't your ideal client at first, for goodness sakes, humble yourself. Say, I'm gonna work with this person even though they don't fit my ICP perfectly, you know? People get stuff.

Right.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, no mix. And again, that's another great mind's think alike. I'm going to play off that because yours worked. the same thing with when I'm working with escapees or potential escapees, they're like, well, I want to do the fractional thing. I'm like, well.

Take a step back and think about that the problem that you're solving for that business owner and if you go in with exactly what you said more of a flexible mindset that says they may not be ready for fractional. They may not know what fractional is, right? And you may have to sell them, educate them and then go through the process. But if there's a problem that they have figured out how you can solve that problem on a, you know, good, better, best type thing to make it formal, but just it stays in your skill set.

Right.

And it just may not be as many hours as you want, but it's going to be a better fit that you can build towards. Maybe fractional becomes a thing. Maybe it doesn't. So one would it answer to say, be flexible with where the client is.

Maybe.

Right. Well, quite frankly, you know, I don't know if this is a North American thing. I kind of think it's a Western mindset. We care so much about titles. Like, the client doesn't care. There's a great book called The Prosperous Coach. think that's what it's called by Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler. And they talk about the difference between, you know, sort of, I can't remember how they call it, but sort of high level coaches and low level coaches.

Yes.

And the better coach, the professional coach understands, for example, that certifications don't matter. That your client only cares about one thing. Can you solve this problem for me? They do not care about the vanity badge you have on your website. Now I'm certified with StoryBrand and the way I answer that, because it looks a little hypocritical.

me to say that is that no, there are certain certifications that add value to a specific problem that your clients are having. It's very smart. If you're talking to somebody and you go, my goodness, I know that there's training out there that would make me better at solving the problem for my client. For goodness sakes, go get the certification, right? But to just, there are certification junkies. I'm not kidding. Like they're just addicted to putting another badge on their website.

Right, right.

as if that somehow makes them more authoritative. And all the client cares about is can you help me get to a higher revenue? At the end of the day, most small businesses are thinking revenue. Now there's different ways, it could be ops, it could be marketing, could be sales training, it could be all those things. But at end of the day, they wanna make a return on their investment. So figure out how to do that and call yourself anything you want.

Yeah.

Because on a sales call, you shouldn't start with your title anyways. You should start with the result that you can provide for your, for your client or your customer.

Yeah.

that makes so much sense and it's so true. The client does not care about the titles or these things and you know the other thing so I take yours just a little bit I'll expand a little bit like either you're helping them make money, save money or save time. I think that's it. If you what you're doing and proposing doesn't do any of those three things then you're gonna have a really hard time selling because business owners especially small business owners unless you can tie it directly to one of those the

Yes, correct.

Again, they may do you a favor, but it's not going to be a long-term business, that's for sure.

No, I absolutely agree. And you're right. The smaller the business, the more they care about revenue. Like when you work with solo printers, that's what they wake up thinking about. Revenue. They might say I'm looking for leads, but really they're looking for revenue. So you do adjust your message for the person. That's the other thing, adjust your message for goodness sakes. Don't go in with one size fits all. You won't find very many of those.

Yeah.

It won't work. Yeah, but again, that's kind of what corporate taught us was, you know, lead and hit. mean, even with that last consulting firm I was with, right, we do go into these client meetings and discovery and you get folks telling you, make sure you include the services slide. But these are all the things we do. I'm like, they don't care.

They've got a specific problem we're coming here to talk about. They don't care about our suite of services that we do. They just don't. I've never found a business, because I was on the other side buying that stuff. I'm like, don't care. It's going to cost me more money if you're telling me about all these other things that aren't important to me. anyway, I digress.

Great.

