Ep #362: 10 Non-Negotiables of Successful Entrepreneurs

Stacey Brown Randall: Hey there, and welcome to the Roadmap to Referrals podcast, a show that proves you can generate referrals without asking or manipulation.

I am your host, Stacey Brown Randall. I’m also a card-carrying member of the Business Failure Club. I have taught my referrals without asking methodology and strategy to clients in more than 14 countries around the world. And my mission is to help you unleash a referral explosion by leveraging the science of referrals and protecting your relationships.

I am very excited to have you guys with me today for this interview. I should say, actually, more like a discussion of two old friends chatting, because that’s truly what this was.

I’m excited to welcome you guys. And for those of you who don’t know LuAnn Nigara, I’m so excited for you guys to meet her for the first time. She is a hoot. You’re going to love this conversation.

We are talking about the 10 non-negotiables of every successful entrepreneur. Now, she’s going to give you all 10. We’ll only have time to dive into two. You’ll totally see what I mean because we are just having this great dialogue and conversation.

And when I told LuAnn that, hey, usually when I bring guests on my podcast, the interviews are, ya know, close to like 25 to 35 minutes. She laughed and she was like, you know, we’re going to go longer than that. And she was right. I knew we would.

Anytime I’ve been interviewed on her podcast, A Well-Designed Business, the interviews are usually like 45 minutes to an hour plus. So I think we did well to keep it to the time limit that we kept our, our conversation to.

But I’m excited for you guys to hear from LuAnn and talking about this is someone who has been in business for decades. And she teaches other entrepreneurs how to be successful.

And I think you’re really going to appreciate this list of the 10 non-negotiables she’s developed over, of course, her decades in business, her 1,100 podcast interviews.

I think she’s got four books written. I’m a co-author with her with one of them. She’s a pretty amazing, phenomenal woman. And I’m excited for you guys to learn from her.

And there is a little tease that happens in there about a story. I promise if you stick around to the end, I will actually explain the story that we don’t talk about during the interview, but we absolutely mention it.

So stick around to the end, come back to me after the interview, and I will finish telling that story. But for now, let’s just get to the interview with LuAnn.

Stacey Brown Randall: LuAnn, welcome to the show. I have to say, this feels like a very long time coming, because I have been on your podcast a couple of times. And I know I don’t usually, I do a solo show, I don’t usually have guests on, but I feel like this is like a meant to be, and I’m a little embarrassed that it hadn’t happened before now. So thanks for being here.

LuAnn Nigara: Well, it’s so funny Stace, I’m really super excited to be here and like when we were talking a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t even realize I had never been on the show.

We’ve known each other for so long, have been such good friends and collaborators that I just assumed I had been on.

Stacey Brown Randall: I should have just gone with it, like oh yeah, LuAnn you’ve totally been on before, like it was like episodes like blah blah blah. Oh my gosh.

Well, I think that’s also when you do a podcast for so long, now, I’m not anywhere near where you are with how long you’ve been doing your podcast, but even for me, like I’m 360 shows in, people are like, do you remember when you talked about? I’m like, I don’t remember what I talked about a week ago.

LuAnn Nigara: Well, you know, I think for you, because the bulk of your shows are solo shows, I can see that. Like for my Window Treatments for Profit show, there’s like, I don’t know, almost 400 shows there and they are probably 50% solo shows. So that I’m like, did I talk about that? Did I not?

Whereas A Well-Designed Business is 1,100 shows and maybe there’s, I don’t know if there’s 50 or 100 solo shows. So I’m like, oh, like 2018, so and so, 2017, probably around 19, you know what I mean? So I think it’s different when it’s a solo show. It’s like, what the heck did I say?

Stacey Brown Randall: And the fact that I talk about, I have somehow figured out how to talk about a single topic. Referrals.

LuAnn Nigara: Exactly. That’s the thing. I’m like, all right. I’m like, okay, ChatGPT. What should we talk about with window treatment people today?

Stacey Brown Randall: What is something new and exciting that I haven’t talked about in years? Yes. It is interesting. I mean, I will admit like sometimes it’s like, and what are we going to talk about now?

Because I like to build out my editorial calendar for an entire year, I don’t know if that’s how you do it because for me, I can’t handle the stress of not knowing, what am I going to talk about. And then I want things to fit, and I want things to weave together so I’ll do like mini-series, like we’re going to 3 episodes on this.

LuAnn Nigara: Oh, that’s smart. I’m more like it’s Thursday and we need a show for Monday, what’s that topic going to be?

Stacey Brown Randall: I mean I definitely have those moments too, definitely. Oh, okay. So I, of course, I mean, we could just like chitchat for hours and that would be awesome and excellent.

And I know all the things about you, but I know there are many, many people in my audience that may not. And so I want to make sure that you have a chance to like do the proper introduction and tell us about all the things that makes LuAnn so fabulous.

LuAnn Nigara: Well, okay, so the name, rank, and serial number, right? So my podcasts are A Well-Designed Business and Window Treatments for Profit.

Started the first one, A Well-Designed Business, in 2016. We’re approaching, like I said, 1,100 episodes. And basically, the mission of that podcast is to teach interior designers to be profitable.

And then the Window Treatments for Profit, same mission, different target audience. But where it comes from, it comes from 40 years of running a retail window treatment operation with my husband and our cousin, Phil.

And our target clients were consumers and interior designers. So over that 40 years, it was very much basically the trade partner for interior designers.

So understanding how their business works, what they need as support, and our business is incredibly system driven. And it was so apparent to me that as creatives, that system and money part is a tough nut to crack.

And I know I wouldn’t have cracked it. I’m also, you know, creative. But my husband, you know, the Vincennes Stace, he is A, systems driven and he is B, financial savvy.

And so just like running that business with him all these years, now I would say I claim those as knowledge bases for myself as well.

And just really trying to help creative entrepreneurs, whether it’s in the home decor industry or whatever it is, just understand that the really critical part is not your talent.

Your talent is awesome, but it’s not going to be the differentiator if your business is successful.

