The Flexibility Revolution: Building an Agency on Your Own Terms with Kym Insana

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Step into the world of success with Your Brand Amplified, the ultimate podcast designed to unravel the intricacies of thriving businesses. I'm your host, Anika Jackson. And I'm on a mission to uncover the stories, strategies, and secrets that have propelled entrepreneurs and business leaders to success. My next guest is a woman on a mission. Kim Insana is the founder of Always On Digital, and she's created a different kind of business for herself after finding 2 decades climbing the ranks in New York City advertising, working with major brands. Always On Digital is a multimillion-dollar Inc. 5000 agency that also serves large clients, everyone from the US Air Force to Enfamil. So, I'm, I'm looking forward to digging into strategy, but I also am really intrigued, Kim, by your story of what your decision was to leave the world of other corporate and start a business for yourself doing what you already knew you could do best.

Yeah, well, thank you for having me, Anika. It really was spurred on the number of kids I was having at the time. I felt like it was doable when I had my first to be able to manage work and life, even though looking back now, I think I could have done it much better in so many ways. But I had always seen and tried to push for more opportunity to be, you know, at the school events with my son. I have 4 boys now, but at the time I had, I had one for a while before I had my other kids.

Mm-hmm.

I was just struggling with work and I noticed that other women around me were struggling in the same boat. They would have, you know, the second child. I felt like that was like the marker where you realize, oh, this is hard. This is hard to be able to do the sick days and the events and anything else that children need and also have a career where you're taken seriously. You're not just like the mom that works here. Like you're taken seriously like your peers who may not have children or men or whatever. And, you know, prior to having kids, I had like an internship or after-school job in high school where there were other women that were doing job shares and it was in radio. And I was like, wow, that's cool. Like they get to be moms, but they get to work. It's like the best of both worlds. And this was in the '90s before laptops and cell phones and they were making it work. And so every job I went to, I always like kind of asked like, oh, can we do a job share or something? And it was like, no, people don't do that. That doesn't exist. And so that really is what drove me is like making something exist for others. It wasn't a unique idea. It wasn't, you know, I didn't think of it first. I saw it, it wasn't common, but I tried to implement it. And when it couldn't happen, I figured, well, I might as well just try to build it myself. I wouldn't necessarily say I woke up one day and I was like, I wanna be an entrepreneur. It was, I wanna make sure that there is this opportunity not only for me, but for others. And I guess I have to start a business to do it. And that's really how it all kind of came together.

Yeah. But, and that, and that is though something that we see a lot when we're working in corporate. I know I've had experiences when I've worked in ad agencies where same thing is, and I, I have one But where it was a conflict, if I said I have to be there to pick her up, or I have to, I have this activity or this school thing going on. And, you know, even being told, oh, once she goes away to university, you're going to be the best salesperson, you're gonna be the best this, you're gonna have so much more time to pour into the company and having to go, wait, but I don't want a life where I'm pouring 80 hours into somebody else's business, right? Or even 60 or 40. Like, so, so I absolutely see where you're coming from, but I, I'm also wondering and intrigued because You know, how hard was it to take that leap to now being a business owner and also finding clients, you know, and in many ways being a competitor to the businesses that you just came out of working in?

