Entrepreneurs know things don’t always go as planned. (Understatement)
Setbacks are common for those who risk new ideas and ventures but how you deal with those setbacks is critical.
There are 33 million or so small businesses in the U.S. and that includes a lot of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are out there driving innovation and creating jobs and economic growth across all kinds of industries.
A lot of people have been encouraged now, seeing great successes out there in the media to pursue entrepreneurship. But it isn’t always simple!
On a recent episode of The Debbie Nigro Show, dynamic entrepreneur Kasey D’Amato offered invaluable insights into leadership and business acumen, particularly for those aiming to grow their small businesses and navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship.
As a business consultant and coach, Kasey shared personal stories and expert advice on achieving business growth while maintaining a healthy balance between personal life and professional responsibilities.
Overcoming Setbacks as an Entrepreneur
Kasey D’Amato’s entrepreneurial journey is filled with valuable lessons for anyone looking to succeed in business. She spoke candidly about how setbacks are inevitable but emphasized that it’s the ability to overcome these obstacles that separates successful entrepreneurs from the rest. Kasey’s leadership philosophy revolves around remaining adaptable and focusing on solutions. She encourages entrepreneurs to embrace failures as learning opportunities and to continue pushing forward.
“The biggest challenge entrepreneurs face is getting stuck in the setbacks,” Kasey shared during the show. “The ability to keep moving forward, no matter what, is what ultimately leads to success.”
Mastering Business Acumen for Small Business Growth
Kasey’s expertise in business acumen and her focus on the strategic growth of small businesses are the abilities she uses to help others. She explained how important it is for entrepreneurs to understand their market and continually refine their strategies.
Her advice to small business owners? Focus on what makes your business unique and leverage that to outpace your competition.
“To scale your small business, you must be adaptable and always look for new ways to add value to your customers,” Kasey explained. She advocates for entrepreneurs to build a strong foundation in business leadership and continually work on improving their processes.
Empowering Entrepreneurs
As a successful business consultant and coach, Kasey D’Amato also discussed the importance of mentorship and leadership in business. She believes in empowering others through coaching, sharing how she helps clients harness their strengths to unlock their full potential. “Leadership isn’t about having all the answers; it’s about empowering your team to find solutions,” Kasey said, offering advice to small business owners looking to lead their teams to success.
Kasey also touched on the significance of time and energy management, an area where many entrepreneurs struggle. She emphasized that leaders should be mindful of how they allocate their resources, ensuring that they are focusing on the most critical tasks for business growth.
If you’re looking for some expert advice on entrepreneurship and small business leadership, check out this podcast of Kasey D’Amato’s full interview on The Debbie Nigro Show and discover how you can lead your business to success. If you’d rather read than listen the audio of the transcript is below.
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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
0:00:00
And now, back to the Debbie Nigro Show.
I’m Debbie Nigro. I don’t know if you know, but there are about 33 million or so small businesses in the U.S. and that’s including a lot of entrepreneurs. That’s the U.S. Small Business Administration weighing in.
And entrepreneurs are out there driving innovation and creating jobs and economic growth across all kinds of industries. A lot of people have been encouraged now, seeing great successes out there in the media to pursue entrepreneurship. But it ain’t that simple.
That’s why you’re going to love meeting Kasey D”Amato
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0:01:21
Boy, is she something. She is a dynamic entrepreneur. Interesting back story on her. I was posting about her this morning on social media. And well, she started in pharmaceutical sales, all right, and then went on from there to do all kinds of really interesting things, alright.
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0:01:44
Board certified dermatology, then she launched a global skin care brand, that’s No Small Potatoes, and two consulting companies. She built multi seven figure real estate portfolios and traveled the world with her husband. Sounds like a perfect life, right? But not without overcoming setbacks and failures. She has mastered some things that help other entrepreneurs and she’s here to tell us about
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0:02:09
it because her mission is to empower a million entrepreneurs. You can add me, Kasey, one more, to your portfolio. Hello.
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0:02:18
Hi, Debbie.
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0:02:19
How are you?
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0:02:20
I’ve got to tell you, I’m great. I looked at your website. I was drawn in by your energy just oozes out of your photos and then your website is dynamic, man. I just wanted to congratulate you on doing it perfectly right. I know you’ve been through a lot, but kcdemato.com was worth my time and you are worth my time.
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0:02:42
Welcome. Tell me what you’re doing. Hi, Debbie. Hi.
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0:02:46
Well, thank you so much for those kind words. That means a lot. I’m doing great here living the life and building businesses, building lives, myself, my own included and it’s all good.
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0:03:00
A lot of what you said kind of resonated with me especially now I’m going through a little like a lot of my life, I’ve also been doing with my life after all these years on this planet with my expertise and you said your expertise is in cutting through the noise a lot of people have in their heads to help them focus their time and energy on what really counts to them and to drive results. What made you realize that this was the niche that you needed to focus on?