The differentiator is how process-driven you are and how knowledgeable you are about managing your finances.

And if you have those and you add to that talent, that talent could be average talent and you’re still gonna be profitable. It could be superstar talent and then you’re gonna be one of those that really lead the industry, whatever industry you’re in.

And so, you know, in serving all of that, it’s of course, I’ve got the three books. You’re a co-author in one of my books. We have LuAnn University where we teach the business side of design business and window treatment business to professionals.

And then we have our Power Talk Friday events that you have been joining me for those. And so that’s all the different little envelopes and I guess umbrellas and things that the things happen in. But it’s all about teaching creatives really to be profitable.

Stacey Brown Randall: Yeah. And I think it’s like, a lot of the folks that I work with, not all of them, but a lot of the folks I work with, they’re the type that are like really amazing at doing X, whatever X is, the interior designer, right?

Or the attorney or the bookkeeper or, you know, like the marketing consultant, right? They’re really amazing at doing X. And then they decide to start a business to do it as well. And I’m like, OK, well, that’s two totally different hats. And there’s a lot of things to learn.

I mean, it’s like, here, this is you being the amazing interior designer, or whatever it is, whatever x is, and here’s all the other things you need to learn how to do. You’ve got to put those into one hand.

And for me, it’s a thing, knowing your numbers and being system and process driven. And I would add to that, from my perspective, it’s also like, you’ve got to know how to sell. You’ve got to know how to bring clients in the door.

There’s like bringing them in the door, which is the what I teach from the referrals perspective. But then it’s the like getting them to say yes. And then, of course, taking care of them as well. So there’s a lot to learn.

LuAnn Nigara: Yeah, no, it’s literally the epitome of Michael Gerber’s book, The E-Myth. Yeah. You know, you have the technician who is the attorney, the doctor, the interior designer that is like, I’m really good at this. You know what? I’m going out on my own.

But then you need the entrepreneur who is the visionary, and the one is setting the path and seeing where and what the company should do and specialize and who that target client should be.

And then, you know, you have the operations manager, the one who is making sure that the systems are created and documented. And 95% of small businesses are all three, but you’re not really qualified or knowledgeable for two of the three things.

So hopefully you’re listening to your podcast and other podcasts to get that education because that talent and passion is a strong, strong component. And that talent and passion usually turns into you being a good advocate for your company.

So you’re probably a somewhat good salesperson, but then you’ve got to hone that in, you know, get that skill up level as well. And of course, you’ve got to drive leads, which is what you help us all with.

Stacey Brown Randall: Yeah. So, I mean, I just think it’s most people are like, Oh, I’m starting a business that I’m like, it’s going to be the most exhilarating time of your life. And the most like what the ‘you know what ‘did I just sign up for?

Because it is, it’s like learning that you are like so good at something and it’s so not good at other things. Sometimes on a daily basis.

LuAnn Nigara: And it’s kind of humbling, right? Because when you come to something because you’re so good at it and then finding out that like, oh wait, but that part, I have no idea.

Stacey Brown Randall: You’re like, I don’t even know how to make heads or tails out of this. So this is obviously one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show, because it is important to talk about this.

And you have created a list of the 10 non-negotiables that you have found in your 40 years of being a business owner, and all those thousands of podcast episodes, and the books that you’ve written, of what a successful entrepreneur has as their non-negotiables.

And you have 10 of them. And so I went through the list, and I was like, I want to talk about two of them because I think it’s super important for people listening.

And we’re not going to talk about like anything that’s referrals or sales specific. I want to talk about other ones with you because I think that’s just as necessary, but why don’t you just like run through the list of 10, so everyone listening understands here are the 10 non-negotiables of successful entrepreneurs.

I will tell you though, Lu, when your team sent me the list, and before I like opened it up and looked at it, I was like, Oh, snapadoodle, is there going to be something on here I don’t actually do well, or that I don’t do right, or that I need to improve?

I figured there’d be something I needed to improve upon, but I was like, oh, are there going to be something? Am I missing any of them? I felt better about myself once I got to number 10. But yeah, so let’s have you just run through the 10, and then I’ll start asking you more questions about the number 3 and number 7.

LuAnn Nigara: Okay, sounds good. Alright. So in my experience, the actual boots on the ground experience, and like you said, you know, 1,000 plus episodes and 16 billion more conversations with entrepreneurs.

The number one thing is that they define their mission, vision and core values. They spend some time, take it seriously. I also find this is the number one thing that every entrepreneur skips.

So nine out of 10 will go right past this and say, not important, don’t need to do it. But it is, to me, and it bears out in interview after interview, it is a critical step to find your mission, vision, and core values.

The second thing is that they actively gather their dream team of experts and then ultimately employees. And so these are the people that they surround themselves with, their CPA, their lawyer, their collaborators, all of the things, the consultants that they work with, their website developer.

They gather the dream team of experts and they understand when they’re not good at something, they hire out for it and have that mentorship and or paid information.

The third thing is that they prioritize the creation and documentation of the systems and processes. And the key here is prioritizing it, right? It’s like we can talk about it, we can wish about it, we can intend on it, but the truly successful entrepreneurs that walk among us, they actually prioritize it. And they also understand it’s a living, breathing document and it’s going to change all the time.

Number four is that they know their numbers. They know what numbers they need to know, okay? They know how to track them, and they know how to analyze them. So this is anything from lead stats, close ratios to projecting the gross volume of the business, estimating taxes and having it put aside. It’s literally everything about numbers.

When you’re avoiding this step, you’re usually running your business from what your checkbook looks like. You’re like, I got $20K, I can probably do this. I got $100K, I can probably do that. That’s not how the most successful among us do it.

The fifth thing is that they define their brand, and they express it in their messaging with integrity. So, you know, it’s like they really dig into who they are, what they are, how they want to be viewed, how they show up in the space that they’re in. And then they align all their messaging to that.

But then that messaging is expressed with integrity. So it’s expressed from your voice, your point of view. And that’s the tricky part. It’s sometimes tricky to discover the brand.

