The Entrepreneur Whisperer w/ Katie Gailes | Ep. 226

In this episode of Biz/Dev, we sit down with Katie Gailes, entrepreneur, business counselor, and founder of Katie Gailes & Company, to talk about entrepreneurship, business growth, and what separates thriving companies from those that struggle to gain traction.

Katie shares lessons from decades of working with founders and small business owners, including how to find your competitive edge, avoid becoming the bottleneck in your own business, and build a company that aligns with your goals and values.

Along the way, we discuss leadership, strategy, and why entrepreneurial thinking is valuable whether you're running a business or simply navigating life.

LINKS:

Katie on LinkedIn

___________________________________

Submit Your Questions to:

hello@thebigpixel.net

OR comment on our YouTube videos! - Big Pixel, LLC - YouTube

Our Hosts

David Baxter - CEO of Big Pixel

Gary Voigt - Creative Director at Big Pixel

The Podcast

David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

Contact Us

hello@thebigpixel.net

919-275-0646

www.thebigpixel.net

FB | IG | LI | TW | TT : @bigpixelNC

Big Pixel

1772 Heritage Center Dr

Suite 201

Wake Forest, NC 27587

Music by: BLXRR

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

[00:00:00] Katie: So I was about, oh, about I guess three, three years ago I was in a Zoom meeting with a bunch of other entrepreneur support people. And I had on my red glasses my eyes have outgrown those now.

And I had on my red lipstick and it was, I had filed for Medicare. I was getting full social security. I was reading my ARP magazine, cover to cover and the newsletters and reading everything. And I was at the point where if I picked up something heavy, people say, oh, miss Katie, that's too heavy for you.

Don't pick that up. I'll carry that for you. And I was not having to ask for the senior discount. People were looking at me and saying, would you like the senior discount?

Nice. I oh, I am officially a little old lady.

[00:00:46] David: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Biz Dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host, joined Per Usual by Mr. Gary Voight. I'm so excited you're here, man.

[00:00:56] Gary: Hello and Happy birthday

[00:00:58] David: oh,

thank you. 

[00:01:00] Gary: caught him off guard. He was not expecting that

[00:01:03] David: He did well, normally he thinks he says mean things to me, and so today he's gonna be

nice. I'm 29 today, so that's good. No one's

[00:01:13] Gary: Yeah. No one does 

[00:01:15] David: I don't even believe that. That's fine. I'm 48 today, 48, which still makes me a 25 years younger than Gary, so that's very good.

[00:01:24] Gary: Hey, at least you don't have any gray hair on your 

[00:01:27] David: More importantly, we are joined by Katie Gales, who is the entrepreneur whisperer.

The way we start is we ask some intro questions for you. Just some icebreakers, get to know you

a little bit better. You game?

[00:01:41] Katie: I'm game

[00:01:42] David: Alright, here we go. Are you a chocolate or vanilla fan?

[00:01:46] Katie: chocolate

[00:01:47] David: Chocolate. Good call. What about fancy restaurant or hole in the wall?

[00:01:53] Katie: holding the wall.

[00:01:56] David: Okay. All right. Do you have a favorite in the in the triangle area?

[00:01:59] Katie: Gee, I don't know. My favorite used to be it's, it is no longer open. And so it was Mama Dips.

[00:02:06] David: Oh, okay.

[00:02:07] Katie: Her name was Mildred Council. She's no longer with us. And her, her family just closed down her restaurant, I think last year. But it was a place that was in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. So it wasn't where I lived, but we were willing to drive there and wait in line. I had a dirt floor. I only had about maybe 15 feet.

[00:02:23] David: Oh wow.

[00:02:24] Katie: got all that good down home country, food, yams, collard greens, mac and cheese, ribs, cornbread, you know, all the heart attack foods.

