32: Don’t Undersell Yourself: Knowing Your Value as an Entrepreneur
Behind Their Success: Ep 32
Crystal Oakes: [00:00:00] We need to be showing what value we're really bringing to the table. whether that's a list of things that you're accomplishing for them, stress you're taking away or the actual, dollars and cents it.
Welcome to Behind Their Success. This podcast is for people who are feeling stuck on their entrepreneur journey or in their careers. It's for people who want to scale and grow their businesses, learn about the power of mindset, or they just know there's more out there and they want to start making changes.
I'm Paden Squires, the host of the podcast. I was never cut out to be an employee, and when I was an employee, I was bored out of my mind. So I made a plan. I studied and passed the CPA exam in eight months while working, all with the end goal in mind of quitting my job and starting my own business. I did that in 2014, and it has been an amazing wild ride since.
So now let's hear from other entrepreneurs, and what mindsets, and probably more important, what actions they have taken that have created and led to their success.
Paden Squires: Hello, everybody. [00:01:00] Welcome back to Behind Their Success podcast. I'm Paden Squires, the host. And today we have Crystal Oakes. She founded Oakes Creative House. They are a full service marketing and design collective who specialize in solving the problems that stand in your way of achieving the success and brand recognition you deserve.
Paden Squires: Crystal,
Crystal Oakes: so much for having me.
Paden Squires: Yeah. Crystal. So give us a little bit about your background. you have your marketing agency,give us some background of how you ended up.
Crystal Oakes: Absolutely. So I, when I was in high school, actually, I went to a computers class and I'll never forget my teacher, Mrs.
Crystal Oakes: Hobbs at the time. she had a little segment that she did on graphic design and page layout. And I remember looking at her going, is this like a career? Is this something I could actually do? this is awesome. I love this so much. And so she sat down with me and talked a lot about the industry where you could use graphic design, what different areas.
Crystal Oakes: And I'm one of those weird people that went straight to [00:02:00] college for exactly what I wanted to say. applied to the program, g through the program and t used my degree. So I am in today's society. So I'm one of those weird a plan for what I wanted literally since high school
Crystal Oakes: Graduating with a graphic design degree and a photography minor. I knew I wanted to put that creative work to work. And, so I started working for my aunt and uncle's manufacturing company. at the time they were launching a women's handbag line. I was brought on to work on the photography and the catalog design and everything behind that line of products.
Crystal Oakes: And, just fell in love with even more of the marketing assets. back to them, just the graphic design piece of it. And, from there I went to work for a nutritional supplement company who operated in 22 countries. So I like to call that my work sprint, because literally like it was a madhouse all day, every day.
Crystal Oakes: Right. And, late night calls with different countries and translating everything we did into eight different languages. It was. [00:03:00] It was crazy. But I, similar to you, realized throughout that journey that I really disliked working for other people and realized that I was a really good employee, but that I was putting in a lot of time and effort to grow someone else's bottom line and to put money in their pocket.
Crystal Oakes: And I thought, huh, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. So,I quit my job, after I got married to my husband's son. Steven. And with that double income, I said, Hey, I think I'd like to quit my job. And I quit my job and I had always freelanced, on the side to fuel that creative energy and decided to just put that effort full time.
Crystal Oakes: So,I doubled my corporate salary, my first year freelancing. Wow. so definitely a go-getter and. from there I grew this into an ag we're a boutique agency last year. So he's a year navigating that. How do I six figure agency with em as well as being a mom to it's been a journey for [00:04:00] s
Paden Squires: Yeah, you have a lot of d know, similar backgrounds rings true a lot there.
Paden Squires: U have three young Children six or 86 and four. Um, a And, uh, yeah, you just learn to adjust to some degree as your life certainly gets a lot more.
Crystal Oakes: Oh, definitely. Yeah. He woke up at five o'clock this morning for some reason. He was ready to play. So I gave him a waffle and put my makeup on.
Crystal Oakes: Well, all you have is waffles. you just learn to multitask and hold it for a while.
Paden Squires: Yeah. So,you had that confidence, right? To enter into the entrepreneurship world. and reading a little bit on your website. Did you have an entrepreneurial type family? I know you said you worked for your uncle or what have you.
Paden Squires: Yeah,
Crystal Oakes: I did. So it kind of all stems back to my grandpa. He passed away last year. We miss him like crazy. crazy, but he was an entrepreneur at heart. He owned a custom cabinet business though in their small town. He was the go to for beautiful kitchens and bathrooms and amazing custom cabinetry and had people working for him as well as multiple family members.
