Transcription

@0:12 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Welcome to the Shades of Entrepreneurship. This is your host, Ms. Gabriel Flores. Today. I'm here with another Pacific Northwest Portland Oregonian entrepreneur...

Monique Hayward

@0:25 - Monique Hayward

And how are we doing? I'm doing fantastic Gabriel. Thank you so much for having me on the show looking forward to the conversation.

@0:32 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yes, we are folks We are sitting here in a beautiful gloomy Rainy Oregon day that we actually probably needed more than the rain needed us at this point I know Oregonians probably aren't used to saying we want more rain, but we needed it So when you please introduce yourself give us a little background.

@0:50 - Monique Hayward

Who is Monique Hayward? Sure, I will absolutely tell you who Monique Hayward is I am an entrepreneur. I'm an author

I'm a marketing executive, and I'm a speaker, so I have a multi-faceted career that I have been building for the last, oh gosh, 25, 30 years now, it's hard to even believe, but what brought me actually to the Pacific Northwest was a job that I took with a company called Techtronics, and for those of you who are in the Pacific Northwest, in the Silicon Forest, that Techtronics is one of a high technology industry here, and so when I took the job at Techtronics coming out of MBA school, I first of all did not know who Techtronics was.

I also did not have any idea where Beaverton Oregon was, and I sure enough said Oregon, because I'm from the East Coast originally, I split my childhood between New York City and Columbia, South Carolina, and at that point,

point in my life, in my early 20s, I had never been west of the Mississippi. And for those of you who are old enough to remember the mid 1990s, we were in a pretty serious economic situation of about, you know, 1992, And I graduated from college at the University of Maryland and decided to go to grad school at Case Western Reserve University so that I could hide out for two years because the economy was so bad.

so still coming out, you know, two years later, I only had this one job offer from a company that I had never heard of that found me in a resume book of all things.

And then when I got on the phone with a recruiter, I just started asking really elementary questions like, where's Beaverton, Oregon?

Can you please tell me what electronics is and how did you find me? I don't have any idea. And it was one of those teachable moments.

And the recruiter took pity on me. And I was still impressed enough with me and my background and my expertise that I got invited to interview for the position.

It was a marketing and communication specialist job and I flew out to the Portland area, stayed in a hotel downtown Portland and had an opportunity to look at the city and meet the team and the next thing you know I had a job and I was moving to the Pacific Northwest and I've been here for 30 years now already hard to believe.

@3:31 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

You see folks once you actually come and visit the Pacific Northwest it's very difficult to leave we're kind of in gem out here.

@3:38 - Monique Hayward

Yeah exactly and so from there I launched my career at tectronics and then I went to Intel and I worked at Intel for 22 years and the way that I like to describe my career at Intel was that I moved around to move up and so I worked in every organization within Intel with the exception of sales.

manufacturing and finance. Every other part of the business I worked in. And then back in 2019, I left Intel, went to Microsoft, and then I did a couple of senior director marketing jobs at Microsoft.

And then now I am with the Silicon Valley startup that is in the digital experience document publishing space. And the company is called inactify.ai.

And I'm at I'm the Chief Marketing Officer for that company. So alongside my corporate career, I've had an entrepreneurial career.

And so I owned a restaurant business here locally, which was called Dessert Noir, Cafe Bar in Beaverton. And I had that for about four and a half, five years.

I also was a partner in a software company back when iPhone apps were kind of just getting hot. And then my current venture is of

a personal chef business and a short-term vacation rental property that's based in Phoenix, Arizona. Man, that's the short story.

Yeah, that's the short story of the biogram.

@5:14 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

No, I love it. I love the diversity of it. I'm very much in the same boat as you are, I think, when you're until days where I very much move around and move up.

I've been working at Oregon Health Science University. folks that listen to the show, they're very much aware I've been working at which it's you for the past 22 years.

And it really is learning from patient transportation, from the clinical side, working in the ED, working in concierge services, the front, now what primarily is development strategy.

And so being able to take all of those little pieces and then combine them into the business strategy has been very unique because I think a one piece that tends to get overlooked that we're going to be talking about today is the marketing piece and why that marketing piece is so important because I don't think people

When you're doing a sales funnel or marketing funnel, it's imperative that they work in collaboration. It's imperative that they are interlocked.

you're going out and you're doing outreach, I know if I'm actually utilizing specific marketing collateral, then I know what my end goal for a sales perspective is.

So hand in hand, tell us about one of things you mentioned, you started being primarily focusing on the marketing side.

So tell us some of the things you kind of learned in that electronic world from the marketing side and then we'll kind of transition because then you kind of just take off from there.

@6:36 - Monique Hayward

Right. Exactly. I started out my career, like I said, as a marketing and communication specialist. And a lot of my sense and sensibility about how I approach marketing is really rooted, honestly, Gabriel in having studied journalism actually, because my ambition in my career was to actually be a journalist.

