The "White Space" Between Us

The white space between us. This is the Elevate Polk podcast, and I'm your host Chrissanne Long, and I'm back again with Nate, still the great Kendrick.

Hey, excited to be here and really excited for this topic.

This is going to be a great topic. So we don't have a guest today. This is kind of, um, going back to our very first recording that we did together, um, just the two of us having a conversation, um, in the space of entrepreneurship and business. And so I'm going to kind of lead you through this to get everything started because we're here recording in our new studio in downtown Lakeland. And when we started talking about recording the podcast and working together on this project, you made the comment, your podcast studio is white space in Lakeland. And I'm like, interesting. And I didn't admit it to you that I didn't know what that meant. Yeah. But I quickly went to my computer and Googled white space, and then I left it open in my tab cause obviously my day, my day got started. And so then I was clearing out tabs. And so I went back to, all right, I need to figure out what exactly white— I mean, I think intuitively I had an idea and understanding of what you meant.

Yeah.

But it was a term that I had not heard before. So then I started going down the path of like, what's white space? And I'm like, this is a great conversation. So I want you to kind of share with the audience your experience, your knowledge, your excitement about the topic of white space as, as it relates to business. And then we'll go into kind of the other side of the conversation that I'm excited about too.

Absolutely. So I, man, I'm trying to really remember the place and time when I first got introduced to the terminology of it. Uh, it might have been a video on YouTube. It might have been, uh, one of the many entrepreneurs that I listened to, but it was the same thing.

Seems like maybe a Gary Vee thing or something that he might have just thrown out there.

It might have been because it, you know what, it probably was because it was around 2015, 2016. And I think it, you know, part of that jargon, right? He says something, it's like, huh, interesting. And so I, again, I did what you did. I went through the rabbit trail and I said, what is, what does that mean?

Yeah.

And then it really fascinated me because I would always think in that vein of thinking outside the box and meeting a need in a different way that no one's really met before. And what really fascinated me the most is I saw the businesses that were in those white spaces really becoming extremely successful because of maybe they didn't have as much competition and maybe they were really hitting and pinpointing that need so vividly clear to their customer that it just made sense.

Right.

And so that's when I coined it and said, okay, I'm really focused and hyper-focused on white spaces.

Yeah.

So all the businesses that I'm currently working with and the organizations that I'm currently working with, I feel that they're operating in some type of white space, which gets me excited because it's like, this is an unmet need.

Yeah.

And they're fulfilling it in a new and different way.

I love it. Okay. So let's back up for the audience because I want to talk about the origin of where the term originated. So when I— what I found was that it was— came from the radio frequency spectrum of the space between channels. Like, so if you have 97.9 or 97.5, you don't have a consecutive channel going from one to the other. You have to have space between between those channels, and that's the white space in the radio frequency terminology. Is that right?

Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. So then that somebody, I don't know who it may have been, I mentioned in an article I read that Apple or somebody started to talk about— not Apple, but some tech, tech company started talking about how that white space could be used.

Correct.

When we went digital, when radio frequencies became digital. So now we don't have this need to create these spaces between the channels because they can be filled utilizing new technology.

Correct.

Okay.

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. That's good.

All right. I did my research well. So then the business opportunities open up for people who are now interested in investing time and energy into those white spaces, which had been frequently unmet and unspoken needs because prior to opening it up, there wasn't that, that opportunity there.

Right? Correct. Correct.

Okay.

Opportunity channel. Yeah.

And now do you want to read, do you have like a definition or some—

Definitely.

Thoughts you want to just share as well?

This is, there's multiple different vari— like if you guys Google this, there's multiple different variations. There's multiple different definitions. And like what I really like what Chrissanne did, 'cause you go to the root of, okay, where did this come from and how did we get to where we are today?

Yeah.

And how did it evolve over time?

That's the only way my brain can make sense of stuff.

So definitely, definitely. So this is one definition. It comes from Harvard Business Review.

So, and so that means it has to be.

Yeah, it has to be legit, right? Because everything from Harvard's legit. In this context, it says white space basically means a place where a company might have room to maneuver in a crowded playing field. So that's their perspective. There's another website that, that I looked a while back. It's called Innovation Management and their definition is, they have multiple. but this is how they describe it. So white space is a process and a tool that allows us to look at the landscape up and down the value chain with a new lens. It can uncover opportunities that are not obvious. It can identify new openings untouched by competitors, or it can be considered part of what was traditionally deemed a remote, different industry or outside the boundaries of the firm.

Okay, cool. And that, as I've been digging into this topic, I've been thinking it, it has a rela— there's a relationship between white space and the SWOT analysis and the opportunity opportunity box. And, you know, I think a lot of times we don't do enough SWOT analyses to identify those opportunities because we're so busy, you know, growing and going. We may have done one to initially, you know, kick off the business, but I think it's an annual or even quarterly kind of conversation because especially now the marketplace is shifting and so rapidly everything's changing. So to reassess the opportunities quadrant of the business and where it could go that it isn't going yet, trying to stay ahead of the curve. I mean, this is pretty much about the curve. I mean, it's like you're going into a white space because you think there's a trend that's going to happen there. There's something leading us there. So if anyone could have predicted the pandemic, some of that white space would have been virtual technology, you know, working from home, you know, businesses that would have been prepared to do that instead of kind of forced through the pandemic. Yeah. And so then you're those companies that are thriving right now because they had doubled down in that technology are just through the roof. Zoom's loving, you know, their dividends right now because unfortunately that was where people had to go in order to stay connected.