But when you do, then the second step is to say it the way you would say it. You don’t say it the way you think somebody wants to hear it. You say it the way it’s true for you.

The sixth is that they understand their ideal client, their target market, their dream client, whatever language you want to put around it, they know who they’re going after. It’s clear to them.

You might take two, three, four different types of clients, but your target ideal one that’s going to be, say, 60 to 70 percent of the people you work with, you know who they are, because then you can do all the other things to market and what you teach us to do.

The seventh is they embrace learning, coaching, and hiring people smarter than them. And I literally, literally just say to everybody, if you have ever had a child and that child wanted to take dance lessons or wanted to play softball or soccer or hockey or music lessons, you don’t be like, here’s your clarinet, we’ll check in a couple years and see if you know how to play it.

No. You invest in teaching and making sure that that child has all the skills taught to them so that they can possibly succeed at it. But you don’t say, well, I gave you a clarinet four years ago and you still don’t know how to play it.

But yet, we open businesses, we put our lives and our mortgages and everything on the line and we just figure, I guess I’ll figure it out. No. The smartest among us, they learn and they hire and they work with people who are smarter than them in their gaps.

The eighth is, the smartest and the most successful among us, they strive for an exceptional client experience with every client.

Now, striving for an exceptional client experience with every client. Key word, strive, right? We’re not gonna do it every time. We’re gonna fall down. We’re gonna drop a ball.

But if we don’t even consider that our goal is exceptional for every client, we don’t come anywhere close to figuring out a process that can begin to think about delivering that.

Number nine is that they build meaningful, genuine relationships with peers, clients, trades, and vendors. We’re a fabulous example of this. We met each other randomly because of a podcast nine years ago, and we have stayed friends, and we have collaborated, and we’ve continued to.

Sometimes you’re helping me, sometimes I’m helping you, but it’s a truth that we have become a genuine friendship because we actively build it. And you look for the places that it feels right to do it. And you don’t drop a ball. You go out of your way.

Stacey Brown Randall: And sometimes you send inappropriate things on cupcakes to people, too. As part of nurturing that friendship.

LuAnn Nigara: Exactly. You’ll have to tell that story.

Stacey Brown Randall: Ok. I’ll make everybody wait till the end. Okay. Number 10. Sorry.

LuAnn Nigara: And number 10 is quite simply, they understand that it’s a decision every day to show up as the CEO. That the buck starts and stops with you and standing in the corner whining and complaining that this is hard is not relevant and not going to help.

And it’s just whether it’s having a hard conversation with an employee, having a hard conversation with a client, whether it’s making a tough business call on something, but you recognize you’re the CEO and it’s not going to be all unicorns and rainbows.

And some days it is. And when it is, you’re the CEO and you get the high fives. Yay. But it’s a daily decision. Let’s do this again today. Let’s do this again today. And so that’s what I’ve learned really runs across the board of the most successful businesses.

Stacey Brown Randall: So, you know, it took everything in me not to pick eight and nine to be a part of this conversation with the client experience and then with the building of relationships. And I was like, nope, we’re going to talk about something different because I talk about these other two a lot.

LuAnn Nigara: All the time.

Stacey Brown Randall: Yes. And, you know, so from that perspective, like I looked through the list and I think you just gave such a great explanation of what they are and then the, like a little bit of detail of the why behind them.

Because it is like hearing them is like, okay, here’s the 10 things. Yep. I’m kind of mentally checking boxes as I go. But the truth is, is that all of these things make your life better and easier as a business owner, but all of them take work up front to do.

And that is always like, I will have people who talk about like either working with me at my VIP level or coming into my coaching program and inevitably, I will get the question, well, who’s not successful?

And I always say, and I’m like, you already know the answer to this. It’s those that don’t do the work. Because I can’t do it for you.

LuAnn Nigara: Right. If you’re just planning to pay the money and think somehow at the end, I’m just going to bop you on the head and it’s all going to be fine.

Stacey Brown Randall: It’ll be perfect. Like I was on the call today with a VIP client and literally they were like, um, we know we’re not getting results because we haven’t taken the time to implement everything you built for us.

And I just like, I wanted to come through Zoom and like hug them and be like, thanks for acknowledging, like thanks for being a grownup. And acknowledging that it’s amazing. It could be doing great things, but you’re not doing them.

LuAnn Nigara: Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s the CEO. You got to show up and do it.

Stacey Brown Randall: You got to take that responsibility. Okay. But I did want to dive into three and seven, because I do think that when I think about the things where I have the greatest amount of stress in my business as a business owner. And I will hit 12 years later this year.

So this isn’t like my first-year rodeo, and you know, you know my story. Most of my listeners know my story. I also had a business before this that failed after just over four years. And I went back to corporate America before starting this business 12 years ago.

And it’s changed a lot. And you know, I used to be a productivity coach and now I’m teaching referrals. Like couldn’t be more different, righxt?

But these were the things that I think caused some of the greatest stress and the things that just made business harder. And I was like, oh, I think these are the two we’re supposed to talk about.

So let’s talk about the prioritization and it’s the making it the priority, which is always the piece and you kind of mentioned this. It’s always the piece where people are like, it’s important. That is my actions proving that it’s important.

And it’s the systems. And it’s the processes. And I know when I was a productivity coach, I was like, why do you keep rewriting that email? How do you not have a template?

And then here I am with this business I have now. It feels very different from my coaching practice because it’s like a tech stack. And it’s like templates. And I’ve got Kathy as my assistant. And I’ve got an army of contractors that I work with that make everything work.

And it’s like, oh, there’s a lot of things moving. And so why do you think business owners don’t always make it the priority that they know it should be? What have you found?

LuAnn Nigara: I think that it depends on the stages that you’re in. And I think most people, you know, you think about startup stage and it’s you and it’s you and maybe it’s a bookkeeper at some point and maybe it’s you and a bookkeeper and assistant.

But what happens is you can quote-unquote earn money, you can have clients and have invoices paid and you can pay your own bills, and you can go to Aruba, and you can do the things and not actually take the time to do it.