That's what I grew up wanting to do. I wanted to be a political reporter for the Washington Post.

@7:04 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I mean, I was like, that's specific with my career goal.

@7:07 - Monique Hayward

But then when I got to journalism school at the University of Maryland, which was, you know, a top 10 school right outside of Washington DC, I was like, okay, I'm in the heart of it.

This is where I'm gonna go and I'm gonna learn. And also, by the way, minor in government and politics, right?

okay, like, this is it. But then, not that I was pressing at all about the internet and what it was gonna do to decimate the newspaper industry, I just decided that I needed to make more money.

And so, I stayed in the journalism school, but I switched my concentration to public relations. And then that laid the foundation for the corporate career.

And then that also laid a foundation around how I could use the sense and sensibility of being a journalist, clear and credible and consistent communication.

The deadline driven aspect of being able to deliver things on time and on a budget. ensure that you are a great storyteller and that you keep your audience in mind constantly.

It's not about you as the storyteller. about how you serve the audience that you are trying to reach. Those kinds of things, right?

so combining that with the marketing training and the marketing education, that is how I actually became this B2B marketer extraordinaire, you will, whose career took off at Tektronics and then to Intel and to Microsoft later.

So I have worked on very big campaigns, as you might imagine, working for big Fortune 500, Fortune 100 tech companies like Tektronics and Tel Microsoft.

And then scaled that down to where I am right now, we start up with, that's just barely above two guys and a dog and a garage with an idea.

And they actually did have the sense and sensibility. to bring on the marketing function sooner rather than later, because I think a lot of startups and a lot of small businesses tend to have marketing as an afterthought.

And don't necessarily think about what are the stories that they're really trying to tell to their customers? What are the actions that they really want them to take?

How does marketing really enable for you to develop those relationships with potential customers, with existing customers, with key stakeholders, right?

There's an art and a science to it. And I think that a lot of times we as entrepreneurs get so heads down into the product or so heads down into the business and so heads down to all of those other responsibilities that we don't tend to think that much about marketing until we absolutely 100% can't avoid it anymore.

@9:56 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

It's really funny you bring that up. feel like sometimes, especially the large corporations tend to think about marketing like oh we got to make more revenue or we got to promote this new thing or idea without really understanding okay well what's the value that we're what's the ROI in that marketing piece right because so many often you know I'm not trying to call anybody out but there's some really good marketing and there's some really bad marketing I think really good marketing Apple does a really good job I like to use this example when you look at it they had this newspaper ad when the the AirPod came out the first AirPod right and again the beauty of it it was this is a this is a print ad so it's not like it's it's very difficult to invoke emotions on a print ad however what they were able to do is a photo of the iPod and said a thousand songs in your pocket that was I remember my campaign very well it's like oh man I'm like I didn't even know I needed a thousand songs pocket and now not only do I need it I want it and not only do my we're gonna want it but I'm gonna go buy it and I'm gonna

I love everybody that I have a thousand songs in my pocket, you know, it's like that the true sales funnel approach, right?

And now one of the things you mentioned is you you you went from tech electronics and you went from Microsoft and you went to Intel, but then you also have your own businesses.

@11:13 - Monique Hayward

You mentioned your restaurant and things of that nature.

@11:16 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Talk about building a business in the ground up while navigating marketing and branding challenges.

@11:22 - Monique Hayward

Yes, so I'll tell you, let me start with my restaurant business because I'm I'm actually one of those people who Anthony Bourdain used to sort of question the wisdom around why would any professional outside the restaurant business think that they can be a restaurant owner, right?

And I was like, well, just on the hairy edge of, you know, the person who really should or should not be a restaurant owner.

But I use that experience as an opportunity to do a couple things. Number one, that to get beyond my technology career.

When I was in my mid 30s, I was finding my So, you know, I don't want disillusioned, it's probably too strong, but certainly wanting more out of my career than just doing marketing and communications campaigns to promote technology products, you know, for high-tech companies, right?

And I felt like, you know, I always had this entrepreneurial spirit that was instilled in me by my grandmother.

So my grandmother was a beauty salon owner in Harlem. And so she lived in the Bronx and so her night job was as a nurse for a psychiatric hospital in Queens.

And she would work the night shift and then she would come home to her apartment in or, you know, getting some sleep and, you know, maybe get a little breakfast or whatever.

And then she would be up and fight the rush hour traffic into the city. that go into Manhattan so that she could open up her salon and do her salon business all day.

And over the summers, my brother and I would visit my grandma and hang out with her when school was out and she would drag us kicking and screaming through the salon.

So we would have to, you know, listen to, you know, all these ladies who were getting their hair done and whatever all day long and helping my grandmother around around the shop and all this stuff.

