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Hey, what is up?
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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
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As always, I'm your host, Brian Lofermento, and I'll tell you what I have long known that there is one skill that is both incredibly difficult to master but also incredibly valuable for all of us in our own business, and that is putting butts in seats.
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And that's why we have found someone who is absolutely incredible in the world of events marketing, Someone who has that very rare ability You're going to hear about all the cool ways that she puts it to work to help other businesses grow as well.
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So let me tell you all about today's guest.
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Her name is Ginny Van Doren Trong.
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She is a seasoned marketing professional with over 15 years of experience in the live entertainment industry, covering both venue and promoter perspectives.
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Experience in the live entertainment industry, covering both venue and promoter perspectives.
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She has been instrumental in promoting more than you ready for this 800 shows, yes, more than 800 shows across venues ranging from 1,800 to 15,000 seats.
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Most recently, she served as the director of marketing at the Wagner Noel Performing Arts Center, leading marketing efforts for hundreds of events each year.
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Now, what I love about her entrepreneurial story is she realizes how valuable all these gifts and skills that she has are, and so that's why, in 2023, after a decade with ASM Global, Ginny founded her own full-service marketing agency called Backstage Event Marketing.
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Since launching the agency, she has secured a three-year contract with the Ector County Coliseum and a two-year contract with Odessa Arts, where she heads up a very cool community event.
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I've seen pictures and videos from it.
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It looks like the entire community loves the work that Ginny helps to produce, as she heads up First Friday ODTX and oversees the production of their quarterly magazine Beacon West.
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Additionally, Ginny has helped market over 20 shows in Midland Odessa and the Houston area over the past 16 months.
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Her experience includes building a robust contractor network and developing practical tools to streamline event marketing and boost ticket sales.
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And what I really love about Ginny's work is she understands how important it is to all of us as business owners, as entrepreneurs, as people inside of our community, so we're all going to learn a lot from her.
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Today.
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I'm not going to say anything else.
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Let's dive straight into my interview with Ginny Van Duren-Trum.
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All right, Ginny, I am so very excited that you're here with us today.
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First things first.
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Welcome to the show.
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Thank you for having me, Brian.
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Heck.
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Yes, there's so much good stuff that we're getting into.
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You heard me say it at the top of the episode, but I know how difficult it is to get butts in seats.
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I'm excited to learn from you, but before we get there, take us beyond the bio.
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Who's Ginny?
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How did you start doing all these cool things?
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So a little bit kind of like longer version of my story is I became the official mint passer outer at a Carrie Underwood meet and greet and during that opportunity basically before you met Carrie Underwood I was to give you a mint and then the promoter of that show asked me if I would like to learn the business and I just said, said sure, not knowing really what that meant.
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And fast forward, I learned that you could have a job as promoting concerts and I just thought, oh my gosh, I need that job.
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So changed my career the next semester and got heavily involved in live events through my student government and during my college years and then continued that into grad school, which led to my first job in Austin working at a 8,000 seat venue.
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I love that overview, ginny.
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I feel like there's a book behind there.
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You know how a mint started your entire career.
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It's such a cool marketing angle.
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It's really cool seeing how that one thing I love the fact that you brought us back there to start your overview, because it led to so many things.
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I mean I bragged about some of them just in the intro to the episode more than 800 shows.
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Obviously, you've got an incredible client roster with your own business now.
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So, at a really high level, I want to talk about the importance of events, because we've all been to events, but I think a lot of business owners miss that opportunity area as far as why events are such a powerful force.
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It's funny.
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For me personally, jenny I'll add this into the mix is when I was running a marketing and search engine optimization agency, I realized we could host local events in conjunction with local chambers of commerce, which just brought people together.
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We taught them about SEO.
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We never had to worry about how to get clients because we were filling rooms with business owners.
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So that's my experience with events.
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But I want you to introduce us to this whole wide world of why events are such a powerful force for marketing, for engagement, for all the things that you've experienced.
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Yeah, so kind of tying in your experience, brian.