Yeah, correct. I agree. Now, if you look at my website, list all the it's almost funny. I list almost every potential service you could offer because I'm positioning myself as a fractional chief growth officer. So I care about growth strategies. Growth strategies come in four flavors. They come in marketing sales.

marketing, sales, business development, and then operational support. And I just want to be known as the person who can answer any of those questions. So small business owner, you're very, very busy. You're wearing a lot of hats. You need a website. I'm either your guy or I know a guy. That's kind of how I'm positioning myself.

Yeah, and I'm looking at your website and you're not being fair to yourself. Yes, you do have things that you do, but it's all tied back to growth. It's not like you've got a list of 16 different services you offer. It's all about strategize, streamline, but it's tied back to the core thing you fix, is, is growth. So in all fairness, I know he's being humble,

Right.

Okay, so the story brand messaging guy can actually message. That's good.

Exactly. Well, that's one thing we did find. it is, know, and Donald Miller's figured something out over his time, right? Doing all these things though. All right. So, so super interesting, but one of your, let's call it your superpowers is networking and outreach. And when we were, we first met, I'm like, man, I gotta have time to come in and talk about this. And I realized, know, like he talks about growth and everything works, this networking,

is maybe even more of a four letter word for potential escapees than anything else. Revenue important, but my God, networking. It used to be, do you know anybody that's hiring for this job? And our world was built around that. And if you're in sales, you'd probably do a little bit more around it. I'll give you an open forum to start. If I'm in corporate right now and I'm thinking about networking, what's your recommendation on?

on how to approach this, what's the process look like?

Well, first of all, if you're leaving corporate and you're planning to be a solopreneur, no marketing, no social media, no cold outreach, no networking groups, no long nurturing campaigns and no high volume, low conversion. Get rid of all of it. There's one strategy that works really well. Find a group of people who serve your ideal client in completely different ways than you do and start trading introductions.

I call it source networking. I hate the word networking because it is so broken and it is so jammed with like baggage. Sort of on the in the networking world, you have two sides. On one side, you have the people who are burned by networking, so they don't know how to do it. They don't want to do it. They they think they're too introverted to do it or shy, whatever it is. On the other side, you have.

Yeah.

the serial networkers, they will take an introduction from anybody. They'll have a virtual coffee with absolutely anyone who asks. They will introduce you to everyone they know and you will waste a ton of time, like a ton of time. And so I want to, I want to give you some stats here because I just, I just ran them up last yesterday and at the end of this week, we're about to break for Christmas. So I don't know when this podcast is going live, but we're right at the end of my 2024.

Thom (27:23.927)

I had 355 calls this year. 209 were introductions. First time meetings. 91 became follow ups. Could be a sales call, could be just furthering the conversation. I had 46 virtual coffees. I had 10 free strategy sessions, which by the way is the way that I create clients is I offer strategy sessions. It often works. I don't offer that like for anybody, but if I've met you and I want to work with you, but it's

you know, we need a little bit more, I'll do that. The end result was, and the other were a smattering of other little categories, but at the end, this year I worked with 38 clients. 22 have completed their contracts with me, 11 are currently with me, and I have five in a mastermind that I'm running, which is gonna wrap up this week. So if you look at the 209 introductions, out of that,

Let's just back off the 38. Let's say 30. 209 introductions, 30 of them converted into clients. That only happens if you have very good introductions. That's the only way it happens. And what's interesting is if I track it throughout the year, it gets better and better. Because what happens is I have a group of sources.

That's phenomenal.

but I'm training those sources. I'm literally training them. Now I'm not telling them that I'm training them, but every time I make an introduction for them in the way that I want it done for me, I'm training them. And this is the thing about introductions and networking and referrals. First of all, referrals, that's not what we're talking about. A referral sort of, it communicates a high level of trust, right?

Alright.

So if I meet, Brett, you tell me you have a problem, say with your website, it's not, SEO is not working. Well, I know an SEO guy. So I go and talk to my friend, Jeff, and I say, Jeff, you need to meet Brett. Brett's got an SEO problem. That is a referral. And Jeff had better be darn well good at SEO because I'm putting him in your world on my recommendation. He better not screw you over on price. He better know his stuff.