So it gets very seductive to say that’s not necessary, but what I always say on my podcast is if you don’t have documented systems that are duplicatable and repeatable, you actually have a you. You don’t have a business. You have a you.

You have a thing that lives between your ears. And it could be amazing. Your systems and processes could be fairly detailed in your mind.

But the thing is, because you can actually have successful projects and make money and get away with it, it gets very hard to stop the train that’s moving and say, okay, I know that I haven’t documented this. I know that.

And what it is, is even if your you is successful, not a chance you’re not telling me that there aren’t those times where you get up at three o’clock in the morning, you’re like, oh my gosh, did I send that proposal out? I hung up at the end of the day and I said I would do that, and I don’t know that I did it.

Or, oh my gosh, did I order the inventory for next week? Like, I own a pizza shop, and did I order all the boxes? Are we gonna have takeout with no boxes, right? It’s like, when it’s systemized, then someone other than you can do it.

And when it’s systemized, even if it’s systemized in documents and you stay a small solopreneur firm with maybe one or two auxiliary people to round you out, you still just, like the stress level comes so far down because everything you do, you’re like, check, check, check, check, check.

Oh, everything has been done for that client. Everything is done for that order. Everything is done for that. If I’m a wedding planner, okay, I’ve got all the linens and blah, blah, blah.

But the thing about the hard part is the combination of an achievement of certain level of success and the pace that the business is going and it feels like there’s never enough time to stop and do it.

And it’s usually two things that happen. Either you decide you’re going to scale and then you realize, oh, sweet Jesus. Like I have to tell everything to this person every time. And even when I tell them the work product doesn’t look like the way I like it done because they’re remembering their interpretation of their head of what I said.

Or the second thing that happens is that you just really get to the point where you’re like, huh, I can’t go on vacation. I cannot enjoy all of this that I’ve created because when I’m not in the building, nothing happens. You know what I mean?

And so, or you have a catastrophic, you know, that’s a big word. You have a very big ball that gets dropped and you just finally have a come to Jesus moment and you’re like, okay, it’s time for me to show up as the CEO. I’ve got to write this stuff down because even me and my you and all of my glory I missed this thing.

So it’s usually comes like anything else. It’s a pain point, right? It’s like, it’s a pain point. Something happens. It triggers a pain point. But the pain, I think to your initial question, why does it, why is there resistance?

Because if we’re doing and we’re getting it done and it’s sort of 80 to 90% successful, and by the way, we’ve never experienced 95, 98 success. So we don’t really know what we’re missing.

You know, it’s kind of like if you join a gym and you’re like, well, that’d be great to do 100 planks, I mean, 100 pushups or whatever, but you’re like, well, do I care?

And then all of a sudden, if you’re the person that takes the time to get in that shape, you’re like, well, shoot, this is amazing. I like being strong, right? So it’s like the pain and the change is more of a driver than the reward.

Stacey Brown Randall: Which is sad, but true. I mean, even with my, it’s funny, like, no, okay. That was not the way I wanted to start this story. I was going to tell it. It wasn’t funny. I don’t know why I just said it like that.

LuAnn Nigara: I do that all the time. It’s a funny thing. And then I tell a tragic story. I’m like, it’s not funny. There’s nothing funny about it.

Stacey Brown Randall: It’s kind of tragic. Like there’s, there’s somebody that I have hired, that I have been working with, that’s helping me get better at something in my business. And this is why you’ll know, like not a setup for a funny story. It’s not a funny story at all anyways.

And her business, from as a client perspective and as somebody who is like on her email list, like it runs smoothly and flawlessly. And then we get an email that recently her brother passed away and like tragically. And so she had to like step back from the business.

It’s like, I lost my father, and you’ve lost, anyone and you run a business and you’re like, it’s just who cares? I got to step back. Right?

But you couldn’t tell. It was seamless. And they said, you probably didn’t even know that she wasn’t around because all the things kept going that were going and that was seamless. And I remember like seeing that.

And then I reached out to Kathy, my assistant, and I was like, we’re not there yet. Like we’re so much better. And my business is so much better now than it was a year ago or five years ago or 12 years ago. But there are pieces where, and this person that I’m pointing at is the roadblock to us being like that.

LuAnn Nigara: We are typically. We are typically the roadblock.

Stacey Brown Randall: We are. I was like, you know what? If I had to step away for two weeks, because God forbid something like that happened in my world, I was like, things wouldn’t happen.

Because there’s a few things that I still am just not like, is the pain great enough to make me do what I need to do? And I think that’s growth.

LuAnn Nigara: It is. And the thing is, you know, one thing that I always, always want someone listening to hear is any step forward is a step forward. And if you put five steps one in front of another, you’re probably four steps ahead of your competition in doing it. I promise you, right?

So, and here’s the thing. There’s no end to this. You know, you develop your system and process, and you document them when you’re a solo, you add one employee that, you know, multiple systems have to be tweaked. You add five employees, dozens of systems have to be tweaked.

But the thing is the core, how you do things and the core path for tasks to be completed that to deliver a good client experience have to be identified. And then you’re just consistently revising them.

And I mean, it’s a thing like at Window Works is a much bigger business, right? So, it’s, and even I shouldn’t say that in my business also, it’s a typical thing where I just said it yesterday, as a matter of fact.

So we have sponsored shows on my podcast, right? A sponsored show comes out on Friday, that’s a show that a person pays for, for their business to be advertised on my show, right? So they get that show on Friday, and then on Sunday, an email just about them, no other information goes to my email list.

And just yesterday, I sent a Voxer to my marketing coordinator. And I’m like, I’m really hoping this is not going to be news to you. I said, I’m really hoping we have evolved to the point that when I pick a date for a sponsored show, that the little dominoes are falling behind me and letting marketing know and writers know and all this stuff.

And I was like, fingers crossed, you know, and here comes the Voxer. Not a surprise to me. The ClickUp board, you know, bup, bup, bup, it was triggered and I have the email all ready. I’m like, yes.

Stacey Brown Randall: Yes. I mean, it is crazy. Like there are still moments, like sometimes I’ll go behind Kathy and be like, hey, did we do? And she was like three weeks ago.