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So when you provide value to someone, they are, you know, you're increasing that like factor for your, for your business, and then, if it's free on top of that, that's going to make them really like you.
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So, really, what events are able to do is really increase that know, like and trust factor.
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And it's easy to think oh, I always joke when that big P word happened back in 2020, that I went from having the coolest job to like not having the coolest job overnight and I just thought what does this mean?
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However, people still want to get together.
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So, be it doing something like we're doing virtually and or getting to be in the same room as people, it's really a valuable way to again just enhance that know, like and trust factor.
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So that way, when you are asking your audience to come with you on that buyer's journey to, maybe you gave them something for free and then like, be it a template ebook, what have you?
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And then now you're asking them to invest in something, be it a product or service, the more kind of face time that they get with you is just going to make that sell a little bit easier.
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And then also again to your point.
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When you bring people together, you just you may not have to worry about the where's my next client coming from, because somebody else has already had experience with you that have again you've already.
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When I work with Brian and his company, they make me feel good, so let me have them be a partner to like, get me on that journey that I'm trying to do, be it SEO, marketing, support what have you?
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Yeah, I love that perspective.
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Ginny, you said that people love free events.
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The only thing I found that they love more than that is free events with free food.
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That was always one thing that I realized that will put butts in seats.
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So we're definitely going to talk about some of those kind of tricks and tools and tactics that we can use in that regard, but before we get there, ginny, it's really cool hearing you talk about the value of these events, but I do think it's something that we all, as event attendees, probably take for granted is all the work that goes behind us.
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Behind it, talk to us about the different stages, from saying hey, I want to host an event, to the actual execution, to the follow up.
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I want to hear from your planning phase, because you've obviously been such a big part of so many of these events.
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What are those steps?
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What are the actual stages of making a successful event happen?
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So the stages for a live event would just be like the planning and prep, and planning and prep is just kind of when you're going to have this event, when tickets are going to go and sell, what marketing assets do you have?
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And typically I like to do that 90 days in advance of whatever's happening.
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There are going to be some instances and I've been a part of some of those shows where it's a tour and it's planned out for years in advance, but ideally, kind of that sweet spot is going to be 90 days.
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And then, once you've gone through planning and prep, you go into the announce phase, and the announce is, you know, you're sending your press release, you're putting it on social media, you're putting it on a Facebook event, because what I've found is, though Facebook isn't necessarily pushing events as much, people still are treating your Facebook page like your website.
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So you want to make sure that what's on your Facebook page is mirroring what's on your website, especially when it comes to hosting in-person events.
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And then, after you've gotten through the announce phase, you hit the maintenance phase, and maintenance is going to be where you want to add in those like promotional things and getting that publicity for the event, and just that's typically where I like to put some kind of free event that hypes the paid event and so it gets that traction, gets people excited.
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And then you go into the backend campaign.
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So you're doing paid advertising, spending Facebook, um, uh, meta dollars and uh, lining up potentially pre event interviews, and then you have that actual event and that's the like big payoff.
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Your work kind of comes together, uh, you're able to execute on this like really fun experience and the hope is that you're again driving in that like increase, no, like interest factor.
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So that way, when you get into the last phase of the events lifecycle on the event after glow, you're able to really kind of capture how much fun those people had and ask them, like tell them and ask them what you want them to do next.
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Do you want them to buy tickets to your next event?
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Do you want them to become a member of your organization?
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Do you want them to buy a service or product?
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So that event afterglow is really critical because it keeps those customers in your ecosystem and all of that 90 days work that you've already done to build that know, like and trust factor, that event afterglow is kind of the time where you're able to kind of capture that and continue them as a customer and a fan of your events, of your business.
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What have you?
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Holy cow, jenny, I knew that you'd absolutely rock that answer.
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But the fact that you had such clear steps and obviously it's second nature to you, having ran so many of these events and put all the planning in place, it sounds effortless to you.
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But I obviously know the realities of that.
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Knowing these steps is one thing, but actually executing, having the marketing to support it, is an entirely other thing.
