The Business of Business - Two Daughters & Their Dad

5-2: Unlocking the Secrets of Successful Organic Content Creation for Brand Building

• Staci, Jennifer & Jack Dempsey • Season 5 • Episode 2

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Get ready to unlock the secrets of successful organic content creation! Our guest today, the dynamic Grant Owen from Integrity Media, breaks down the ins and outs of building your brand authentically. He shares his unexpected journey into entrepreneurship, sparked by consuming content from various accomplished business owners. You'll learn how the simple act of publicly documenting your process can magnetize clients and cement your authority in your field. 

You have ever wondered how to harness social media to scale your business? This episode dives into the nuances of strategic content creation, from using video and written posts effectively to positioning your business as a high-end brand. We discuss the importance of showcasing 'before and after' transformations, underlining the value of client testimonials. Grant shares his take on tackling criticism on social media, revealing how to stay genuine and grow amidst rejection. 

As we delve into the realm of young entrepreneurship, Grant opens up about leaving his high-paying job to follow his passion. The episode also features wisdom from Grant Cardone, renowned entrepreneur and motivational speaker, shedding light on the mindset needed for success. You'll understand the significance of investing in your own education, surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals, and the role of resilience in achieving business success. Get your notepads ready, because this episode is jam-packed with invaluable insights on navigating the ever-evolving world of entrepreneurship!

Find Grant Owen on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and more:   @iamgrantowen #iamgrantowen

Dempsey, Weiss & Associates
Meeting the insurance and financial needs of business owners & individuals in NJ & PA since 1989.

J. Faith Hair Studio
Located in south NJ, J Faith Hair Studio is the place to go to become the best version of yourself.

Flying High Agility & Dog Training
Helping people & their pets since 2003. We come to you!

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Jennifer Faith Dempsey has been in the beauty industry for over 10 years. For the last 5m years, she has owned J. Faith Hair Studio. She brings her experience on how she balances entrepreneurship and motherhood. Check out Jen’s blog.

Staci Joy Dempsey is an insurance agent, a mom, and a busy non-profit volunteer. She truly understands what it means to be an entrepreneur. Staci serves as the podcast's host.

Jack Dempsey is the dad who heads up this busy family. He is a founding partner in Dempsey, Weiss & Associates, an Elmer, NJ-based insurance and investment firm that began more than 30 years ago.

Staci J. Dempey:

Hi everybody and welcome back to the business of business podcast. Two daughters and their dad. I'm your host, stacey J Dempsey, and then J is very important because it brings all so much joy. Thankfully, like always, I am here with the other daughter, not the only daughter, but the other daughter, jennifer, and the one and only dad. Dad, I'm not allowed to say the J word, I'm allowed to say Jack on this podcast. So no J words, no J words allowed on this podcast. So good morning to the both of you.

Jack Dempsey:

Good morning, good morning.

Staci J. Dempey:

And we are super fired up this morning because we have a very, very special guest with us today. His name is Grant Owen. He is with integrity media. So good morning to you, Grant Good morning.

Grant Owen:

Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Staci J. Dempey:

Thank you so much for scheduling out some time to be with us, so we're kind of eager to just to jump right on into this. Why don't you share with us a little bit about your business and kind of what brought you to this niche that you're working in?

Grant Owen:

Awesome. Yeah, so I own a essentially it's a marketing consultancy agency. I specialize in organic content with social media. I kind of accidentally fell into it.

Grant Owen:

To be honest, it's part of what got me into entrepreneurship in general, which was that I started consuming all this content and I went to the big names and I was like you know, I was listening. I think the first person I really heard was Ryan Panetta, who's not a big name, but he was one of the first people he's like in the real estate industry. And then that led me to Alex Trimosi, which led me to Gary V, which led me to Lewis Howes and Grant Cardone and all these a lot of real estate names but like just a lot of like entrepreneurial names in general, and I just firehosed content, right, and so that set me on this entrepreneurial path and I realized I accidentally just got like a ton of education on how to create engaging content for business owners. So I just because I just spent all day watching podcasts, listening to stuff, watching short form, watching YouTube videos, and I ended up taking that and like giving some free advice to some people and I did enough times and it worked enough times that I ended up was like I was.

Grant Owen:

Like you know, I probably should start charging for this. So I launched the business and I took on a few clients, charged them too little because I didn't really know my worth, and got pretty incredible results and so that gave me the confidence to kind of fully commit and scale this thing. So that's a lot of what I do is not with like paid advertisements or sponsored stuff. It's working with kind of like high level business owners and creating personal brands.