[00:02:37] David: Yeah. That

good old fashioned good. There was a place like that when I lived in Houston that I was introduced to, and it was this like little house and you walked in and it was like literally being in someone's kitchen,

and it was exactly like you're describing. It was just that old kind of soul food butter heavy deliciousness.

Oh, I totally get it.

[00:02:56] Katie: yes.

[00:02:56] David: All right, here we go. Are you a person who finishes every book you start, or do you feel no guilt when you quit early?

[00:03:04] Katie: I usually finish every book I start. If I don't finish it, it is because I really don't like it, and that's rare. I can't, I can only think of maybe one book I did not finish.

[00:03:16] David: My wife has this curse that she has to finish every book she starts, even if she hates it. she will read a book. She despises just because she can't, there's something about it. There is a guilt for her that she doesn't finish when she starts. She's I have zero problem with that. My actual problem is the opposite, like business books in particular.

I'll read a third of them and be like, I've got the gist, I'm done. It's

[00:03:43] Katie: Oh wow. So bad. Don't do that. But. 

I take a different approach to business books, novels. I will read the whole thing to get the whole story. Now, if it's in a series, I may not finish the series, but I'll always finish the book. 'cause you know, sometimes these, these successful fiction series is catching on and the authors start dragging the story out. Then I might lose an interest 'cause it's clear they're milking it. Business books. I might scan it first to get an outline and then I'll go back and read it. Read the whole thing. My, my favorite one that I did that, and I still go back and read this book, is The Seven Habits of Highly Affected People by Stephen Covey.

[00:04:23] David: Oh sure. Yeah.

[00:04:24] Katie: First read that book in 1992 and I've reread it multiple times 'cause it's kinda like the Bible. You know, sometimes you fall off the wagon and you gotta. Go back and, and refresh yourself.

[00:04:36] David: It's always something good to get outta there. I totally

get it. right. That's Totally get it. All right, so I need to hear what you mean by calling yourself the Entrepreneurship Entrepreneur Whisper. Said that wrong the first time.

Entrepreneur Whisper. Tell me more about that.

[00:04:51] Katie: Can I tell you how I got started? Because, so I'm, uh, I, I'm old enough to be your mother, David, so it's good that you call me Miss Katie. 

[00:05:00] David: Fair enough.

[00:05:01] Katie: So I was about, oh, about I guess three, three years ago I was in a Zoom meeting with a bunch of other entrepreneur support people. And I had on my red glasses my eyes have outgrown those now.

And I had on my red lipstick and it was, I had filed for Medicare. I was getting full social security. I was reading my ARP magazine, cover to cover and the newsletters and reading everything. And I was at the point where if I picked up something heavy, people say, oh, miss Katie, that's too heavy for you.

Don't pick that up. I'll carry that for you. And I was not having to ask for the senior discount. People were looking at me and saying, would you like the senior discount?

Nice. I oh, I am officially a little old lady. And there are benefits. There are benefits. So on my Zoom ID, on the screen it says Katie Gales official little old lady. And there was a big debate over whether or not that was true. They said, you cannot be. And I said no. Let me prove it. I got this, I this and this. I'm official. They said, no, we can't continue this meeting till you change that. You're not a little old lady. So I just off the top of my head, threw something out there and I pulled up the entrepreneur for, I don't know why, maybe it was divine intervention.

But I put it up there and everybody said, ah, that's right. That's exactly what you are. You are the entrepreneur whisperer. You are the, and I said, I kinda like the way that sounds. Then as I continue to use people that's exactly what you are. So I began to feel fully embrace that because I do believe that I have the ability to see things that others can't see, especially where opportunities are concerned and create problem solving is concerned. And I say that sometimes with my clients. I listen to what they say and then I tell them what they mean.

[00:06:47] David: Nice.

[00:06:48] Katie: So I, I, I, I embrace it. I'm the entrepreneur for

[00:06:52] David: Fair enough. So you've been doing this for 10 plus years now,

[00:06:55] Katie: at least probably 20 years,

[00:06:59] David: that means that you've earned that title. 'cause

if you've been doing it that long, even if you were faking it to begin with, you've got enough experience, you've gotta be doing it for reals now.