And my brother and I used to hate it. mean, God, this is so boring. Why can't we just be out in the street, you know, playing handball or stick ball or something like, why do we have to be in this a lot?

And so, but years later, I reflected on that and I said, you know what, my grandmother, yeah, my grandmother was on to something with me and, and inspiring me to think about how I could also do the same thing.

And so I was able to take a step back at that point in my career and say, you know, what is it that I want to do?

How do I want to add value? How can I really make a difference in my community and how could I do something different?

And I decided on a restaurant business because of my own, just like a lot of entrepreneurs who are listening right now or aspiring entrepreneurs who are listening right now, it all starts with some personal pain that you have experienced and you figured that, you know, if I had this problem, somebody else had this problem.

And the problem that we had out here in Beaver Oregon was that we we didn't have good dining options.

So this was, you know, early 2000s.

@14:31 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

we're talking 2004, 2005.

@14:33 - Monique Hayward

I mean, the scene has exploded a lot since, but out here in the suburbs, we did not have good options for what I would call kind of that segment in between fast, casual, and super duper high-end fine dining.

You always had to kind of go downtown Portland, right? And so and with the traffic and all the hassle and all that, it was just really, you know, kind of inconvenient.

And so my husband and I happened to be out to watch a movie one night at a movie theater out here in the suburbs, close to our house, and we wound up having to take a rain check on the movie because they had oversold it and there weren't very good seats left.

And so we wound up, we'd already eaten dinner, and we were like, okay, where can we go to just like get a good cocktail, get dessert, whatever, and there's no place to go.

@15:25 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

We wound up at like Starbucks or something, totally crazy.

@15:28 - Monique Hayward

So that's how the idea of dessert in a car cafe and bar was born. And so I use that as my own little marketing laboratory.

And because I come from a marketing background, it was my mission with my business to try to get as much publicity for that place as I possibly could.

And I leaned into I think three things that I will share as kind of best practices with entrepreneurs when it comes to marketing your own business.

First of all, Number one, you have got to be a fearless promoter of yourself and your business because nobody else is going to do it for you.

Number two, you have to have a compelling story that makes you unique and makes you differentiated from other business owners who are doing businesses like yours.

And then number three is that you have just got to ensure that you are disciplined with investing in that marketing program execution day after day after day.

And I tell you, it will yield fantastic results. In fact, when I had my restaurant business, I too was covered by the Oregonian.

You know, I got awards for, you know, best bites when they were doing that back in the day. I got covered.

I would get, I was getting like a story a week, you know, at one point when I watched my business, and then that tapered off to a story a month.

We had got uncovered, not just locally, but we also got covered nationally. So I was on CNN. We got covered in the Wall Street Journal, right?

So I mean, these kinds of things that most small businesses would kill for that kind of publicity. And the thing that I really leaned in on from a storytelling perspective was, you know, African American woman living in Beaverton, Oregon, you know, ensuring that we actually had these, you know, great places and great spaces that were moving, the dining conversations forward, moving fine dining forward for this part of this, of the metro area.

And people, you know, really did resonate with that story.

@17:48 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

So that's what I'm getting. I love it. And folks, I got to tell you, you know, folks that are unfamiliar with talking about it.

about because this is the only Starbucks for some reason. It was open 24 hours a day back in the day.

So it was constantly and I got to tell you, the Beaverton food, you know, food and beverage scene five years ago, you know, pre-pandemic, even a little bit before the pre-pandemic was a little scarce.

I got to tell you, folks, the amount of work in the food scene that has gone on on the Southwest side, it is and it should be no surprise to anyone that Cedar Hills is now one of the actually most sought-after neighborhoods in the Oregon area, including like Lake Oswego in Northwest Portland.

So you're starting to see that Beaverton location really, really come up and for those folks that are listening, Beaverton is not Portland Metro.

Okay, those boroughs not Portland Metro, first Grove is not Portland Metro, Clackamas is not, so if you're going to create something for the community of Clackamas, Washington and Multnomah County, and you put the word Metro on it, I automatically...

That is not for me because I'm out in the Southwest area. I'm not downtown Portland in the metro area So just some things that think about those city So city a community folks that are putting things together again.

I'm part of this community I'm with you guys across the table and now I'm telling you guys on the podcast if you name things metro It's not for me.

I'm not in the metro. So there's one to bring that out And both you can read about this again.

Check out the shades of e.com Please subscribe to the newsletter we have a lot of this content in fact I'll write up a thing about after Monique conversation Specifically talking about one of the things I'm really interested in that learn about from Monique the five C's framework Tell me about the five C's framework and how does it empower entrepreneurs to thrive?