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Because when I hear you talk about some of these phases, for example planning and announcing, I'm going to call out the announcing phase.
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Actually, too many people think that if I just announce it, if I put an event into the world, it's kind of like that old adage of if you build it, they will come, that seats will fill themselves.
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Where do we go wrong?
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Where do you see events not going to plan and filling up to capacity, or people just resting on their marketing laurels and not understanding all the work that needs to go into actually promoting an event to fill it up?
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so there is um, an industry adage, that for live events it's like you can't sneak into town and have a sold out show.
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So that's one thing that I always try to remind promoters if they try to be a little bit more conservative on the spend, that marketing obviously does work.
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And thankfully I feel like I've run into a situation where I get called in typically at the beginning of the planning phase so that way we're able to execute on a marketing strategy.
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But then I've also been called in when it's like okay, seats aren't selling, what do we do?
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And kind of go for that scramble.
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So I think again, it's just the perspective.
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I think that there's a way to to spend advertising dollars in a strategic way where you're not like overspending but then also part of that just comes from that planning phase.
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Like if you have the 90 days in advance or the 60 days to execute on awareness and promotions and paid advertising, that's like gonna be your sweet spot.
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You want all three to kind of have that synergy to get those butts in seats, and then without that you are left to kind of like the scramble of like two weeks out the show isn't selling, what do we do?
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So one thing I will add is that also knowing about your event like if this is a free event fabulous like it's been it's hard to track some of the attendance that way.
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However, if it is an event where it is paid, having that like paid component, where you're kind of struggling two weeks out, where you're trying to get people to have that awareness about your event You'll want to also know does this event need to have 200 people at the show or 2000?
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And sometimes you just need 200 people to break even, and that is always like my first goal, and then going from there and building on okay, now let's make money for this show, now let's sell out this show.
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But not every single show needs to be a sellout, and so I think that that's also a thing to keep in mind.
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Yeah, I want to talk about free versus paid, because even hearing you talk about that, I guess I've probably never taken it that seriously and given it much thought, because I think I could argue both ways.
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It seems, on the surface level, how easy it would be to fill a free event, but on the flip side, I really love that thing that we say in marketing of those who pay, pay attention.
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I remember when I started launching online courses, I would give these courses for free to all of my friends.
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None of them did anything with it, whereas the people who are paying for these courses got all the results.
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How do you?
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But of course, then on the flip side, it's harder, so to speak, to fill a paid event.
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How where does your mind go when you think about free versus paid events?
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So one of the things with free, I feel like that's going to be more of an awareness situation and or kind of feel good community.
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And so with my current work I oversee the coordination of our first Fridays ODTX, which happens on the first of the first Friday of the month, and that's very similar to other communities, and so one thing that we kind of had going for us is there is already somewhat of a understanding of what this event is, and then it's challenging to gauge how many people actually show up, and so that kind of goes back to applying for grants and sponsorship and having funders for this event, because everybody wants to know, well, if I sponsor this event, how many eyes are going to see this.
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And so there's been quite a few different ways that we've kind of come up with how we can track people participation.
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So that would be my suggestion for anything that you do have free that you track some kind of participation by.
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I've had the most success doing contesting and so we've done a passport where every stop you go to you get a stamp and then you get enter to win a TV.
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That was the biggest hit and so we got over 250.
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And if you think, 250 times 2.5 for the average like group size of family that is attending these events.
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We were getting a pretty substantial number of attendance, so that has been super successful.
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And then again, really kind of deciding if you're going to do a free or paid event kind of really goes back to what is the goal.
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If the goal is to even have an event where it's a low cost ticket so that way you can just kind of pay for those expenses that come with hosting the event, that sometimes is an easier sell.
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But then again you also get, if it's such a low price ticket that people wait to the day of.
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So a lot of it is unfortunately sometimes it's like you're balancing, like they will come, we've done all the right things and, like you know, sending the prayers, crossing your fingers to that people will show up.