Yeah, and that's a great point about being a competitor to businesses that I was working with, because I think that's one of the things sometimes we don't take into consideration fully and what that means. I had success. As, you know, in, in my sales career and not in an egotistical way to say that I was really good at my job, but I was hitting my numbers. I had a great client base. I was successful. I made President's Club. I, I knew that I could do something, but ignorance is bliss too, because I didn't go to business school and I didn't really know or understand some of the other aspects of business. I just felt like I know I can get enough sales. It doesn't have to be the same amount of sales, but enough sales to keep a business afloat. And it wasn't necessarily a one-day decision that happened. My company moved down to the World Trade Center and it started getting harder. My commute was over 2 hours. It just became incrementally harder for me. And I went to our CEO and I said, I see you help other people start businesses and I would like To know if you would help me do the same. And truth is, I didn't need their help. I could have done it on my own. I know this now, and I always tell people who wanna go off on their own, you know, before you give away any piece of your company, like really think through it. Do you need money from someone else? Do you need to give up something for whatever skillset they have that you think that they're gonna bring to the table and help you? But I did, and that was the path I went. And what happened was I had approached the CEO, said, I would like to do this. He said, give me 6 months. And within, uh, 4 or 5 months, they were doing massive layoff and they laid me off and they did not give me the heads up. So, it wasn't so much of me deciding one day as like being pushed off a diving board and like, guess what? Today is the day you are doing this because either you do it now or you take another job and end up in the same scenario, but harder because nobody knows you and you're starting from scratch and you have to build your reputation there. So they, they laid me off. I was frankly very upset because I felt like I had been there and, and given my time. And the next day the CEO called and like, now you can do it. Now you can start your business. I was like, why didn't you tell me yesterday? I would've not been so upset and angry at everyone if, you know, and, and gone through all the emotions of being laid off. But I think all of these life experiences just help us get through harder things, and, and maybe it was meant to be that way. But that really was the, it was really more being pushed into it at that moment in time than deciding like, today's the day I'm gonna do it. And we all have different motivating factors that make us feel like, you know, this is the straw that broke the camel's back. And I probably was starting to feel those and maybe I would've just one day walked in and quit and did it, but this was helpful. And I was under the impression that I was gonna get more help in return. It didn't really work out that way, which is fine because this, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger and learning like, okay, do I want this to work or not? I don't wanna go back to the city. I want a taste of being around my children more than I had. And I had before care, I had after school and I had a babysitter. Just, it was, it wasn't home. And then I had to travel. So once I got a taste of that, that was the driving force to make sure that it Succeeded. And it still is because there are days where I'm like, I cannot go back to the city and go back to that life. So yes, maybe my kids, you know, one's in college now and I have more time to work, but not really because when they're all in college, I'm gonna wanna go visit them or do something else. I'm not gonna say like, oh, I wanna go back to corporate now. Like, that's not how I want it. You, you, I've gotten a taste of the good life. I don't wanna go back to that. And so that motivates you to, to to not only make it a place for yourself, but for others and try to help as much as you can. People have that same scenario.

So, talk a little bit about that flexibility-first model. How did you decide, you know, you knew that this was it for you. How do you decide I'm going to grow a business? You know, how did you figure out who you wanted to hire, how you wanted to hire them inside your business, and then what types of clients you wanted to go after?

So, Who I wanted to hire was pretty easy at first because I had been in the business long enough to be exposed to others and see their work. And so I started with the people that I used to work with. This first, you know, group of people I reached out to, like, who was great, who left for whatever reason, would they be interested in doing this, giving them the flexibility, but also knowing, and it's no secret, That many of us will go to work, come home, and then check our email, respond to an email, finish a presentation. Like people really do work all hours. Not that that's necessarily a healthy habit, but if you were gonna do that anyway, and now you're provided with the break or whatever, you know, time in between to do, not that homework is even better, but homework with your child or, you know, go to their practice with them. This flexibility to let people do, you know, what they need to do when they need to do it, they're gonna get the work done because they want their, they are driven personally by the flexibility and this lifestyle and not having to do the things they don't wanna do of their job. They're driven. And so, you know, that has helped. But from a client perspective, I think in the beginning we were looking for clients that were okay with their Being sort of like, oh, it's moms doing, you know, part-time work, but understanding that there was a greater purpose that we are gonna work harder for you and we are gonna get it done and it's gonna be efficient. But over time, it doesn't matter. It's changed because our clients on the outside do not know that people may be part-time or somebody may be full-time. They have no idea because it's so— we create— try to create it to be seamless where there isn't an interruption for them where they feel like, oh, that's because they have their kids home or whatever the stigma is. that people think exist, which is not the reality. It's just that, that, yeah, maybe at 3 o'clock they're picking up their kids, but they're not sitting there, you know, trying to play with their kid and work. It's the— everybody kind of silos off their life to be able to, you know, get the job done. So now, you know, we have all clients and we do talk about it with our clients when they come on board and explain. But I also think it's kind of why clients do come work with us. You know, we won a client earlier this year and we put it in as part of our presentation, just like understanding the people that will be working on your business. And one of the women was very emotional about it, like saying, I can't, you know, this is great that you're doing this for people. And I feel like it was part of the reason why we won the business because they saw that we are human and we are gonna work hard. It's not just like a, it, it doesn't mean nothing to us. And I think people value that in relationships.

