Interview with Kimanzi Constable: Corporate Consulting and Coaching – Small Business Show 181

The Small business show, episode 181 for Wednesday, July 25, 2018. Greetings, folks, and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co, the show that is by, for and about small business. Sponsors for this episode include textexpander, which we'll talk about shortly here for. For the moment here in Durham, New Hampshire. I'm Dave Hamilton.

And I'm Shannon Jean. I'm happy to be here. How are you, man?

I am good. As we mentioned in the last show, we both had some travel that away, so it's actually nice to be back in the podcasting chair and making these things happen. So it's great.

Yeah, that's really cool. I always feel a sense of withdrawal when we miss a week or so. We have to prerecord. So it's awesome to be back this week.

Absolutely. Well, it's not just us today, Shannon. We have guests with us. And, you know, there are some people that you routinely encounter that you've never met or in the case of today's guest, never even spoken to up until our pre show today. But we have many mutual friends, and our guest today has spent most of the last decade refining the idea of what he calls and what we also call a lifestyle business, both for himself and as well as for all of his consulting clients that want to learn from him. So it is my great pleasure to welcome Kamanzi Constable to the show. Kamanzi, thank you so much for joining us today.

Hey, Dave and Shannon, thank you so much for being here. Just kind of hearing you guys go back and forth, your vibe. I feel like I'm invited to your party.

That's exactly what it is, right? It's just our party here. And it's not just the three of us. It's all our listeners too. Everybody really participates and gets something out of the show. Although selfishly, Shannon and I have a competition as to which one of us gets more out of each episode. But that's okay. That's, you know, that's a good thing because then everybody learns. So it's good for sure. Yeah. Yeah. You want to take it, Shannon?

Yeah, sure, let's do it. So, hey, okay, Kamanzi, let's. You know, sometimes we start at the beginning and everything, but what we want to hear about now, let's talk about today. You know, what's your usual day, your week, your month, like right now? And then, then we can get into how you wound up here today.

My day is not typical because a large element of what I do in My business involves travel and it involves international travel. So the primary part of my business is I go into corporations, Fortune 100 to 500 companies, and I teach them about digital marketing, new media. And I travel to about 25 countries a year. So if you do the math on one year in 25 countries, you kind of figure out how often I travel. So I'm moving quite a bit. So in the days that I'm travel, those are usually long travel days. A lot of airports, a lot of sky lounges all over the world. And then when I get there, I still haven't mastered jet lag. I've tried everything that everybody said about jet lag, but I'm still not there yet. So the first day is usually like a loss. But if I am at home in Wisconsin, where I'm based out of, what my day usually is, is it's probably pretty typical day, like a 9 to 4 as far as like what I'm going to do in business. But I mean, if you want to know everything, guys, yeah, I get up in the morning, I exercise, I then meditate, I try not to do any business stuff before 9ish. And then normally what I have when I'm home is I will have calls with companies that are interested in working with my team or bringing us in to do a gig. I will have people online that are interested in writing for some publications and whatnot that will buy like a strategy session or something like that. So I'll usually schedule those calls in the morning. And then a large part of what I do is writing because I write about 25,000 words a week. So if what I do at home, if you want to know what I did at home, it's probably pretty standard and a little boring.

No, that sounds great. I have a lot more questions now than I have in front of me. That's always a good answer. So, okay, let me jump back in and you know, reading your backstory a little bit. When Dave said, you know, he's got you to come on the show, you know, it looks like you've always been an entrepreneur, always had something going on. But has that always been the case or have you always been self employed, doing your own thing or have you worked for other companies along the way?

Kind of started my adult journey at 17. And at 17 I got traditional jobs, you know, the Burger King and the Target and whatnot. When I turned 18, I was finally legally adult. I actually got my CDL and I worked for a while for Pepsi and Frito Lay and Coca Cola and Sara Lee and companies like that. When I turned 19 is when I did have the chance to start my first business. It kind of happened by accident, but it was a vacation relief service for independent vendors that delivered here in Wisconsin, Johnson Illinois. Yeah. And that business was, it was a pretty good business for a 19 year old kid to be bringing in half a million dollars a year was pretty exciting time.

Oh yeah, that's pretty.