And it was fascinating too, because if you look at a company like Zoom, I remember when they started coming literally out of the middle of nowhere. And I don't know what everybody else's experience has been, but Zoom for me has been smoother than like when you're on Zoom with someone and then to maybe 3 or 4 people, it doesn't go in and out like Skype used to. Like, I remember the Skype technology was really buggy. And so Zoom just really kind of captured that market and said, hey, we're here for you. We can take you throughout. And I don't even know how they did it, but they were able to get into the school system and every other teacher was using that or the Teams. And so they were going back and forth and they just really elevated their their business in a matter of months.

Right. Yeah. And it's funny too, when Zoom— so I, this is funny. I think in some ways I now feel like I have a definition for how my brain works by using the term white space.

Got it.

Because I have been in Polk County and Lakeland, you know, I was trying to start to— so with the networking work that I do, right. And we were doing with Bridge Local, we were doing breakfast. So at one point in time, I don't know if you know this, but at one point in time when we first started It was Lakeland Business Leaders, and there was a desire for everyone to meet. So we started having a meet and greet. So once a month people were like, hey, let's meet. And then people were like, you know, I really like the meet and greet. There were about 100 people, you know, 95, 100 people. That was our average, you know, people showing up for our events. And so for the introverts, that was an overwhelming experience. They said to me, you know, could we have a more intimate, maybe a breakfast or a lunch setting? So then we started to do a breakfast and then the people that couldn't make it to breakfast because they were dropping off their kids in the, you know, the car line Yeah, they were like, could we do a lunch? So at one point in time, for probably a good year, year and a half, we had 9 events a month. We were doing a meet and greet and a breakfast and a lunch every week.

Wow.

And it was like incredible. So I was overwhelmed with the amount of traveling and time that I was investing and being at breakfast and lunch and meet and greets and all of that. And so I started to say, couldn't we do some of these events virtually? And so I started to bring Zoom into the conversation with our members. Absolutely rejected. Like, no. We want to see you in person. We don't want to use this technology. We don't like it. It's not, you know, the personal touch, right?

Yeah.

And so Chrissanne, stop. Don't do that anymore. So, you know, I went with the marketplace and we continued to meet the demands of what people in the community were asking for. And then along comes the pandemic. So now we were forced to work virtually and to have these meetings. And of course, you know, there are some people who were completely still reticent to the idea.

Yeah.

but I've, I've lost contact with them. Like I haven't had any communication with them for over a year because they just decided I'm not going to connect on Zoom and, you know, call me when we have real life meetings. And so it's like that, that juxtaposition, the opposite of white space, you know, it's like, okay, well, I'm not going to go anywhere that I don't feel comfortable. And I feel like white space is a completely uncomfortable space.

Absolutely.

Like you're going into the unknown.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's, it is uncomfortable because it's, like you said, it is unknown and anything unknown, you have no idea what to expect, what to experience. But within that, there's so much opportunity and it's fascinating, right? If you think about it, we were all in some form or shape thrown into some of a, a white space with the pandemic, whether it was personal or business thrown into an unknown environment where we didn't know what was going to happen. We didn't know how long we were going to be shut down for. We didn't know if we could continue our business the way that we had always continued our business. And for a lot of people, we couldn't, we had to shift. We had to change the way that we did things. I know for people, especially in the service business, you, a lot of your, your best meetings are done in person, not over Zoom, because you can get a feel for if your client is really responding well to that offer that you're positioning, or if they're not.

Right.

It's, it's, it's not as easy to gauge over Zoom, but when you're, you, you can feel that energy in the room versus Zoom. It's, you know, kind of like a blank Canvas. It's like, are they there? Are they not there? Right.

And you can, you can tell when they're distracted. You can tell when they're not really fully focused on the conversation, but you can also tell that in real life, you know, somebody's on their phone or they're, you know, fidgeting or whatever. So, but the body language part is fascinating to me. And the idea though, to me is that I keep saying this because Craig and I have been in this, we've been doing a demo at our house. So it's the right tool for the job. Like you could, you could use any tool sometimes to get a job done, but what's the right tool to do the job more efficiently.

That's good.

And I feel sometimes we don't always want to use the right tool for the job. So sometimes you don't need to get in a car and drive across town to have a meeting because the meeting could be accomplished virtually. Yeah, it's for the sake of some of the people in the room that need to have you— I'm gonna be a little bit kind of rude here— but catering to their inability to, you know, to respond to new opportunities, right? So you're having to go do these things, and so it becomes frustrating for those who could see, hey, if we did it this way, you know, it would work better because we would be less emissions, you know, less taxing on the roads, less whatever, and more on our time. Just turn on the computer, hop in the call, get the job done, move on and go, you know, go about our day.

Absolutely.

And I didn't really want to get bogged down into the virtual discussion, but I feel like there was for me the aha moment when I started to research this discussion of white space was I operate kind of in that, in that world, right? Like I'm looking at the canvas ahead and I'm going, okay, now the job is how do we get other stakeholders, other people in the community, other people who are decision makers to also buy into moving into the white space?

Absolutely. And that's, that's probably the trickiest part of the conversation is getting, getting people behind you that aren't just excited, but have the ability to help you move let's, you know, the chess pieces. Let's say chess.

Sure.

You know, that's a strategy game. So move the correct chess pieces on the board so that you can win the game essentially.

Yeah.

And the game is understanding that new white space, operating within that white space before anybody else is really seeing it. And then because you have the right people in your corner, other people start to, you know, your early adopters like, oh, okay, that actually, that actually makes sense. And I'm, I'm for this.

Yeah.

But, but again, that's, I think that's the most fascinating thing about this conversation is everybody can read the definition, everybody can kind of wrap their heads around it, but until new opportunities come and people start to bring these white spaces to Lakeland, for instance, and there's that pushback, then you— then the average person could— can maybe start to understand what we're saying and saying, oh wow, okay, I get now what they're saying. It's me being resistant to X, whatever that is. I'm not gonna— because there's a lot of different things that are happening.