@19:44 - Monique Hayward

Yes, the five C's framework. So that was born out of my experience as a role model, a mentor, an advocate for um People who are coming up as

entrepreneurs and as professionals who are just starting out in their careers or making transition from being in corporate America into being an entrepreneur.

And I would do a lot of one on ones. I would do a lot of small group discussions. And then that actually turned into bigger presentations that I would do on these topics.

And then eventually I wrote a book and decided that, you know, I think that I actually have something that I can promote here, being the marketing person, of course.

And so in my book, what I had what I did was I addressed a lot of the challenges and opportunities that people faced when they are in these critical pivotal moments in their career, right?

And like I said, particularly as you're starting something new, whether you're, you know, just right out of school and starting your first job, or you're starting your first job.

business. And you've got to think about what I call how to get your hustle on. And the five Cs really help with giving you this easy to use, easy to remember framework that you can work within to keep your career and to keep your business moving forward.

And the five Cs are as Number one is confidence. That's the foundation. If you don't know how to do something, if you have no skills, you have no experience, you're like nothing that you can kind of lean into.

That is just done, right? mean, it's table stakes these days that you must be competent at what you do.

Now, if you don't have a lot of experience that doesn't mean that you don't know something, right? You're still building up, right?

And there are ways for you to demonstrate your competence without having a lot of experience. And we can talk about that too.

So that's the first And you have to have a really strong foundation upon which to build the other four seas.

The next one is Tashay, that's your personal brand, who are you and why does anybody care? second one is communication and that is your storytelling.

What is your message? Who is your target audience? What are you trying to get them to do? You tell stories to your friends and your family without any intention of listening any action from them and that's fine because that's how we all communicate on a day-to-day basis.

But in business, you're telling your story because you want people to do something. You want them to buy your product, you want them to sign up for your newsletter, want them to listen to your podcast, want them to put money in your pocket.

So when you are telling your story, you really got to be clear about the intention that you want with delivering that message to

audience. The next C is communicate, sorry, is connections. Who in your network is helping you right now at this moment with what it is that you are trying to achieve in your business, in your career, and otherwise.

A lot of times, what happens as especially we get farther into our careers, we don't do enough housekeeping people, right?

We're hanging on a folk. We're taking too many meetings. We're trying to be everywhere. We're trying to do too much for everybody else.

You have gone to get really clear about who is in your network. How are those people helping you right now?

And how are you building those relationships for success in your career and in your business? I tell you, you got to get rid of the hangers on and you got to stop taking every meeting because it's wasting your time.

And then the last C is coaches. And those are your sponsors, your mentors, your role models, your ad. Kids, those are the people who are giving you good sound advice about where you are in your career, what it is you're trying to do with your business, and how is it that you are going to be successful.

One of the key tactics, if you will, that I always recommend that entrepreneurs as well as people in their career, at any stage in their career, need to execute against is a personal board of directors, right?

Get those five people and please, no more than five, because again, if you start talking to a whole lot of people, you get too much contact, too much conflicting advice, too many people that you're trying to juggle at any point trying to get stuff done.

Get it down to the five people who you know, who you can trust, who will give you good advice and make sure that it's a diverse set of opinions and perspectives, right?

don't want to have, you don't want an A-men course, you don't want an echo chamber. You want a real personal board of directors who will tell you when your stuff is janky, who will tell you when you're on the right path and that you should keep going, or people who will sit down with you and strategize, when you're back in a corner and you can't see what the logical path should be, then there are three people you can call.

So when I first started as an entrepreneur, as you might imagine with a restaurant business, what was happening, what put my business out of business was the great recession of 2008, And so I was just really struggling trying to figure out how I was going to either keep that business or shut it down.

And from a personal board or director's perspective, I had one really key advisor who was absolutely instrumental and happened to be Morgan Freeman.

Yes, that Morgan Freeman, the actor, like that guy and just and then the voice is the voice right like you just know and so when I was um uh struggling with whether not I was going to keep dessert noir cafe and bar as a going concern I got myself on a plane and went down to Los Angeles and you know one on one with Freeman and you know what he told me let me tell you Gabriel what that man told me he said you know what Monique because I would I went down there thinking I was going to stay in business I went down I had a notebook full of notes because I was strategizing right for weeks before that meeting I was like okay this is what I got covered this is how much money I got in the bank these are all my my top customers this is what my marketing strategy looks like this is how I'm going to pay my people this is how I'm going to pay my vendors I had it this is why I get money from in the bank this is like I had it all laid out so then when I showed up to the meeting Gabriel he looked across me a table he's like you know what Monique I'm going to tell you something you're going to shut that business down I was like what?