So you, so you would, you would be essentially offer yourself out as the person that could drive when, when someone else needed to go on vacation. Is that, I mean, essentially what, what that business started as?

That's exactly what it is. Because the guys that are independent vendors, the company doesn't provide a vacation person for them. So for some of the guys here in Wisconsin, they hadn't gone medication like eight years. So when I came in and said, look, I'm gonna show up every day, I'm not gonna smash up your hundred thousand dollar truck. And I mean these guys are investing 250 to half a million dollars in a franchise. So they weren't just gonna hire anybody off the street. So when I came in and showed up and showed them I was gonna do a good job, I had work for like two years pretty quickly.

Wow, that's great.

That's awesome. Opportunity knocks, right? You know, you find like if you can find somebody that has the financial means to take a vacation but can't detach from their business and hasn't been able to do that for eight years, that person is ripe with opportunity. That's great.

For sure. For sure. Well, so I'm fascinated with this kind of both sides of what you're doing, because you're doing sounds like a lot of consulting, but as well you're a coach for other entrepreneurs that are trying to get into what sounds like similar business. So let's take the consulting part first and kind of break that down. How does that work and how did you get into the position you're in today where you're going in consulting and digital marketing to these Fortune 500 and 100 companies?

Absolutely. So I got going in 2011ish into this whole world of online when I actually discovered a podcast. It's funny how that works. I actually discovered a smart passive income with Pat Flynn, which a lot of people discover. And when he started talking making money online and making money from your brain and all that kind of stuff, it just lit a fire under me. So to fast forward to what I do today, my business is broken up in three divisions, guys. So one is Corporate consulting, where I'm going to do the gigs. The second is an agency where I have a team and we take on done for you projects. So if I go to a corporation, I tell them about how great podcasting is, they might say, hey, we want you to actually set up our company's podcast. So I have a team that does the actual agency work. And then the third part of it is the online stuff, which is people that want to know how to do what I do. So with the corporate side of this, how I got into this was in 2012, I had built an online business like a lot of other people were doing. I was selling courses and membership websites and doing coaching and whatnot. And it was great. It was amazing. I had a business that was generated about $5,000 a month. But I knew that there was more opportunity than just what I was seeing online because I had so much experience with local business. With the first business that I did, I knew that I could take all this knowledge that I gained online and I could take this into offline local companies. I knew that local companies would not move as fast as people online would move. So I knew that I knew just a little bit more than they did. I could go market myself as a digital market. Well, back then it was social media marketing consultant, and I would be able to teach them a few things that they didn't know. And I could book gigs. And that's exactly what happened. I started looking at companies in Milwaukee that were a little bit smaller. I looked at their online presence and it was terrible, as you can imagine. And I just went and I simply said, look, this is an opportunity that's growing. It's expanding very fast. Here's my business and what I've been able to do with my business and social media. I like to teach you how to do this. And I got, you know, in 2012, I sent out 180 proposals to companies, and that year I ended up booking 36 paid gigs. It didn't light the world on fire, but it brought an additional $48,000 in income. What got me going on the corporate. So I started small local, getting local companies, and then from there, just building to bigger and bigger companies till the point where 2015 is when I landed my first quote, unquote, major corporation. And then from there, it was a matter of referrals from the gigs that I had done before. Some of the places that I'm a contributor for, I write for a lot of different publications that brings corporations that have an interest and then meeting other Business owners at networking events or when I'm out there consulting.

Man, that's so great.

This is fascinating. Yeah. Because you. I mean, you know, what you just described is someone you. That you never stop hustling. But it's not just that you never stop hustling, because if that's all it was, what you'd still be doing is designing websites for other companies. Right. But instead of that, you thought, wait a minute, I can go and teach these people how to do this. That's actually more valuable to them than. And more valuable to you. And you leveraged it like, it seems like everything you do is leveraged off of what you've done in the past. Right. You showed companies, you essentially used your own online presence as proof that you could teach them how to make their own. And now you've got these articles that essentially paint you as an expert, as the expert that you are. I don't mean to imply you're not an expert, but you're out there doing things that prove who you are. But not. Not just for the money that you'd get from writing an article for some website. Sure, you take that money, but then you leverage that for the next thing. There's many opportunities in every single thing you do. I think it's fantastic. Multifaceted.