Crystal Oakes: [00:05:00] So I think that kind of struck a lot of our entrepreneurial spirit is that idea that like, wow, we can really like. design our own lifestyle that we really love. So m crafts and owned a craft and my sister was sitting in front of the T bracelets and things for the craft mall. So it's just Massive business that they had, before now they retired.
Crystal Oakes: And it is just one of those things that, once it gets in a family, I think then you've started to see that modeled for you, that lifestyle can exist for you. And I fought it for a long time because I also saw how hard they worked. I saw them working in the evenings, with their kids and helping out.
Crystal Oakes: And, my aunt and uncle are taking their kids. To trade shows and things like that. So I saw that side of it as a young adult and as a young child and said, I don't know if I want that, and, but after working for other people, I realized, okay, yes, I [00:06:00] do want that. And I want to help other people achieve that too, because I've seen both sides of the coin.
Paden Squires: Yeah. And it's a huge blessing and advantage that you had, to have that model for you, and I have that in my story too. Father's father was, had a very successful business, and saw that model.
Paden Squires: My mother's father was a farmer and a business owner and really running the whole entrepreneur game. So that I think to some degree opened my eyes to the possibilities of a lot of that stuff as well.
Crystal Oakes: Yeah, definitely. It makes a huge difference just to show you what's possible in life.
Paden Squires: yeah, for sure. And that's the biggest thing is people don't even realize what's even possible. So,you started the agency. So tell us a little bit more, about the agency specifically.
Paden Squires:
Crystal Oakes: we specialize in working with micro businesses and solopreneurs, which in the marketing agency space is. fairly rare. Because and what we're working so we fill, um, in the market a business owner, you hav options for how you can get work done in your market you can D. I. Y. Which [00:07:00] ca And a lot of late night learning, and that can be extremely stressful when you're running a business, to, you can find the cash somehow to go to one of the big agencies and pay thousands upon thousands of dollars to have your creative work done.
Crystal Oakes: And I'm not saying they're not going to do a good job, but they're not really positioned to helping people who are. smaller in their marketplaces. Right. And the third option is that you can become your own creative director and you can go hire the freelance photographer and you can go hire the freelance web designer and the writer and the social media manager and all these people.
Crystal Oakes: And then now all of a sudden you're wearing that hat. And you're like, I am not made to be the person who accepts. explains what I'm looking for and directing all this creative and, what I found is that's what I'm actually really good at. So in my corporate career, that's what I did. I ran creative teams and, this has allowed me to step in as the creative director, for a lot of stuff.
Crystal Oakes: Small businesses. So what we specialize in is keeping costs low when it comes to our services. We build [00:08:00] websites, we design brands, we run social media content. and the way that we do that is I have a core team of four. and we utilize over 30 different freelancers on a regular basis.
Crystal Oakes: So we're able to ramp up our business when we have the. projects to do so. And I love pairing the right creative with the right project. If you're interested in animals, you're a dog lover and I have a dog trainer that needs a website, I'm going to call you. Absolutely. Because that project is going to be like fuel to your fire.
Crystal Oakes: And, yeah, so I act as that creative liaison and strategist for the small business owners that we serve.
Paden Squires: Okay. So just a kind of the quarterback coordinator,and hooking it all up because you've done that stuff a million times.
Crystal Oakes: Absolutely. Yep.
Paden Squires: So what, would you say is your best skill that, has helped you get to the point you are now
Crystal Oakes: I would say that it is listening. a lot of our business owners that we work with, our clients that we work with will come back to me and say, I didn't even realize I needed that. Or how I couldn't articulate what I was [00:09:00] really looking for. I had trouble with that, but you just figured it out.
Crystal Oakes: You just figured out what I needed, right? And I think a lot of that comes with just really listening and having kind of a big awareness of what's happening in society. certain industries in the marketplace in general, where the stress levels come from when business owners are talking about the things that they need.
Crystal Oakes: Sometimes I become a little bit of a business therapist and I'm listening to what the problems are. And then, yep. And then I use marketing to solve those problems. So I think it is a lot of just listening and then applying my problem solving skills to that conversation.
Paden Squires: Yeah, you know, when you say business therapist as a, I deal with people and their money all the time and that is a whole lot of therapy and actually it's a whole lot less about what we're actually talking about as a topic than it is as communicating and understanding each other and providing the right solutions.
