Is it Failure or Time to Redirect with Randi Boyette
Welcome to another episode of “Dream Job with Danielle Cobo”!
Today, I am blessed to be joined by Randi Boyette.
Randi Boyette is the founder of Spark Medical Marketing Inc., a digital marketing firm that helps take medical and aesthetics brands into the digital marketing space with a team of experts. Businesses have grown exponentially as a result of the Spark Marketing digital formula for success. After many years in sales and marketing, Randi saw the industry taking a strong turn to digital marketing and decided to immerse herself in the opportunity and take the company in that direction.
In today's conversation, we talk all about making the decision to leave corporate America, having the hunger inside to actually go after your goals, being your own source of motivation and learning to not take things personally. Tune into today's episode.
“Every time I stumble, I don't look at it as a failure... I just need to redirect" – Randi Boyette
Listen on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube https://www.daniellecobo.com/podcast
Highlights
💫 1:51 A little about Randi's career journey
💫 4:57 How Randi made the decision to leave corporate America and pursue her goals
💫 8:36 How to be your own source of motivation
💫 11:08 Some advice for women in entrepreneurship
💫 17:05 It's never to late to start your dream career!
💫 18:11 Three takeways from today's conversation
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Connect with Featured Guest, Randi Boyette
✳️ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sparkmarketinginc
✳️ Website: https://sparkmedicalmarketing.com/
✳️ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sparkmedicalmarketing/
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Fueling Your Way Up in the Corporate Ladder
So we've talked a little bit, speaking of being lean earlier in our careers, you have started this business. And it was a business that you've grown into this eight-figure company and you started with no funding, it was all about you investing in your own money. And what's interesting, and this is an interesting kind of stat to share out there and why podcasts like mine exist, is 90% of the entrepreneurs out there that make more than six figures are men. So we, as females, only make up 10% of those six figure businesses as entrepreneurs. So tell us a little bit about, you know, how you came to start this business, why you left corporate America, and how you've grown this business into where it is today.
So while I had been a great success in business, I was a terrible failure in my personal life while I was climbing the corporate ladder. So I was not doing well at maintaining relationships, friendships, and family. I really struggled with the balance. And after 13 years of spending four or five days a week on planes in different cities, I decided it was time for me to get grounded and figure out where my life was going to go, and what I was going to do with my life. So I took a step back and decided that I was going to do some consulting work and that I was going to be able to set my own schedule. And that is, when I founded Spark, I decided that I was just going to work with a few med spas and help them with their marketing and get things off the ground. I really liked that type of industry and I had a knack for understanding what worked in the industry. And it was great, I loved doing it. And I remember the first year I had four customers, and I thought it was just a bang up here. And I remember getting one of my first paychecks from a new customer and getting so excited. Whereas I had made very large paychecks previously in my career, but there wasn't the same feeling as when it was self-driven. Like, I had created that customer and that money was a different type of money in my mind. And I remember going and treating myself and buying myself some new perfume that I wanted; because I remember treating myself just felt different because it was not somebody else's business that they were just paying me for.
It was a different type of accomplishment. But it was also this new energy that I had never felt before even though I was always driven to be number one at what I did. This was a whole different type of energy and a different type of drive because I was fueling this machine. And once I got to four customers, and I wanted eight, and then I wanted 18, and then I wanted 28. And I remember when I hit 100. And I remember getting to five or 10 employees, and now we have over 100. No milestone was ever enough. And it still isn't right. So I can't explain what that hunger is, other than it's something innate that is within me that no matter where I go, I want the next step. In fact, my business partner said to me, when we reached a certain financial milestone last year, he said, “Randy, you know, is this enough? Or, you know, when is it going to be enough? And I said, “No, it's never gonna be enough.” So just, I want to keep going and see where we can take it.