Staci J. Dempey:

Wow, how about that? I mean, just in everything you just shared with us, I can think of probably four podcasts that we've talked about, where it's you can. You don't necessarily have to spend thousands of dollars on seminars. You can learn a lot. There's a lot of free resources out there and you know taking something that you learned and you know being authentic and creating a career out of it. So that's amazing. It's a wonderful story. So so let me, let me ask you this what do you find a lot of businesses are doing, or business owners are doing well right now in regards to the organic content?

Jack Dempsey:

Can. I interrupt real quick. Grant, go for it, go for it. Yeah, that's a great question. I just would like you for me to define organic content.

Grant Owen:

Sure, yeah, absolutely so. Organic content means you're not paying for it. It means that I am not paying for this to be exposed to anybody else. No one else is boosting this. This is me posting on social media and getting clients as a result of that. So a lot of people you know. I think it functions for different businesses, different businesses based on whether you're doing B2B business to business or B2C business to customer, or if you have a product right, it dictates how much money you're going to spend on marketing and what kind of marketing you're going to do so. For the personal brand side of things, where you have a business owner who usually has a mentorship group, a coaching group, an info product, they teach something right, they're an expert in their field and they teach something about that field. That's B2C, and usually you're looking for people to watch your content and trust you and then say that person probably has the answers to what I'm looking for and turn them into a warm lead which you can convert and make money from. So organic content is important to do that. It's essential, in my opinion, for everyone, for every single person.

Grant Owen:

Just having a brand means that you're representing more than just your. You know, like that. It's a representation of yourself. And I think personal brands are essentially the new resume, right? No one really goes on websites anymore. No one really looks at resumes anymore to be like they do for specific jobs. But if you have a personal brand, if you have an online presence, it establishes you as an authority and, frankly, it's the only reason you're talking to me right now. If I was just quietly working in a little creative agency and not posting about it, you wouldn't have seen content. You wouldn't have thought man Grant, someone I would love to talk to. So that's why I think it's important for everybody, but at a high level for business owners.

Grant Owen:

I think it's essential to be able to grow your clients. To answer your question, what do I think business owners are doing right at this moment? It really depends on the industry. It really depends on the platform. I think it's probably going to be the same answer as what I think people are doing wrong. There's the inverse of it. People that recognize that publicly documenting your process is going to grow you and grow your business. People that recognize that and businesses that recognize that as simple, as small as possible, to the whatever scale that is, they're going to be more successful. So I think there are some people that, like you, have started the podcast and realized that helping people with content and just talking about what you're doing publicly, that that is just going to grow you and grow your business overall. I think people are also recognizing that no one trusts good business owners are recognizing that no one trusts a name or a brand like in terms of the company.

Grant Owen:

So I'm guessing, if I look at the people you guys follow on social media, even for the education space, odds are you're not following VaynerMedia. Odds are you're not following Cardone Capital. Odds are you're not following Apple. You're probably following Tim Cook. You're probably following Gary Vee. You're probably following Grant Cardone. You're probably following the people and most people don't even know. Like I love Diary of a CEO, the podcast, I have no idea what business Stephen Bartlett runs. I know he's run multiple seven figure businesses, right, but like I don't follow any of them, I just trust his voice and trust him as a person. So I think people that are pushing towards that and making progress towards that are way ahead of the curve and anyone that doesn't do that is going to get left behind. Wow, does that sufficiently answer?

Staci J. Dempey:

the question. Yeah, it absolutely did, and you make such a great point that I guess I myself haven't even really realized. But when I look at Jennifer's business, people follow Jennifer and because of the work that she does and the content that she puts out ultimately gets them to J-Faith Hair Studio. And sometimes that content can be the same on both platforms or on all platforms, but essentially it starts with Jennifer. People come into the salon because of the work that they've seen her do rather than rep, you know, like maybe even reputation of the salon, which obviously is very good. Would you agree with that, jen?

Jennifer Dempsey:

Yeah, I would. Sorry I'm going to mute myself a lot today, guys, because it's before Thanksgiving and I'm in the salon and it's very noisy. But I couldn't agree with you more and I think that even just in my world, in my industry, that's really where we coach stylist too, of like. It's so easy to, when it comes to content, social media, to post up pictures of the art, but what I find time and time again is, if I'm in front of the camera and I'm talking about the process or what it looks like to come into the salon and experience the salon, we get way more views, way more engagement, way more likes, because people want to connect with the people, and I think that that's great.

Grant Owen:

It's an important thing to use your voice. I mean, I think everyone like let me give advice for someone that just has no idea what to do there's going to start. People recommend to choose one medium written or video. Choose one. I like that. I think do both. I think if you have the confidence to just put yourself out there, video is always going to perform better because there's more senses at play. I'm able to hear your voice, I'm able to see you and it's I'm able to hear your tone and that all those senses just establish more trust.