Paden Squires: That's much more key than really even the work,
Crystal Oakes: Absolutely. And that's what makes clients feel that they've been heard, right? And that's what, creates that [00:10:00] good customer service at the end of the day. But it also in my world creates great marketing campaigns, allows me to, make recommendations for them, allows me to say, Hey, you know, if your social media is stressing you out, maybe it's time to hand it off.
Crystal Oakes: to the next person to work on it.
Paden Squires: Yeah. And,I started, I guess I took my started to take my social media game serious probably a year and a half ago. and this podcast is eventually an extension of that. I wanted to get to this, but, hiring a team to help me do all that. I couldn't have done any of this stuff by myself.
Paden Squires: I technically could have, but I never would have,
Paden Squires: trying to do it.
Crystal Oakes: Yeah. And business owners forget a lot of times too, that like when you're so close to it and you're trying to, figure out how to keep payroll running and you're trying to figure out how to, you know, if you have a physical space, trying to figure out who cleans that, all of those different hats that we wear as business owners, sometimes we're just too close to our own marketing in order to really do it effectively.
Crystal Oakes: And,what we're seeing is. the nitty gritty of all those things, instead of being able to take a step back [00:11:00] and seeing the big picture, which is a lot of times is where marketing comes in.
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Paden Squires: So Crystal, tell me what's the best decision you've ever made. That
Crystal Oakes: is a good question.
Crystal Oakes: I think an obvious one would be quitting my job. It was a very hard decision, but I think it is absolutely the best one that I've ever made. But apart from that, expanding my team,that's something that I was really scared of for a long time. I heard the horror stories of people, business owners staying up late at night, worrying about how they were going to make payroll the next day.
Crystal Oakes: And, that stressed me out and I'm a creative and I am not a numbers person. So the idea of. putting that stress on myself, in order to really, provide for someone else in their family,was stressful for me, but I think it's absolutely the best decision I've made because we have been able to grow to next from there.
Paden Squires: Yeah. Same here. Similar experience. I ran my business more or less by myself for 70 solid seven years. with zero employees basically. And, the business has grown exponentially as soon as I decided to take the leap and take a chance. And yeah, same thing. [00:13:00] You hear all the horror stories of employees doing crazy stuff and all these crazy things.
Paden Squires: Butif you don't people, you're dead. What are you going to do? You're going to scale. Exactly.
Crystal Oakes: And I think, as business owners, sometimes we forget, we have to become the trainer, we have to become the delegator. And sometimes that's a skill set that we don't yet possess that we have to really teach ourselves or, find mentors in those areas in order to really train our employees.
Crystal Oakes: And I think that's what creates amazing company culture and,employees that feel really, supported. solid in what they're doing. They know what they're supposed to be doing because they've been told that they've been trained in those areas. We've put in the time and the effort and the,growth areas with our employees.
Crystal Oakes: And that makes a huge difference.
Paden Squires: Yeah. and now that I got a couple, main team members on my team, like, it's kind of amazing. Like they start to become my priority, Or taking care of them. and not that they need me to take care of them. Extremely talented, but.
Paden Squires: responsibility, right? And as a leader and wanting to lead people and help [00:14:00] them grow, one of my guys is a younger guy and, He reminds me so much of me and I want to help him, do everything he wants to do. so it's, while it's, there's more stress, it's also it can be so much more fulfilling than, just trying to make money on your own.
Crystal Oakes: Absolutely. So rewarding to pass along your knowledge that you've learned,help people grow in their skill sets, really help make some of their dreams come true. One of our employees just got back from Europe. And we had a big, team kickoff earlier this year. And we were talking about our goals and, really getting into the nitty gritty of like, what are we going to do this year?
Crystal Oakes: And, I remember her saying, I want to travel internationally and I've never done that. And that literally came true for her. And I'm not going to say, we did all of that, but we also allowed her the three weeks off to go do that, and was able to pivot our business to make that happen.
Crystal Oakes: And I think it does, it becomes. So fulfilling when you can really help just raise each other up, and really feed into what they're looking to achieve in their life too.
Paden Squires: Yeah. and it's, that's easy to do. I don't know [00:15:00] how many employees you have. I, when I say that's easy, it's not easy to do, but it's easy to do for a small organization, right?
Paden Squires: Like me, it's really me and my team of, three ish people. so it's really easy to keep that culture. you start getting to 15, 15, 20. Those things really start to break down. They do.