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So it's really kind of identifying again what is the purpose of the event and what you're trying to accomplish.
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And then also on that event after go like going back to that event lifecycle on the event afterglow side, what do you want them to do next?
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So identifying those things can kind of help you choose.
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Are you going to do a paid or free event?
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Yeah, I love hearing the way you think about that.
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Most listeners can't see you and I right now, ginny but I can see you and I love the smile that came across your face when you openly acknowledge the fact that, yes, even when you do the right things up until the very end, you're hoping and you're putting a lot of faith into the fact that people will show up.
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It's an inevitable part of events.
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It's scary, but I would imagine it's also super exciting, because you've seen it so many times.
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I want to go deeper, ginny.
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This is something about you that really stood out to me that I've been so excited to hear your thoughts on and you've actually already mentioned it a few times in our conversation today and that is the pre-promotional events.
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That's something I've never taken advantage of, but I'm someone I love live comedy, for example, I love going to events, I love doing all the things.
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I just love not being home.
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So, with that in mind, I've seen it work in so many different ways.
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Ginny, talk to us more about pre-promotional events, because I even see it on the entrepreneurial level.
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A lot of really astute event marketers implement that for businesses, for personal brands even.
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What do those events look like?
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How do you even begin to formulate what those pre-events look like?
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formulate what those pre events look like.
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So about I feel like maybe five years ago, 10 years ago, the buzzword experiential event marketing happened and thankfully I was in Austin during that like the buzz of all of that, and then, if you ever have the opportunity to attend South by, like the whole thing is experiential marketing.
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It's how can we put our brand in front of somebody without saying, watch this commercial.
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And so that kind of got me thinking.
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In my most recent role as the director of marketing for Wagner Noel, we had at least 100 shows a year and a lot of times we're competing against ourselves.
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So how can I make a show stand out more than another show that may like already be sold out, but that's the one that people have the buzz about.
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So that just kind of got me thinking how can I have these pre promotional events that are free, in that the goal is to raise awareness and hopefully get them engaged enough that they purchase a ticket to the paid event.
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So some ways that I've been able to do that.
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For family shows it was.
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It became kind of turnkey to work with our local library to have a story time that matched the family event that was occurring.
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So we've done Very Hungry Caterpillar like Bubble Guppies, paw Patrol, you name it Sesame Street, and so the majority of the time that there's already a book associated with those characters.
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So having a story time that's free at the library to get people in to see, oh, there's a live action component that you can take your kid to to enjoy, so that always worked out really well.
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And give away free tickets at that event.
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Also, for family shows, doing a coloring event at the mall is very overwhelming but I've always seen success with those events, basically just doing a coloring sheet of the character that matches the show, giving away a pair of tickets.
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And then for some of the more adult shows we've one of the things that I loved that we did.
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We had postmodern jukebox come and we did a pre happy like a pre show happy hour speakeasy at a local bar and we did it about a week before the show and it really raised awareness about the show as well as gave people the opportunity to hear the music because that was the soundtrack.
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We had a signature cocktail.
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We had cookies made that were 1920s themed and had a 1920s photo booth and people loved it and almost everybody walked out purchasing a ticket to the actual show that next week.
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So doing some things like that just again just helps raise awareness and people may be on the fence.
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I always say like 20 to 30% of your buyers are super fans.
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They're buying tickets, you don't need to convince them.
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And then the remaining kind of 70 to 80% are those people like yourself, brian, who, like you know you enjoy comedy but you may not be familiar with this comedian and so my job is to convince you.
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You're going to have a good time by the ticket.
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So those people that are kind of on the fence, that enjoy live entertainment but may not be familiar with the actual artist that's performing, and so having those kind of pre events to introduce that are low risk for the individual, it's like, okay, I don't have to spend the $40 to come to the show to see what it's about.
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Let me go to this pre-event, pre-show happy hour and then choose whether or not to spend the $40 to buy the tickets.
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Yeah, it's really cool to hear some of this magic behind the scenes because, ginny, you're making me realize how many great event marketing campaigns I've been a part of since childhood.