Grant Owen:

If you're at a small business level for someone that's running a small business and it's in a physical location and you're trying to target people in your area, usually you're trying to actually target friends and friends of friends and tangential. So say you have the premium product in the space I would love to showcase. Like to me, it doesn't make sense to post online unless you're going to project yourself as the Rolls Royce of the industry. It doesn't make sense. I would hate to be McDonald's social media marketer because I'm having to be like yeah, everyone really loves this frozen slab of beef, because it'd be really easy to market myself as a high end steakhouse, because it's just aesthetically like I can make that look really attractive. That's something to be desired, and I put myself as a I am not this, I am this. I think that can happen in every industry and every business, in every space, including hair salon. I think like you can showcase, like this is why I do this, this is the story of why I'm building this business. And then you can showcase customers and you can showcase the before and afters and, honestly, those are the things that are going to get sales. People are going to say, yeah, I like what you did with that person. Can you do that for me? And the more you do it, the bigger you grow, especially if you show the process.

Grant Owen:

I've seen businesses get clients from states away of people that are like I want to go, I want to get my suit tailored by that guy, I want to get my hair done, I want to get, I want to get a tattoo by that artist, and it becomes like. It becomes like a pre-num, like you're the artist thing, because I trust you as a person rather than you just being someone at. You know, like a, like great clips. You know it's like you don't want to be the person at great clips. You don't want to, because that's you're not going to be able to charge as much, you're not going to get as many customers and I'm not going to trust you Wow.

Jack Dempsey:

So, jen, that should be your goal. We need a goal where you have clients who actually will get on a plane and fly.

Grant Owen:

It's happened. Yeah, to say it hasn't happened is yeah it's happened before.

Jack Dempsey:

I'm serious yeah.

Jennifer Dempsey:

I mean, I say this on the podcast all the time selfishly. The probably one of the main reasons I love doing this podcast is because I learned so much just from these conversations. So I already have a page of notes like I'm I'm fired up, I'm fired up.

Staci J. Dempey:

Same Dad gets a big gold star for bringing on grant. I'm glad, I'm glad.

Jack Dempsey:

I'm glad I'm not over with that.

Grant Owen:

Let's dive, let's dive, Cause there's different tiers right, there's different tiers.

Grant Owen:

Yes, yes and Jen, just to give you like a tactical. Like this is turning into a strategy session for me. But like, just to give you like a tactical, I I need people to be posting once a day and for my clients and what we suggest, right. Like I want to post two to three times a day because volume is just going to grow. You Like, for one of my clients, we posted three times a day for her and she to extra business and she told me that we're the driving factor in her getting a million dollars a month for coaching business. So, like we, we grew her students from. Like I think it was like 300 over 1600 in a matter of months. And that's just from volume. Volume and quality, right. So like, the first lever is volume, the second lever is quality and you just get better and better over time. You test things, you fail over and over again and it's just like people are just going to notice. For a small business and for you, if I'm going to get people to trust you as a person, I would prefer you do again. You're you're converting.

Grant Owen:

Posts are going to be the before and afters here. Showcase all these amazing things that we've done, all these super happy people showcase a testimonial of someone texting you or someone like I don't like five star reviews, or like that canvag graphic of like I loved going to this. That just sounds too corporate. I want someone to be like this person made my hair look awesome and if you have those types of clients that have those types of reviews, those will always get you the most amount of sales. And then anything that's relating to you and your story and how you learned, like I want it in written and I want it in video and you can just comment on things. You can just post it. It can be very, very candid. Start, very simple. But the other thing that works really well is is a you know, a time lapse or just a video of you working and just set your phone up.

Grant Owen:

I got this thing right, like set your phone up and next to you, like you don't need the fancy camera, I got the fancy, you don't need it. Like just set the phone up and just showcase, like me doing my day. And this is three things I learned today, or three things we've done, or something like that We've accomplished. Yeah, document, that's it. It doesn't have to be complex. You don't have to like project, you don't have to be bigger than yourself, just exist where you're at, document it and have one of your team members, have your assistant be the person that posts it for you. It's awesome.

Jennifer Dempsey:

I love it. I love your business. Thank you Working on it.

Staci J. Dempey:

Yeah, yeah, jen's actually. You know she really has started to implement some of the things that you just touched on. So I think this is just also just a confirmation for you, jen, to keep on doing it and not feel defeated at times, because I think we do kind of. You know, we want the views, we want the follows and things like that. But you know you brought up two things that I want to make sure that we touch on today, and one is platforms and also failures. So you had mentioned before, you know, posting on different platforms, and so what would kind of be your 30,000 foot view of platforms for entrepreneurs? Is it do it on all of them? Is it focused on your, you know, driving by your industry or age range? Like, what are your? What would you recommend for entrepreneurs in general?