I said Morgan what he said no girl and you know this is how he talks to me right like no girl this is how this was going to happen right now I'm going to tell you three things and want you to listen to me and I want you to listen to me very clearly and I said okay I'm listening I put my pen down put my notebook down and he said number one you have made a good run at business you've been in business for four plus years that is a lifetime for a business and he knew this because he actually owned restaurant businesses himself in Mississippi so he's like so he's speaking from experience right he's like I know that that's a hard business and for you to have last in this long and you know have come across like that finish line yes you it was an accomplishment you were going to be fine number one number two you have a day job up he's like let's be clear you at this point I was still working I didn't tell he's like you have a fantastic career I didn't so

Well, and you are not broke. Number three, that restaurant business is never going to define you for the long term.

That might be a failure right now, but you know what? You're going to come out of that on top.

And of course, I had shivers. even have like, I get goosebumps just even thinking about being in the same room with Morgan Freeman and having him giving me that clear direction and that clear advice about what I needed to do in that moment.

And he said that at that point, go back to Portland and shut that business down and get on with your life.

And I was like, okay, I'm going to go do that. And sure enough, in two weeks of me coming back, the thing was done.

And I was winding everything down. And he was absolutely right about what happened to me with my career. wrote my first book and it's

I got promoted twice at Intel, and I got on the speaking circuit, and I, you know, started to tell my story, and it was an amazing time in my career.

And it also set me up for starting my next business. So, what I tell you, and when I tell your audience who's listening, a personal board of directors, you must have that one person, that sage counselor who will tell you the truth.

Even if you can't see it, you need somebody who's going to tell you that truth, because if you get on the wrong path, I could have easily spent another $50,000, $50,000, to save my business.

At that point, by the time I got to Morgan, I'd already spent $50,000 that I shouldn't have spent, right?

So, yes, have truth tellers, have somebody who will sit you down and shake you up. and say, let's say this is what you need to do and help you come to that conclusion and help you come to that conclusion because he knew it was my decision but he made it very clear as to why I needed to make that decision.

@30:13 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, I really love the advice, know, like a personal board of directors or advisory board, you know, individuals that are willing to, you know, you're willing to share your ideas with but you're also willing to get constructed feedback from.

I would advise that don't will have that board of directors or advisors be like your family and friends. Have it truly individuals within a business industry or vertical that you're trying to explore so they can, to your point, even if it's Morgan Freeman, at least this individual has experience in the food and beverage industry so they can really talk to you specifically about what what some of those needs are.

really like that idea and in fact, I always encourage folks at the end of the day. I mean, Kobe Bryant, who arguably is one of the best NBA basketball players, you know, you can have that argument that's fine but you can pick any NBA player that you ever see.

every single one of those individuals had a coach.

@31:02 - Monique Hayward

So the greatest individuals that made it to the Hall of Fame had coaches.

@31:06 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

And so I really like also like the communication and marketing piece. Folks, that's probably why you can be safe throughout this podcast to visit the Shades of E.com.

Subscribe to the newsletter, right? Because that's the marketing piece, the sales funnel. And then when you actually subscribe to the marketing piece, folks, don't be surprised.

you get a 10% discount to go shop on our shop. Because again, that's my marketing funnel. Trying to get you to make a purchase, right?

To help you to continue to support the show. Or you might even get a letter that says, Hey, $5 a month, you can join our Patreon.

And you can actually get these interviews week early. Again, now I have a loyal consumer. Or, or even more, I might see one of your comments that you left on Apple podcast reviews.

And I might actually take that and post it on my website, the Shades of E.com that you can actually see several transcriptions of individuals and their comments about the show.

Because again, I'm trying to create. energy with the community, but also letting you folks know that listening, I'm listening to you as well, just as much as I hope you guys are listening to me.

Now Monika, I think you're kind of, you're kind of felt like you're talking directly to me there for a minute because I got to tell you, I've been doing this podcast for a little over three years now.

And I think folks that listen to me, they know I keep going back and forth in this last year, because of the marketing because of be getting more consistent.

I'm able to drop out. I'm releasing about one video a day on YouTube. Folks, check it out the shades of e.com.

Go and check out the YouTube postings there. But about one video day, and ever since I started doing at the beginning of the year, the consistency of it has been skyrocketed, the value of the show.

We're now seeing roughly 10,000 downloads per 28 days on YouTube, which is quite remarkable. But I'm also kind of at this point, like, you know, okay, well, where does this go?

Where started the nonprofit Latino founders that helped scale 100 Latino businesses here in the Pacific Northwest So a million dollar reoccurring revenue in five years.

now we're starting to create another business along with that. now I'm kind of contemplating, OK, does the shades of entrepreneurship look like?

I got the trademark. I got the trademark for the shades of E. Where do I go next? so that's actually a conversation I am in right now with myself.

But I like the idea because I currently do not have advisory board, a personal advisory board. And one thing I do say to people pretty consistently is the end of the day.

@33:31 - Monique Hayward

You're the average of the 10 people you hang out with the most, right? So you want to make sure.