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You're really making me reflect on the fact that I think one of the greatest marketing machines in sports is the Harlem Globetrotters, and the first time I saw them as a kid was they just came to our school.
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It was an hour that they spent investing in it in front of probably I don't know close to a thousand kids in my school and you know, the players were just spinning the basketball on their finger and all of us kids went home so excited about the Harlem Globetrotters, and, of course, our parents, yeah, exactly, they bought the tickets.
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I think it's such a powerful force that we probably don't even realize.
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I'm going to put you on the spot here, because I know that a lot of people probably are listening to this, thinking well, jenny, I throw online events.
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How does all this stuff I mean, we're talking about Harlem Globetrotters, players spitting a basketball on their fingers how do we bring this stuff, these experiences, these strategies and techniques that you use?
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How does this pertain or change or any of those things with regards to hosting online events?
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So with online events, I feel like the if you will, the secret sauce typically is, if you're say you are a course creator, to have some kind of like webinar before your big ticket offer of selling your course.
00:22:45.490 --> 00:22:48.321
So that's like one of the things that people do.
00:22:48.321 --> 00:22:52.313
I'm actually working on courses for 2025.
00:22:52.313 --> 00:22:56.041
And so we have some of those already filmed and queued up.
00:22:56.262 --> 00:23:29.421
In one of our kind of things that we're doing, kind of intertwine is a like live interview with some of my mentors, and so I just thought that would be a cool way to hear kind of quote how it was done back in the day, situations that people may not necessarily get, Because nowadays, in some situations, especially when it comes to artists, like you don't necessarily have as much interaction as you once did.
00:23:29.500 --> 00:23:45.265
And so one of my mentors, for example, she, when Reba McEntire first went out onto her, she paid her $500 and she still has the check like carbon copy of that of that transaction.
00:23:45.265 --> 00:24:02.843
So can you I like I wouldn't even imagine paying Reuben McIntyre $500 right now Like it's just crazy to think that 50 years ago that was something that could have happened and so so again kind of to that, I guess.
00:24:02.843 --> 00:24:03.346
To that point.
00:24:03.346 --> 00:24:27.253
What I'm trying to say is kind of finding something that is unique about the event that you are trying to host online and then bringing people in to a unique experience that you wouldn't be able to get, and be it an interview that they can kind of sit in and watch and participate, or be it something else that's a little bit more.
00:24:27.253 --> 00:24:32.732
You provide value and they're taking away something through a webinar.
00:24:33.760 --> 00:24:34.702
Yeah, I love that.
00:24:34.702 --> 00:24:35.365
Gosh Ginny.
00:24:35.365 --> 00:24:39.807
I know that myself and probably a ton of listeners, our minds are going a million miles a minute.
00:24:39.880 --> 00:24:42.670
You're throwing so many ideas out there all at once.
00:24:42.670 --> 00:24:44.847
So I love listening to you talk about these things.
00:24:44.847 --> 00:24:48.550
I want to bring it back to something that I teased about earlier in our conversation.
00:24:48.550 --> 00:24:54.913
I want to get your expert opinion on these things, because I teased about free food as kind of a very it's an easy gimmick.
00:24:54.913 --> 00:25:04.730
If you roll that out, then it's always going to work with audiences and with bringing people in.
00:25:04.730 --> 00:25:05.325
What are some of those other techniques?
00:25:05.325 --> 00:25:06.913
And I'm super interested to hear some of those like guaranteed ones from you.
00:25:06.913 --> 00:25:11.516
Get as guaranteed as we can make with regards to both in person and online, cause I don't know yet how to do free food online.
00:25:11.516 --> 00:25:16.108
I'm thinking about how cool it'd be to send some Uber eats delivery drivers to attendees addresses.
00:25:16.108 --> 00:25:27.019
But, with that said, Ginny.
00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:29.583
What are some of those like low hanging fruit ways that we can incentivize people to actually show up?