And I do feel this is the kind of business that, this is the business of the future, right? Because there's so much going on with people's lives and the other, whether we have to care for our parents or our children or others around us, we need to have a certain amount of flexibility to do the best work we can when we are fully able to do it, but then have that time Right, to also segment, I mean, you mentioned one of your kids is in college and when all of your kids are there, you're gonna be wanting to visit. Same thing, my daughter went to university in Canada, so her holiday breaks are completely different than they are in the States.

Yeah.

For where I teach. So that is a priority of when am I gonna be able to go up and visit her because she's not gonna be able to come down here as easily. So I think at different life stages, these are things, these, values that are really important. And I think that also helps you perhaps look at your clients in a different way and help them problem solve for their marketing efforts in unique ways.

Yeah, absolutely. I agree. And, you know, time is the one thing that we can never get back. We could always make more money and we could do other things and get more clients, but we can't ever get that time back. And so thinking in a time-first model and prioritize, you know, prioritizing time over anything else, I think just makes us look at things differently and value things differently.

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Yeah. Marketing, digital branding, all of these are moving really quickly. People are trying to figure out how much AI they're using, how much they're using polished, right, content, how much they're using real people or content creators or influencers. And this is actually something I talk a lot about because I teach in digital media. So I'm really interested in learning a little bit about your approach and perspective when you're helping clients figure out what blend they're doing of marketing and, you know, the things that you're seeing nowadays that are becoming more important perhaps or less important as we I'll look at like AI, no AI, right? People, does it need to look polished or do people want more authenticity?

I think, you know, it is important to be authentic and it's not necessarily about being polished. I actually feel like in the past maybe we would use technology to become more polished. However, now I almost feel like AI could lead you in the other direction and end up being more sloppy. So technology, it's, it's, you know, it's such a conundrum because you wanna be able to use the latest tools and implement them in your marketing. And even the same goes for the latest social channel that's out or whatever. You always wanna be what's new and what's best and everything. But there's a risk to some of that because the unknown of what is happening with your data, what is happening with, you know, or, or how are they, they're modifying your creatives on the backend, you know, like Meta is notorious for their, Advantage Plus and you make an edit to something and now you have AI creative and you didn't even realize you had AI creative because it's a toggle on by accident. And you know, there's an update and it's just automatic on now. Google's doing the same thing. Like everyone starts to use AI to make things better, but it's not always making something better. It becomes sloppy in some cases. It's not authentic because maybe that isn't the way the brand wanted to appear. And then I think consumers start to see through that. They see through the shortcuts. Cuts and the cheating and all of that versus you're almost better being real and, you know, not necessarily not using technology, but just you need a human. You need a human in everything, even reporting. Um, you know, like you, you're probably reporting from the technology or from the DSP or from the platform or whatever. Like, you need humans to eyeball things. Things happen, things go wrong. That, you know, we are in a future where we're, we run so fast to AI, I feel like in the past couple years without stopping to think like, would the me 5 years ago think that all of this is a good idea? I feel like we forget about that and marketers just, everybody wants to, and it's not just marketers, everyone, we want the newest, hottest thing and we forget about the foundation and the steps that you would normally take to make sure You know, how are you even engaging? Like, did we throw out the whole book on how we should engage with consumers? And even though things change, but people aren't that different. And, and people, you know, it's just, we're moving too fast in some cases, in my mind, at least.

Yeah. And, and that's, um, something that I've been having a lot of conversations around is companies that are saying, we are choosing to keep our humans, we're choosing to have our human teams, and we might use technology for this piece or this piece, but it's not our overarching use case, right? And so, I think that is a definitive line also that people are gonna be seeing between marketing companies and that do a really good job and marketing companies that are there and, and are just trying to make it faster, quicker.