So There's a ton of different, I mean, and it doesn't even mean it's not even related to the pandemic. It's resistant to growth sometimes.

Yes.

You know, like, hey, here's an opportunity that's going to change your business by growing your revenue by X. And everyone who's having that conversation on one side thinks that's what you want.

Yeah.

But there, there's this quiet person sitting over there going, oh no, no, I don't, I don't want to grow. Cause if I grow, then this is going to happen and this is going to happen and this is going to happen. And so it's, it's the unspoken part of that that becomes necessary to speak it. You know, now we've got to speak it, we've got to talk through it, we've got to figure it out and say, okay, if we do grow by X, you know, are— do we have the infrastructure that we're going to need? Do we have the, you know, the staff, the team? Do— what are we going to need if we do grow? And, and sometimes it's that, it's that person who's, who's maybe in, in, in my, my mind, it's the more grounded person, more grounded in reality. And you've got to find the two, the balance.

Yeah.

So, here's the person that maybe the Chrissanne, the innovator, coming at you with a great idea, probably hasn't thought through every single nuance of how that's going to impact the outcome of the company or how that's going to change the world. And then the person with, okay, well, what are we going to do about this? What are we going to do about this? How are we going to consider that? And we have to realize that that's not a naysayer and that's not necessarily resistance. That's just, we've got to go through this process to get to a point where we can go into the white space with our eyes wide open and prepared as opposed to just, hey, I have this great idea, we're going to jump right in and we have no idea what we're doing.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that was really, that was well said, Chrissanne Long, because I think about that a lot because I think, I feel like me and you operate in a very similar vein where we have really good innovative ideas, but we, I'm glad you put that because it just kind of hit the nail on the head for me. It's like, oh man, you're right. We have to go through those processes in order for all of the the inefficiencies to be flushed out so that it can be efficient, so that it can take off. So we need those people to essentially kind of vet it and say, okay, I like what you're saying, but what about this? What about this? And then being able to, if you can't answer that question, go back to the drawing board, come back and then answer the question and say, well, we, we answered that question. Okay. What about this? And then once you've gone through that process, now you can efficiently maneuver, not perfectly, but maneuver through this, this new market and this new opportunity and be well-positioned as opposed to people, because there's, there's tons of people that have ideas and tons of people that have operated in white spaces, but they were inefficient because they didn't have the right resources, tools, and people around them to help get them to that next step.

Right, right. And, and, and that, so that speaks back to conversations we've had about partnerships or having the right partners.

Absolutely.

And I feel like that's a shout out to Craig, you know, my partner in life and my partner in business. I mean, he'll tell you, living with me is kind of like, you know, having to deal with what idea is she going to have today, you know, or maybe even this hour.

Yeah.

And, and so the emotional side of the idea, because you're personally attached, you want to go into this white space. You're like, you see the opportunity.

Yeah.

You can't even articulate it yet. You just see it. So it's in your head.

Yeah.

And then you want to move something toward a point where you want action because I'm an action taker. I'm a doer.

Absolutely.

And so I want these things to start to change. And then, you know, he'll be the first person that I'll share the idea to, and he'll— I emotionally want to react and say, you're picking it apart, you're poking holes in it on purpose. And it's, it's truly not that. I've grown to understand it's just we've got to have that ability to have both parts together to move into the space to be effectively or sustainably able to, to execute.

Absolutely. And one thing I've started to do more now than ever is whenever someone comes to me with an opportunity that I think is in a white space, I usually ask what their experience is in the space. And so I can immediately know whether or not they will be able to maneuver through the nuances of that space.

That's so good. Yeah, that's important.

And it's, I feel like it's huge. So prime example, the things that we're, that we've been talking about, we've been collaborating on, we we're trying to work on, we have experience as entrepreneurs and starting a business. So we're not just coming into the space saying we have no idea what we're talking about. We have experience, and based on our experience, this is what we're trying to bring and wanting to bring to the table and having the understanding of we need these other pieces because we've gone through this before and we need these other pieces in order to get to that next step.

Right.

And that's the differences that I've seen through people that have been able to maneuver efficiently through this white space versus the ones that have inefficiencies. And it says, okay, I get it. It makes sense.

Yeah.

You don't have this piece and this piece is vital, right? In order to get you to that next step, right? Next place and process.

And then how do you go about getting that? It doesn't mean the deal is broken. You know, it just means these are pieces that we're gonna need in order to make that. It's just funny when you were saying that the pieces, and I'm going back to your chess analogy.

Yeah.

You know, you don't play chess with a king and a queen.

Yeah.

You play chess with a king, a queen, pawns, knights, bishops, You know, you have all of these other players that are on the board with you. You couldn't win the game with just two pieces. So, you know, you really understand the importance of that. And I think from, from— so shifting a little bit now towards the ecosystem.

Yeah, absolutely.

So this white space, this conversation that Nate and I are having now, we're kind of having it as it, as it comes to us. We haven't really had this pre-discussion. He just threw this word at me about the studio, which, by the way, if you're listening to the show and you like the sound of the audio, we'd love for you to get in contact with us because we are building an opportunity for people who want to have a podcast to come in and be part of our family using our technology and using our resources here at Maximize Digital Media. But part of the discussion is how this fits into where our hearts are so strongly embedded in the economic development of our community as it relates to entrepreneurship.

Yeah.

And And it dawned on me that the reason maybe the resistance. So we're talking about the resistance, right? I'm sharing an idea with Craig. He's poking holes in it and it's, it's not coming forward quickly enough for me because I'm like, I can see it. I have the vision, right?