[00:07:09] Katie: yeah.

[00:07:09] David: So your claim to fame is you like to help people find their secret sauce.

Tell me more about that.

[00:07:15] Katie: So everybody has a special ability that belongs to them,

even people. And if he could package that and make it appealing, he could make a lot of money that annoying,

 you know how.

[00:07:29] David: Oh, I'm not sure he's still with us. No, I think he's gone again. There he is.

[00:07:32] Katie: It is how to be annoying in three easy steps, something like that.

[00:07:36] David: yeah, he should totally write that. So you've got, so, okay, so you, you have your specialty. I'm sorry, I derailed you there.

So you have something special about you and you're packaging it.

How does that work?

[00:07:46] Katie: how do I package finding their special thing? So it's that what I mentioned before, that I listen to what they say and I then I tell them what they mean. So sometimes people. Are looking at what other, what somebody else is doing, and they're saying I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that one, I'm gonna do it like that. When in reality there's some, even if they're doing exactly the, it looks like they're doing the same thing. They're not. What's an example? Oh, a simple example. Let's say a house painter. Pretty straightforward business, right? You try to be on time, you try to have a good price, you try to do good work, you be polite you show up, you're clean. Straightforward. But there was one guy that came to paint my house once and he walked in and he was just a, just a house painter. What do you do? What's, what do you do? Somebody had referred him to me, so they liked his work. So that was one, that's one part of his secret sauce. I noticed that he put on the little booties when he came in my house. At the end of the day, he, it took about three days at the end of the day, came home. My house looked like he hadn't been there other than some walls were a different color. So he put everything back exactly the way it was. I said, what do you, why do you do that? Why do you do that? That's a lot of effort.

Why don't you just leave everything in the middle? He said, because if I did that at my house, my wife would make me go sleep in the garage. So that was his secret thing, that he had that level of attention to the fact that most likely a woman is hiring him and she doesn't wanna come home and find her house in a mess. That was his secret sauce that he could use to market himself differently. So there's always that one sum simple thing that they take for granted that would make them stand out in the marketplace, but because they do it as instinct. They take it for granted. One client had a auto repair business that he started because he got laid off from the auto dealership way he worked.

He was a certified BMW mechanic, so he had credentials and he started, doing oil changes and minor repairs out of the garage at the back of his house. Pretty straightforward. But what he would do is after the morning, after every service, he would call his clients. Say, how you doing? How's it going?

Did everything go okay? What did you like? What you did took about 15 minutes. No mechanic had ever done that. Not an individual mechanic. That was his secret sauce. And so because of that, people felt comfortable sending their mother to him, sending their grandmother to him, sending their children, their daughters to him because of the extra care. was his secret sauce, 

[00:10:16] David: So if I don't have you to help me figure that out, how would a entrepreneur find their secret sauce? How would they narrow that down? Because you're saying they're blind to it a lot of times. How do

I become do it. They think it's just what you're supposed to do. That's just how they think it'll be done. They need to ask their customers.

Okay.

[00:10:37] Katie: The customers would tell 'em if you ask.

[00:10:38] David: So what would be the, it seems grandiose to say, Hey, you've been working with me for a little while. What's my secret sauce?

[00:10:45] Katie: Oh no, you would never say that.

[00:10:47] David: yeah, what is the right way of phrasing that? So you'd get that answer out.

[00:10:51] Katie: You would just ask your customers how did you like the service?

[00:10:55] David: Okay.

[00:10:56] Katie: What'd you like about it? What'd you dislike about it? What could I do differently? What do you think I should keep doing? You don't have to do a massive campaign. You could just, when they come in for the next service, say, how are things going?

How do you like the service? What would you change? What should I do differently? What should I keep? And oddly enough that further endears you to your customer because they're looking at this saying, oh, I'm not just the swipe of the credit card. This person really cares about what I think.