Yeah. There's a lot of opportunity out here, and especially with the corporate side of things. It kind of lights me up to talk about this, because for somebody who offers, like, you guys are podcasters, and I used to call. Host a podcast with Jared Easley, who was one of the founders of podcast movement. And so, like, I'm involved in podcasting the space, at least. Like, I'm a fanboy. But for those of you that have podcast services, you're going after people online and you're teaching them how to do a podcast, you're helping them set them up. Whereas what you're charging online, you could charge, like five times that in a corporation. So, like, when I see this opportunity and Dave is connected with me on social media, so he sees me talking about this a bit, I'm. I'm genuinely excited because there is genuinely this amount of opportunity in corporations.

Yeah.

You know, one thing, I also, I want to go back and touch on that in your description of how you get started and what you're doing is your point where, you know, the. The numbers in the beginning may not be, you know, earth shattering, but it's that continual development and knowing that, okay, you know, if I can make five grand a month, you know, I got to be able to make, you know, five times or whatever, more than that. And we, we talk about that a lot here on the show, you know, come up with a way, how do you walk out the door and make a thousand bucks? And I, I would say when you were doing that, you know, is there anything you did special that, that kept you motivated? Even though the numbers may not have been, you know, crazy at the beginning, it was it just enough to make anything when you were getting started or how did that work?

I set, initially I set some goals for myself as far as revenue, what I wanted to hit and what it would take. And that very first gig that I booked was five hundred dollars. The second gig that I booked was fifteen hundred dollars. The third gig that I booked was $1500. So we're not talking about earth shattering amounts, but this idea of getting 500 or $1,500 to come in for two hours to show them what to do and to leave. And I have no ongoing obligation, I have no, I'm not tied to the results that they're going to get. That to me was the motivation. Like, look, you did this, you got your knowledge and if you did this a few times, you can do this again and you can start to charge more.

Yeah, that's great, man. And that, that is just extremely powerful. And you know, I just always try to reiterate that to our listeners is because so many folks are just shooting for this big number to get there like right away. And you really have to put your time in and build that expertise like you've done and then, and then just keep working on it exponentially.

That's fascinating.

Yeah, well, it seems like you're not. But not only are you not afraid to reinvent or evolve yourself or your career, that is your career is constantly evolving and not just doing the same thing. That's fascinating. It's great. Smart.

Yeah, that's a lesson. When I first started entrepreneurship, my parents weren't entrepreneurs and I didn't have anybody in my life who was an entrepreneur. But when I did meet my first mentor, the one thing that he told me is he said, don't ever get complacent in your successes. He said, celebrate them. Shout from the rooftops. But don't get complacent where years later you're still, that's all you're focused on is what you did, not what you're doing now or what you're going to do. You're living in what you did. And so I've always tried to adopt that mindset that, yeah, the successes are amazing, and I'm gonna celebrate them, but I don't want to be the person that you see online marketing something that they did, you know, 20 years ago, and they haven't done anything since.

Yeah, well, and there's a lot of folks out there, and as we roll and talk about coaching a little bit, there's a lot of people out there selling courses and. And pushing very big numbers and, you know, quick super success. And I'm always a little dubious of that, having spent, you know, 25, 30 years building, you know, several companies up and just even, like the podcast, how long it takes you to really build a solid audience. And I always want to get that message across, which is fantastic.

Very cool.

So let's. Let's stick with this or let's move into the coaching realm. What was the impetus to start again, teaching people what you were doing so they could essentially do the same thing. Right. Am I reading that right?

Yes. So I have got into the corporate consulting, and it was going extremely well. I almost thought at some point I would scrap all my online presence completely because it was quite so well in corporate. And sometimes when you're dealing with some characters online, it could be quite interesting. But when I started this and when I got into this, I knew that I wanted to help people, and I generally wanted to help people. I knew that there were people that were just like me, that had built online businesses, maybe built brick and mortar businesses, and maybe they feel like they're a small fish in a big pot, and maybe they want to be the big fish in the small pond. And so I knew that this was an opportunity that would be interested in. And more than that, I have a pretty large email list from all my years of writing and being online. And every single day, somebody would. From the email list would message about, hey, I'd like to know more about what you're doing with corporations. And I like to know how I could do it. And it was probably four or five months of people constantly sending me messages saying, I want to know how to do this, I want to know how to do this. And then at that point, I'm like, you know, it took a while, but the light bulb went off at that point.