I love that story. Because, you know, I always say you can hire people with industry experience, you can hire people that have proven track records of success. But you know, one of the things I always look for in hiring candidates is those intangible characteristics – that drive, that motivation; because you can teach someone the processes, organization, and the technical aspect of the job, but you can't teach somebody to wake up every single morning and have that drive. And that the key to success as an entrepreneur is to really just set these bold goals and go after them.
And I can relate a lot to what you're saying because I remember that feeling of when I left corporate America and also getting these, you know, big paychecks. But when you create a business and you start to get these clients on your own, you get to see them have success through what you've created, it's so rewarding.
Yes, yes. It's so great. And it's funny that you just brought this up, I had screenshotted something I saw on social media the other day, and it was like some words of wisdom from Elon Musk, I believe. And it said something like, “If you need daily words of motivation from the people around, don't become an entrepreneur.” Because the only thing motivating you are the voices or your own voices in your head. Because you have got to be the one that keeps going. And that door is going to get slammed in your face many, many times. And you're going to have to figure out a different way to open that door.
So yes, it's a different kind of fight and a different kind of hunger. And that hunger can be absolutely necessary. When you're an entrepreneur, there's no doubt about that. Because if you want to be successful, it is 100% dependent on you. You're creating the business you're creating, I feel like you're wearing 100 hats – you're the marketing person, you're the finance person, you're the actual CEO of the company, you're running in all different areas. And whether you're an entrepreneur or whether you're in sales, that drive, that motivation is so critical. And also looking at your business and evolving every step of the way of going, pivoting, looking, and saying what's working, what's not working. Where do I get to pivot so I can continue to grow the business?
Celebrating Successes and Learning From Failures: Some Pieces of Advice
What have you learned through your career in sales? What do you feel have been your biggest successes? And what do you feel like have been your biggest failures? As you've grown through the years, what advice would you give to women out there?
Something you said before is that the business has always been self-funded. And that doesn't mean that I had a trust fund, because I didn't self-fund, meaning that I controlled my own spending habits so that I could build my company. So I feel that in growing a company to an eight-figure level without having any outside funding, I didn't realize until I arrived here and started meeting other entrepreneurs and speaking to them on a regular basis how rare it is that people don't have funding, right? In fact, for a minute, I thought I was doing something wrong. I was like, well, everybody else has funding, and I don't have funding, what does that mean? But like, then my friends were like, no, no, you don't want funding, it just means that other people are now controlling, you know, different aspects of your business and helping you make those decisions that you might not want them to make. And, you know, there are different things around that. So I would say that a big success factor for me was figuring out that it was so rare to have a business this size that didn't have outside funding or much of anything else for such a long time.
As far as failures, every time I stumble on something, I don't ever look at it as a failure. I just kind of look at it as I got a redirect. And every time I have, let’s say I failed or something I did didn't work, I always even when I was young, whether it was business, personal life, whatever it is, I always thought to myself, “Well, that just wasn't supposed to work out that way. It's supposed to be a different way.” And so I've never looked at a fumble as a true fumble. I always just took that and crafted it into something else. And that I think is also some type of entrepreneurial spirit. But I never really looked at failures as failures. I was this is okay, this is an opportunity to create something else.
I love that because you're right. I always say that our biggest challenges in life become our greatest strengths. And we learn, I feel like we learn, more from some of our failures than we do from our successes because we get to look back and reflect and go okay, hmm, that worked. That didn't work. Okay, well, maybe I would adjust it, how would I approach it differently to get a different outcome? And it's through those times where we really get to stretch and grow and evolve and get to where we want to be in the future through those peaks and valleys.