@33:36 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, it's like Monique said, maybe break it down to five. So it's a less of a variance. again, making sure you surround yourself with individuals that aren't going to blow smoke at you.

You want individuals that are truly going to tell you whether this thing is going to fail or succeed. I like the way Monique mentioned it.

And again, I hope I don't offend anybody. I was encouraged, folks, don't be afraid to kill your baby. You got to you can't be afraid to kill your baby if it's if it's the greatest idea ever and oh my god This is gonna make a million dollars.

I think a tweak it here and there well To be truth be told especially like in the tech industry if you're you brought out a software or service or you don't have a customer Adding one more attribute to it probably isn't going to bring in a consumer You know I always encourage folks if you think you're a thought leader Well, then go put your thoughts out in the market and see what the market tells you you know That's the best way for you to begin to determine Okay, that's I think that's where the connections piece of your mentioning comes into right and making sure you have people that are truly willing to say This is a horrible idea or no This is a great idea because then those people in those network will start to be like You know what actually you should go talk to this person or you should go talk to this person It's almost like you begin to outgrow some of your network and then they mean you kind of mentioned that too Don't hang on the stragglers, you know the people that are weighing weighing you down.

I I love my group text

@35:00 - Monique Hayward

boys I do but sometimes the negativity I get in that it's like oh my gosh boys like I can't even tell you something could happen because it just turns into a battle yeah it's just like well I it's you know again the average 10 people you hang out with the most so so again be very strategic and mindful about who you're trying to bring involved in your community but also share those ideas because chances are there somebody that may be able to help support that idea or they might also be able to tell you that the idea is actually best left unsaid sometimes right I know it reminds me of the of the old adage you know always be selling and I like to actually turn that on its head little bit and say always be storytelling right because you just never know who has a connection to something that or to someone that is that proposed what it is you're trying to do and I'm like I was just at I mean you never know right I was at a birthday party recently and my

startup is in the process right now of looking for seed funding and I just happen to have a conversation at the table with a bunch of women celebrating one of our home girl's birthday and I was talking them about being the CMO of this startup and we're looking for investors and I let that party with like three different contacts to go follow up with about fundraising for that business.

yes, always be storytelling. never know who might be able to connect you to the right opportunity to help you move your agenda forward for your business and for your career.

@36:36 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, I really like that piece to the story and tell it in peace because again one of the things I you know we coach a lot of entrepreneurs for pitching right they're pitch competitions that's part of our Latino founders nonprofit and one of the things we're always I'm always telling them is like make it relatable make make whatever problem that you're trying to create or you found a solution for make that problem relatable in the solution.

One example I always give is the AT&T commercial when they're talking they're on the airlines right and they're talking about the hidden fees behind Oh, he has a food or he has water.

Oh, yeah, because I paid extra dollars extra dollar here I'll and AT&T is not an airline But it's a the hidden fees is something we can all relate to from a storytelling perspective, right?

We all understand the annoyance of seeing those hidden fees and all AT&T is saying we're not then we don't do We don't do hidden fees, you know target is another great example If you watch a target commercial seldomly do you see the actual target logo until the end of the commercial?

However, you know, it's a target commercial simply based on the amount of red they use in that commercial. It's like There's a target commercial isn't it?

You know cuz you see red all over it and they're happy and you know, so branding branding isn't it's not about, you know The words or the message you're staying.

It's also how do you make people feel Nike, right? Everybody's an athlete, right? Okay, you making me feel like the Apple we're going back to the Apple

I have a thousand songs in my pocket, know, so how do you make people feel? How does that brand make you feel and then even go sometimes further than that, right?

The colors schemes, the blacks are kind of the more even neutral York Times kind of thing. But then you got like the fun people like Yahoo, it's purple, right?

And then you got like these, the calmness, the like Dell or innovation, right? The blues, so the Dell and the Microsoft, right?

And so when you start to think about colored codes and you start to look at the companies that are within those color codes, you're like, oh, wait, that makes sense.

That colors for innovation or that colors for calmness or that colors for truth, right? So that the shades of entrepreneurship were black and white, very, very specific.

But the reason we're black and white is because we really kind of in the truth area. want you guys to feel like you're confident, you're getting knowledge is truthful.

And where I'm not picking any sides here, I'm just bringing true business education, things to help you continue proceed.

In fact, Monique, one of the questions. have for you is, you know, when you're thinking about marketing, you're thinking about growing your customer base, what are some key strategies for scaling a business?

So you're growing your customer base and staying resilient there and all, because you mentioned you have the 2008-2009 crisis, how do you continue to scale your business and stay resilient through these times?

@39:23 - Monique Hayward

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And as I was thinking about what you were just talking about in terms of the marketing ethos around your business, I think that's a great place to start when you think about scale, right?