[00:11:25] David: So who are your typical clients? Are they more of the painter types? Are they more of the tech type? The bio, in tech, in, in the triangle, biosciences are huge. Tech is huge,

but of course there's a million other businesses. Where do you like to focus? 

[00:11:40] Katie: My space is what I call the main street businesses, the businesses that make communities work. So I used to say that and people would say, what do you mean? What are you talking about? Then came the pandemic. And boy did we learn a whole lot from that. Like during the pandemic, nobody ever said, oh, I can't get to my app developer, what am I gonna do? But they would say, Hey, I can't get to my barber, my hairdresser, I can't get to my esthetician, I can't go to my coffee shop or my boutique. I can't go to my bookstore now. I wish I could get my, my, um, HVAC guy to come in, but we all have to leave the house. You know, while these, people missed those Main street businesses, these are the businesses that make communities work.

If you didn't have these businesses, the bioscience and the tech companies would not locate in your community because their people would not like living there. So now I think after the pandemic, when I say Main street businesses. Everybody kind of knows what that means.

So I totally get that. 

I've had a couple of tech oriented clients maybe a few life science clients, and the main thing I can do for them is give them a thought process to figure out who their ideal client is.

But if it comes to all the other stuff about their business, but coding and the FDA approvals and all that stuff, they need somebody who really understands that business. My specialty is the main street business. It's the ones that make communities work.

[00:13:06] David: Nice. No I appreciate that. 'cause not a lot of people focus on that. I think that's 

[00:13:10] Katie: that's, really why my focus is here. When I worked for the local community college, I started the entrepreneurship department and my was funded by private dollars, so my mission was to go out and find the gaps, the holes in the entrepreneur fabric in the area. And the hole that I found was really concentrated support from Main Street businesses because let's face it. A tech business, a life science business. It is sexy. 

[00:13:37] David: Yeah. 

[00:13:37] Katie: You can start it. You can have, you can develop an app that has a, has uses drones to find out where all the dog poop is in the high end neighborhoods and spotlight somebody give you $7 million to develop it.

 because this, first of all, they know a whole lot more about it than you do probably, and it's gonna scale quickly. You are gonna get your round A funding, they're gonna get the money back. But if you are trying to open a daycare center in a community where the closest one is 10 miles away nobody's gonna give you any investment for that. 'cause it'll take them a decade to get their investment back. So that's why I focused on, you know, the, that was the gap that I saw is concentrated support for these small businesses that make communities work.

They may never be big businesses. Because some businesses, if you make 'em too big, they lose the flavor that draws people to them in the first place.

[00:14:30] David: Yeah. If you have a big painting company you're franchising and you lose some of that special.

[00:14:34] Katie: That's right. And you lose your ability to, IM to impart the culture that you're creating to every single worker.

[00:14:42] David: So with all of your experience with all these kinds of businesses, and it's funny 'cause my main business is a, we build technology, but we're a consulting firm. Not much different than a painter, just different kind of paint.

[00:14:53] Katie: Yeah. 

[00:14:54] David: So I re, I resonate with a lot of this stuff even though I'm on the nerdy side. So when you're talking to businesses like mine or these other Main street businesses, what separates a business owner who can build something sustainable versus someone who's constantly stuck in survival mode?

[00:15:10] Katie: oh my goodness. Okay, I think there are three types of people involved in small business, and I have a relative, I have a nephew who would argue with me about this, but there is the hustler. I don't say that as a negative thing. I'm talking about that as a mindset that says, I wanna get in there, I wanna do this business.

I'm gonna make this money. I'm gonna make a lot of money fast. I'm not gonna worry about the details, I'm not gonna worry about the processes 'cause I'll make so much money, it won't matter. That's the hustler. And if you understand that's you're a hustler, that's fine. 'cause you know that business going to end soon.