Grant Owen:

Depends on who I'm selling to. Yeah Right. So like, for example, I had a client. She targeted state home moms and then she targeted corporate women. So YouTube is natural for that and that does work well with Instagram and TikTok. That is a demographic that is on there and that also works for LinkedIn, which she hasn't implemented yet. But I think that's like an important thing where, for corporate women looking for a side hustle, that's an appropriate place. We're going to find people that are discontent with their day job and so you just have to essentially project how discontent you are in your situation and that you have a solution for people that are there and you can attract those people.

Grant Owen:

For B to C right, where it's like very physical location, very like, I don't think LinkedIn is super necessary. I don't think LinkedIn and Twitter are going to be super helpful because that's so broad, you kind of have to have it works. Where, like, linkedin and Twitter are great for finding for an info product that can be one to many and for consulting, for investment stuff, like it's good for a partnership level where you're looking for people that are interested in you as an entrepreneur, less so people that are interested in you as a person to buy from for your specific service or product. So I also wouldn't go to LinkedIn if I was selling to kids. I would go to LinkedIn if I was looking for investments or if I was looking for partnerships and I was looking for higher level people.

Grant Owen:

Youtube I love it for all of it and I think YouTube's probably the best because it's repurposeable for all of it. If I could pick a social media stock, even like a streaming stock, I think YouTube is going to be Netflix and Hulu and all these other platforms. I think it's in the next 10 years, everything's going to be within YouTube. I think YouTube's going to win and anyone that even starts now, it's not too late. It's like the best time to plan a tree was yesterday. The second best time is today. So with that in mind, you can repurpose content all throughout everything else just through YouTube. That's my favorite. So when we talk about platforms, it's about identifying where's your ICP and if you tell me, like Stacey, tell me your ICP, tell me what business you guys work with and I can tell you where you should be going.

Staci J. Dempey:

Fabulous, fabulous, so I feel like dad also wants to. You have a question on the tip of your tongue and I just got yeah if you don't get to me pretty quick on this, swallow it, you know? Yeah, okay, well, I'm going to throw it over to you, because I don't want you to forget so right right, hit them.

Jack Dempsey:

Hit them, jack, yeah. So yeah, you did hit on it, stacy. I like that. You know well there's we have, we have nugget, nugget alerts here, so we've had two or three nugget alerts already. One is trust trust his voice or trust the voice you know, and so and the other is grow your process, because everyone here will confirm that I'm a big process person, systems person. You know that you know goals are. You know goals, goals are the lag measure, your process is the lead measure, and so that's what you need to focus on.

Jack Dempsey:

But the volume and quality I think is really key to and what Stacy touched on. You know it because I think the volume allows you to fail quickly and see what's not working, and I think the one of the benefits today with technology is the fact that you know we can fail often and it doesn't put us out of business. You know there was a time not too long ago when you know you had such a major investment into things you know technology and all you know all that was required that you know if you failed once, you know you were bankrupt because you know you, you kind of invested it all into that, you know, into that particular method. So so, again, I just like that, you know being able to, you know do quality, volume and you know, and if it didn't work, then you know you learn it quickly and you move, you know you get it out of the process. So so no question, just wanted to kind of revisit that because I thought that was very, very good.

Grant Owen:

And can I actually want to add to that too? Like I think part of that is is that it's it's learned from the people at the top, right, like, what are the people at the top doing? What are the best business owners doing with their content? They have content. Like Alex from Mozi spends $40,000 a month on his content team it's actually probably more at this point because he's doing more paid media but he spends 40,000 a month on just his in-house payroll. And they put out I think Gary Vee says he tries to put out probably 64 pieces of content a day and yes, that could be like the same piece of content just on different platforms. But like that's a ridiculous amount of content.

Grant Owen:

And I think, first off, like I look at that and I'm like man, that sounds super, it sounds super tiring, right, cause it's like how do we, how do you produce that much? How do you do the much? How do I compete with that? But when you really think about it, like I'm recognizing, like you're, you start a podcast, right, the first few episodes they're going to suck. Right, you start making videos, and the first few videos are going to suck and you could be really awesome, you could be very talented, but it doesn't matter. Like you're, just you, you, you can't escape the timeline to the bench, right If you're, if you're like working out, like you can't escape the time where it's like you just have to get to the gym, you just have to go do the process. So I figure that if you do it 90 times in a month, you're going to learn faster than if you did it 30. And so, like, in that concept of like, fail fast, like that's the benefit of content.

Grant Owen:

And I will say, like I posted, I think I'm on day like a hundred and something of posting every single day for myself and I the only video like I, I, I figured out how to do it well for people.

Grant Owen:

It's a different thing to learn how to do it for myself.