LuAnn Nigara: Yes.

Stacey Brown Randall: And I’m like, right, because I sometimes just forget.

LuAnn Nigara: And what’s funny, I don’t know how you are about that, but if we have, a lot of our systems are, well, all of our systems are in ClickUp. And so I’m not good at ClickUp. It doesn’t work with my creative brain. It does not.

I could do Monday, I could do Trello, but I could not do ClickUp, I cannot. But the team likes ClickUp, and they’re all the process people. I’m the visionary, right? So I can function in the podcast ClickUp board. I can toggle interview done. I can toggle intro/outro written. I can toggle intro/outro recorded. I can do that.

I can’t make a new episode thing. No, because it goes somewhere else or I put the whole thing together and I hit done and it’s not there. So I can’t do it. Okay. But what happens is, is if I communicate to you in ClickUp, you better answer me in ClickUp because that’s the kind of thing that happens.

It’s like, you know, if I’m looking for information and I say to them all the time, I know you know I’m not really quote/unquote in there, but I am in there looking at things and I won’t ever set anything up and I’m not going to touch all your stuff.

I said, but if I’ve asked you a question, you got to answer it there because that’s the system we use. Like I don’t want to, cause my thing is, is otherwise I call it a dangling participle. I’m carrying it around in my head and I’m like, did that get done? Did that get done?

And so it’s, you know, two o’clock on Saturday and I’m like, well, it doesn’t say it’s done in ClickUp. And then I’m not going to ask somebody on a Saturday, and on Monday, they’re like, oh, yeah, we did that. I’m like, then change it in ClickUp, but tell me that it’s done.

Stacey Brown Randall: Yeah, I call that my popcorn brain. The only things that pop in my brain are the things that my brain hasn’t come to a full closed loop on. And so it doesn’t actually know.

LuAnn Nigara: That’s so funny that we both have these weird names for it. To me, it’s like, oh, I’m like, I got a dangling participle. Is this thing done or not done?

Stacey Brown Randall: And I got some popcorn, popping in my brain. Yeah, like make it stop, make it stop. Yeah. It’s just the things I don’t have closure on, or I don’t think I have closure on. Let’s be honest, I’m getting older.

LuAnn Nigara: That’s it, 99% of the time you find the team has done it, right?

Stacey Brown Randall: Totally. Yeah. And it doesn’t help that I’m getting older, you know, so like things aren’t as, I mean, just not as sharp as I used to be in some areas in that regard. You know, I blame Adam and Eve. That’s what I blame for everything when it comes to that kind of stuff.

Okay, before we go off on that path, I wanted to make sure we talk about number seven, because number seven is they embrace learning, coaching and hiring people smarter than them.

So I wanna, because a lot of people who listen to my show are the solopreneurs, or maybe they’ll have like one or two people, obviously I have people listening that have a team of 10 or 20 or 30 or more, but the majority of the people that I work with and that listen to this show, they’re gonna be on the smaller side.

So it’s not always them hiring employees. They may have a couple of those, but it’s their willingness to embrace the learning and the coaching from other people.

And I know when you’re in your first year, money is so precious to you. You’re just like every dollar because I’m trying to make a mortgage payment or I’m trying to be able to pay my bills in the business. I’m not talking about that money is precious, early startup stage.

I’m talking about the business owner That’s five or 10 or 15 years in. And the mindset shift they may have, or that you see them have, where they’re like, I can figure this out. I can Google it to death. I can watch a bunch of YouTube videos. I’m smart enough. I can figure this out. To making the shift to like, mm-mm, I’m going to hire for that.

Because I know I made the shift. And it was like, when I made it, it was like, boom, I made it.

LuAnn Nigara: Life changing.

Stacey Brown Randall: It was. And so like now I’ll read like I’m just going to use this as an example. I did StoryBrand on my website a number of years ago. I read the book. I’m like, I ain’t doing that. And I hired a StoryBrand consultant.

I was like, no, I’m not going to write that. Like, I won’t do it. I know I won’t. And so but that was like, you know, that’s Stacey and probably like the last five or six years, the early Stacey, obviously not so much like that.

But where do you think that mindset shift hits or comes in where people are like embracing the hiring other people that can help them, that can teach them the shortcuts and get them what they need?

LuAnn Nigara: Well, I think, listen, I know all the reasons why they don’t, and it’s fear, it’s, listen, this is a psychology episode now, because it’s, am I worth it? You know, did my parents value this?

Is it, you know, but what I always say to people is, what I’d said a few moments ago. Like you have a kid that wants to learn the clarinet. Are you literally just putting a clarinet in an eight-year old’s hand and checking in when they’re 12 and go, how’s it going kid?

But meanwhile, that’s the exact thing we do with a business. We open it up and we say, this is one thing I hear a lot. I just, I’m just only in business one year. I’m only in business five years. I don’t think I’m ready for an expert consultant yet in my business.

Oh, okay, why don’t you learn as much as you can the hard way and then have that expert come in and cut you to the line. It’s ludicrous to me. It’s absolutely ludicrous to me.

And I also talk about the investment part. I’m not suggesting anybody should not pay their mortgage, that should not buy the Nikes for their kids. I am literally not saying you should have debt that is not smart debt.

But you know, like if you like I use this example all the time, most of us come to our business for the passion right so whether it’s a doctor, you know, went to school wants to be a doctor right you know blah blah blah right, or an interior designer right or window treatment professional whatever it is.

You come to it and you know that you want to do it. But if you were the same way coming to a passion and your passion was like you were the greatest Italian cook ever. Like we all have those women in our lives. We’re like, oh, my God, your broccoli is amazing. Oh my God, your pasta basil is crazy. Oh my God, your gravy is off the hook.

And then what happens is it becomes, you should start a little restaurant. You should have a cafe. And then you have those people that cross over and start a restaurant.

But you know what? Even if you’re Sally Smith, who’s the greatest Italian cook ever, and you open a restaurant, what are you doing?