Right.

That's a referral. It's a high level sort of networking game. A much lower one is introductions. I say, Brett, Jeff, I think you have some things to talk about. I don't know if it's gonna lead to anything, but you might know another, you might be a source for each other. Who knows, you might hire each other or you might just have a service that's valuable for the community, for your particular network or community or clients or whatever. So, but this is the thing.

with introductions, you have to control them because if I'm making an introduction for you, Brett, or you for me, you're not responsible for my business. I am my own growth engine and I am not responsible for your business. So I have no business making an introduction that you have not vetted. So the system is this. I send three people over. So you and I have talked.

I've said, hey, Brett, let's try this experiment where we make where we do introductions for each other. I have a friend, Timothy Morgan. He calls it referral ping pong. I would call it introduction ping pong. And we'll just go back and forth. Let's try it for six months. See what happens. And I say, but don't just send me anyone. Send me three names. This is my ICP, my ideal client profile. You send those names to me. I'll give you feedback on the best one. You introduced me to the best one. So it goes suggestion.

feedback, introduction, feedback. Because after you have the call, it's your job to say, Tom, that introduction to Susan went really well. This is why. By the way, just reminding you, it's your turn. You're it. So it's this way of going back and forth. And my pipeline is stacked. Like I'm booking to the end of January right now. I do marketing only within Storybrand.

Yeah.

So within Storybrand, I let them know about workshops I have coming up. I let them know about different things that I'm doing. That's the only place to do marketing. I'm considering in the new year to start up my newsletter again, my weekly drip campaign. But I don't know. If I did it, it would be mostly because I want to write and I enjoy writing. And I'm trying to experiment with, you know, solopreneurs versus small businesses. But I don't need it because my pipeline is stacked.

Yeah.

My pipeline is full at all times because of warm introductions that I get and they're converting at a very good rate because they are the right kinds of people. So I'm very passionate about this. I see new entrepreneurs especially, you you're escapees. They're gonna leave corporate and they're gonna be told, you should try writing a book. you should try this strategy. you should try this, heaven help us, this cold email strategy.

Yeah.

Gross, cold email, cold marketing is the least effective way to do any marketing. So, because it's not relational. And if this is the way I look at it, there's actually very little that I do that's unique. Very, very little. If you put my services into Google, you would not find me, because it's not unique. It's a saturated workplace. So.

Right.

That means that my unique selling proposition is me. I'm the unique selling proposition. And that's not because I'm so special. It's because of chemistry. It's because of how I relate to people. It's because of maybe my work ethic, you those sorts of things. But nobody knows that from my website. They only know that if they meet me. Which means whatever gets me the meeting the fastest and most efficiently is the best way to build your business.

Right.

It's a waste of time to do anything else. Now there will come a time when marketing makes a whole lot of sense and there might be some cold outreach eventually to B2C cold outreach can work a little bit too. know, like I'm not saying this for all time. I'm saying if you're leaving corporate right now, get yourself a group of sources. And by the way, the corporate corporate escapee is kind of like everybody's in the same boat.

And if you could just get a little organized and find your people there, your three or four or six people, whatever it is, and say, let's link arms and do introductions for each other. My goodness. It would make a massive difference. It really would.

Yeah. And you stole it where I was going with it. I'm like, because one of the things that I think is an underappreciated, I'm going to call it an offer. It's free within the escapee community. If you join, we hook you into our networking platform. so week one, you start meeting with other escapees that are kind of defined based on what you want to meet.

Yes.

So we're gonna actually take the leg work out and have you just start connecting. But what I love about what you're saying is do it with intention, right? Have an idea, not just meets for meeting sake. And we've all done that. And yeah, I mean, I've already got a half a page of notes thinking through this. everything you say just makes perfect sense. But yet it's until you hear it or start to practice it, then.