What is the, know, a lot of times what happens I think, especially with smaller businesses, is that we kind of hit that wall, right?

And there are a couple of things that entrepreneurs, especially entrepreneurs tend to be doers, right? They tend to be very hands-on and they tend to be super

vault. And I think that when you get to a point where your business is starting to, if you will get away from you a little bit, then it's time for you to think about how you scale.

And I like to think of scale in terms of how do I scale myself? Right? How do I scale my team who's working in the business with me?

And then how do I create scale for the solution that I'm delivering to my customer? So if we take each of those, so how do I scale me?

First of all, I can't do everything. This is why, you know, you are the creative genius behind the business, or you are the marketing genius behind business, or whatever is that you do is your expertise that you founded the business around, then yes, lean into that.

But when it's time, and you're bigger, and you're taking up more responsibility, and you need more expertise, bring it on.

Don't be afraid, like I said. with my company that I'm currently the CMO for, the CEO was very overthinking and very visionary in thinking about how to bring the marketing competence on sooner rather than later, because she realized that, hey, you know what, I'm the CEO, even though she has a marketing background, that's how she built her reputation, that's how she built her career, but she's like, you know what, I can't be the CEO and the CMO, I gotta have a CMO, right?

So, if you are a CEO and you are doing everything and you got, you know, your hat on, you know, you got 17, 18 hats going, something's got to get in, so you got to start thinking about how do you scale yourself, right?

So that you offload the areas of responsibility that are best done by other people who have that expertise and who have that skill set, who have that confidence, who have that perspective, because you will make yourself crazy if you try to do everything.

So that's the first thing. So how to scale your team is related, right? got to let some stuff go, right?

You've got to delegate, you've got to trust. I really like what you were talking about with the shades of E, Gabriel, and how you know you have really leaned into helping entrepreneurs with business education, right?

And so what does that look like in terms of how you are enabling the people who help you deliver that service, that product quote unquote to your audience, to your customers about, know, do they actually lean into their own way of supporting the business so that they are successful, and so that they are contributing, because if you have your hand in everything that they're doing, then nobody wants to work for that person.

Nobody likes a micromanager, likes an ego maniac, like forget all that. So think about how you empower folks who are on your team, even if they're not directly your employees, right?

How do empower your partners. How do you empower your suppliers, your vendors, etc. give them a stake in what it is that you're doing and have them clearly see their pathway to your success, being their success, and then scaling your solution.

That's investing in the infrastructure. That's investing in that next set of capabilities that will really be transformative for the business.

That's about being prudent from a financial standpoint. That's about really growing organically and ensuring that you're not hockey sticking too soon.

You've got credibility with real customers and that you're ready to take that credibility onto the next set of customers.

That's where we are with our like this year, it started. It has kind of a... a pre startup instantiation a couple years ago and then we brought on kind of the professional management team this year and so we got our first customer and now we're ready to take that customer case study to the next set of industry vertical customers that service that market so you know thinking about like making sure that you know you are ready to go when it's time to go.

@44:25 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah no I completely agree and I goes back to like the elevator speech right you're mentioning no matter if you're trying to scale your business to sell it or again building up your own brand imagine yourself folks if you had an opportunity to let's say Morgan Freeman like you mentioned you have an opportunity you're in it with Morgan Freeman you see him at hotel you have three floors and he asks you so what do you do you have three floors to pitch Morgan Freeman on enough information on a very short time frame enough for him to engage and want to actually contact you again right that's that's the sales pitch you have a very short time.

To talk about what your value is, your puppy, your value proposition, who you are, bear a brief amount of time.

I highly recommend any video out there to work on a value proposition, own independent individual value proposition. Create your own goal.

at the beginning of this year, I actually haven't looked at it. Embrace growth, seek knowledge, and lead with purpose.

That was actually my quote at the beginning of this year. And so that's what I've really been focusing on.

I have it up on the white board. Yes, I have a white board in my office, folks in my home office.

I know I'm that kind of guy. But again, it kind of keeps you things on track. I really encourage, you know, share your ideas, share your thoughts, a network.

I believe that the more culture you get, the more traveling you get, the more innovation you have, you know, you start to learn more things.

I mean, that's how Starbucks happened, right? Steve Jobs went to a year because I want to bring this concept to the United States.

@45:50 - Monique Hayward

And now we have Howard Schultz.

@45:52 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I'm Howard Schultz. Yes, Howard Schultz.

@45:54 - Monique Hayward

mean, I'm sure the iPod was probably somewhere over there as well.

@45:57 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, right. But yes, Howard Schwartz. And then if you. Well, back and there's actually the Starbucks way that's Harvard Swartz book.

You can go read that and it'll tell you exactly how you kind of did it. You can go read a lot of different books.