Yeah.

But now when I'm sharing this opportunity about investing in entrepreneurship and getting education for entrepreneurs so that they can shore up the resources that they don't necessarily have, because we're all probably I want to say all entrepreneurs, I don't feel like I, we're all ill-equipped for what's ahead the day that we start. We do not know what the journey is going to look like. We do not have all of the answers. And so those of us who take the ready, fire, aim approach, you know, ready, fire, aim. Now I'm going to re-fix whatever it is that I did wrong the first time I shot until I get to the point where I'm shooting at the target accurately. We're going to analyze the space. We're going to do something. And then we're going to analyze the space and then we're going to do something. With entrepreneurship, we've been in a stagnant— I mean, historically entrepreneurship has been in a stagnant space. Now you shared on our last show that entrepreneurship is on a rise. And I think a lot of that has probably to do with the pandemic and a lot of people being unemployed unexpectedly. And there's a lot of response to the pandemic that is probably shifting some of those numbers. But for the most part, entrepreneurship had been flatlining for decades. And the reason I'm wondering, I don't have an answer. You know, like I question that when I see numbers like that, I question what is the why, you know, what is the why behind that? And how do we, how do we make entrepreneurship more accessible? And I don't have a feeling like when we share, hey, look at the economic impact that entrepreneurs have in our community. I don't feel like there's like a, oh my gosh, you're right. Chrissanne Long, let's, let's talk about that. I mean, I've really had conversations with several people in excuse me, every— through the community where I said all I'm really shooting for right now is that there to be a slide about small business and entrepreneurs in the report that you're sharing annually.

Yeah.

You know, if you're doing an economic report, an economic development report, and you're talking about all of these outside investments and all these big, huge global, you know, companies coming to Lakeland and the square feet and the number of employees. Great. That's awesome. I don't want you to stop doing that.

Yeah.

I just want there to be one slide that says, hey, we had this many new entrepreneurs come into the space. Of the county, you know, Polk County, Lakeland, whatever you're reporting on. And this is how many jobs it's created. This is how many square feet. And just even though it's a smaller number, it's still relevant.

Yeah.

And that's the white space.

Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's a huge part because entrepreneurs inspire growth, entrepreneurs inspire new opportunities. Entrepreneurs are always going to Go Against the Grain, which pushes and innovates and creates and inspires and inspires people that had never thought about starting a business to start a business and creates communities, which is what we, what we're ultimately talking about. Because at its core, I think that's part of it too, because if an entrepreneur that's been grinding the pavement for the past 2 years is in that room where they have that spreadsheet where they're talking about all the huge opportunities and they see that, that number, even though it's small, they say, oh wow, that's another person that cares. That's another person that, that is here for me, even in my challenges of being an entrepreneur. Because the biggest thing on being an entrepreneur and working for yourself is it's tough. It's not easy. If anything, you're working twice as hard, right? And 3 or 4 times the amount of hours, a typical 9 to 5. But if you're truly in it and you're passionate about it and and you're in it for the right reasons and you know your why, then it's everything to be able to push you to innovate.

And I feel like there's a point at which it will compound.

Yeah, absolutely.

I see like, so, all right, so you going back to the, so I loved that Chad McLeod asked me to further define what I meant by the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Yeah.

Right. On the last show. So going into that made me realize, okay, well maybe our audience needs us to go into that a little bit more. Yeah. And so it's, it's, it's, it's, I wanna plant a little bit of seeds each time that we talk. Just to drive that message home. So let's just say, you know, that the seed that you're getting ready to plant does not thrive in Florida. All right. So, you know, I don't know, apple trees, do they— do they— do we grow apple trees in Florida?

I know, I know, I know oranges is our thing.

So I'm going to say no, I might be wrong, you know, but let's just say you're taking oranges, orange, orange seeds and you want to plant them in Massachusetts.

There we go.

Okay. You know that that's not the environment that they're going to thrive in. So you find the fertile soil for that particular type of, of, of, of plant or whatever it is that you're going to, to try and grow. And so what my suggestion is, is that our fertile— our fertility is good for certain plants, right? We, we are good for certain plants, but we're not necessarily good for other plants. And if we had a more balanced ecosystem, then we would be able to find areas, pockets, places where those other plants would be able to grow just as as strongly, as healthily as those that are currently growing. But we need to investigate what is making successful entrepreneurs successful. We need to do the research. We need to ask them. We need to find out so that we can then say, take that information and pollinate across the ecosystem and say, okay, well, this is what people are telling us has made them successful. Now let's go and use that information to help some that are struggling or historically have not necessarily felt that this is the environment for them or that they, they can't, you know, maybe it's, it's part of this discussion is, is those that are struggling to start, but those that are resistant to start as well. Like they're not wanting to because they don't feel like they would be able to be successful or that they wouldn't know where to start or how to start.

Yeah.

But then what we keep going back to and what every single conversation I've had on this topic goes to is the network.

Yeah.

They need to feel like they're in a place where people can support them and listen to them and hear them and feel like they understand them and then just You know, it's the catapult environment, but on a scale that we haven't quite created yet.

Absolutely. And when they walk into a room, they feel welcomed.

Yeah.

Because I think that's the toughest part of the conversation is feeling welcomed. And to be fair, I truly believe, and we've talked about this many times, that Lakeland's on the precipice of something huge. Huge, but we're still understanding and maneuvering through that dynamic of making sure that everybody feels welcome. And we're not perfect. We're human, you know? And because of being human, we make mistakes and we're learning and we're figuring things out. And I love what Chad talked about last time. He said, you know, we've started to build this ecosystem that you described, Chrissanne Long, and so therefore that's why we're seeing the gaps that we're talking. So at least we have something to play off of, which is, I think is huge, right? As opposed to starting from the ground up.