Yeah, it's 100 % on board with you. And I think we've got the title for the episode too, somewhere in that last three minutes is what we're going to pull from it. But you don't need anything.

Nice. You know, we just we can't afford to not be efficient. Like my my two words this year were ruthless and relentless. Now that's very hard for me. I'm a nice guy. I'm a pastor. So to say I'm ruthless and relentless, all I mean by that is I just don't have time to screw around with my time. Like I don't I can't. I'm not running a professional hobby.

I got seven kids. Right? We are an adoption and foster family and we believe in this and I just, have a lot of responsibilities. So I'm gonna make money so that I can give those kids the best possible chance to succeed in life. I can't afford it. I can't afford to waste time anymore.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and I don't think anybody does, right? I mean, that's one thing.

Exiting corporate, really appreciated that I didn't while I was in corporate was the time aspect of it. And don't like one, you're responsible for your calendar and everything that you do. And I tell people on the podcast, I've gone through a stage where I was, it was a mess, right? Because your corporate life is fairly structured. The meetings, 80 % is somebody else's meetings or somebody else's deliverables. So you knew you were going to all of sudden you're on your own. You got a world that you're trying to organize. And when I did that, I overinduced.

Right.

and went down like scheduling the half hour and like this isn't working for me and then I've kind of slowly pulled it back to time blocks where I know when my most productive hours are

early in the morning and that's when I'll be writing, creating business strategy, all that. then podcast is perfect in this late morning where we're meeting to early afternoon. Cause I still have good energy and I've already accomplished a lot of what I want to do. then the afternoon is for all the other tasks. What I haven't done or been strategic with at all is the networking piece, right? There's certain people, I think we both know Don, Don shout out to Don alert.

Mm.

Yeah.

He's really good and I know if he's connecting me with somebody then it's one I should absolutely take. But there's a bunch of others that I need to start flipping that too when I'm thinking clearly of who I want to introduce people to and why, right? So anyway, this is really good stuff.

Yeah, Dono, he's a great guy. By the way, you are kind of living proof though, that it's not a one size fits all. Like even though I'm a passionate person, like you've built a business, you've built a community and you're on TikTok of all things. So it's not to say that it can't be done in other ways. Don't ever hear me saying that. All I'm saying is if I had to pick one strategy straight out of corporate, it would be this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is what it would be. It would be sources. But it also works very well for me. I think the only marketing strategy that is universal is consistency. Pick a lane, pick two lanes, but not six lanes. Pick a few lanes, two lanes, and stick with it consistently. It will bear fruit over time. It just, it really will. This just happens to be faster.

Yeah.

it

No, I think you're absolutely right. And again, I think the other thing I found too is, right, we say there's riches in the niches. And the other challenge I find folks when they exit court, because I was guilty of it, right? Because I'm like, when I exited management consulting, I was going to do management consulting, but just solo in the B2B space. And it was about digital transformation in B2B. So I'm like, that's what I do. I'm like, do know how broad that is? And there's not any business out there that goes, yeah, we need that. Right? It wasn't until I said I can

Mm-hmm.

Right.

help with your retention problem or because then when you're networking

I'm like, I know your story now we met once and we turned that into this podcast. We're going to figure out how else we can work together on some things. But I knew you because of your story, what you did, it was uniqueness of it. Right. I know what you do. And so if I have other people that I come across, I can refer you in. But if I have a meeting with you and like, say, I can do this, this, this, this, and this. It'll be a good conversation. You may remember that I was a good person, but you're not going to remember me for

anything you know in the future because this person does this it's just so it seems counterintuitive but again back to your how do you fast track and gain that momentum quicker it's pick pick one and you can be opportunistic as we said when you're getting started somebody comes to you and you can do it do it but just as you're being intentional pick a lane and then over time you can start to change that lane if you want but I found that to be a definitely a path of least resistance

Everything evolves. If you had talked to me 12 months ago about source networking, I was doing it, but it was very different looking. Very, very different. so that is right for business. There should be an evolution. 12 months from now, it will look different again. It will be better, hopefully.