1
0:03:28
Yes. You know, energy and time, people feel like they don’t have enough time, right? There are two commodities, it’s money and it’s time. Most people go into business for those two reasons and to make an impact and sort of a balance of those three and you know of course business it relies on cash flow but when we think about time it really comes down to our energy and
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0:03:49
where are we investing our energy between our business and our personal life and within our business different departments or within our personal life I actually make departments of personal life if you can believe that. So in our personal life departments, right, we have self-care, we have relationships, right, we have continuous learning, and we have things
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0:04:10
that build us as human beings in our personal life. And really being intentional about where are your boundaries between your business and your personal life, and where are you spending your energy in each quote-unquote department of your business, or quote-unquote department of your personal life,
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0:04:26
because I’m a big believer in Tony Robbins quote where focus goes, energy flows. Where you’re spending your energy and time is the area that will be okay and if you’re neglecting other areas, they’re going to suffer and struggle. It really comes down to where you’re putting your energy and that is a direct result of
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0:04:44
the outcome that you’re going to receive. What got you all whipped up to be doing this right now? When did you realize you were better at serving other people having learned what you learned? This is your time to go and help people get out of their own way.
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0:04:59
Yes, that’s a great question. I have been a part of growing five different businesses, all in this what most people would consider small business ventures. Anywhere from startup brand new up to about mid to mid-upper seven-figure businesses, five businesses, three of my own and four were service-based, one was product-based, the skincare company that you mentioned. At one point in time, I had a handful of businesses and I did not have mastered time
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0:05:29
management and where energy was going to go and my emotional health took a big toll and my relationship took a big toll and there was periods of time that my marriage wasn’t great, my relationship with my extended family, my parents and immediate friends wasn’t great, financially we were not doing well, there was periods of time that I didn’t know if we were going to lose our house, we were burning cash like it was unbelievable, I’m talking seven figures burn. So this landed me in a very dark place,
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0:06:02
in a very dark place from a physical health and mental health standpoint. And a doctor basically saying to me, you need to get this figured out. And in doing that, I started studying patterns. What patterns out of four out of five businesses
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0:06:14
were doing very well, one less than, and what were the characteristics that work? What are the patterns that work in four out of five businesses?
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0:06:23
What were the patterns?
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0:06:24
What were the patterns? Yeah, what were the patterns of the business leaders that work, right? And that’s when I decided that I wanted to study patterns. I took a step back. I consolidated my energy into the businesses that I was most passionate about. I took a step back from other ones, exited some, and really decided I want to teach others
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0:06:40
about leadership and about business. And when I define that, it really comes down to four things. And the four things that will lead to success, and I believe it’s all about leadership, is the four quadrants of leadership that I kind of coined these. This is what I believe the four quadrants of leadership are. Number one is business acumen and understanding how business works. Understanding cash flow, not ignoring your numbers, watching your metrics, watching your data, don’t put your head in the
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0:07:08
sand about what’s going on with the numbers and the cash flow of your business. That’s quadrant number one. Quadrant number two is self-leadership, meaning how resilient are you? How resourceful are you? How clear is your vision? How many people are you talking to
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0:07:23
to surround yourself with support from people who have experience, support team, collaborators, because that will insulate you. So how much are you self-leading? How much have you become strong mindset-wise,
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0:07:33
emotional intelligence-wise? That’s quadrant number two. Quadrant number three is how are you leading your team? How are you building your team? How are you leading your team? How are you holding your team accountable
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in a diplomatic way, in a reasonable, fair, calm and diplomatic way so there’s a win-win for your team and your business. Quadrant four is how are you leading your industry? And if you can balance those four things, you’ll come out on top.
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0:07:59
And if those four kind of quadrants of leadership, of the leadership wheel that I define, one gets out of balance then the whole ecosystem gets out of balance and that’s where people will struggle.
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0:08:09
Okay. I think we can agree that not one person can be great at everything. Is that fair?
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0:08:14
Yes.
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0:08:15
Okay. A hundred percent. So I don’t think one person could be good at all those things you just mentioned. A lot of entrepreneurs start up with bootstrap money and just their own ideas and dreams and I know you’re somebody who supports big dreamers but then they only have a couple people here and there to rely on who also see their vision, right?
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0:08:33
So without the cash, which to catch 22 you have to get the business vision straight to get the cash and then you need the cash to get the business vision. So what about that first part there?
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0:08:44
Yes, like before you have a big team. You mean when you’re sort of in those early stages of bootstrapping and you’re kind of solopreneuring or with a small and mighty team, how do you get through at that stage?
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0:08:53
I think 80% of the people are still there.
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0:08:57
Yeah, it’s 100%. So when you’re in that stage, the number one thing, the number one goal that you have is build your business one step further so you can make your next hire. That is your number one goal. People get so distracted, they start focusing on their product or their service, they start focusing on technical things, AI,
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0:09:19
they start getting into all the weeds. And the reality is, look at your model, make sure that your model, meaning that are you charging enough for your product or your service that you will be able to hire a team if you sell a little bit more, and focus on sales.