Yeah. And so that becomes for us, you know, the purveyors of ecosystem building, you know, we're building this ecosystem. That's a term that's when I heard it, I said, I think that's, that's me. That's who I am. And I think you become my cohort, you know, my partner in crime.

Yeah.

Because it's like, this is who we are. We look around, we see the white space, we see what's working, but we also see opportunity for there to be more opportunity. Like it's compound. It needs to compound. We don't just need to sit here and count all of our money money over here and say, look at how successful we are. We need to figure out how not to take that money and spread it out, but how to also have more pockets where those— I don't know, pockets. I don't even like pockets because that's just another word for silo, but how to not have these barriers across that access. I am not trying to say we need to distribute the success. We need to start building more success in other parts of the community.

I love your analogy of what you were talking about with the seeds and planting the seeds and how some places are going to be more fertile than others. And understanding that and saying, okay, this, this area of business, there's a process and we figured it out relatively well. Now let's shift this model into this area of business. Because I think that's— I was talking to a friend of mine, he's like, Nate, when you go to school for business, it's so broad. He's like, you can start business in so many different things, so many different areas. Business, so many different niches within those areas, right? And so that's— I think that's what we're hitting the nail on, is it's not just about starting a business and going to this place or resource and then launching it. No, they have to have specific things for specific types of business. So if you're a food business, you have that specific type of licenses.

Yeah.

And you have to understand what those licenses are and understanding those dynamics. If you're going into you do business in the, in the business-to-business space and you're a service-based business, there's a specific way of, of approaching people. There's a specific way of creating presentations. There's a specific way of creating a sales sheet, or there's a specific way of creating your prices. And how do you create your prices? And what are you— what, what's a good price? What's not a good price? What's— how do you find your, your competitors in the market and what their pricing is and, and maneuvering that dynamic? So putting all those pieces together and saying, hey, this is thing for everybody, it's not going to work, as opposed to specific processes for specific businesses. And like you said, the cross-pollination saying, hey, this business was able to be extremely successful in your space. It's not quite the same. It's a little bit different. So you are going in a different route. So they're willing to guide you and show you how they were able to capture the market in their way. And I think that's the conversation that we're really hitting the nail on.

It does. I think ultimately if someone came to me and said, Chrissanne, I want to start a marketing agency and I want— and they have, I've had, I sat down with a young, some young professionals that were just getting ready to launch and working in the space. And they said, you know, what advice would you give? I said, well, don't do this and don't do this and don't do this. And I freely gave that information away to a future competitor, you know? And I think Grant Naidoo was talking about some of that on his show recently where it's talking about the new and up and coming you know, quote unquote, air quotes, competitors, are also forcing us to think about our own like areas of white space. Or do we need to be a little bit more niched down into an area, an industry vertical, you know, as far as the agency world that we're in. So, you know, you're right. It's like finding people who are willing to take the time to talk to you about and guide you through some of those hurdles and barriers that you might not know are going to be ahead. Hey, when you get to this point, you're probably going to hit this barrier. And here's what I had, what I have to say about that. And here's how you might avoid that. You might avoid this if you do this, because this is what I learned along the way.

And I think that's how we win too. Right. I love Grant's point. He talked about it on Clubhouse as well, is really niching down and being good at this particular thing. So, cause part of it is obviously We want to, we want to create this ecosystem that we've been talking about where everybody's helping everybody, but there is this, this human nature side of us of, man, did I just help my competition? But if we've created a system in which it's so niche that, you know, I'm focused on this particular side of, of, of marketing and they're focused on this particular side, we're not really touching each other's spaces.

Right.

And whenever I have clients that say, Hey, I want you to, uh, and this is just an example. I want you to do SEO and say, well, I don't really focus on SEO. I focus on this. I'll send you to this person.

Right. That's the system that instead of everybody saying, now I'm all things to all people.

Exactly.

And, and so, and we've seen that, you know, we've seen that in the, in all kinds of variations of types of businesses.

Yeah.

You know, you might, you might be, um, licensed right now to do commercial work only, right?

Yeah.

Or you, you're, you're licensed to do all, but you decide we're gonna start the business with commercial work. Why? Because maybe we have a couple of contracts. We can start with commercial work in the home services industry or the construction type of industry, right? So you start where you are, you have these contracts and you decide at the beginning, you know, I'm going to simplify my life. I'm just going to do commercial or I'm just going to do residential. And then along comes somebody that says, hey, can you come to my house and do this project? Well, I really only focus on commercial. And eventually you're, you're now you're, you're kind of, you're, you're going out of your lane and you're going into other areas and other lanes. And so we, we want to, to not say no to prospects.

Yeah.

But the caveat to that is that that might be negatively impacting the future revenues and the future, you know, because you're spreading yourself out more than you intended to from the beginning.

Yeah.

And so also that, I guess that's the, the counter to white space is like, if you're, if you're able to do what you're doing and you're growing and year over year your numbers are improving and you don't have a need to go exploring white space, don't let the white space come to you and pull you off course.

Yeah.

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Yeah, absolutely. There's a, There's a business called— and I actually literally just heard about them, um, so I guess I'm not their customer— but it's called Boxxed, and they offer a variety of different products, uh, like whether it's toilet paper, tissues, candies, random snacks. And at first glance, you're like, oh, it's like an Amazon. But the way that they were able to enter the market is they looked at items that were were relatively hot and relatively the most frequently bought at the time.

Okay.

And that's how they were able to essentially enter into the space because what was fascinating is they were from the suburbs, but then they moved to, I believe it was New York.