Crystal Oakes: They do. It takes a really intentional effort to keep that culture going throughout a larger organization.
Paden Squires: Yeah. And it's kind of interesting is some of that even goes back to, evolution or the size of like tribes, how people used to run together in tribes and they never usually would get bigger than like 30 ish people. And that's almost the right amount of people to live, in an organization.
Paden Squires: And just as you obviously scale past those things, a whole, your business has to change dramatically for that.
Crystal Oakes: Absolutely. Yeah. And I've seen that happen time and time again with the companies that I've worked for and consulted with. I'm like, we need to get back to basics here because we let our growth get in the way of our culture.
Paden Squires: and in that your brand right and that your brand is your internal and external You know really your values and everything stand for [00:16:00] so on the flip side of that Your best decision was quitting your job. Give us a nice big mistake. Oh
Crystal Oakes: my goodness. I've made so many mistakes I think probably the biggest is saying yes to clients that I knew in my heart weren't right for us You know, and we do have, a specific way that we like to do things.
Crystal Oakes: We have a way that we like to communicate, you know, as, business owners, we figure those things out. And when that red flag conversation comes up where somebody is like, yeah, I want to pay you a lot of money to help me with my marketing. And I'm like, that sounds great. But in the back of your mind, you're hearing.
Crystal Oakes: This doesn't feel quite right. And
Paden Squires: they're not going to fit my process.
Crystal Oakes: And, yeah, those are, we've only had to fire two clients and both times I had that feeling and I didn't say yes to that feeling. I didn't lean into it. And I feel like that was a huge mistake because it would have saved us, misery throughout our, the projects that we were working on.
Crystal Oakes: and yet as a creative, as somebody who wakes up every day with that creative energy, that is [00:17:00] a very fast way. To kill all that creative energy is working with somebody that you don't drive with. And I think that is the biggest mistake I've made for myself and my team members is getting a little greedy when it came to saying yes to a project, right?
Crystal Oakes: Because we wanted the revenue coming in. We wanted the project coming in, but I knew it wasn't right for us.
Paden Squires: Yeah, I'm guilty than anybody in that area, especially early. I'm a whole lot more clear about what I do and what I don't do at this point. you're early, you need revenue, you want to pay people, you want to grow.
Paden Squires: yeah, you do a lot of stuff that I wouldn't say violate your print or value. It's just, it's a distraction, honestly. It's something that, it sounds good, the revenue, whatever, but If it's a distraction, it's not your focus. if you don't look forward to speaking to that client.
Crystal Oakes: Absolutely. And for the younger businesses listening to this, that's okay. And we all have to do it. And cash flow is an important part of your business too. And if you have to take on a project or a job for a little bit less money than you would have, or you just quite didn't feel right, just do it with intention.
Crystal Oakes: Listen [00:18:00] to this conversation and know that's going to come up. And I may have to say yes to something that's not right for me, but I know I'm doing that. In this moment for a specific reason, instead of falling into this trap of like, Oh, I hate all my clients and I'm never happy within my business. Right.
Crystal Oakes: Because you said yes too many times to things that aren't right.
Paden Squires: Yeah. And it's, you're right. Yeah. You do know the tension. And I've, like the things I did the first five years of my business that I laugh at, there's no way I would do it now. but I think it's important, for young or business owners starting out to realize though, also, while you do have to generate some revenue, it's like, make sure you're valuing yourself too, because when you're starting out, like you don't know what you're doing, you're probably not very confident in it.
Paden Squires: So you're going to undercut everything. And. You're going to do a whole lot of work.
Crystal Oakes: Absolutely. People laugh at me, but even if I trade with a family member or I did, a logo for my sister's company the other day. And, I broke down on an invoice. This is what it would have [00:19:00] cost you. This is your family discount, right?
Crystal Oakes: And I think those things are really important because
Crystal Oakes: we need to be showing what value we're really bringing to the table. whether that's a list of things that you're accomplishing for them, stress you're taking away or the actual, dollars and cents
Crystal Oakes: behind
Crystal Oakes: it.
Paden Squires: Yeah. and, if you're not going to value yourself, no one else is going to see your value either.
Paden Squires: and so holding that confidence and knowing what's your worth and confident in that and being able to articulate that. In my industry, that's a huge problem. I work in the tax industry and accountants, if you know, personalities, not super outgoing, huge problems.