00:25:29.583 --> 00:25:30.324
So a couple things come to mind.
00:25:30.324 --> 00:25:51.790
So, again during 2020, I hosted a happy hour for friends and where I gave everyone the ingredients to make like a single cocktail and, because it was locally, I went and delivered the like little cocktail package to everyone and then we all jumped on Zoom and had a virtual happy hour.
00:25:51.790 --> 00:25:59.614
So if you're in the location as your attendees, that could potentially be something.
00:25:59.614 --> 00:26:03.603
Location as your attendees, that could potentially be something.
00:26:03.603 --> 00:26:17.294
I've also attended a conference online where they, if, like, the first 50 people got a welcome package and it was like there were stickers, there's koozies, there was a mug, so that was like kind of the ploy to sign up early.
00:26:17.294 --> 00:26:47.700
So there's some things like that that you can reward people for getting in, being one of the first people to get in on your virtual event and then for in-person events, I really think again, how can you have that unique experience that they're not going to get if they walk into your venue and or your community partners establishment, and so sometimes that's as simple as cookies.
00:26:48.422 --> 00:27:07.166
We've done birthday parties for artists that are coming to the venue, and so that's something that's worked over really well, because how can you most people don't turn down an opportunity to come to a birthday party, and so we'll do.
00:27:07.186 --> 00:27:10.538
You know, record giveaways, have cupcakes, have, you know, specialized cookies?
00:27:10.538 --> 00:27:27.413
Specialized cookies are kind of like my sweet spot, because I find that's what people tend to Instagram story the most, and that's also what I'm trying to think of is, like, how can I get these people to think, oh, this is really cool, let me share this on my social.
00:27:27.413 --> 00:27:41.433
So then their followers have the FOMO and they're like, okay, well, I don't want to miss out on the next thing, or I didn't know that so and so, um, perform, let me make sure I get tickets.
00:27:41.433 --> 00:28:08.492
So, uh, looking for those kinds of like Instagram, um, instagram moments and kind of low cost things that would just again create an experience that you can typically spend, you know, less than $500 on your marketing budget and really, just again, it'd be unique that you can't just walk into that building and get that same experience.
00:28:09.299 --> 00:28:09.902
Wow, jenny.
00:28:09.902 --> 00:28:21.928
Listeners know about this show that there's no preplanned questions, so I always love emphasizing the fact that you're rattling all of these things off without any prep from my end as far as what we're getting into, but you're giving us so many incredible ideas.
00:28:21.928 --> 00:28:25.425
I do want to just put you on the spot really quickly as we're racing to a close here.
00:28:25.425 --> 00:28:31.780
I feel like you and I could probably talk about events for days and days at a time, but you've mentioned so many fun marketing channels here.
00:28:31.780 --> 00:28:35.458
Hearing you talk about you know how can I create an instagrammable moment?
00:28:35.458 --> 00:28:39.409
I think about all those instagram walls that people love that stuff.
00:28:39.409 --> 00:28:41.125
They always share those with their people.
00:28:41.164 --> 00:28:46.627
I'm guilty of it, for sure, and I don't even use social media all that much, but it sounds to me like you've mentioned social media today.
00:28:46.627 --> 00:28:47.901
You've mentioned some paid ads.
00:28:47.901 --> 00:28:49.124
Today You've mentioned PR.
00:28:49.124 --> 00:29:19.994
What are those big channels that you lean on leading up to these events, and whether you view it as part of the strategy with regards to getting the word out there or a really tangible, like you talked about, facebook events, creating an event there to actually get those butts in seats so, like, sweet spot obviously is, I always prioritize um social media, um advertising, as well as like some kind of organic um push, and then it depends on the promoter.
00:29:20.035 --> 00:29:33.709
But my typical like kind of philosophy is you know, 80% get them to you're talking about the event without saying buy tickets, and then 20% is going to be that hey, buy tickets.