Yeah. And how many times do we see companies apologize because they made a mistake? Because they're rushing. My grandma always used to say haste makes waste, and I think about it all, all the time, right? Like we rush to do something or rush to get something out and then there's a mistake and then we're apologizing for it. So like, how does the consumer start to view you when you're constantly having to apologize for something your creative put out there? Like, you know, AI put out for your creative and it's not how you really wanna appear as a brand and now you're saying sorry. I mean, you know, like, and sometimes all, not all press is bad press, I guess, but.

Yeah.

And it goes back to that consumer trust. And I feel like when we're doing work for others and we see their, if their consumer trust is going down because of work that we put out for them, that they might've approved it, right? But it's still creating less trust for us as companies and individuals. I'm interested in your name, Always On Digital. Because it's, it's a nice juxtaposition between Always On Digital and the way that you've crafted the workflow in your company.

Yeah, and so, initially, it was, first of all, it's a bad idea. No one should name their company Always On anything, 'cause people believe it. No, jokes aside, the reason why is because what I had mentioned earlier is we are always working, and not that, not that you're working 24/7, But we are generally always accessible to some point. We don't have to wait till 9:00 AM tomorrow to send back the email. We can do it now. And my mindset is do it now, get it off your plate. It's not so much that I feel like I need to be checking email every 10 minutes, but if I check and I see it and I can take care of it, it's something I don't have to worry about tomorrow. And so always on was really the idea of that we are always on. We always— now we have phones and we have laptops and this. But it was the second part of it was that the company I was at ended up being part of an acquisition. And prior to the acquisition, we used to check campaigns on the weekends and holidays, uh, where things happen. And, uh, that kind of stopped with the acquisition. And it doesn't have to be a full day of work on a Saturday, but 15 minutes to check and make sure campaigns are spending or nothing has gone off the rails is it. It's really good business practice. And we had nobody working on Black Friday, and one of my retail clients' pixels fell off for 8 hours and no one knew, and they lost all that data. And, you know, critical things like that, a person just doing a quick check for 10 minutes would've saved that. And so, I wanted to bring back that level of service where we, you know, do these checks and, and have nights and weekends or whatever to just make sure things are working. Now, while we do this, not everyone else does, so it's It's not perfect because there are times where we need things from other vendors or platforms and they're not accessible 24/7. So, you know, we're still waiting till Monday or whatnot, but at least we are able to identify if there's problems, pause a campaign if there's an issue. And like, you know, bad things happen in the world, you know, with airlines. And if you're running an airline and there's an airline crash somewhere, like nobody wants to be running that. We just ran into this recently where There was a, a celebrity that had passed away in an area that our client is in, and they didn't want to waste their search budget with search terms for their, their region because people are really looking up like celebrity gossip and you have to act on the, this stuff quickly. So that's kind of where the always-on came from is marketing just moves fast and we have to be able to be accessible.

Yeah, and that's a really sad example, but also one that brands need to consider. Right? When are we maximizing our budgets and when do we need to pull back a little bit? And in that vein, I'd love to ask you, is there a big misconception that businesses have about balancing performance marketing with brand building that you find yourself having to correct?

I think with the internet, we went so far towards performance and metrics, like we almost shot ourselves in the foot. I started in radio, so No one really knew what was working. Maybe you called the 1-800 number that was there, or they said the radio host's name because that's how you knew. But for the most part, you didn't know if something was working yet. Can people continue to buy? And, you know, even little things like you remember commercials from when you were younger, like, you know, Cars for Kids used to play all the time. Like, who doesn't know the jingle and things like that? But That still brings brand awareness and performance without having the hard metrics. Internet came and everybody, you know, was able to see cost per click, and now we can see cost per view and, you know, or buy on a cost per view and see how long someone's seen an ad and are they scrolling past it and all this other data that it's like, oh, let's just go, you know, performance and let's scrap brand awareness. And I think there has to be a healthy balance because There is an impact of brand awareness and especially, you know, we, we actually sell a lot of billboards. So we were digital only programmatic. COVID hit, we had to diversify and we started to sell a lot of outdoor. And we actually have a client now that is very heavy into performance metrics, but we're also running a good amount of outdoor and airport advertising where we're not getting the same feedback and, you know, data that we get with, you know, a programmatic campaign or a social media campaign where we like know everything about them. And so I think it is so important to remember that one feeds the other. If we're not driving people to your site or just creating awareness about them, then you really can't have all those purchases. And, you know, you're gonna get some customers, but you're not gonna get the same level without brand awareness. And why is Apple and the iPhone all over? You know, why are there banners everywhere? If you go in San Francisco and you're driving on the 101, there are iPhone ads everywhere. And that's just because they, you know, they understand, you know, everybody knows what an iPhone is right now, but they understand that they still have to be front and center with their brand advertising. Same like McDonald's or Burger King, like all of these big brands that have brand recognition are still striving for brand awareness constantly, even though at the end of the day they're just trying to sell more burgers or more phones.