Mm-hmm.

And so they realized, wait a second, I don't want to go to a bodega and spend twice as much on toilet tissue when I know that if I just go to a grocery store, it's going to be this much.

Right, right.

Wait a second. And so it was right around the time, I think it was like 2013, 2014, when Amazon was first starting to really take off. They said, wait, if we just focus on a few different items and really niche down, I feel like we can really take this piece of the market. So one would say, oh man, no, you have Amazon, you have Walmart, you have all these massive businesses to the point where it was fascinating. He was talking about when they were trying to, he's like, you would never think that it'd be so hard to ask somebody, oh hey, we want to sell your product on our website. But he's like, there's these massive whales selling to massive whales. So how do you get that market share? Eventually they were able to get the market share, but understanding the place, basically the place that they were playing with and saying, hey, we don't have the ability or the resources or the revenue or the— or the— not the revenue, the, the financial backing to be able to compete with an Amazon, but we can really niche down and have specific types of products.

Yeah. Okay. I have to check them out.

I have not heard of Box.com.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And it's, it's interesting too, like circling back, you had mentioned mentioned our call earlier this week with Grant on Clubhouse and the white space there.

Yeah.

You know, when I first heard about Clubhouse being an audio only, I made a face. I was like, that's dumb. I don't— yeah, I don't really think that that's going to work, you know. And here I am, a podcaster, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. And so I didn't quite get what it was. But somebody, when they were planning out their business, you know, the founders, they're like, audio is where we want to be. We don't want to mess with the video. We don't want to mess with the chat. We don't want to mess with all the things that the market is doing. We're only going to focus on the one thing that we believe is going to be our model. And hopefully they stay true to that. You know, then the next question becomes, do you stay true?

Yeah.

Or do you expand because you just started, you know, minimum viable product and now you've got your market share and now you're going to start adding more to it, which then to me lessens— I'm a purist. You know, I like things to be what they are and not to confuse me with a lot of bells and whistles. It's like I just need I don't need to have extra slicing and dicing opportunities if all I want it to do is be a blender, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

I just want the blender. I don't need all the extra stuff.

Yeah.

But that's not the market. You know, the market, you start to sell out to the market if you have investors and outside people saying, that's what we want you to do. Your board is telling you this is where you want them, they want you to go. So you go. But if you can sell out to the market, you start at the, at the beginning with the right plan in place and the, and the goals in mind, you can plan on attracting only the kind of board that's going to help you grow the way that you want to grow. I love what you said earlier about the, the kinds of businesses that get you excited and the ones that you're working with. You're attracting them because your mindset is set for white space. So when they share the idea to you, you're like, oh yeah, I get it. This is a great, great place. And so you're working with those people in that, in the space that is fitting for you. And I also think founders, entrepreneurs, people who are looking for investors and, and just in general need to make sure that they know their true north.

Yeah.

That they know who they are and can resolutely and confidently stand in that space and not feel like the money is going to sway them into being someone that they're not or trying to go in a direction that is not the intended plan.

Yeah.

I think that gets us off course so much more frequently that we start chasing the dream instead of— we stop chasing the dream and start chasing the money.

Yeah. I like that, Chrissanne, really clear on who you are, where you're going, where you don't want to go. Uh, I think that's huge because a lot of times when you're first starting off, there can be a lot of uncertainty. But as long as you— because I always talk about understanding your why, at least when I'm— when people are coming to me and saying, be very, very clear of why you're doing what it is that you're doing. Because again, it's going to be tough, it's not going to be easy, but if you're clear on on that, then you can start to, like you said, attract individuals, team members, investors, uh, people that can be on your board to help guide you and advise you as you go through these challenges of just starting a business. Because that's just how it is. It's like getting on a bike for the first time. You're gonna fall, right? Just part of the process. But as long as you have those right pieces and that you are very strong within yourself and very confident within what you're doing, then all the pieces— I believe, I'm a strong believer that all the pieces— and I'm a Christian as well. If you're guided by the Holy Spirit and guided by God, he's going to guide you in the right direction and put the right pieces and people in your path.

Yeah. Oh, so good. I think as long as you can lean into that one source, and if that's not God, it is becoming more so for me, God, and I'm always in my faith. So I've not always been in that strong space of I lean there. But if you can lean on that source that can hold you accountable and hold you to who you are, and that's another thing Craig does that for me as well. We, you know, I will say, as I stutter here, because I'm not sure I really want to say this, but I will say it. I get embarrassed sometimes that my scope and my focus is so narrow on Polk County. Polk County. Like, I want nothing more. My— like, God keeps putting that into my heart.

Yeah.

And I just know that there's— I know as a business person, the opportunity outside of Polk is probably much, much more fertile and much greater for me as a person who provides the services that I provide. And yet I continue to stay narrowly focused on Polk County as my, as my place, my home, where I want to invest, what I want to do. And I don't know why, you know, other than there's a higher power saying, this is what you want to do. And so it's finding people like you along the path, along the journey that says, so I've talked about my pennies before, I think a long time ago, but when I was first starting out my journey with the, with God in the business side of my life was, um, I was very insecure. I, you know, I knew that I didn't have a business background. I knew that I didn't know what I was doing. I knew that it was just all one day at a time, one moment at a time, one deal at a time, one client at a time. And, you know, for me it was hard to feel confident when my bank account was so empty. Right. So I felt like I was faking. I felt, you know, I couldn't park my car in front of people because my car was so, you know, junky. And I didn't want people, you know, here I am, I'm perception of success. And yet here I have this junky car. Right.

I got that.