Yes, I would say one of the things, to be fair, that I feel I struggle with – and maybe other entrepreneurs do as well, and maybe other female entrepreneurs, especially – but one of my challenges has been the passion that you put into your own business is so much so that when somebody perhaps rejects you or insults your business in some way, it's very hard not to take it personally. And so, you know, I do a lot of reading about, you know, trying not to take things personally in business. And sometimes a customer will say something like, you know, ask a question that's just inappropriate the way they ask it or they're just rude, and I have to just take a breath and remember that this isn't an attack on us, it’s an attack on your business. Just take a breath. Because when it's ours, and we've been the one scrapping from day one, it's a different kind of insult, and if you're working for someone else's company and they tell you it's no good. Right? So I definitely struggle. And that is a lesson I'm still trying to learn – not taking things personally.
Yeah, and that's hard to do because especially, I always say that social media has changed our lives forever; and in a lot of areas, it's been really good, and in a lot of areas, it's also created this platform where you get kind of the trolls out there, the ones that hurt people. And you know, they'll just kind of come after you. And whether it's in your business or your personal life, it's hard not to take things personally. I know that on the tail end of being in corporate, I used to kind of absorb everything that was said, and I started to notice my confidence just going down and down and down. And it wasn't until I left corporate where I was going, “Wait a minute, like, why would I? Why was I letting other people's opinions, you know, affect me so much?” And we really, when we believe in ourselves, that's when others will believe in us. So we're doing ourselves a disservice if we start to absorb all that negativity, and lose sight of the value that we bring.
Yes, absolutely. I agree. And I have to remind myself that because I do care so much about the business so I have to remind myself like, “This is one person, one person's opinion. Move on Randy, and just keep going.”
I mean, you've grown a huge business in such a short amount of time. So you're always gonna have customers that, you know, for some reason, don't like something. But yeah, look at the fact of what you've grown in the past couple of years. And we talked a little bit about, you know, it's never too late to pursue your dream career. I say, if Betty White can be acting at 99 years old, it's never too late for us to do what we want to do. When did you leave corporate and decide to start your own business?
It's a great question. I was 42 years old when I had the idea to start Spark. And I, in a million years, never imagined it would grow to what it is now. But it wasn't even until I was 45 or 46 when the company really started taking off and heading with the trajectory that it's on right now. But yeah, it was not until my 40s that I started Spark. That is, now I am officially half a century. So I am 50 years old and still going strong, very strong while looking very youthful and beautiful.
Three Final Takeaways
So what are three things from our conversation today you'd want our listeners to take away and be like, “Okay, this is what I'm going to take away. I'm going to implement it into my life, and I'm going to kind of really absorb this into how I show up as a woman in the world.”
We control our own destiny.
Along my career path, there were people that told me you can't do this, or you shouldn't do this, or it's not a good idea. You know, we, we create our own future. So whether things are on a bad path for you, or things are on a good path for you, you chose. You choose that path and you can choose, you know, I remember reading something a long time ago that sticks with me every day, “It's your story, you can change that story every day.” Like you can get up and decide to change, that's not going to be how my story ends. And you can wake up and decide what your next day is going to be filled with.
Listen to your gut instincts.
As I get older, and in my 30s, I started to really develop this ability to read the room or read people, however you say it, but definitely follow those gut instincts. If something or someone doesn't seem right, then take an extra 24 to 48 hours to think about it. Because usually, those instincts are correct. Even if you think it's the best deal of your life or you know, everybody's telling you that – if something in your gut is telling you something is wrong, most of the time it is. And when you get to my age, I almost feel like the instincts just get really honed in because you start to really pick up on those cues even more and more. So that's always interesting.
Resourcefulness is the most important character trait for an entrepreneur, especially females.
Don't ever underestimate the value of the people that you've met along the way. And keep track of that and reach out to people in figuring out how to solve a problem. And, you know, people would come to me all the time in my career when I started Spark, “Can you do this? Can you do that?” When I only did one small thing at the beginning. But no matter what, I would say yes. And then I would just find a resource to do it. So make sure you keep in touch with your connections. And no matter what it is, you can always find a way to solve a problem. And like they say, don't start a business looking for a customer. Solve a problem, and the customer will come to you. So if you're solving people's problems on a daily basis, more people will come to you.