You’re walking into a bank. You’re getting a loan, because you need ovens, and you need tables, and you need inventory to make gravy, and pizza, and pasta fagioli.

Because so many creative entrepreneurs can be today in corporate and tomorrow in business, there’s this mindset that there’s no investment to make to be in business.

Like when we opened Window Works, you know, okay, we did six or eight months out of our garage, granted. But, you know, there was a point when we had to buy a van, a $30,000 van, so that we could put the 10-foot poles and the long verticals in a place to drive up. And it got a little weird driving up, you know, in your sedan, your family car, right?

So it’s like, and then we had to have a place to house this stuff. So okay, let’s rent a shop. And so the thing is, there’s just, in my mind with creatives, there is so little that you have to invest in to start your business that then you go on this mindset that I don’t invest to make my business.

One time I had a designer say to me, you know, I’m very proud to tell you that I’ve been in business six years and I’ve never ever had a dollar’s worth of debt. And I was like, and where is the line for the brownie points for that? Like, where is that line?

So you want to invest in a referral coaching program for $5K or $25K. I don’t know what it is. But you’re not going to do it because you’re getting a gold star somewhere for not being in debt. Like, I just don’t get it.

It’s like, spend $25K on a valid coaching program and turn it into $100K. And here’s the thing about when you hire an expert, you pay the time, but then it exponentially creates you money for years on.

You don’t pay it again every year. One year you pay $25K and you make a hundred. And the next year you pay nothing, and you make another hundred.

Stacey Brown Randall: Or more.

LuAnn Nigara: Or, you know, go 10 years and make $5K every year on your own because you don’t know the first thing about creating referrals.

Stacey Brown Randall: Oh my gosh. That is so going to become a clip. We’re just going to pull that little piece out and use that as a little clip. Oh my God.

Yeah, it’s true because, you know, it’s one of those things where I think some people think the money has to come first. Like I’ve got to start making the money and get all the money.

Like, yes, you need to make money. You need to figure out how to pay yourself. Like we probably should have talked about, I think it was number four, which is about knowing your numbers. That’s another huge passion point for me.

I’m pretty sure that if someone’s told me, if I woke up tomorrow and they were like, you can’t do referrals anymore, pick another niche. I would be like, Profit First. Money. Let’s go all in because that made a massive difference in my business in 2020.

And we’re very, both of us are very good friends with Michelle Williams and like, we just know, like she speaks the truth, and I just listen. I’m like, whatever you say, because it’s the numbers and it’s, we need to be profitable.

But I think that when you’re having conversations with yourself, and you’re in those moments and you’re like, I just need to make more money and then I can afford X. I just need to make more money.

There is truth in that. But I think what people don’t pay attention to always well enough is, but what’s going to make you more money?

LuAnn Nigara: Faster. Smarter. Easier. Like it’s not just more, but it’s faster, smarter, easier. 90% of people own a business have a brain in their head. They’ll figure it out. But does it have to take that long?

And I’m going to tell you the other thing, particularly with my niche, with interior designers, what’s so funny is when I hit them between the eyes with, okay, so let me understand something.

You know that even if the most entry-level consumer, not a luxury, elite consumer that’s gonna spend $100,000 on design fees and another million dollars on furnishings, let’s just take somebody that just wants their paint figured out for their house, okay?

Entry-level activity for a designer. You actually know that you will do that better, faster, and easier with a better outcome than 99% of the garden variety humans walking on the planet.

And when they don’t want to give you $500 or $800 to do that, but they have 16 rooms in their house painted the wrong color and it looks like crap. You look at them and go, you know, you just don’t get it. I’m a professional and you don’t value me.

And I’m like, huh, but you see when a professional can teach you Profit First or a professional can teach you, you know, how to generate referrals or a professional can teach you how to understand your mission, vision values. You’re right. Why don’t you just keep doing that on your own? Why don’t you just keep doing it?

Because you want your consumers to recognize your value, that you’re going to get them there better, faster, and with a better result. But you know what? You’re right. Just keep figuring out superpowers that you don’t have.

Stacey Brown Randall: Yeah, I don’t know where it is in a business owner’s journey where they click over and they start thinking it the way we think about it.

Like for me, I am never, I don’t know if I go many years where I’m not spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to get better at something or to fix something that I have identified as like a gap or a hole or a leaky bucket that needs to be fixed in my business.

What I do much better now is I’m much faster at figuring out the problem and figuring out exactly how I want to solve it and then typically finding, through a referral usually, who I’m going to allow help me to solve it.

LuAnn Nigara: Yeah, I think because you’ve said that a couple of times like, where’s the point that you make the difference?

I think too when I think back to my journey, and it sounds like similar what you were alluding to is there’s usually a moment that that you experienced that difference. And maybe it was a favor by somebody or maybe you did invest in somebody.

But I think about my cousin Eileen, you know Eileen, because she was in our collaborative book together and she’s been at the events and stuff.

Eileen is an organizational behavioral consultant. And it’s a fancy way to say what she does is her superpower is coming into a team and looking at all the people, and all the butts, and all the seats, and usually the CEO hires her and says, we have a great company, or blah, blah, blah, but we’re just not reaching the profitability, or we’re not reaching our goals, like what’s going on?

And she will usually come in and find out that people are in the wrong seats, like they’re wrong superpowers for their position and stuff. And then she works with the C-suite team, or the entrepreneurial team, or whatever.

But I have to tell you, I can remember it has to be, oh my goodness, 25 years ago. And I was having a situation with an employee. And at that point, I had never, ever considered that, oh, there’s people that know how to manage people better than me.

Like, there’s people that actually went to college for this. And they study this every day. It just felt like, I’m an entrepreneur. You’ve got to figure it out. You own the place. Have the meetings. Have the conversations. Get it going.

And there was one time, by coincidence, her and I were talking because it was way before the podcast. So we weren’t always talking about business. And I just she’s like, how’s things? I said, you know, I just got this one employee driving me to drink, like literally drive me to drink.

Good person, good human, good skill set. But my gosh, every time I turn around, it’s like I just want to like, you know, poke my eyeballs out.