Lazy CEO is another good book to read. You're mentioning your CEO, identifying you as the need for the CMO is really important.

Because again, folks, as you begin to build and scale your business, you will not be able to be the jack of all trade ministry of none once you kind of get to a certain time frame.

So it's imperative that you bring an individual on your team that are right for the bus. Now, Monique, you mentioned you brought your first client, you're starting to grow.

What does the future look like? What's the next five years look like?

@46:40 - Monique Hayward

For me, personally or for our company?

@46:42 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Or you personally?

@46:44 - Monique Hayward

Oh, for me, personally.

@46:45 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Honey, I'm trying to retire. It's not the way I've been doing this for a minute.

@46:50 - Monique Hayward

So I'm thinking that I am reaching the pinnacle of my career. And what I really would love to be doing and

five years. I think there's a couple of things. One, much like what you're doing with the shades of entrepreneurship, right?

I really want to be in that giving back mode. I really want to be in that coaching and advice, giving, counseling kind of mode.

Because by then, hopefully, I'll involved with, have paid off enough that I can be like, okay, I'll take that call.

So I think that's one thing. The other thing is, I think once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur, right? mean, I've started three businesses in the last 20 years and I'm probably going to start maybe another one or two before long here.

Yes, I don't know. It all depends on what spirits going to move me and what opportunity comes across my desk.

@48:00 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Although I think my husband would beg to differ with that. Oh yeah, my wife's like, yeah, you don't have to put hats on.

Yeah, exactly.

@48:09 - Monique Hayward

Like, how many more of these things are you going to try, Monique?

@48:12 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

And Tonya, I got to tell you, it's the, um, the significant others I feel like my wife is, is I love her so much and I'm very thankful that she lets me puts up with me, I'd say.

She puts up with all these crazy entrepreneurial endeavors I have and she's always next. In fact, folks, if you have an opportunity, please go tell my wife how much I gush about her on the podcast because I truly do.

She is a rock star. It really does has helped me quite a bit. So Monique, after retirement, let's say, let's say folks are, let's say myself in particular, you know, you mentioned you want to get into the entrepreneurship world.

@48:47 - Monique Hayward

You want to start educating helping folks out. And as I mentioned, I got a 501c3 here locally.

@48:53 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

We're looking for mentors. What if what if somebody's listening and interested in connecting with you?

@48:58 - Monique Hayward

How do they get a hold of you? Oh, my. Goodness, I am trying to be famous. So you can just go simply to Monique Hayward.com and all of the ways that you can contact me are there.

So all my social media channels, direct email, my phone number, like everything is there. So absolutely just go there.

then I love to connect with folks, particularly on LinkedIn, right? Because LinkedIn is definitely the place where that business to business networking really happens and a lot of folks are there exploring and looking for opportunities.

@49:32 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

So yeah, hit me up on LinkedIn, but definitely go to Monique Hayward.com and come and check me out. I love it.

And again, folks, if you forget all of this information, don't you worry, it will be available on the shades of e.com.

So please subscribe to the newsletter. We'll also have a transcription of this conversation as well as the video will be available on YouTube.

Again, those Patreon fans, $5 a month, you will get this episode a week early. A good opportunity for you to go ahead and jump on Patreon.

And you can learn all this information on the ShadesVee.com. Monique, thank you again so much for joining the show.

Again, we will be in contact because I think we will probably need some mentors in that marketing space. I'd love to connect you with a few other folks within the community that I think you will love to, like Stephen Green, that runs Pitch Black and and, know, Tarosi, that's over there with Silicon Florist.

think you can, if you don't know them yet, they're phenomenal individuals here in the community. I think they have a lot of value to provide to you.

@50:29 - Monique Hayward

That's fantastic. Now, I'm happy to help for sure, especially being right here in the Portland area. Yes.

@50:34 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Portland Metro area. Mr.

@50:36 - Monique Hayward

Portland Metro area.

@50:37 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I'm not telling the advantage. The Black and Miss Clack, Miss County goes all the way government.

@50:42 - Monique Hayward

If I'm not sure if you're counting Mount Hood Metro, but hey, let's do it, folks. Let's do it.

@50:46 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I would encourage anybody listening, please come out and visit the Pacific Northwest. We're 96,000 square miles of absolute beauty.

We've got a lot of amazing people. was down in Medford, Oregon just the other day, down in Phoenix over there, and they have a phenomenal.

Cart, you guys got to check out some Lebanese food. It's just great. I'm telling you, I gush about Oregon too often.

Monique again, thank you so much for being a guest in the Shades of Entrepreneurship. For folks listening, please subscribe at the Shades of E.com.

You can also visit us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Again, thank you. Subscribe to the Shades of Entrepreneurship on the Shades of E.com.

Thank you and have a great night.