'cause the minute it starts growing, you can't manage it. You didn't put in any processes. You don't have any other people. You're gonna have to go do. So sell it or go do something else. That's the hustler. Then you've got the entrepreneur that is able to see an opportunity and is willing to assume that risk like an entrepreneur can walk into an empty room. And say, wow, there's nothing in here. I can build something in here. It's blank, it's open. I can do whatever I want. That's the entrepreneur. Then there's a small business owner that says, ah, I'm wanna start that stuff from scratch. I'm looking for something that's running so I can manage it. And I think tho, there are those three types.

It helps to know which one you are.

[00:16:30] David: That's fair. Okay.

[00:16:32] Katie: so when I call my hustle, my nephew a hustler, he gets upset. I said, no, no, no. It's not an insult. I'm saying that's your approach to business.

[00:16:39] David: Yeah. And I think there's something, I can see strengths in all of them.

 cause like the Hustler is one of those kinds of people, they're going to succeed. Now, their business might be 12 businesses in one 'cause they're doing all these different little things, but they're always hunting for that next little edge. 

And they're constantly moving and adapting, which means they they're very, they don't fail very often, just out of sheer will.

[00:17:05] Katie: they're gonna, they're gonna grow it. It's if you were raising racing greyhounds, you gonna, you gonna breed 'em, you're gonna get 'em to a certain point, then you're gonna hand 'em over to somebody else,

[00:17:13] David: Yeah.

[00:17:14] Katie: and then you're gonna go breed some new ones. And so the hustler, oftentimes you will see, they'll get businesses up to a certain level.

They'll sell it to somebody who wants to run it. They don't wanna run it. They want to start and build it and get a whole bunch of money upfront. And then somebody, when it needs a whole bunch of processing, people give it to some somebody else.

[00:17:33] David: Yeah, I think there are people who are addicted of the high of that starting and then when it gets stable it's this is boring and I need out, and it's interesting. We've been running our company for 13 years, so I certainly am not one who's gonna cut and run, but I do like the excitement of starting something new.

There, there is something very enticing there.

[00:17:57] AD: We believe that business is built on transparency and trust. We believe that good software should be built the same way. Big Pixel is a 100% US-based fixed fee, custom software design and development agency built on transparency and passion. No offshore handoffs, no surprise invoices, just a team that treats your problem like it's our own.

UX and design are core to everything we do. Not a phase that gets handed off, but a discipline that runs through every decision we make. We bring the expertise to build what your business needs and the clarity to know when AI and technology help and when they get in the way, we provide our clients honest assessments of where they are and how they can get where they want to go.

Your idea deserves the right team. Let's talk plan and create something that truly works for you.

[00:18:52] Katie: It's weird to think of, somebody just asked me this the other day, but sometimes I ask my clients, how you gonna get out of this thing? I know you're just starting, or you're relatively new and you're not thinking about this. 'cause it's like writing your obituary. But some people make leaders do. It's like writing your obituary while you're still, you know, just in your forties. I don't wanna think about that, but it's helpful to think about your exit strategy, like the end of life for this business because that really determines how you grow it. So I once worked for a European owned company. It was owned by these three partners. One was a, uh, Swede, whose family was filthy rich, and he wanted his interest in the business was to grow it as quickly as possible, sell it and take that money because that's what his family does. The other was a young man who had just, uh, he was a Scotsman and so, he had just had a young son.

He wanted to grow the business, create something that, you know, 20 years from now his son can take over. And the other was a Brit who'd been around for a while. He's in his fifties. He thought he'd earned the right to be the c the president. He was the head, the title president. He thought he had earned the right to be president of a global company and fly around to the locations in first class. Okay? Three very different views of the business, and it was just a holy mess because how you grow the business really is defined by how you're gonna get out of it. So if you wanna grow something real fast. Get out in four or five years, sell, make a bunch of money. That's why it, technology and life science is so appealing.

'cause you can do that with them.