And so she says to me, what’s going on? And I told her, and she ended up giving me some advice and strategy on how to have a conversation with this employee that I tell you in the last seven or eight months, I had had like five times with no success.

And I was like, wait, what? And she’s like, well, everything you told me about the problem and about the person, this is the type of thinker they are. And of course, it’s a completely diametrically opposite thinker than me.

So this is like me saying every day, don’t you love Twix? Let’s have a Twix bar. I love Twix. And that person’s like, I like potato chips. I’m like, but Twix are great. What are we doing? How could you not love Twix? Here’s your bonus. It’s Twix.

Like we were just speaking two separate languages. But I hadn’t had that awareness to understand that there’s an expertise in team management. And so she gave me, we went through some role play. She gave me some things to say.

I went in and I had that conversation with that employee. And it was like, the angel started singing. It was just like, oh my God. And the employee smiled and thanked me. And I’m so glad that we’ve had this conversation.

And it was like 180-degree turn. And I was like, holy crow. And so then I was like, ah see when you keep banging your head against the wall on something, there’s somebody that knows how to do this. Like, go find them.

Stacey Brown Randall: Go find them. Yes, and then be willing to pay them.

LuAnn Nigara: Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Stacey Brown Randall: I mean, I think it’s like with anything, right? It’s that idea that the ability to quickly identify your gap, as you progress in business, you get faster at that.

Like it’s, is it this problem? Or maybe it’s this problem. Maybe then you’re like, no, it’s this, like, you’re just discernment is like so much on point, but fixing it is still always the thing that you’ve got to figure out how you’re going to ultimately do that.

And then there are some problems I have in my business, and I’ll tell Kathy, no, I’m going to figure that out for myself because I’m quite not sure I know how to articulate it to somebody else and until I either make progress on it or I figure out how to explain it better, I don’t want to waste money on it.

LuAnn Nigara: Right, right, right, right, right.

Stacey Brown Randall: And then let’s be honest. That means it’s also not a huge pain point. Like it’s just something under the surface.

LuAnn Nigara: Right. And also too, I’ve learned, just to piggyback on that, I’ve learned sometimes to just either reach out to a colleague and be like, can I pick your brain? Like your expertise in this area. I just, I’m not clear on my problem. I feel like it’s this lane.

I feel like, and that’s what I mean by that one like build your genuine relationships because you can ask somebody that you’ve poured into their cup, you know, some help or some advice and then if you’re like that person might help you identify in that situation, yeah I don’t think you have clarity on the problem that, you’re not ready for the expert.

Or like, no you don’t understand, this is exactly what that expert would do for you. You have enough of a problem, don’t go in a circle on it, right?

But it’s that level of, you know, Eileen also always said to me, who do you know that knows the answer? Who do you know that knows the answer? And I’m like, I don’t know anybody that knows the answer. She goes, you do, just think, who knows the answer?

Stacey Brown Randall: You think about like the pouring into other people’s cups. Like I think about all the times that you’ve poured into my cup.

And if I ever knew that you were sitting there not knowing how to handle a situation with a referral thing, I’d probably come to Jersey and like slap you around a little bit and be like, are you kidding? Why didn’t you just call? Why didn’t you just Voxer me?

LuAnn Nigara: Exactly. And that’s what I’m saying. I think that like that number nine that we’re not really covering, but it’s, be okay with looking around your world and saying, who might know the answer to this?

And even if it’s not, or it could be just a discovery call. A lot of experts and consultants will have a discovery call. And a good one should tell you that, yes, your problem, I’m ready for it. Or, you know, like you said, sometimes it’s like, you know what, I’m not getting your problem, you don’t really know your problem yet, go away, figure it out a little bit better.

But like I said, if your business was a gift to someone you loved, spouse, parent, child, niece, anybody, you would never be like, here’s the business, hope it works. You’d be like, okay, and let’s set up this for success. And let’s make sure you have that. And this we have to do on our own so we have to bootstrap it.

But I know a friend who knows a friend, and we’re gonna ask for a little free advice. And this thing we, you know, website, we’re gonna have it professionally developed, like we’re not screwing around with that. That’s your business card. Like, you would never just be like, here’s the keys. Bye.

Stacey Brown Randall: Yeah. See ya later. And the opposite of that, not constantly like asking and expecting someone to like give you a ton of free advice when you’re not pouring into their cup.

LuAnn Nigara: No. You’ve got to be doing the give first. You’ve got to be doing the give.

Stacey Brown Randall: It’s so like Bob Berg was not wrong. It was like givers receive. You’ve got to give first though to receive. It’s that kind of idea.

I remember one time, I don’t know how many of these you get, but as a solo show, I get so many of them I don’t understand. Why do people keep pitching me people to be on my show?

I don’t, like when I put someone like you on my show, it’s someone I know. I know everybody who’s never been on my show, right? Like I’m not taking cold pitches, but I get a ton of them.

And I’ll tell you the only one I ever, ever paid attention to that I actually emailed the person back, unless sometimes I email back and I’m like, I’m a solo show. Please stop emailing me.

But like the only one I ever responded to was this podcast booker that reached out and said, and you know, they all will pick like the subject of your last episode.

LuAnn Nigara: Exactly. Like they listened to it.

Stacey Brown Randall: To make it look like they were listening to the whole thing. And she literally said, she said that. And she was like, I listened to this episode about this. And it was like something from within the episode. This was said, I liked it so much. I went and left you a five-star written review on your podcast. And then she had a screenshot of it.

LuAnn Nigara: Ah, the way to a woman’s heart is through her reviews.

Stacey Brown Randall: And I was like, because people don’t do that as often as I want them to. And so I like opened up the screenshot. I was like, look at that. She really did. And then I went and looked and there it was on iTunes.

And I was like, hey, I don’t take pitches like this, but I really appreciate you. And if I’m ever looking for a certain type of expert that I can’t find with who I know, you’re the only person I’ll reach out to. Now, it doesn’t produce any business for her, but I appreciated that, the giving.