Grant Owen:

But, like, the first month it was all awful and then the second month it was still pretty bad and it wasn't until this past month that I've like, you know, you have one, one video reach of like a bunch of people and you get a bunch of files, you get a bunch of leads, you get a bunch of clients, but it's like that sometimes it's all it takes and consistency is like people devalue quality, like they overvalued quality and they think if I just make this perfect thing and I really figured out and it's amazing and it's the best, it's the best video, it's the best sizzler, it's the best thing it's like, and I project it, and they're always going to lose to the person that's failed for months and months and months and months, but stayed with it, like the person that's just done the same thing every single day for two years will always be the person that worked for two years on the one amazing piece of content.

Grant Owen:

So I see that in other people. I also see that other people they need to do a lot so that because trends change, so what worked three months ago won't work now. So the only way to stay on top of it is to either outsource it or be willing to fail and be an expert at it over time.

Staci J. Dempey:

Well, you kind of already answered the question I was going to ask, and that was it was around failure, because you know, we've obviously talked a lot about you know, trying things failing, going back at it, you know, on this podcast, and you know you already kind of just described exactly this kind of this process that you've been going through with posting for yourself and so and so if there was one area that you felt like entrepreneurs needed to keep failing at, would you say it would be this area. Just keep doing it, you know, when it comes to trying to set yourself apart from others and kind of finding what your organic content can really look like.

Grant Owen:

What should people fail at? I think anyone that is willing to. It's like cold calling anyone that is willing to get yelled at and then put the phone down and pick it back up and redial. There's just no way you're going to lose in life. There's just like, if you're able to meet that level of resistance and overcome it like, earn the thick skin and overcome that and say, nope, I'm just going to keep at it. It's tough, right, like the.

Grant Owen:

I did every month. I do my team and I do content research right, and so we've researched all these big accounts and all the viral content for each account. So, like we look at the last three months of that account, it's usually bigger brands, people that we're competing with, people that we want to be like right, every single piece of viral content I would say 80% of everything we reviewed had hate comments 80%. And it's because, in order to get that level of visibility, you have to be, you have to offend half of people and be loved by half people, and usually people that love something they don't comment. I love this Like. Usually when you go to, you see reviews for stores or reviews for like products online. It's like this didn't fit. I hate this right, there's very few people that are like I'm going to write two paragraphs about how much I'm passionate about loving this product or loving this service, and I like that's just what social media is.

Grant Owen:

So if you're willing to, in that sense, fail and it's almost like I coach people on this and I think of it like this your goal when you post something, is to help one person, that's it. You don't, you're not trying to reach a million people. That'd be awesome, that'd be incredible. But your responsibility is to say, yes, I have knowledge, my experience can. Like you're doing this podcast, this podcast, if I'm on this podcast and something I say can help one person get from point A to point B, and just give them the courage to try. Right, it doesn't have to take much, you don't have to invest thousands of dollars, you don't have to take some course like try, and if that's all that happens from this, that's a worthy investment of time, that's a worthy investment of energy and that's the reason we do it in the first place. And, in my mind, if you're a business owner and you have that as your foundation, you can fail over and over again.

Grant Owen:

You can get all the hate comments you can. You can get all the, all the judgments, like the amount of people that have said, you know, mocked me for my videos or mocked me for you know, like I just I just read a comment today. It was like like I got three comments the last week of, like, grant you a big nose. Someone was like look at that. Like someone said today. Someone said today like look at that beak, or something like that, and I was like you know, that sucks, that really sucks. Like that's going to be existing, but the reality is that's one person and I can look at the other thousands of people that have watched it and I see a bunch of people liked it and it means they got help from it. So that that's me. Like I have to fit that responsibility. I like I have a responsibility to help those people.

Jack Dempsey:

Well, that's good. Yeah, that's really good, because I'm, you know, telling and coaching my sales team. You know I always say that. You know you have to get comfortable living in a sea of nose, you know, because you're going to get far more nose and you're ever going to get yeses, and so you have to get comfortable with that. And the first thing you have to understand is that you know it's never personal. Now we can take it personal because, you know, but I often said I didn't have a good day of cold calling unless I got thrown out of someplace, right, I mean cause then I pushed the envelope, you know. I said, you know, and they said didn't you see the nose soliciting on the door? I said, yeah, I saw it, but you know I walked by because I want to do business with you, so that's the only way I know how to get in and sometimes that works, and sometimes they tell me to get out.

Jack Dempsey:

So you know, but those are the kind of things that you're right. You have to be able to get comfortable with that if you're going to be successful in many things, if not everything.