Paden Squires: I see people with insane amount of experience doing things for insanely cheap,
Crystal Oakes: in my industry too. And I think a lot of times it's the whole creatives don't do numbers. Right. And, it's very common in my industry and I try to coach people out of it because it's like, it does undervalue you and it does undervalue the industry as a whole, when you see somebody coming in, doing a logo design for a hundred dollars, you know, it's like, there is more work that goes into it is worth more than that.
Crystal Oakes: [00:20:00] so that's something I coach. I coach other creatives as well. I coach them on that a lot.
Paden Squires: Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. I see you, you lit up there a little bit. When you're talking about coaching, tell,tell me. Yeah, it's
Crystal Oakes: absolutely one of my favorite things to do. I coach our business owners that we work with.
Crystal Oakes: I also coach the creatives that we hire the freelancers that we hire. And a lot of that is just, you don't know what you don't know. And I can turn around my years of experience and help someone. What did I hear the other day? Oh, compound your time. Like when you learn from other people, you're having your time.
Crystal Oakes: And I love that phrase because yeah, if. If you can learn something that I made a mistake in and that gets you 10 steps further, like why not? Why not tap into that energy? And especially for creatives, one of the things that I ran into in my corporate career was I was incredibly burnt out. I remember going to my boss's office like three different times in tears. I'm quitting my job today.
Crystal Oakes: Today's the day I will not be back here tomorrow.
Paden Squires: You're not going to convince me to stay. You're not going to convince
Crystal Oakes: me to stay. my job and he was an amazing mentor to me. And he was like, no, not letting you do that. [00:21:00] And he gave an incredible piece of advice that I pass along all the time now is like, you need to make those decisions on a place of high, not on a place of low.
Crystal Oakes: And when you're making those decisions from a place of low, then you're, doing it out of angst, you know,and you're making just kind of the next decision. And when I came to him and I took him to lunch and I said, yeah. I'm turning in my notice so that I can start my own company. And he was like, that's the answer I wanted.
Crystal Oakes: Absolutely. And it was a whole different conversation. He was saying, how do I support you in that? And, I think that it is really important and especially if everybody can experience burnout, but creatives, that's my specialty, right? Working with creatives and if your job is to like, to be creative for other people and write amazing words or create incredible web page layouts or social media graphics or brands and logos.
Crystal Oakes: And you aren't feeling your own creative energy. You're not going to do a good job for them. So I feel like really a lot of my job is Protect my team's creative energy [00:22:00] and whether if that means I have to field, emails or discussions or whatever to make that happen. I experienced that burnout.
Crystal Oakes: It took me almost a year and that was the year that I doubled my corporate salary, but that's just the go getter mentality. But it took me almost a year to find it back to where I could really feel like I fell into a project and I brought my full creative energy to the table. And, for creatives that are listening to this, As creatives, we are made to think outside the box.
Crystal Oakes: That is what we're made to do. But if we don't know what the box is, If there's no definition around the box, then we can't effectively do that. And I think that's something that creatives need to like soak into their brains a little bit and that it's not bad to set boundaries, to set work hours, to set here's the time I check my email, a calendar system, a project management system, those kind of things, because that allows you to find those pockets of time that you really get to fall into that creative energy.
Paden Squires: I was just sitting here thinking it's so interesting that you're [00:23:00] speaking to the problems that you see in your industry. And many of those things you're describing are almost like the complete opposite, the problems and necessarily, we almost got like a left brain, right brain.
Paden Squires: That's
Crystal Oakes: really what's happening on the screen here.
Paden Squires: Yeah. and, in my industry, it's like,everybody's, they're so in the weeds about stuff that just, Flat out doesn't matter and it cripples them. There's a bank reconciliation of four cents and they're going to spend six hours trying to figure out what happened, if you just take the bigger picture, it's like none of that even matters anyway.
Paden Squires: And so it's kind of interesting, some of yours. You're maybe your industry needs more structure and some of my industry needs to like, Hey, you are so trapped in that box that you need to think outside the box.
Crystal Oakes: Exactly. Right. Yeah. It goes back to like knowing your personal tendencies, knowing your personality type.
Crystal Oakes: Like I nerd out about those things quite a bit because it just allows me to better understand people.
Paden Squires: Yeah. is there any specific personality test or anything you love? Yeah, I love the
Crystal Oakes: [00:24:00] Enneagram. I feel like when I read the information about my own Enneagram number, I was like, wow, somebody is standing behind me right now.