Yeah, sure. They taught me what business to be in. Yeah. Yep.

The need was there. They. They already validated. They told me that they wanted this. And on top of that, when I started looking at the market, I realized there weren't very. There were very few people that were teaching how to get into corporations and book corporate gigs. So I knew that even online, in what can feel like a crowded space, this was going to be a topic that nobody else was talking about.

Yeah, that's really cool. And, and I, I like how, you know, as you built up your credibility over time, you've just, you know, leveraged that into other things. You, whether it's the writing gigs to getting your name nationally known or internationally. I think that's great. Go ahead.

I want to ask a question because email lists I think are oft overlooked, very valuable thing still in today's world. And I want to ask that question. But first I want to talk about our sponsor here for a couple minutes and then I'm going to ask that question. And our sponsor today, as I mentioned earlier, is Textexpander from Smile, where@textexpander.com podcast you get 20% off your subscription for the first year of this amazing tool that certainly both Shannon and I use and many, many other listeners use as well. Textexpander allows you to create perfectly crafted snippets that you spend your time on getting every little word and every bit of punctuation and everything just right. And then you put them into textexpander and you can invoke them when you're, say, replying to a customer email. So somebody emails, Kamanzi says, hey, I'd like to learn more about your coaching so that I can be a business consultant. So Kamanzi could have this pre written, perfectly crafted, evolved response that's in textexpander invokes that puts it into an email and then you can tweak it from there. But you're starting with something you're not writing from memory you're not writing from, you know, copy pasting from another email that you gotta go and like dig and find. It's all just right there. And if you have a team, textexpander can be synced, all of those snippets synced to everyone on your team. So everyone's starting from the same place if you're running a business. And frankly, even if you're not yet, you've got to check this out. Textexpander.com podcast is where you go, as I said, you save 20% off your first year. And our sincere thanks to the folks at textexpander and Smile for sponsoring this episode. All right, Kamanzi, so email list. Everybody that I talk to that's like successful in this way and in many other ways, always sort of casually mentions, oh, yeah, have an email List like it's the core of my business. And I think so many people because of social media with Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and everything else says, oh, email lists are dead. People only get information from me on social media when I think frankly, exactly the opposite is true. So do you still use your email list today?

Absolutely. It's the core of what I do online. And I would even venture to say that there are probably some companies that sign up there just to kind of peek at what I'm doing. But I spent when I, when I started this journey, I started this journey as an author. And so I self published a book and that book flopped. Like it sold five copies in six months. And that got me realizing that the reason why the book doesn't sell or why people can't sell, get coaching clients or why anything doesn't sell is because they don't have an audience. And I had realized that looking at social media, social media is great, billions of users, but we all know that the reach is limited and it's always ever changing. And more than that, that's those people's platforms, that's Facebook's platform, that's LinkedIn platform. So I knew that an email list was where I could get some captive people that had a better chance of seeing what I have going on. These are people that have the permission based marketing. They give me permission to let them know what I have going on in my life. And so I spent from 2012 till now building up a list of about 55,000 people. So when I want to sell a course, when I want to put something out there that I'm doing a new post, the new, like when I share this podcast interview with my list, you're probably gonna get some new listeners. When I want to share what's going on, I do have that ability to go there and do that. And yes, that has been the core of what's driven the online portion of my business.

That's amazing. It's so easy to overlook in any business and really should not be like, if you don't have an email list for yourself, maybe that's the first takeaway from this episode is go start that and then kind of evolve from there so that you're not missing any time.

Yeah. And what I love about it is to your point, these are folks that want to be in touch with you. You're not chasing them down. They're like, oh, I want to be involved in what's going on. I want to hear your updates states and you know, it's a. It's a great target audience.

Absolutely.

Very cool. Okay, so let's talk about that. Promoting yourself a little bit more, you know, in your name. I mean, you barely start to type, you know, Kiman in Google and your name comes right up. And I love that. I can always tell somebody's doing something right. What are the top three things that you make sure you're doing every week to ensure that you know, you're your. Your name is constantly out there and that self marketing never stops?