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And that is one of the biggest issues that I see as well is, you know, people want to be able to do attribution modeling, but you can't just say, oh, it's coming from here or here. Because you have things like out-of-home, we have retail media networks, we have so many other ways to promote our brands and services that, that are sometimes intangible. I've also, you know, plastered posters in English and Spanish in bus stations throughout LA, in certain places where we can say, oh, we know this much traffic will go by. We know that a lot of your target demographic for a nonprofit is taking the bus. from these bus stops, but we can't say this person came in and, and not everybody who comes in for a service is going to tell you exactly where they came from, right? So yeah, I, I think that's a huge one and it's, it's nice to see that, you know, you're able to get clients to see it's not just one or the other you actually do need. And I think that is, again, one of the things that's becoming more important is we need to be in different places and spaces, especially as people get disgruntled about how much we see the same ads or the same things when we're scrolling in our feeds or as banner ads on websites. And we wanna have those outside experiences a little more.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's amazing what becomes memorable. Like as people, if we think of what we remember from an ad, a great ad, or, you know, what made you purchase or where did you first see it? Sometimes when you start to think back, it's not, oh, I saw it on social media necessarily. Maybe it is, you know, you heard it on the radio or you saw it on a CTV ad, or there's other places that you, you've seen things. And I was going to IKEA and I'm like, I know where IKEA is because of the commercials that always said what the exit number was like. And that's from being a kid. Like it never went away. Because they were, did such a good job of brand awareness, you know, just hitting the same, the most important point to them, right, is how to get there. And, you know, I just think brands always need to remember and think back, like, you know, whatever it is that they need that person to do, like, what's the best way to kind of get their attention? And it's usually a combination. It's not gonna be one thing because there's so many touchpoints that a person has and people are extremely distracted. So you have to find a way to Yeah.

Now, let's talk a little bit about burnout with starting a business, running it, also still trying to have that space for yourself and your family. You know, were there times when you felt, have felt that in your own business? And what are some things that anybody listening could, should be thinking about for their own burnout, their teams, right? So that they can be fully present for All parts of their lives.