Grant Owen:

So that's good. Something to think about, too, is, like, the people that we probably want to help, the people that you stay, see, and Jen and Jack probably want to help they're probably going to be frustrated at a certain tone of what's required, right? So, like Jack, you and I were talking on our call last time and you were just talking about how you think that it's actually more risky to not be an entrepreneur these days, that it's more risky to be in the corporate world, to be working for somebody else right, because so many people get burned and that's an opinion that offends a lot of people. Like just to say that you are, like you're potentially wasting your life if you work in a corporate environment. Right, a lot of people are going to hate that. But if you firmly believe it, right, like the best way to grow, the best way, like the way that you're going to grow your brand is when you think something that's different than everybody else, and you're right, and then you can make it. You can help people understand it at a fifth grade reading level.

Grant Owen:

All that's going to do, if you project that well enough, is get every single person that feels insecure when you say that to yell at you, but the people that needed to hear that, the people that are sitting at their desk. I was that person sitting at my desk and saying, man, I'm making six figures. I don't. I'm doing this and living my life right, I'm successful by the means, but I don't feel fulfilled and I don't feel like I'm helping the people I want to help. If I hear that it's going to push me to say, yep, okay, awesome, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to do the thing I want to do and, to your extent, I think that's a lot of your purpose. And this is show, the A to B, show that that you know it's not just fairy dust and principles. There's tactics you can use and if you're persistent, you're going to make it work.

Jack Dempsey:

So, grant, just looking now at your business and you, being an entrepreneur, you know so. You know we have your really good understanding of how you can help others. But so what, what would you say to our listeners? You know, as you know relatively new to this whole entrepreneur space you know kind of what has. You know what has been some of your biggest challenges in getting your business off the ground.

Grant Owen:

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I'm so naive, like I'm so like I'm not just young, like I'm young in this and I just like I benefit from the fact that I'm willing to invest myself and I wasn't scared to spend, like I probably spent 25, like I love him for products. You said you can learn all that stuff from free. I did, but then I paid for it and I learned from it and I benefited from it and my clients did too. So I think, like I, where I'm struggling, I guess, is it can be isolating sometimes. It can be isolating where, if you know, unless you surround yourself with people that think like you, unless you surround yourself with people that have your same value systems I found a lot of business owners have the same value systems but there's sex of groups, there's like there's little, there's little tiny corners of places where it's just very spammy, it's very there's a scarcity mindset and people aren't generous with wanting to give to others, wanting to help others out.

Grant Owen:

And I've been very fortunate where every time I kind of enter one of those, I'm able to identify the person where I'm like okay, that person set me on a different path, like I went to a mastermind event, well, like about a month ago, and it was filled with these people that were desperate to sell me something and, to be honest, it was super discouraging. It was like I recognized people. I was like, okay, that person, yes, I'm doing better than them right now, but they're gonna be more successful Like you have that imposter syndrome thing right when it's like they're gonna be more successful. And I just remember just feeling really down on myself and feeling really lonely and feeling like man, what do I have to offer? And there was one guy and he was an eight figure business owner, he owned probably the biggest marketing business in my niche and he just spoke truth to me and he just like he talked to me, he said, like he said stuff I needed to hear and it made that whole investment in the mastermind and the whole investment of time worth it.

Grant Owen:

And so, to answer your question, like I think there's so much I need to learn, there's so much I still need to fail in, and I feel so naive. So I feel authority to talk about expertise with what I know when it comes to running a business. I'm still at that like we've hit a consistent MRR level right, and I know my lead generation process, I know the stuff we really crush at and I think we I struggle with systems, so I'm good I wanna like need to hire the people to fix those problems. So it's all about like who, not how. Right it's like I need to find the right people to bring these solutions to me, but something that I need to get back at is just continually investing in my own education.

Jack Dempsey:

Well, that's good, because again, and that's the whole real purpose of this podcast, because when Jen and I entered our partnership and she had already established herself as one of the top hairstylists in southern New Jersey and now she wanted to open her own studio, so we talked about there's doing hair, there's doing beauty, but there's doing the business side of that.

Jack Dempsey:

And so as she got into the business side of her business and we had conversations, I'm like it's pretty interesting how the things that you're dealing with and you're facing in your business are the very same things I'm facing and dealing with in my business. They're the same no matter what kind of the output is of your business. So and I think that is one of the big challenges out there for especially people that are coming into entrepreneurship with a particular skill set or education, whether it's an attorney or a CPA, and they want to open their own practice whether, no matter really what the output is, the business side of things is what really starts to. They quickly realize I'm not a big fan of it. I like doing hair. I just don't know if I like doing the business.

Grant Owen:

You're describing the E-myth right. That was the big book. That was good at that. There's a couple books I've been written since then that have kind of hit at similar themes. But yeah, the difference between someone who's the technician, the visionary entrepreneur and the manager right, those are just so different. I'm recognizing I'm good at this one, I'm not very good at this one or this one. So it's just about figuring out how do I find the right people that fit these other things?