 Okay? You'll grow it real fast. Sell it, take the money and run. If your objective is to build something that your, that you will hand over to the next generation. Now you're approaching things a little bit more methodically, laying foundations, setting up, making sure you got keyman insurance, making sure you're bringing that next generation along, not letting 'em know something about the business, but not beating 'em about the head and shoulders with it.

So they resent it. And the first thing you do when you die is sell it. Okay. And if you are looking to grow something that you can sell for sure, then you build things differently too because you're thinking about how do I grow, build value in this for the long term. Strategic alliances, a great database, some con renewable contracts.

So thinking about how you'd wanna get out of it really determines how you build it.

[00:21:23] David: Now, lemme push on that for a minute. 'cause one of the. I call it yellow flags 'cause it's not a red flag. But when a startup comes to me and they want us to build their software, when someone says to me, Hey, I'm gonna build this 'cause I wanna sell it really fast, I usually call that a yellow flag. Because when you're starting from scratch, that five years is gonna be painful oftentimes. And if you're looking, I call it the ghost check. That's floating out there in your dreams, that's often not enough motivation to get you through that ugly

[00:21:53] Katie: Oh yeah.

[00:21:55] David: And so I was, I warned 'em. I was like, Hey, if that's really what you're looking for, this is a really hard way to do that because one, most businesses don't get successful enough to sell that quickly, but even if they do, it's it that's a hard five years.

And so that's just something I've always said. What would you say to that?

[00:22:14] Katie: so here again is definition. Are you saying you wanna sell it outright, take the cash and run You probably. At that point, if you, if you're, that's what your ultimate goal is, you might, you might end up selling at a discount. 'cause the value to you is to take the money and run.

 If you are wanting to cash out to some degree, you could do like some of the IT companies in the trial area have done. You bring in enough partners that you end up being a minority owner anyway.

[00:22:41] Katie: So you've you've basically got your money and you still got your job. So take each level and say, okay, now what do you mean by that? Let's go a little bit deeper. And what do you mean by that? Let's go a little bit deeper.

[00:22:52] David: Okay. So changing gears a little bit, with all your experience, have you noticed any patterns? It's funny 'cause I've got all these questions that I've got written up here and a lot of them start with that and that's probably just not the best way to keep saying that.

[00:23:06] Katie: Yeah, because I'm feeling really old with it. With all your experience, Katie, with your hundreds.

[00:23:11] David: with the little granny story,

[00:23:13] Katie: That's right. That is true. is true. That is true.

[00:23:15] David: Okay. You've, it's important to establish that. 'cause if you were new at this, you couldn't answer this question,

but have you noticed a pattern with founders that consistently outperformed their peers?

[00:23:26] Katie: Pat Assistant outperform their peers. Okay, so I'm getting really nerdy on you, Mr. Nerdy.

[00:23:34] David: That's fine. I'm used to it.

[00:23:36] Katie: now we have to define who are their peers? Are you talking about other small businesses or other small businesses in their same type of business.

[00:23:44] David: I would say for this question, I would say peers as in same stage of business,

not necessarily same industry. Okay. Consistently outperform their peers. I think the ones who. Really understand why they're in business.

[00:23:58] Katie: that why makes them do it on the days when it is not fun.

As you mentioned earlier, entrepreneurship is not for weenies. You are gonna have some tough days 

And you gotta be in there. Something that makes you, that motivates you to, to keep going. That's one thing I've noticed. The ability to. Start even when it's not perfect,

the ability to move even when you don't have perfect information. Okay. 

So if you're a really analytical person, sometimes you're waiting for that perfect knowledge and it never comes. So you're never able to get going because to you the situation's never been right because you can't get past this 'cause you need that perfect information.