And so along the way, I started to find pennies on the path. And there's a guy named T. Harv Eker that I got this idea from. I adapted it to myself, but basically it was the idea of receiving. So he asked the question, question, when you see a penny on the ground, what do you do? Do you walk by it or do you pick it up? And the message was, if you're not even picking up a penny, how is fortune going to come across you? You know, like, you have to be open to receiving even whatever amount of money that it may be. So that— I took that. It wasn't about fortune as much as it was about faith for me. And so every time I see a penny, I have begun to realize that that's God placing that penny in my path to remind me that I'm on the right path. I could have walked a different way. I could have parked in a different parking spot. I could have gone to a different place to get gas. And yet there's that penny. I'll open the door, there's a penny. And so it's the pennies and the people. So you're one of the pennies and the people in my life that have come along and kind of helped remind me that this is why I'm staying the course. I'm staying the course because Polk County is investable, right? I am investing my energy and my time in my home, in my county where I was raised, because I look around me and I see opportunity. And I also see fertile ground. And we haven't planted all of the seeds that we can plant here yet. And I want us to do that. I want to double down. I want to triple down. I want to quadruple down because I think the returns at some point in time are going to be so infinitesimal that we will be glad that there were people like Nate and Chrissanne Long who were here to say, hey, we're doubling down on Polk County. We're tripling down.

Absolutely.

And I don't want to take the credit for anything. It's just that I can't get it out of my head. I wake up every morning. How can I make Polk County better? It's not because I want any accolades. I just want the future to look better than the pathway that has been for many people who are starting businesses in Polk County thus far. Those that have been successful, I think that's great. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm not downplaying that there are successful entrepreneurs. I am just saying that there's white space.

Absolutely.

There's opportunity for us to continue to build and bring more opportunity of entrepreneurship into our community.

Absolutely. And creating a, and creating a process and a system that works consistently over time. Time that we can say, oh, this is— this is— no matter who it is, if it's a college student or someone that's lived in the community for years or someone that's come from outside of the community coming in, they can easily connect up with this process, with this place, with Polk County, with Lakeland, with Bartow, wherever they're coming from, and grow, start, build a business and be successful. And success is based on what you deem success is. Not— you say success could mean I'm able to, uh, support me and my family on this new business venture, and I can leave my 9-to-5, and I'm able to enjoy my time and work for myself and be passionate about that. Or success can mean to you to start a multimillion-dollar business and be a success in that way. And I think that's ultimately what we're talking about, is being able to say, I'm not necessarily where I want to be this side of business that I've been going down, and I want to start my own thing, and I'm passionate about it, but I just need to know the direction to go. Because I think that's part of the conversation too. There's, there's different types of entrepreneurs. There's people that have always been some type of entrepreneurial down ever since they were a kid, right? And they've always had this stirring in them. So when they start a business, they just have these, these intuitions and just knowing, so I'm gonna go do this, I'm gonna go do that, I'm gonna go do that. There's other people that it's inside of them. There just has to be people around them to take it out and say, I've always seen this inside of you. And I know that you can do that, but they need those people to do that.

Yes. Yes. So, so, so true. And so important to realize that not, there isn't a statue of what entrepreneurship looks like. Right. You don't go, okay, I'm going to look at that and, oh, that's an entrepreneur. Oh no, that doesn't fit the bill. Right. Like there is, there is an incredible number of ways ways that entrepreneurship kind of shows up in a person, whether that's early in life, whether that's late in life, whether that's after a life-changing event, you know, that completely sets their course in a different direction. And I think that is the key to this area of white space for our community is that we have traditionally been looking at entrepreneurship, like what it looks like in Silicon Valley.

Oh yeah.

And we say, you know, it's the young 30-something, you know, 20-something-year-old kid with a hoodie and a laptop. And that's what entrepreneurship looks like. And that is not me. That is not you. That is not, you know, a lot of the entrepreneurs that I rub elbows with and communicate with when we have events, you know, it's like, it's a completely different understanding of what entrepreneurship is. Now, sure. I'm not saying that Silicon Valley doesn't have its own kind of entrepreneur. And maybe we don't have that same kind of entrepreneur here, or as many of them, there's not a saturation of that, those kinds of people. But we have what we have here is ours, you know, it's homegrown. And it's, it's true to our culture. It's true to the Polk County culture. So we have a lot of agricultural entrepreneurs, right? Because that is what we have here.

Yeah.

And, and we have aviation entrepreneurs. I was just at the mayor's breakfast this week. And we were talking about aviation in Polk County. And we were talking about the importance of, of that to our economy.

Yeah.

How many people it brings in, how many, you know, and most Polk County people are more disengaged from how important aviation is, even though it is an extremely— it's a growing aspect of our community. But it's historic. We've had the Sun 'n Fun Fly-In for so many years. It's probably the second largest fly-in in the entire country. And we aren't necessarily all into that, because you'll hear a lot of people complaining about the planes when Sun 'n Fun Fly-In is here. It's like, "Oh, when is that going to be over?" And I wanted to share a quote kind of going back to the the idea of this breakfast, you know, Mark Jackson, who is the executive director, I believe that's his role at Polk County Sports Tourism and Marketing, shared, you know, the economic impact of COVID and how we're recovering as an economy and all of the different things that are happening. And we're on a good trajectory. You know, the news is that we look like we are on a path to recovery. But when he started to do his strategic plan, when they started to do their strategic plan and talking about, okay, this pandemic is going to be here, it's going to impact us. It's going to shut down a lot of the things that we do. Tourism is going to be closed. We're not going to have a lot of people in hotels. That's a lot of our revenue. What are we going to do and how are we going to do that? And the quote that I wrote down is, "If you don't base your strategic plan on research, you're going to be in trouble." And so going through this conversation of white space is, what is the research that we can be doing? What are the conversations that we need to be having? And not just in certain pockets, but across across the community, across all of the industries, and starting to understand what are the needs and what are the barriers for entrepreneurship and the growth that we want to see.