LuAnn Nigara: Yes, it’s the genuine, it’s not the fake. I swear to goodness, my podcast is directed for interior designers, right? But I literally say, we’re not going to talk about the pretty.

I’m not interested in the pretty. I expect you to create a beautiful room. I want to help you make money on that, right? Literally, exactly what I said.

Oh, and what I love is when they actually have my name wrong. Oh, Susan, your last episode was so-and-so because they’re copying pasting and they don’t, you know, and I just want to put in front of you, Sally Smith.

She’s an interior designer from California and she just would love to talk to your audience about how to pick the most beautiful paint color and what the undertones are.

And I’m like, really? You really listened to the whole episode? You didn’t even listen to the intro, which says we’re not going to talk about the pretty.

Stacey Brown Randall: It’s so true. But I mean, people are looking for the shortcut, like they just.

LuAnn Nigara: There’s no shortcut in a genuine relationship, and that’s why number nine is build genuine relationships, not fake ones.

Stacey Brown Randall: Yeah. Awesome. Oh my gosh, we can talk forever.

LuAnn Nigara: Of course.

Stacey Brown Randall: This was so fun. I’m so glad we did this. I’m so sorry. It was like six years on my end in the making.

LuAnn Nigara: I didn’t know so it’s fine.

Stacey Brown Randall: Well, now that I’ve like called myself out multiple times. Because I think I’ve been on your show like three times now.

LuAnn Nigara: I think it’s at least three and maybe four.

Stacey Brown Randall: It’s not even, like it’s not even just one, it’s like repeat, repeat, repeat. Oh, my goodness, but I appreciate it. Okay, so obviously I know all the ways to get connected to you so we’re gonna put all the ways to connect to you of course on the show notes page for this episode.

But just real quick for the person who may just be like listening and opens their notes app and wants to write it down for themselves and will never make it to the show notes page.

Why don’t you let the audience know if they want to learn more about you, where should they kind of get started? Where should they go first to just kind of like start drinking the LuAnn Kool-Aid?

LuAnn Nigara: I mean, easiest thing is the website and it’s luannnigara.com. It’s L-U-A-N-N-N-I-G-A-R-A dot com. And there you can link over to the speaker page, you can link over to the books, you can link over to the two podcasts, you can link over to LuAnn University, any events that I’m going to be doing. It’s all from that hub out. So definitely I would say do that.

Stacey Brown Randall: Did you ever have that thought where you wished your mom and dad had named you different? So that when you had a business one day and you had to explain.

I mean, granted, I know your last name comes from marriage, but like, then you had to, like for Stacey, I’m like, seriously, I always have to say, and Stacey has an E.

LuAnn Nigara: Stacey has an E, I know, right? Well, for me, it’s the A is capitalized, right? But thankfully for websites and stuff, it doesn’t matter. Otherwise, it would be a real, you know, pain in the neck.

Stacey Brown Randall: So true. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, LuAnn, for being with us. I really appreciate it.

LuAnn Nigara: Thank you, Stacey. This was so much fun. I appreciate you.

Stacey Brown Randall: I hope you enjoyed that conversation, listening into that conversation with LuAnn as much as I enjoyed doing it. She really is one of those folks, when you’re around her, it’s like, no time passes.

I mean, we may go months and months without chatting, but it’s like in an instant, it’s like, we totally always understand each other and get each other. And she is such a joy. And I count her as such a blessing to have in my life and in my business.

Now I want to wrap up that story that LuAnn said I could tell the ending to, because it’s kind of funny.

In our episode, if you were listening to the interview between LuAnn and I, and she was talking about our friendship and all the ways that we like pour into each other and we do things for each other.

I’ve been on her stages. I’ve been a co-author in her book. She’s had me on her podcast multiple times. She’s given me part of her Power Talk Friday tours, opportunity to meet the folks that she works with and her followers, which are mostly interior designers.

And so it’s been really interesting as this friendship has developed since 2017, we think. We think that’s when it started.

But one of the things she talked about was the comment was made about in our friendship; we help each other out and do all these things for each other. And then maybe one of us may have sent inappropriate something on cupcakes, right? So let me tell that story really fast.

Last fall, October of 2024, I attended LuAnn’s Power Talk Friday tour where I went to High Point, and I was there as one day before High Point with three other experts. And we spent the day with people that are a part of LuAnn’s world. And the designers came in, they paid for the day, and they learned from us as the experts for an entire day.

LuAnn was telling a story about somebody that she found easy to remember because of how well they always took care of her. And she said, I could always remember this one designer. She was always top of mind for me because she would always send our office these pastries.

And then she spent like a solid three minutes trying to describe what were bear claws but couldn’t come up with the word bear claws. Like she couldn’t remember the word bear claws.

She was like, they’re the pastries, you know, they’re shaped like this. And they kind of like, they’re like fingernails, aren’t they fingernails? And everyone’s like, nope, there’s no pastry called fingernails.

But she couldn’t remember the word bear claws. So finally, someone’s like, you mean bear claws? And she’s like, yes, bear claws, not fingernails. I don’t know where I got that from. It’s just a really funny moment.

Well, I took that one step further. And when she got back to New Jersey after the High Point Market, I had a dozen cupcakes delivered to her office that had fingernails on them, not real ones, but like iced fingernails on them.

And I thought they were it was gonna be like really cool and elegant looking, it wasn’t. It was like super creepy but that actually made it that much funnier, and she instantly knew why I was sending her cupcakes with icing fingernails on top of them. So I promised to close out that story, I wanted to do that for you guys.

But if you were interested in following up with LuAnn, everything that she mentioned, like she talked about her book she talked about her website she talked about both of her podcasts, we have all of that linked in on the show notes page for this episode.

And the show notes page for this episode is StaceyBrownRandall.com/362. So you can find all the information on LuAnn. If you want to start listening to her and following her, that would be awesome. You will not be disappointed. So I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.

Alright, we’re back with another great episode next week created with you and your needs in mind. Until then, you know what to do, my friend. Take control of your referrals and build a referable business. Bye for now.