So people who are willing to take, who are able to take. The best information that they have at the moment and move forward. That means they are willing to go do the research and put forth the effort to say, okay, I've looked into this. This is the best knowledge I have right now. Let me move forward

[00:24:56] David: You know, it's

funny you say that. It reminds me I've heard this from a few different entrepreneurs, but I know specifically Jeff Bezos is known for this. He'll say that, Hey, the decisions ultimately when you look in a five year time span, the decisions don't actually matter. Some are good, some are bad, but not enough to matter one way or what matters is the fact that you made the decision.

And that's what makes a good business owner. And I thought, man, that is

[00:25:22] Katie: That's 

the other thing that I would say as a pattern I've recog, I've noticed, is the ones who are intimately aware of who their ideal customer is.

They don't spend time going after somebody that's not for them. I've got, um, there's a tailor who is so intimately aware of who his customers are.

It is just amazing. He says, I don't need 500, I need 50 people who are like this. And for everyone like that, that I get and I love 'em to death, they'll bring you two more just like that. So they, they're not wasting their effort going after people that they think ought to buy. They'd like for 'em to buy, or if only they could buy, they say, here are my people. That's who I'm going after. Now you'll always get some ripple. If, if there's a red.in the middle of the pond and that's your, that's your ideal customer, you drop a rock, rock in that red dot bullseye, there's gonna be some ripple. You will get some other folk, but you don't spend a whole lot of effort on those other folk you thank the Lord for. But you really focused on your ideal customer and one who are intimately aware of who that is, tend to grow 'cause they, they're so efficient in loving that customer.

[00:26:39] David: No, I can see that. Yeah. I, where I struggle, especially when I'm talking to new people, when you're in survival mode, you'll do anything for those dollars. Right?

When can you make that transition to say, I know who my ICP is. I know who I want to work with, but I'm gonna say no to these people 'cause I can now I'm stable enough. That's a really tough thing for an entrepreneur to shift, right? 'cause you're it's so hard when you're in survival mode to let go of survival mode. That's where I struggle with that.

[00:27:09] Katie: Yeah I went through that too when I first started where I wanted to hold onto every, I wanted every customer, I wanted, every dollar. I didn't think I could walk away from anything, and I spent so much, I wasted so much time on doing that, that I missed the opportunity to go after. I should have spent that time and energy ongoing after the people that were really valuable to me. So when I look back on it now, I say, that was a mistake. Because when you're going after people that are not your ideal, that means they're probably not gonna be re repeat customers. They may not ultimately value what you have to offer, so they may not be good references for you. So is that a good investment of your time now? I understand. 'cause I was, at the time, I was a necessity entrepreneur. I got laid off and. But, and so you're in that panic mode that I've gotta get, I've gotta get every dollar, I gotta get every dollar. So it's an emotional thing that people go through when they're a necessity.

Entrepreneurs, I understand that, but most people in this country actually start a business while they're still working.

[00:28:13] David: Mm.

[00:28:13] Katie: So they, their mortgage is paid, they're paying, the utilities may not be able to take that two week vacation this year, but they're not gonna be put out on the streets. And given that. Most people do have the luxury of being able to wait for their ideal customer. I think where they get in trouble is they don't take the time to identify who that is. So if you haven't identified who that is, everybody looks like an ideal customer to you. If they, you think they could pay you, they look ideal, but they're really not.

[00:28:44] David: Ideal means they have a wallet.

[00:28:47] Katie: That's right. That's right.

[00:28:49] David: All right, Gary, wind us up. It's finally got a stable internet connection apparently.

[00:28:53] Gary: Yeah, Riverside was giving me problems before, but okay. So Katie, what would you say would be your top three pieces of advice for a new entrepreneur?

[00:29:02] Katie: Okay. For a new entrepreneur, top three. 'cause I, I probably had like a top 10, but I'll do top three. For a new entrepreneur, and I'm assuming that this is an entrepreneur that is in the process of starting as opposed to one that's a little bit down the road. And I might say the same thing to somebody who's down the road, uh, know why you're doing this.