Crystal Oakes: Like people are actually actively listening to me. So when I first, Did the test, I got my Enneagram number. I read the results. I was like, Oh my God, somebody's in my house. Like somebody, somebody wrote this about me. People are watching me right now. It was so accurate.
Crystal Oakes: I'm three. If anyone's wondering, I'm a three on the Enneagram, which is the Achiever. And then I started digging deeper and I did my husband, he's a nine. He's the peacekeeper. He's very different from me, but I started doing this for friends and family and really learning their Enneagram types and figuring out, even how those different types interact with each other.
Crystal Oakes: And it was one of my favorite things to do. Honestly, I just wish that I knew all my clients' Enneagram numbers, but sometimes I'll talk about it and they're like, I'm not going to go on and take a test for you.
Paden Squires: Yeah. So it's really interesting. the one that we use most internally is called culture.
Paden Squires: and [00:25:00] every time I talk to a guest on here, I'm sizing them up and trying to picture in my head where they're at on this chart. but, yeah, when I took it, I was like, holy crap. That's me. And then my wife took it. I'm like, Oh my God, and it is cool. We use it as tool obviously for hiring and recruiting. it's really our first screening for anybody that wants to come into the organization.
Paden Squires: And then also we give it to clients. it helps me know how to speak to you. and what is important to you? do I need to give you a bunch of details? Do I need to talk to you in stories? All those types of things just helps me communicate. It's kind of interesting. You'll have a, typically a husband and a wife and, How I speak to each one of them is different because I know what they need to know to feel
Crystal Oakes: good.
Paden Squires: So it's powerful. I
Crystal Oakes: love things like that. I also nerd out about web psychology. So the way that people interact and read websites and the questions they're asking themselves in their mind whenever they look at your web page, things like that. And I think they all play [00:26:00] together and I talk to my clients a lot about there are multiple learning styles.
Crystal Oakes: styles. Here's how you need to communicate with your audience because marketing at the end of the day bleeds a lot into just general communication too, when it comes to customer service or just how you're going to answer the phone, things like that really matter. And yeah, you're absolutely right.
Crystal Oakes: Knowing people's personality types, or at least having a pulse on trying to understand that better has made a huge difference for me.
Paden Squires: Yeah. And it just gives you a framework, none of 'em are perfect, but they give you a really good framework of how to view and understand, just interpersonal relationships of, I'm an accountant.
Paden Squires: My wife is even more detailed than I, and she's asking me detailed questions all the time. and even in my head I'm like, none of this matters. What? You know what I mean? Like, in the big picture, like, she's asking me these questions because she needs to know that information.
Paden Squires: Crystal, is there anything else you want to cover or talk about specifically?
Paden Squires: Yeah,
Crystal Oakes: I just want to kind of mention that, Oaks Creative House, our company, has a lot of amazing free resources when it comes to working on your marketing. So [00:27:00] even if you're listening to this and you're like, Wow, I'm still new into business. I'm not ready to hire someone yet. Those resources are made for DIYers.
Crystal Oakes: They're tools that we have developed and we use For our clients. so I have on our website a resources page where you can go on and download workbooks and worksheets, checklists and tons of information. I also have a Facebook group that we do, regular q and sessions and things like that.
Crystal Oakes: Training in marketing called for the love of business. And then I have a low cost membership as well. That's only $47 a month for you to receive marketing training every month. So we really try to work, to grow our audience to be ready for a firm like ours. So when you actually are ready to invest in your website or hire someone to do your social media, then you know what you're getting into.
Crystal Oakes: you understand it enough to know that your investment of time or money is being spent in the right way.
Paden Squires: Yeah, that's awesome stuff. That's awesome stuff. really trying to reach that low end of the market to get them. To grow and, that's unique and it's probably something, it seems like a passion of yours [00:28:00] because you don't necessarily need to work at that level of the market, but that's something that certainly matters to you.
Crystal Oakes: Absolutely. And I've seen it just tenfold make a huge difference, you know, in terms of recommendations for people who are ready for us, you know? Things like that. We taught a workshop on sales funnels, building sales funnels for your business just last Friday. And, it was just incredible to see the light bulbs go off in the room to say, wow, I always heard this term.
Crystal Oakes: You need a funnel, you need a funnel. And, immediately I get up in front of the room and I'm like, just take the word funnel out of your mind. Let me break this down for you because it doesn't have to be as buzzword and complicated as it seems sometimes. And by the end of it, I've already seen people from that workshop and it's only been.