Jack Dempsey:

Yeah. So with that question then, is that, as you're starting to see your business evolve, are you starting to see those areas and realize, you know what, if I'm going to grow a business, I'm going to need other talent sets to, like you said, partner with that type of thing. So, as a young entrepreneur, what's your thoughts on that? How are you thinking through that part of your business?

Grant Owen:

Yeah, I think it comes down to not trying to. I have to get it into my own ego. Probably that's the biggest thing is for partnerships. When it comes to that and equity and name, right, it's cool to be like, yes, I own my own business, I do my own thing, but everyone I respect, partnered with people and just recognizing I can't do everything myself.

Grant Owen:

So I'm identifying, I want to add more A players to my team and then I want to focus more on what is of all the stuff we've done, all the stuff we do like what is the thing that I really love and what is the thing that I'm really good at? And then how can I map out me only doing that, because those are the things that are going to grow the business and just figuring out from a budgetary perspective and from a time perspective, who's the solution to these other rules? Then, not committing to B players, not committing to friends right, that I'm like I know you and I know I want to help you work and I want to do stuff like if B players are going to hire C players, we're going to hire D players. So for me, I need to hire an A player and I need to probably spend 20% more than what I'm comfortable with, but my business might grow 100% more as a result. So again, that comes down to the investment part. Right, I wouldn't have known that.

Grant Owen:

Unless I access, like I'm over here like when I first started, you know, you're thinking like I got a couple hundred dollar problems, and then it's like I got a couple thousand dollar problems and now I'm like I got a couple, you know, $10,000 problems.

Grant Owen:

And I'm talking to other people and they're like, yeah, I've got a couple like $10 million problems and I'm like, oh, okay, so it's the same thing, it's just at different levels and there's more zeros. Yeah, so I would love to be someone that A level players love to work with, and if I can do that effectively, then it's just a matter of time and giving myself time and just having patience, which I struggle with. So I think that's where the naivety comes in, where I'm like, you know, like a client contract ends and I'm like, okay, I have to go into, like sales mode, and then it's like I get three clients and I'm like, oh, I can show. But it's like, no, that's not how it works. It's just about building assistance so that I can consistently do what I love to do you know, I'm already.

Jennifer Dempsey:

Get it, jen. I am obsessed with this conversation. It's just hitting so many points for me. One thing I would like to point out for our listeners you know, something I'm dealing with is seven years in business. I was working with a consulting agency, and so what I've realized about myself and my business over this last year is kind of what you were talking about, grant. Like, you get kind of get to a point where you're like now I'm at a point where I'm looking around and I've grown so much and this is no longer serving me and my business and I'm ready to go to the next level and maybe I need to get around new people, new ideas, more like-minded people of where I'm trying to go, not where I am.

Jennifer Dempsey:

And so let me, you know and I say it all the time of like being as an owner, being an entrepreneur, it can be very lonely. You don't have someone that is keeping you accountable, that you can bounce ideas off of, that you can really talk to. So for me, in my business, it's so important for me to have someone in place like that. Have you know, a consultant person, a coach, a business coach that I can really go to. That number one understands my business, because I, you know, I can talk to my dad all day, but he's never going to 100% understand my business, right?

Jennifer Dempsey:

So it's just, you know, I think it can be scary for entrepreneurs to really invest in themselves, in their business, or even get to a place seven years in business and say you know what it's time for me to reinvest and kind of lay out my vision and and wow, look at what I've been able to accomplish to this point, but I want, I want so much more and it might look different and feel different. And so I think that we need to talk more about that as entrepreneurs, that that's okay and it's okay to be in that space to be able to reevaluate and say you know what it's. It's time to get some new players in my court here, because you know some of the people that have been playing with me they're, they're not, they don't want to go where I want to go so Well, yeah, and actually I want to.

Grant Owen:

I want to touch on that. I think that's like probably the the driving factor for my personal growth, and it's probably like the probably the thing I'm best at is identifying people that are at that next level, like I, I, when I want to learn something, I dive in really aggressive with it, right, and then what I found is like I dove in and then I found a way to kind of connect with the top people in that space and then I turned them into clients, right, and I, I, I kind of keep moving to that same level where it's like I paid, I think like last time I paid like 8,000 for a coaching group or something like that, and the investment was incredible and I think like so well worth it, and I'm realizing the people in that group, like the coach of that group, the coach that, like my coach, he's spending 170,000 for his coaching group, right, and it's just like you realize, like okay, there's and it's not that they're saying anything super different Like the encouragement that I need is the same encouragement that they need, just like we're talking about it's different levels, different tiers, but the voice that it comes from is relevant, the trust that established like I think like I go to him, he goes to Ed Mylet and I think, like I can't afford Ed Mylet. But like Ed Mylet's a motivational speaker, he's a podcaster, right, but like he's able to charge, I think, $30,000 for a one hour session because and people are just sitting there like listening, because they're like I need to hear what you have to say and he's not going to say anything revolutionary. It's the same thing on his podcast, but the fact that I resonate with it, that's talking to me and that you're going to tactically help me with my problems, like I don't need to hear anything extraordinary If people that are continually growing are just spending more and more money to do it.