One is to be real and authentic. I think that there's a lot of sugar coating that happens in life. Like it's you. You've seen the highlight reel on social media, right, where somebody is or other people are posting about this and that and all the good things. But I want to post every part of the journey and I think it's fair to say it. Cause Dave is connected to me, that I do post a lot of different parts of the journey where it's the wins, the losses, the things that have me scratching my head, the crazy people that sometimes come out of the woodwork. You know, whatever it is I want to share. I always told myself that I would share the complete picture of what it takes to build an online business so that somebody got the complete picture. So I think real and authentic is 1, 2. I always try to add practical value. So not just value, but practical value. Because there are some good posts that are really good and you get value from them and you learn from them. But when I post something specifically about what I do, I want it to be tactical and practical. I want people to read that they're going to be able to go implement the steps that I'm talking about and get the results. And that's what's helped me grow online, is people will read some of the posts that I put out and Dave will tell you they're very tactical. Do this, do that. You want to book a consulting gig, here's how you can book your very first one. Here's the company that you can pitch. Here's an example of what you do.

You've got contact information in your post posts like, look, here's somebody ripe for the picking. Somebody go get it. That's it. Yep.

Oh, that's great.

So yeah, the second thing is I just try to. I try to add value because you're. If you ever want to sell anything, the sale happens when people know, like and trust you. We all know that. But more than anything, the sale happens when you have added value to somebody. When you've added value to them, they've seen that value, they understand your expertise and it's a, it's a better way to sell versus you trying to pound why somebody should buy your things. So I think that's two and three. I genuinely like people, so I'm always connecting with new people. I'm always trying to make myself available when I have the time. If I can't hop on a quick call, I will send some messages back and forth. But I understand the value of connection and networking and marketing. And so I make those connections, I network, I build my network, I try to connect with like minded people and that, that's just kind of helpful.

That's great. So along the same lines, how much of your time do you think you're spending marketing yourself and your business offerings versus actually going out and doing the work and the consulting?

Well, the consulting takes up the most part of my time. So whether it's actually traveling to do the gig or it's working with my team on a project that we're finishing for a company, or it's talking to new companies, I would say that's probably, probably 70% of my time is stuff related to corporate consulting. I would say probably 10% of my time is things online. So whether that's creating those posts, whether that's marketing a course that I'm selling or whether that's connecting, it's probably 10% of my time. And then the other 20% of my time is probably spent watching a little too much Netflix and stuff like that.

I hear you.

This is interesting to me because you are a prolific content. I don't want to necessarily say creator, though that may very well be accurate, but certainly producer. Right? I mean content is just pouring out on your social media feeds all the time. Do you batch that stuff up and to make valuable use of that 10% of your time so that things are constantly coming out so that it's not this, this, you know, detour and distraction every hour or something. How do you manage that?

Absolutely, I, I learned about the value of systems from a mentor. So I have systems in place such as with content, I have a content plan. So whether it's the publications that I write for, what I'm going to send to my website, or what I want to post on social media, I'm following a very specific plan that I laid out the month before. So I'll sit down at the beginning of the month and think about, okay, this is what I want to talk about next month month as it relates to my Business and the different things that are going on, the different things that I will end up promoting. I create a content plan and I lay that out plan. And then when it comes to actually creating content, I do most of that on Sundays where I do sit down and batch and I'll sit down for six to eight hours at a time. I'll write all of my. I write for 14 publications, so it's a little bit of writing every week. So I'll sit down and I'll do that writing and then I'll also write some of those, those value social media posts, the ones that are specifically about here's how to get on a publication, here's how to book a consulting gig. Here's how to do something. Your lifestyle business. Yes, I will batch all of that on a Sunday.

That's smart. Wow, that's great.

Makes a lot of sense.

Yep.

And you know, we, we talked a little earlier about lifestyle business and you know, we, we place a lot of value on that. We refer to it as, you know, small business owner. Being able to live a charmed life where, you know, it sounds like we, we work to detach ourselves, but we actually are kind of engrossed in it and we love the work and we may not have freedom, but we have a tremendous amount of flexibility and it kind of keeps us energized, keeps us going. What do you do to enjoy the charmed life that you've created for yourself?