Yeah, I think burnout happens in seasons, honestly, where there, and whether it be seasons in a business or seasons in your life, but it's, it, I'm not immune to it. Uh, just because it, we started a business and I have more flexibility doesn't mean that I don't feel burnout. I don't feel guilt about, you know, am I a good enough parent? Like all those things still happen. Am I a good enough boss? Am I giving enough attention to the business? If I did, this better, you know, whatever. And then that sparks the stress and it sparks burnout and you go through it. And I would say I have gone through seasons of burnout where I felt like, should I just go back and get a job? Am I, you know, is this too much pressure? Is this working? Am I even making an impact? Do I, in anyone's life, whether it be advertising or people, like we, we start to have self-doubt or even, you know, imposter syndrome as another company looking at me and saying like, oh, who does she think she is by, You know, being out there, like, we are so much bigger. And I think it's important to have a conversation with yourself every so often to help really prevent that burnout because there's nothing wrong with just stopping, going and take a walk around the block, whether it be, you know, investing in your own health and saying, you know, exercise is important to me and I'm gonna carve out time every day now. And I've done a better job of that over the last 6 years, I would say, and saying nope every morning, or if I can't get to in the morning, I'm gonna make sure I get this time because work can wait. And if I'm not healthy, I will burn out and that doesn't help anyone. And now my responsibility of making sure other people have jobs is real. And I don't wanna say, well, we're gonna have to shut down because I didn't do a good enough job for myself to make sure that we're all okay. And, but it's, it's okay to have, you know, you, you have to have grace for yourself because Nobody's perfect. Taking on your own business is a big responsibility, as you know, and it's, there's stress that comes with it, but it's my stress. It's not stress that some other CEO put on me, that their investors put on me, and so forth. And so, I think that helps ease some of it because I could be burnt out easily somewhere else every single day, or I could do it this way. And, you know, as I mentioned, there's guilt. I actually have a client dinner next week and I have to miss the back-to-school night for one of my kids. And he's so excited about me seeing his new gym and all this other stuff. And I have to tell him that I can't go that day because I have this. And, you know, they've gotten used to me being around all the time, but that puts a level of stress. And then I just remind myself, well, guess what? If I worked anywhere else, I wouldn't be going to that back-to-school night anyway because I wouldn't have been home in time. So you just try to balance it where you can and take care of your health and find that thing that works. And there are days where, actually Monday, I didn't have a lot of calls and I was like, I am not really gonna work today. I need to think mostly about the business and where we are and things that we need to do, but I have to step away from everything to be able to even like clear my mind. And it's like, we don't have to apologize for that. Like, I think it, not that it was necessarily a mental health day cuz I was working, but. We have to do those things, whether it be a mental health day for your life or, uh, you know, a mental day for the business. That all contributes to preventing like a serious burnout.

Everything you just say— said, you put it so eloquently, and I think it is so important to uplift just and emphasize again, we need to be able to give ourselves permission to have that space when we need it so that we can be better, be more present, and focus on the things that are important. And that might mean our business shifts a little bit, you know, it might mean, right, that we have to say no to a big project sometimes, or we might have to say no to going to a back-to-school night on the other side. But this is, I mean, I know I'm in this season and I know a lot of people listening are in the same thing where we're trying to make sure that we're designing our lives and our work To fit what we really need to get out of them, not what somebody else needs to get out of us.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think we were programmed to think that success—

100%.

Was money.

Yes.

And not happiness. And I just, you know, you look at somebody at the end of their life, especially as, as we are in the season of maybe we're taking care of parents or watching our parent parents deteriorate more. You know, you look at them and you say, what happened in the past 10 years? Like they've gotten older or they're forgetting things. And I think like, wow, I doubt anybody is going to be on their deathbed saying, I wish I worked more. They're going to say, I wish I had more time with my family. Or, you know, I just wish I did these other things. Or I am successful because I got that time with my family. To me, success is happiness. Obviously, I, we need enough to live and there's things that make us happy, like traveling with our kids and have enough money to do that. But I joke and I tell my clients, and I use this when I pitch people all the time, like, I would look great on a yacht. I would, I know I would, but we are not charging our clients to the extent that I could be on a yacht. I'm not one of those CEOs on those lists of highest paid anything because they may feel that that's success, but that's not success to me. I feel that having a legacy where people admire and, you know, having a company that I'm not having to lay off people yet taking all this money to the bank. It, that to me is not success. And that's okay that that's their success, but that's not mine. And I, they can't put that on me either. Like they don't get to decide that for me. I get to decide that for myself what success is. And it's, that's hard to do, I think, because you, you have to kind of not care what people think about you. And maybe that comes with age. Maybe that's easier to say the older you get, but I am proud of the younger generations because I think they're bolder than we were. And I'll speak for myself, not, you know, not your age, but I think they're a little bolder to stand up and, and say no to things in that sense. And it's good for them because they shouldn't think that success is only what someone has defined on paper. And someone said, I was at a conference yesterday and someone said, they were talking about traffic and she said, who decided that everybody should go to work at the same time? Like, I was like, I never thought about that. Like, what, where did that come from that we all are gonna work just these hours? Doesn't matter what kind of job you do. What's a 9 to 5? And we're gonna sit in traffic for hours to all get there at the same time. Like, where'd that come from? But that's what exists.

Yeah. Kim, what do you see next for your life, for your business? I, you know, you mentioned Monday you were taking a little bit of time to think about what's next for Always On Digital.