00:29:33.709 --> 00:30:01.689
And so, um, my team and I, for each event, we kind of put together our biggest things are social media and newsletters, and so we put together that strategy and then we kind of, depending on the budget, intertwine some paid advertising, be it with radio partners or TV partners, and then also ask having relationships with those radio and TV partners where you can kind of quote, ask for more.
00:30:01.689 --> 00:30:22.523
And so, case in point, for First Fridays, I just got a thing where we're going to have a weather mobile out from one of the new stations, so the entire First Friday, for the rest of 2025, they're going to report the weather from first Friday live.
00:30:22.523 --> 00:30:32.516
So that's just one added component that brings people's attention to your event without it, without it being like a solid commercial.
00:30:33.618 --> 00:30:48.328
Some other things that I always do is also always send out a press release, like I mentioned, also do the Facebook event and then find those ways where you can talk about the event without saying buy those tickets.
00:30:48.328 --> 00:31:03.268
So an example of that is we have a bull riding competition coming up in February so we did a big push to have people tell us their cowboy name, their like bull rider cowboy name.
00:31:03.268 --> 00:31:33.805
So you know, the first letter of your name means one thing and then the month you're born means something else and so, like mine is like Lone Star, wrangler and so kind of getting people to just have those fun things that are interactive, raise awareness, but not necessarily it's not a push to buy tickets as much, it's just, again, you're just kind of cultivating that know, like and trust.
00:31:34.474 --> 00:31:45.211
Yeah, ginny gosh, I feel like during the course of our conversation here today on the air, you've pretty much laid out an entire event marketing strategy, from the pre-planning phase all the way through to the actual execution.
00:31:45.211 --> 00:31:56.982
So a few eagle-eyed listeners are going to be able to take so many valuable takeaways from this and listeners that's a little bit of a tease for me, because Ginny's actually hosting a webinar coming up very shortly that we're going to talk about in a minute.
00:31:56.982 --> 00:32:06.522
But before we get there, ginny, I do want to put you on the spot one final time with a super broad question that I love asking at the end of these sessions, and that is what's your best piece of advice?
00:32:06.522 --> 00:32:21.848
Knowing what you know about events marketing, but also the fact that you're one of us, you are a fellow entrepreneur and knowing that we're being listened to by wantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs at all different stages of their own growth journeys, what's that one piece of entrepreneurial advice that you'd wanna leave them with today?
00:32:24.394 --> 00:32:53.307
I'd say, just kind of find your people, and one of the things that I've heard from the Nikala Matthews-DeKomey who does the Side Hustle Pro podcast, she always talks about her mentors and how sometimes they don't actually know her because she just like listens to all their content, listens to their interviews, listens, follows them on socials and kind of uses that to sometimes guide her decisions.
00:32:53.407 --> 00:33:05.961
So be it somebody that you may not actually know, have them, but you enjoy their, their progress and their values and their philosophy on being an entrepreneur.
00:33:07.025 --> 00:33:11.175
And then also finding those people that you can connect with in real time.
00:33:11.175 --> 00:33:17.825
One of the nice things that somebody suggested to me was find a business coach.
00:33:17.825 --> 00:34:02.967
That is somebody that you want to be in three years, and so I, about six months before I started my company, I started meeting with a business coach who has a marketing agency who was billing at a million a year, and I just was like, oh my gosh, I can't even imagine that, but he was for about four years into his journey at the time, and so that was really pivotal as well Just kind of being able to bounce those ideas in having the permission to ask the questions that might not you might feel awkward about, like how much money should I have in savings?
00:34:02.967 --> 00:34:06.045
Uh, for my business, is it three months, is it six months?
00:34:06.045 --> 00:34:12.525
And kind of just getting some feedback and being able to have, um, those conversations with people who've done it before.
00:34:13.295 --> 00:34:24.045
Yes, ginny, you have delivered not only event marketing expertise and insights today, but absolutely nailed it on that really valuable entrepreneurial advice and feedback there, so I so appreciate that.
00:34:24.045 --> 00:34:28.282
I already teased a little bit about the fact that you've got some exciting things in your pipeline.