When I started this, I had an online business where it offered the traditional things online. But when I thought about what I really want to build, it was that term lifestyle business where I wanted the life part to come first, not the business part. I wanted the business to supplement what I wanted to do in my life. And I have, I have three children and they're teenagers, so they require some maintenance. And I have family and friends. And I didn't want to be the type of entrepreneur. That's no, no offense to Gary Vaynerchuk, but I didn't want to be that type of entrepreneur. I respect him, I love what he does, but I don't want to be working from 6am to 10pm at night. Like, I just, I didn't want to do that. I wanted the bal. So for me, I wanted to create a business that had financial. Gave me financial freedom. It gave me freedom and control of my life and the different things that I want to do. And so that's what I did. Even though I probably work, if I'm being fair, I probably work maybe 30 hours a week or so on different aspects of the business. And then that other time I'm doing the things that I want to do that are going to help me live my life, but also become the best version of myself. You know, whether it's, you know, I'm trying to get. Become healthier, whether I want to be involved in every single activity that's going on with my kids, volunteering my time in the community where I live in the business helps fund all that, which is why I call lifestyle Business helps. It's like the, it's the gas that helps all of this keep going.

Yeah, that's great. I commend you for that, man. It's really powerful. You also mentioned earlier that, you know, that transparency in talking about what's working, what's not, or, you know, and we talk about the same thing here. We try to talk about it and ask all of our folks that come on the show, which I'm going to ask you now, is, you know, we're big fans of mistakes. We've made a lot of them and we've learned a tremendous amount. They teach us so much. What, what would you say has been one of the best, and I'm quoting air quotes here, best mistake you've made with your business that you've learned the most from?

I think that it's coin. It's. It's been going after opportunities that were, quote, unquote, bigger than where I was at. So whether it was that wouldn't give me the time of day or a publication that wouldn't give me the time of day or putting out a course that was maybe priced a little too high or something, that fact. But it's, it's going after opportunities that in theory, and I'm doing this in air quotes would be bigger than where I am. But I just want to form anyways. And I got a lot of no's. Like way more no's than I got yeses. Well, no's and just being straight out ignored, which I think can be worse than a no. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Every one of those no's was like fuel to the fire. Like, yes. Like, okay, I'm motivated, I'm pumped. I am going to get this. And every no just inspired me. And it still does. Like, I get no's all the time. Like, I just. I'm talking to you guys now. Yesterday I had a consulting deal, was going to be probably the biggest deal that I've done to date. And it was going to be amazing. It's going to provide work for even some more people to bring out of my team. We got to the negotiation phase and they wouldn't budge on wanting to own the intellectual property and I wasn't going to budge on that either. And the thing just fell apart. And after three months of working on this and putting together like that sucks and that doesn't feel good in the moment. But each one of those experiences, nos or the deals that fall apart or being ignored, I think that's helped me be stronger and more determined to keep taking action.

That's killer. That's great.

Well, I mean it sucks about that deal but it sounds like you made the right decision, so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean some, just some great lessons here today in, in your story and the, you know, types of stuff that you're up to and, and I know we're going to be, we're going to be talking a lot more about, about them. What's the best way for, you know, people to learn more about what you're doing and get connected with.

You could head to my website, which is kconstable.com that's K C O N S T a b l e.com and you'll find some very good, free, valuable posts that have practical tactical action because that's kind of the thing that I'm shooting for and you'll get some value there now.

It's, that's great.

Thanks so much for joining us, man.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Gosh, it's, this is just chock full. I love it when we, we have an interview like, I mean this, you know, interview is the wrong word when we have a conversation like this and it just, you know, so much great information and, and you've got such a great story too. It's. Thanks so much for spending the time with us. This is great.

Yeah. Dave, Shannon, thanks for having me.

Absolutely, absolutely.

We'd love to have you back, check in on you once in a while and once again, I've learned the most here today.

No, it was me, man, it was me. We've got listeners shaking their fists at their radios or their car stereos right now saying no, no, it was me. It's good, it's good.

Awesome.

All right folks, well that does it for this week. Again, Kamanzi, thank you so much. Make sure folks to check out kconstable.com to learn more about perhaps how Kamanci's content and, and services and all of that might apply for you. And, and check us out, of course, business show co. If you want to join the small business support group Business show, Facebook and of course, feedback Business show co. Keep living that charmed life, folks. See you next week.