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0:09:33
That’s where I started, I started in sales and I didn’t realize at the time that it would be one of the most important skills in business because if your business model is healthy, meaning you’re charging the right amount compared to the cost that it costs you to make that service or that product, then the name of the game is just sell. Go out and make that next sale because
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0:09:53
your primary goal is to make the next hire. If you continue to operate like a solopreneur and you continue to try and do everything yourself, you will always feel burnt out, overwhelmed, and you will always be struggling. The way to build this life of freedom, if you will, if you want to call it that, which I don’t know if you’re ever free as this or that. But until you can build, even a small team, it doesn’t have to be huge.
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0:10:21
If you can get a team of three, four, five people that are very good at what they do, that is going to change the game. And so even if you’re starting with a part-time virtual assistant, if you’re starting there, start there. Start carving things off of your plate
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0:10:35
that are in the minutiae so that you can focus on sales and revenue and then you can get maybe another freelance person and then soon enough, you’re gonna be able to make that first hire. And so any business venture that I start,
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0:10:47
the very first thing that I do is, who’s gonna help me? Who’s gonna help me and how am I going to invest? I never try and do it alone.
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0:10:54
Listen, I can imagine anybody hearing you right now is going to want to hire you because you’re exactly who a lot of people need to get out of their own way. So how do you do this? Are you a coach one-on-one with people? Do you coach groups of people? How’s your business around what we’re talking about now work?
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0:11:12
You want to empower a million entrepreneurs. If you asked everybody for a dollar, that’d be good, right?
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0:11:18
We should start that model.
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0:11:19
We should start that model, David. That’s a great question. I have two coaching and consulting businesses. One is for medical professionals, but this is my personal brand, the one that I’m most passionate about, which is to help entrepreneurs get out of their own way, just like you’re talking about.
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0:11:33
I work with people, mostly concierge, one-on-one. I am getting ready to launch leadership retreats just to help people build those skillsets just like I was talking about business, acumen, self-leadership, team leadership, industry leadership. And so I’m starting to develop leadership retreats.
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0:11:51
So those will be small groups. And I work mostly concierge one-on-one with people either six months, 12 months, although I do have rapid results sessions available. I do two of those a month where we can sit down and deep dive for 90 minutes and just peel back the onion and right away in those 90 minutes, I can tell you exactly how to
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0:12:06
get on track, point you in the right direction to get to the next step in your business and your life.
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0:12:12
I know that you got really smart by not only doing well but also failing and having setbacks. What was one of the loudest hiccups that you learned from in business in your life?
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0:12:27
I’m going to give you a little bit of a background on how I got into the business. I started out as a business owner. I was a business owner for about 10 years. I was a business owner for about 10 years. I was a business owner for about 10 years. and fear, stress is a choice.
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0:12:56
That’s your emotions getting ahead of you. Those are choices, you can control those. So the failures, I mean they come so wide. I can tell you failures of hires. I hired the wrong people in the wrong order, some high level people that I thought
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0:13:11
were the right people, they weren’t. Now whether it was them or whether it was
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0:13:13
my leadership skills at the time, who knows? So I can take responsibility that that was partially me All right, may I interrupt you there? Because I think that’s one that people, many people struggle with, acknowledging. Choosing the wrong business partner,
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0:13:23
choosing the wrong person, choosing the wrong company. How could you know till you know?
1
0:13:28
So, that’s an important comment you just made. And it’s, and to some point, to some extent, you don’t know until you know. I mean everybody is human and you cannot predict some things that might happen in somebody else’s personal life that might impact them and things like that. So to some extent we don’t know what we don’t know and so you know I always go into things thinking like this may not pan out and don’t lose sleep over that. Be prepared,
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0:13:52
brace for it that you will have those partnerships that fail, you will have launches that fail, you will have years that you are down in revenue and that’s another thing that business owners don’t think about is that businesses go through cycles. They go through growth cycle, then they go through a coast cycle where business might be flat for some extraneous reason. Maybe you’re restructuring, maybe you’re building team and sometimes they go through a contraction. A contraction is a normal
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0:14:20
part of business when something outside your business impacts it. Could be economy, could be something in your industry that is slowing down your particular industry. And so businesses are always going through a cycle of growth, coast, and contract, and people are not prepared for that emotionally and mentally.
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0:14:36
I have to stop you there, Casey. I’m sorry to say we’re… The time has contracted here. The interview time is up, but boy, you could talk more than me. And I love what you’re talking about. KaseytDamato.com in case you want to know more about this dynamic coach, speaker, motivator. If you’re an entrepreneur, it’s what Casey’s
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0:14:46
KaseytDamato.com in case you want to know more about this dynamic coach, speaker, motivator. If you’re an entrepreneur, it’s what Casey’s dream is to help you step into your next level thinking. So nice meeting you, Casey.
Transcribed with Cockatoo