Crystal Oakes: less than a week. I've already seen people making moves in their business towards that growth into a sales funnel. So I love it. It's something that I'm really passionate about. Something that just lights my heart on fire. And of course I love doing your actual marketing projects, but seeing people really start to understand what these things mean, just really fulfills me because I never want to be [00:29:00] the person that takes somebody's money just because they felt like they needed to hand it over.
Paden Squires: Oh yeah, for sure. For sure. One last question. What's a piece of advice you'd give your younger self starting at the beginning? So you quit your job today. What are you telling yourself?
Crystal Oakes: The piece of advice I would give my younger self would definitely be along the lines of trust yourself, trust your instincts.
Crystal Oakes: there have been times within my business or my life where I've held myself back, because I was scared of the next step or just didn't know where to go. There's also been times where I've been pulled in by a lot of advisors to try to make the right decision. And in my heart and in my mind, I knew that I was leaning in a different direction, but didn't feel confident enough to move into that direction.
Crystal Oakes: And every time I have said no, I appreciate your advice, but I'm going to go ahead and go this direction. It has always paid off for me. It has always paid off for me. And one thing, to keep in mind is like, no one is you. No one can understand [00:30:00] exactly what your vision is, especially as an entrepreneur, right?
Crystal Oakes: And a lot of times you are talking to people who aren't your ideal client, right? My mom wouldn't be my ideal client. My sister wouldn't be my ideal client. Or you're talking to people who have never done this before you. And you're putting them in this advisory role in your mind to try to give you advice and to try to help you make the next step.
Crystal Oakes: steps, whereas they're not even the right people to do that. And a lot of times we have to turn inward and we have to do the personal work in order to make those decisions in a way that really works for us. And that's what I wish I would have understood when I was younger.
Paden Squires: Yeah. So it's amazing.
Paden Squires: Literally yesterday I shared a tweet from Alex Hermosi he was saying, Hey, the more I believe this saying the better my life gets and if it's, if they don't have what you want. Don't listen to what they say. .
Crystal Oakes: Yes, it's so true, and it's nothing negative. We're not out there saying like, you're giving bad advice.
Crystal Oakes: It's just that people love to [00:31:00] help and they love to give feedback, but at the same time, you have to know as a business owner where you're putting them in your, I like to call it like the board of directors. What seat are they holding? in your life as your board of directors. And sometimes it's personal, you know, I would absolutely call my sister to talk to her about my kids.
Crystal Oakes: She's never ran a multi six figure marketing agency, right? Maybe that's not the person that I call to talk about this specific decision that I need to make. And that's true of all friends of all family of even our spouses. Right. And I think we need to just really realize who we're leaning on and what role they play in terms of giving us advice.
Paden Squires: Yeah. they qualified or have any experience to be able to give that advice? Because you're right, like your mom wants to help you and she is sincerely trying to help you and trying to protect you. But she's not necessarily qualified to tell you how to run your market.
Crystal Oakes: Sure. Absolutely. Even generationally, a lot of times we want to look at people who are older than us, and see what's happened before.
Crystal Oakes: But [00:32:00] I work in a digital marketing space. Like Google changes the rules every day. It seems like, leaning on certain people to give advice, in, on what's happening in your business today may not be the right person. Now, I think it's always good to listen to other people's wisdom and to have those conversations that you and your mind have to sort out.
Crystal Oakes: Sort through what that really means to you and where you're going to place that advice.
Paden Squires: Good stuff, Crystal. Thank you. What's the best way people can connect with you?
Crystal Oakes: Yeah,
Paden Squires: our
Crystal Oakes: website is www.oakescreativehouse.com. That's where a lot of our resources are. We send out a weekly, email newsletter.
Crystal Oakes: So when you download a resource, you're going to be popped onto that list and it's oakescreativehouse.com. and we're that on all social media platforms.
Paden Squires: Awesome. Crystal, this is a great conversation. I appreciate you coming on and listeners.
Paden Squires: We'll catch you next time.
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you found it valuable, please rate, review, and share it. That is the best way to help us build this and reach more people as we're trying to accomplish our goal of helping create more healthy, [00:33:00] wealthy, and wise entrepreneurs. You can follow us on social media by searching for me, Payton Squires, or going to www.padensquires.com On the website and social media, we're always sharing tips of personal growth, and there we can actually interact. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks guys.