'cause that's what'll make you keep you through those really awful uncomfortable days. Know your ideal customer so well that you can describe 'em and people who have a mental image of who that person is and know the environment. Know where your business is, is gonna be operating. So I would say those three things, know those three things, take the time to know them. And

business plans are not obsolete, by the way?

[00:29:48] David: Oh yeah. Okay. So I know in this age

[00:29:52] Gary: You can't just have chat GBT draft one, like.

[00:29:55] David: yeah,

they're gonna push who did that. Oh, I had a client who did that just a couple of weeks ago. Starting a new IT service business for small businesses. Sent me a 49 page business plan. After about three paragraphs. I knew it was written by JA Chat, GPT or somebody else because it may, it was beautifully written, lots of great words, but not totally irrelevant to his business. So yeah, you can have chat if you know how to ask the questions, and it probably takes several. It's iterative. Iterative AI interaction that you can get down to something that's close to you, but it's never gonna be perfect for your business. And I actually advise people not to use chat and AI to create your business plan.

[00:30:40] Katie: You can use it as specific questions, but part of the business planning process is you going through the mental exercise of thinking to this high level of detail about your business. You learn so much from that. If you let Chad, let AI do the learning, then what are you left with as the owner? A well-written document that you can't explain to anybody.

[00:31:00] David: that's my kids and I get in arguments they're older kids, 18 and 20. They're talking about the younger kids who are in elementary school and whatnot using ai. And I as a big AI person myself, I'm like, I think those kids are doing themselves a real disservice 'cause they're not learning how to learn. I think AI is a wonderful tool, but like you're saying, if I just have this, if I have this idea for business, but I don't go through the pain

of really digging in there and understanding what is my business,

then I'm never really gonna understand it. And I think

that's. It is tough.

[00:31:37] Katie: need to know that AI can be wrong. 'cause every AI app, and I think they're probably 600 now, between 2022 and 2024, there were over 200 written. They're all using a prescribed data dataset,

their dataset, and it does not con include all knowledge in the universe. So AI can be wrong.

Hey, there's a, there was a political candidate who used AI to create an image celebrating the canes. I don't know if you heard about this. It was all over the news a couple of weeks ago. And and the image was not of a Canes player and they had on the wrong jersey, 

[00:32:13] David: Oh, 

[00:32:14] Katie: so they used AI to create this image to go and get it out there, celebrating the canes to get a few more supporters, and they didn't check it. So I love using AI to create a first draft. That crappy copy that you wouldn't share with anybody, but it at least it gets you thinking and

you know that it is great for that. It is great for summarizing big bunches of data that you give it to summarize, but it is not something that you should ever without checking and making sure it really represents you, that you should share without to anybody without checking. It's always gonna be your name on it. You can't say, oops, I'm sorry about that big old mess I made. It wasn't my fault, it was my ai. Can't do that.

[00:32:58] Gary: Well, Katie, if anybody wants to learn more about you, where's the best place for them to find you?

[00:33:03] Katie: right now my LinkedIn profile is the best place 'cause I'm still working on my entrepreneur Whisper website.

[00:33:09] Gary: All right. We'll make sure that link is included in the show notes as well.

[00:33:13] Katie: Great.

[00:33:14] David: you so much, Katie, for joining us. This has been a

lot of fun 

[00:33:16] Katie: You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad you said that.

[00:33:20] David: on that note, we are out. Thank you everybody for joining us. We'll be back next week. Have a good one.

[00:33:24] OUTRO: That wraps up this episode of the Biz Dev Podcast, and this time you get me, Jen Baxter, co-owner of Big Pixel and David's Wife. Yep. I finally took the mic or rusted it away from David. Biz Dev is a production of Big Pixel, a US-based provider of UX design strategy, and custom software. This podcast is edited by Audio Wiz Matt McCracken and Christie Pronto marketing guru for Big Pixel.

Want to connect, shoot us an email at hello@thebigpixel.net. Or find us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X and LinkedIn.