Grant Owen:

I know people hate on that. Like I had one my clients had a hat. She had like a PR issue because people were just Like gawking at her price point that it was $9,000, right, and they were just like this is insane, that you're like people are spending this, it should be free, and it's like, nope, that's what a good business is, that's what a different. Like it's not for you, it's not for that, it's it's for somebody else. And so I think like if I'm doing well, like yes, for me right now it might mean spending like 20,000 a year on coaching. I would hope that in five years it means spending a hundred thousand a year on coaching.

Jack Dempsey:

I've got a clear, I got a clear up a point here, jennifer, oh, I may not know everything about your business. Here's what I do now. Here is what I do now. Profit is better than income, hmm, and the more profit you make, the more money I make. So, because I'm a partner, so just keep doing what you're doing. I'm loving it. Let me put it that way about it.

Staci J. Dempey:

Well, grant, I feel like we could just continue to go on and on like this has been. We've got probably a million different nuggets, whether you realize it or not. So much that you have shared today. Really, I think particularly Jent was some things Jennifer needed to hear, because before this podcast it was a 10-minute frantic, sister-to-sister phone call up. Yeah, I got this and you got that, and and the skid, kids are getting out of school half a day, everything's coming down to the ground, it's all on fire, you know. But again, I, I think you know, as we kind of wrap, wrap this up and you know, maybe we can have you back for maybe a part two here sometime, if, if you got, if you can fit us into your schedule. But you know, if there's one thing that you could leave with our listeners today you know about being an entrepreneur, about you know Anything that you want to say, what would, what would that be? I?

Grant Owen:

Don't want to speak to entrepreneurs because I think that I think that I would rather say something to Broad-agreep people.

Grant Owen:

There's probably people that are not entrepreneurs that are listening to this, and people are your friends they're listening to this and what I will say is people think that Social media is is vanity, and I agree with it. I think I agree that there's some people that approach it like that. You can use social media for two things for ego, which is bad, or for marketing and marketing yourself, and I Want to pitch it to a normal person in a regular job, just living life in this light. You have a responsibility to make an impact and help people, and there's no better way to do that than just by sharing yourself in your story. So anyone that thinks they're tiny, that thinks they're small, that thinks they're not doing enough, that thinks they're not impressive enough because I Mentioned a bunch of big names and they're saying, yeah, those are motivational people. That's not the point. You have a responsibility, you, to you and your friends, to document your process, to document your journey and to help one person. And so I I'm begging people like if, if a little bit of criticism, if a little bit of judgment is the cost, you should be willing to pay that every single time. Focus on how you can help one person, focus on how you can help your community, and if more people had that perspective and we, we were freely giving the knowledge that that could help someone even just be motivated. That's why I do what I do. I want to impact the impactful. So fortunately I get to do that with higher level people, but you can do that with anybody, you can do that with your friends, and I think it's it's just as meaningful.

Grant Owen:

I I think of my dad and I was talking to him. I was saying, like you know, no one's gonna know him when he dies. Right, he's, he's a pastor, he. I asked him. I was like how many people do you think you've served? How many people you think you've like really counsel anything?

Grant Owen:

He was like probably around 3000, but he's the best man that I know and he's the most impactful person that I know and you won't see the ripple effect that happens. You know, like people like these celebrities that die and these celebrities that live on, like Kobe Bryant and all these, they're gonna live for generations just because of their impact. But I wish more people were like Andy Farmer and that They'd focus on how can I help this one person that's sitting in front of me and and give light to them, and give truth to them and and, yeah, I I think thousands and thousands of people have been impacted by him, and he didn't post on social media, so I just wish that you know we could shed some more light on it and more individuals had had that as their framework for For why they should be existing online, because there is someone that needs to hear it.

Staci J. Dempey:

Boom, boom, wow, yeah, this little got me choked up, grant, oh man, oh man. Well, with all of those wonderful things said, I want to thank all of our listeners for Can't even get it out for tuning in. That was beautiful, grant, but I want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in. I want to remind you to please Subscribe, follow. All of our information will be linked in the description box and, until we can be together again, be kind to yourself, be kind to each other and we will see you guys next time. Bye, bye, bye.