I love that because it goes back to what you were talking about earlier with mapping and SWOT analysis. So what are, what are, what are our strengths? Yeah. What are our weaknesses? What are our opportunities? What are our threats? And going through that process and to not be afraid of going through that process multiple times in the variations of your business, right? So you can understand what is there and being strategic and not just saying, okay, this is a white space because this, this, and this. Well, what's the data based on?

Exactly.

And building that minimal viable product and putting it out there.

And does that data represent me? When someone shares data and they say, we interviewed X amount of people or this number of people, and totally does not resonate or is not representing me. I'm wondering, did we do enough research? Did we ask enough people? Have enough people been, been, you know, identified to be included in this study or to be, you know, used in the research? Because unless we're being more inclusive in that approach, it's a lot easier to go into an area where entrepreneurship is thriving and is saturated. Okay. So it's easy to go, hey, we're going to, we're going to ask the Chamber of Commerce, and Catapult and some coworking spaces to perform some surveys to get our data. And that is representative of the areas that are the most saturated with entrepreneurs and small business.

Yeah.

But it is a lot harder to figure out who are the unconnected, non-networked people that are still out there trying or wanting to try. And we want to know from them what it is that may be holding them back or what's, what struggles they're having right now during this pandemic. And that's the point that I continue to try and make. That's the white space.

Yeah.

Because it's really easy to go throw a fishing rod into the lake and go, hey, we're going to catch some fish where we know all of the fish are. But if you— there's a lot more fish in this community than just those that are saturated in these areas and pockets of conversation around entrepreneurship and small business.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, man, this has been amazing. I just looked at the time. I'm like, wow, this time has flown by. This has been an amazing conversation. I knew it would be. I was excited to just dig into all of the nuances of this white space discussion with you. I don't know if you have any wrap-up comments, thoughts, things you want to maybe mention that we can talk about on another day that we didn't get to talk about fully.

Yeah, this may be an ongoing conversation for us. I really enjoy this conversation. And I just real quick, I enjoyed your analogy about the going to fish for a specific spot, going to fish in a specific spot because you know that there are fish there versus venturing out into uncharted territory. And I think that's, I think that's huge because again, it's easy to say there are all these entrepreneurs here, we're gonna give them these surveys and get a feel for what they think versus really digging in deep and figuring out, okay, there's this other part of the community and other part of— so whether it's part people of part of the community that have been here for years that just feel like they are disconnected, or people that are not people, college students that are here for 4 years that don't feel like they can necessarily connect, or people that are moving into Lakeland for the first time, or Polk County in general, and really getting a feel for them and get their outside perspectives.

Yes.

As opposed to— because, and this is just a real quick point, I was I forgot what it was. I won't go into too much detail, but basically I was at this lunch and there was— I was getting some feedback. They wanted to get my feedback and it was other— there was a decent amount of people from the room.

Okay.

And the average person had lived in Lakeland for probably 6 years.

Okay.

And their perspective was extremely different. And the way that they were being innovative and saying, hey, I want, you know, I'd love to see this. I'm curious about this. I'm curious about this. I'm curious about about this, but my perspective was vastly different. But, you know, me, I'm creative and willing to kind of push the lines, and I said, I love where you're coming from, but you have to realize that there's this part of the community that's going to think this, and this part of the community that's going to think this, and this part of the community that's going to think this. And they're like, oh, that's fascinating, I never thought about it before. But it's because of the fact that the large population, at least in that instant that they were talking to, had been in Lakeland for 6 years versus the average The person that's actually in Lakeland that has the ability to kind of move that meter has been in Lakeland, I don't know, 40, 50+ years.

Right.

And so understanding those dynamics and realizing, okay, we have to pull not just the people that have been in Lakeland for 6 years, but the people that have been Lakeland for a month and the people that have been Lakeland for 40 years and the people that have been Lakeland for 5 years and the people that have been Lakeland for 5 generations and put all of those people in the same room.

Yes.

And have this discussion and say, what do we do next?

Right. That's the, that's the, what I'm, my version of, there's a lot of definitions of the term digital divide. And I feel like some of what you're saying is represented by the generational, the generational distance between, and generational meaning somebody who's been here 50, 60, or all of their lives, you know, however many generations back that goes to the person who's just walked in the door and generation meaning new to Lakeland or new to Polk County and somebody who's just never known anything else. This is where they've always lived. This is where they've always worked. This is where they've always played. This is where their children have been raised. And that divide between understanding one another, the person who just walked in and said, okay, I'm now in the headquarters of Publix and now I am amidst a bunch of orange groves and cow tipping is a sport. And just some of the cultural nuances of being a Polk County person. But we have to recognize that gap between understanding the value and the opportunities. Now, the cool part is the person coming in is going to see a completely different objective view.

Absolutely.

From a fresh lens and see a completely different world. So that's a conversation probably for our next time when we, when we don't have a guest. We're going to have a guest on our next show, but we'll, we'll need to explore a little bit more in the depth of the culture and the cultural differences of, you know, new to and, and been here for forever, you know, person. So I think we're going to wrap up because otherwise you guys will not have time for dinner. I know that we are taking much of your time, and we appreciate you listening and being a part of our show. And we would love, love, love to hear from you if you have any guests, any, any white space for us to explore, any conversations, any, any unmet, unknown, un— you know, underground entrepreneurs that are just, you know, kicking butt and taking names, and maybe we just don't know about them. I'd love for you guys to bring us some new names and some new faces of people that we can share and be a part of our show.

That'd be awesome.

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