So I think for us, we are in a constant state of what can we do to scale the right way, keeping the quality, like the home baked goods when it goes to the factory, does it taste the same? And so we try to be very cautious about growth. We want to grow. We want to get bigger because some, to some extent with growth, I can step back a little more. I work with my husband, so it's hard. We want to like have a true vacation where we just step away. We don't always get that as much. We're not. necessarily at that point yet. I think we need to be a little bigger for that, uh, and have a little more structure in place. But, you know, for the next season, I think that's, that's really what we're striving for is to, to hit a little level of growth and what changes do we need to have? What roadmap do we need to have? What holes are in our business that we need to get better at? I think that's solving for some of those things. So, roadmapping out our next, you know, our 2027 and laying it all out there for us. And I think that, you know, growing in a sales capacity, but also growing in some areas where we know we get a lot of requests from, you know, client services and things like that, and making sure that we're staffing up in those areas as well. But a lot of times it ends up coming down to like, do we have enough headcount for this? And, and so forth.

I, I appreciate how grounded our conversation's been and how we've really been able to talk about what it, takes to build an agency the way that you want to, but I think this applies to anybody who's an entrepreneur and starting a business or thinking about it. So if somebody took one thing away from our conversation today, what is that piece of advice that you would give them?

I, it's, there's no gatekeeping with, uh, starting your own business. I don't think that people shouldn't have the confidence to do it themselves. And there's not like, it's a, it's not this elite club or a secret, like Everyone, we, especially with the internet, we have so many resources. If you're thinking about it, go for it. It's not easy, but nothing in life is easy. It's not easy to work out at 5:00 AM, and it's not easy to feel like you don't feel great because you didn't. Like nothing is easy. Going to work in corporate's not easy, and starting your own business is not easy. It's just choosing your hard. And I think there, people sometimes are hesitant and worried about how hard something's gonna be, but you just have to take it one step at a time. Just start with the small stuff. You know, do the research, figure out what product it is that you're trying to sell or service that you're trying to offer. Is talk to people. Is there a market for it? You know, don't be afraid to ask questions. So, I would say, you know, you can, you can do it. Believe in yourself that it is something you can make happen. Wonderful.

That's such great advice. And I appreciate that, you know, choosing your own hard. And then I always do ask if you have a favorite quote, mantra, verse, poem, family motto. I mean, you've given us so much wisdom, so it could just be choose your hard, but if you have something else that inspires you and helps you continue.

I would say it's probably what doesn't kill you makes you stronger for sure. There are a lot of times where, you know, and I actually heard this quote somewhere that like, you've lived through your hardest days, like you've made it through. So you did something really hard, but you got through it. And I had, um, this is just a little side story. I went to like an adventure park where like those ziplining, but it was more than that. You were like with hooks and walking on wires and all this. It was horrible. I hated every bit of it. I, I wanted the ziplining part. I love that stuff.

Yeah.

But I didn't, and I love roller coasters, but I did not like walking on a tightrope with like 2 hooks of wires. I was holding on for dear life. And I was with one of my children who was literally, he was struggling and he was crying. He's 13 and he was like, I hate this. And I was I hate this too. And at one point I'm like, but we can do it. We've done worse. Like we are gonna, we can get through this. Like other people are living through this, we can live through it. And I don't wanna go back, but I know that I could go back and conquer it because I lived through it already. And it's like anything else, you know, we're all here, so we all lived through our hardest days already. We can, we can do hard.

Yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much. I know you've given a lot of inspiration to people who are listening. who are also in that space of what's next, how do we continue creating, and how do we choose what our heart is, and how do we make the good parts the best they can be in our lives?

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you to everybody who's watching this episode or listening to it on your favorite platform. Please leave us a rating review. I'll have all of Kim's contact information in the show notes if you wanna reach out to her, learn more about her business and services, and Think about what you're choosing for your hard. Think about what you can do to improve your life and the lives of others around you, whether it is through making that small change in your business or in your personal life and giving yourself that permission to do so. I'll be back again with another amazing guest very shortly to share their story and their journey with you. Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of Your Brand Amplified. Don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out at yourbrandamplified.com.

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