Yeah. Yeah. And improvement. Yeah. Improvement or change of the things. Yeah. I mean, again, I use my journey all the time as, know, from consulting to fractional to doing some reseller or some advisory and, and then all of a sudden this escapee thing wasn't even on the radar, you know, 18 months ago. So it's, you got to be open with it, right? I mean, flow, not change on a whim every time, but just

Crazy.

Right. Yes.

It's like riding a wave, right? The waves gonna change and meander and you gotta decide if you wanna get off this wave at some point, but...

Right. Yeah.

Sounds like we're very much aligned. And that's why I liked you when I met you.

super. Yeah, we are. It's but that's why you agreed to come on the podcast. Yeah, he's like said, I don't even question it anymore. He knows me he knows you he figured he knows how to connect people that that makes sense. So all right. Wow, I've taken a lot of your time. This is flown by so

Probably why Don introduced this. Because I'm pretty sure it was Don-O.

Yeah.

Tom, anything else, any other words of wisdom? mean, we could break this into two master classes of what you talked about today. So are we missing anything you want to share with potential escapees?

You know, there's always more.

Anything big any of the big rocks as we're sitting in corporate that we didn't talk

You know, yeah, you are going to have to invest in yourself.

you have to invest in yourself. I actually turned a corner about a year and a half ago when I actually left copywriting and just did consulting. you know, all my co for the first time in two and a half years, all my copywriting projects ended. I had wanted to kind of like phase out, you know, not just go. And that's just not the way it happened. And so I went negative, but I refused.

Right.

to fire my very expensive coach. Remember, I'm Canadian, so it's 30 % more for me in the conversion, right? But you have to invest in yourself. I went negative for three months, and by the time I hit my fifth month, my average month now is as good as my best copywriting month. So yeah, you take a dip, but if you're leaving corporate,

Don't try to figure it all out on your own. It's gonna take way longer and cost you way more money, way more money than if you hire somebody who's made a few mistakes that they can teach you to avoid. That'd be a big one for me.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, that's so true. Because even I tell people, it took me two years to even tell anybody I was out of corporate, let alone seek help and figure it out. And it's funny you said about the negative and the zero, because I just a couple of weeks ago ended my last fractional.

client, right? So now escapee is my life. So we've turned that corner and still doing some smaller advisory type of projects in that but the fractional work is now over because I see the value and this is what I'm passionate about is how do we leverage this and get more people to find exactly what you and I have found at, you know, different degrees, different stays, but it's so much better than the previous life, right? And so

Right?

If we can just get one other, two other people to come and then stay out and then realize what's out here, there's so much, I don't know. For me, that's kind of finding what the purpose is and who knows, maybe in 18 months it evolves into something else. Just have to be ready for it. All right, Tom, well, I really appreciate the time. Again, I think we'll figure out how to get you to come back and...

yeah.

Absolutely.

Maybe we'll dig deeper into a couple of these topics, but I appreciate you sharing your knowledge, sharing your story. I think it's inspirational for folks. again, just do, right? Think for, but networking is your thing. You don't have to have your website, you don't have to have social media in order to get started. It's, you know, start to connect with some of those others. So anyway, some really good stuff. I appreciate it, Tom. And I almost forgot.

Yes.

Right.

Where can people find you if they want to learn more and connect for you? Obviously we'll put in the show notes, but what's the best way to connect with you?

TomVanDyke.com, you can book a call with me there. All my services are there. LinkedIn is great though. Find me on LinkedIn, that's where I am most of the time. If you message me, I'm also in the Corporate Escapee, so people can find me there as well. But if you wanna message me, just let me know that you heard me here so that I have some context as to why we're connecting, that'd be great.

And just so you know, it's Tom with an H.

Right, exactly, Tom with an H.

All right, appreciate it and we'll catch up with you sometime in the new year.

Sounds great.